Are you there Readers? It's me, Candy

Hi.  I'm still alive, I promise.  I kinda fell off the face of the blogging earth for the last few months.  I was busy with a lot of stuff, but I'd tell myself, "I'll get the blog caught up tomorrow."  Then three weeks later I'd yell at *myself for not doing it, promise I'd do it the next day, rinse and repeat.  Sorry. 

I'm REALLY going to try to work harder at updating the blog.  I love blogging not just for my readers, but for myself.  It's such a fun way to record our happenings and history to later look back on.  Today I'm not going to do a big, in-depth review of the last 3 months.  That would just be too hard and too much.  I will, however, hit the highlights of what's been happening and really try harder to keep things up to date from here on out.  So here is what we've been up to:

December:
*Christmas programs for all 3 girls at school
*Christmas program at church, including Alayna playing a saxophone solo for the first time ever (she started playing in October

*The girls and I went with my mom and some friends to see Rodger's and Hammerstein's Cinderella.  Mikayla, in particular, loved it because it was her first big play/show!
*We got some new calves
*Christmas in all it's glory with lots of fun gatherings, church services and yummy foods
*Mikayla turned a whole hand full!  She's now the proud owner of 5 years of life.

January:
*Alayna turned 11!
*I went scrapbooking for a weekend away with friends
*We went to see The Lion King!  Mikayla is in love with all things lion and Lion King, and she was enthralled with the entire show.
*Mikayla and Lilly started 8 weeks of swimming lessons
*We got more new calves, bringing our total up to 5 babies and 3 big steers
*Lots of Saturdays spent at basketball tournaments for Alayna
*Wonderful report cards were sent home for all 3 girls!

February:
*More basketball tournaments, finally ending the end of the month
*Alayna won the 5th grade spelling bee and progressed to the school-wide bee, where she came in 2nd overall (first place was an 8th grader)
*Alayna also participated in Battle of the Books, where teams are given a bag of books to read and then tested on.  Her team placed third
*Lilly passed Level 1 swimming and Mikayla passed pre-school aquatics
*Big snow-storm that dumped 14" of snow on us, resulting in the only snow-day of the year since there's been little to no snow all year

So that's the gist of what's been going on.  I'm really going to try to stay caught up, but if I fall behind, don't be afraid to give me a shake and yell at me!  Please?!