An excuse to see old friends

After Isaac's Arrow of Light pack meeting (maybe you were wondering why we were so dressed up for pack meeting) we headed to Kayci Kirkham's wedding reception. The Kirkhams were in our ward in Maryland and moved to Utah around the same time we did. We have known this family for 8 or so years and we were excited to get to see them, and it was fun catching up with other Maryland friends who are in Utah now and came to the reception.

We didn't get pictures with everyone we saw, but here's a small group of the White Plains friends we saw.

Noah and Dallin were especially happy to chat with Brandi and Kylie...I had a hard time tearing them away from each other. I think they were all just so happy to be around friends from Maryland :)

 nice photobomb Isaac, let's try that again :)

...and I have to say that little Alli was such a sweetie, she came up and gave me such a big hug.

I had visit taught her mom Paula for pretty much the entire time I lived in Maryland and I would often take clothes to Alli that Anna had grown out of. She loved it and would put on a fashion show for me.

Anna was excited to dance with her daddy :)

I'll also just mention that Kayci and her new husband Casey (yes, Kayci and Casey ha ha) are both on the BYU Ballroom Dance touring company and it was fun to watch them and so many of their friends dance at the reception.

Noah with Jessie, she is also on the Ballroom dance team.

Oh, and Grace caught the bouquet with, Brandi, I think...but I didn't get a picture, there were too many people in my way, oh well.

Daddy Daughter Fun (with a super stand-in Dad!)

The Activity Girls had their annual Daddy Daughter night last Wednesday.

Mike was out of town so Grace was on the look-out for a substitute Dad.

She found a great candidate in Lincoln Stevens. 

When she asked him he said he'd be honored.

and then he made sure she knew that meant yes :)

After he accepted Anna ran over to me and said, "Mom, Grace has a Dad!"

They had a good time making smores

I'm so proud of Grace, because of our no sweets and treats challenge she didn't partake...but she had a good time making them.

They danced.

 Lincoln said Grace was a great dancer.

Anna danced with another one of the dads because his daughter didn't want to...I heard her tell him that she danced for half a song and that was good enough :)

Then they played crab soccer.

That was fun to watch!

A big THANK YOU to Lincoln for being willing to stand-in for Mike.

Grace had a lot of fun!

Our new 12 year old!

Hard to believe that we are at another milestone birthday already!

on Jan 17th 
Dallin turned 12

Breakfast request...omelet with bacon

his 12 wishes...

game day (no surprise there!)

no chores (another shocker!)

have me download Cotton-eyed Joe

lick the beater from his birthday cookies

have Grace set the table

get his drink to the very top of his glass

sit on his knees while he eats dinner 

(you can probably guess that we are always telling him to sit on his bum, oh and his request for dinner was tacos again, with rootbeer and Sprite)

 I find it a little silly that he is only wearing one sock :)

everyone dance to Cotton-eyed Joe after dinner

even Sasha got in on the action...and yes Mike and I joined in, but sadly for you there are no pictures of that :)

have the cookies and ice cream before presents

(he chose to have oatmeal raisin cookies in the shape of a 12 instead of cake...I had never made oatmeal raisin cookies, so I found a recipe and gave it a try)...and what a good lookin' kid! Sorry, just had to say it :)

light all his candles

he tried to be funny after the first bite and make me think he didn't like them, then he said they were very delicious.

and his last wish of the day

to have mom scratch his back :)

Since it was his 12th birthday that means that he gets the day with Mom and Dad. I picked him up from school early and he came home and played some video games. Then we went to lunch, he chose the Golden Corral.

yum...cotton candy!

We went shopping and we got our pictures in the photo booth 

(a tradition I started with Noah.)

Mike was going to take him bowling but we didn't plan very well and there was no open bowling that day until 9pm :( So...Mike and Dallin are going to make up for that another day.

This year for birthdays we are trying to simplify things (I don't know if it will last past this year, but we are trying it.) The kids will get their current favorite candy, a book and one gift...and of course they will get their wishes and whatever the grandparents and others send. I'm happy to say that Dallin didn't complain at all.

*kind of a failure here...he told me Milk Duds, but when he saw them, he realized that he meant rolos (he still happily ate the Milk Duds.)

With the book...it's one he asked for a month ago, so I bought it and saved it...in the mean time (unbeknownst to me) he got it from the school library and read it, so we'll probably have to go get him another book...oh well, live and learn!

He was very happy with his banana chair thingy that apparently doubles as a hat

...and speaking of hats...Grandma and Grandpa Bush sent him a gift and he opened it while Skyping with them.

He loves it!! 

He had a great day and we enjoyed spoiling him a little!

Lu "wow"

We had a luau last Saturday for our ward activity.

I was exhausted after a week of day camp, but still needed to dig in and help since the Primary was in charge. Our wonderful secretary, Ana, was overseeing pretty much everything and she did a fabulous job.


Me with the other members of the Primary presidency, Jacque, Dela and Ana.

I think it was a successful activity, everyone seemed to have a good time. The food was delicious and the achievement girls did a hula that Ana taught them.

My hula girl

I helped do some face painting 

here's what my kids ended up with

I'm pretty sure you'll be able to tell what most of them are. The only ones you might not get are the Poké Balls, and the black puffle with fire behind it from Club Penguin.

Anyway, none of them wanted to take baths and wash their faces (except for Dallin) but I told them they needed to be clean for church tomorrow. Grace said, "ok, so will you repaint it after I take a shower?"

Umm...no sorry I'm not taking my kids to church with face paint on... :)

Awesome Orphans

On Friday night our Stake had it's annual Night of the Arts, that I am in charge of. This year the theme we picked was "Salute to Broadway." There was a ton of work that went into it, but when it was all over, it was worth every effort.

Our ward was represented by some of our primary kids. I asked an awesome friend to put together a performance, and we talked about possibilities. We came up with the idea of dividing the kids up and having the boys do "Food, Glorious Food" from Oliver! and the girls do "It's a Hard Knock Life" from Annie. She made an invitation to all the primary kids, and then worked really hard with those who wanted to do it. I, of course, volunteered all 5 of my kids to do it. Nothing like forcing what you love onto your kids, right? The best part was that they had fun doing it and I think they would do it again.

It was also really good for them to see what is involved to make a performance. Watching them really made me miss my days of community theater, I just might have to find a show to audition for... but I must say that I had a blast being an mc for the night and goofing around with my good friend and cohort Tanya!

Anyway, Rebekah did an amazing job with the kids and pulled together such a great performance. (And she did it with only 3 Saturday rehearsals and 1 short Thursday night dress rehearsal.) I was so proud of my kids!

For your viewing purpose I split the video, on that night the girls came out right after the boys and then at the end the boys came back and they all bowed together.

Here are the boys with Food Glorious Food.

Noah and Dallin start out in the back, they both have brown pants and kind of green tops, Isaac is on the far right, in brown pants and a cream top ...unfortunately Mike was too close to the stage and couldn't get everyone in the entire time, so Isaac isn't visible for some of it.

And here are the girls with It's a Hard Knock Life, special appearance by Tiffany as Miss Hannigan!
Grace leads in the front line and Anna is the one in the pink dress, right behind her.

They received a standing ovation ,the only one of the night, when they were done and they sure deserved it! They were awesome orphans!

As a side note, I was also particularly happy with the way the refreshments turned out. I wanted them to coordinate with the Broadway theme so I came up with a play on words idea and made little signs to go with each item. Then I found a wonderful person to head it up and assign out the treats. Thanks JoAnn!

Here's what we had, most of them are self-explanatory, but on some I've added an explanation...

A big bowl of potato chips

Black and white cookies

Big pretzels dipped in chocolate

An empty platter

Brownies with a layer of green mint

Mini lemon-poppyseed Muffins

Sugar Cookies with purple icing

Anyway, just thought I'd share those with you, I had fun working on them.

The night was a success and I'm relieved it's over, but now I have to start thinking about what to do for next year... any suggestions?