It's all about you babe . . .

That's just the way it goes when you turn

16!

I have no words!

(-:

One evening, a couple years ago...and I may have blogged about this, who knows...the boys were all gone and Lara and I watched about 10, maybe 15 episodes of Cake Boss...straight. So, tonight, since it's been one of those months and a homemade cake just didn't happen...we had a Cake Boss cake!  Yumm-o. (They ship them to Kroger, fyi (-;)

And yesterday, on birthday eve, this gal had her first full dress rehearsal for the competitive drum line show she's in this winter. First competition of the season is next weekend but it sounds like that's a dry run type of show to get the kinks out and the bulk of the competitions are in March. The parents were asked to come watch this first "performance" rehearsal and Lara memorized her music the night before and early Saturday morning before the 10a.m.-5:00p.m. rehearsal started because she'd just been bogged down with finals the previous weeks. She will definitely be all over that part come March!

After church this morning she opened our gifts. I love her little look on this one as everyone's yelling out, "She got a violin, she got a violin." I was just thinking to myself, she plays piano and percussion, there is no way she's starting to learn violin at age 16, haha.

Oh my gosh do I lOVE this shot!

She's just figured out that she got a . . . 

Ukulele!

Yes, my friends, you have read that correctly...a ukulele! It seems there is a ukulele craze going on amongst the youth of society these days, and this gal kind of subtly asked for a Uke (that's what we in the know call them...after researching them online...) for Christmas but that set of gifts was already all set. Tucked that away for a month later when another gift was needed, yay! Isn't that a gorgeous ukulele? The pattern is carved into the mahogany wood and it has such a warm sound, it's the tiniest, soprano ukuleles that have that high pitched funnier sound that I think a lot of people remember. Ukuleles are being used by a lot of pop/folk performers these days, thus their resurgence. As a matter of fact, I was texting a friend of mine with another soon to be 16 year old and low and behold...her daughter too, has a uke!!!

Happy, Happy, Day!