Adventure

Aliza's kindergarten teacher mentioned to the class that they should go on more adventures. I'm not sure if they read a book about someone on an adventure or what, but it stuck.

She took it very seriously and right when she got home created an adventure in our back yard.

It was cold but she was out there for hours doing homework, and just enjoying doing something new.
Love this girl!!!

Christmas Fun

Christmas is in full swing at our house. We have our presents wrapped and under the tree, Christmas cards are almost ready to be put in the mail, and we have been running around like CRAZY all week. It seems like our calendars get full so fast this time of year it's hard to take time to really enjoy the Christmas Season. Here are are a few things we have done this week:

There is a Christmas light street not to far from our home that we love to visit each year. It reminds me of the street in Utah with the twelve days of Christmas, but this streets theme is cartoon characters. Most of it revolves around Disney, but Spider man is swinging across the street along with some Charlie Brown and others too.

My phone didn't take the best pic's, but you can see some Madagascar.

Last Tuesday Avery was able to participate in a Live Nativity put on by the Red Rock Stake across town. This is the first year we have gone, and it was amazing. They had a large room filled with nativity display's from across the world that was beautiful, and Avery performed on this stage with her violin group between each performance of the Nativity.

They let us sneak out and watch the last performance for the night, and they did such a beautiful job. I was so grateful that we were able to have that special evening to feel the spirit and really remember why we celebrate Christmas. I also loved that there are very few at her violin studio that are LDS, but everyone stayed to watch and had a great experience. What a great missionary tool.

The Elders Quorum was in charge of the ward Christmas party last night. Micah has a great presidency that he is able to work with, and they did a fantastic job. I do have to admit that the Sunday prior to the party I was a little nervous. They had the great idea of making graham cracker ginger bread houses and it was such a hit. Everyone at every table young and old were very involved in making a house, and they all turned out so well. It was fun to see everyones creativity.

The Primary sang a few Holiday songs, and there was more than enough food for everyone. It's always better to have too much than not enough I suppose. Abbie was mentioning to me that this was her last time singing with the Primary. So crazy that she is growing up so fast. They did a great job.  This next photo is random, but Aliza is always making us laugh so I wanted to include it.

This week alone I had a Holiday book club dinner at our home, did a Student of the Month luncheon, and then preparing for the the ward Christmas party and service project it has been a crazy week. Adding Avery's performances and our regularly scheduled lessons, meetings and youth activities I'm so glad this week is over.

Our Elf on the shelf Fredrick Hansel came to visit for the month starting on December 1st, and our holiday count down box is in full swing. It really is a wonderful, but crazy time of year.

Thanksgiving 2012

Wow time flies, and now we are into the business of the Christmas Season. Right before Thanksgiving we were able to go out with my sister and her husband to a fun dinner as they were heading through Vegas. It was the week before Thanksgiving, and we were not even aware that they were lighting the tree at the District near our home, but they were. Every year the tree lightings and Christmas music creeps its way in further and further away from Christmas. We will soon be setting up our Christmas trees in September if it keeps up. We did have a fun time with them, and it was fun to see the lights.

Through the month of November we decided to keep our Thankful chart simple this year and just had a Thankful Jar. It was fun to watch is slowly fill with these little papers of everyones Thankfulness.

We did head up to Utah to visit family for Thanksgiving. We ate dinner with Micah's side of the family, and then headed back to my parents for dessert. It was so fun visiting with everyone and the kids had a great time playing in Micah's parent's back yard with their cousins. It was decent weather the entire time we were there which was nice.

I must have been really proud of my turkey relish tray because it's the only picture I took of the entire day of Thanksgiving. I thought that was pretty silly of me. What did we ever do without Pinterest ideas? [Insert Micah rolling eyes here.]

One of the days while in Utah we were able to see the movie "Wreck it Ralph" with Micah's family, and then had a great time at dinner with all of Micah's siblings and his parents. It was an all adult dinner which is rare, and even more rare that ALL of his siblings were there. It was a wonderful meal with wonderful company.

We spent a day doing crafts, bowling, and eating at the Olive Garden with my parents which was wonderful too. Abbie was given the responsibility to put the lights up outside my parent's home. She did a great job and it looked beautiful. We even made it to Temple Square this trip. The lights were beautiful, and it felt good to be home in Utah.

This is the silliness I get when I want to take a picture. No one would hold still long enough for a shot.

I loved that they started to decorate in the windows of Macy's (was ZCMI) downtown again. It brought back memories of looking in those candy filled windows as a kid myself. It was a wonderful trip, and we thoroughly enjoyed seeing and visiting with everyone.

Halloween 2012

Halloween has come and gone for another year. Honestly, after three parties, ward trunk or treat, class parities, parades, and trick or treating we are DONE. I'm glad to put it all away until next year.

My mom gave us this fun jello mold, and it was amazing. We had a lot of fun with it.

The Church family put on a "Fear Factor" Halloween party. The picture above is Micah gargling zombie juice. They had to gargle it and spit it all back out into another cup before the other teams. It turned out to be pure kale juice. Yuck! She had so many fun activities that each family took turns participating in. My favorite one was she had three pumpkins hallowed out sitting on the table. On the count of three the kids lifted off the lid thinking they had to just dig in for 10 pumpkin seeds, but when the lid came off it was full of crickets. They had to sift through the crickets for the seeds. It was hilarious to watch their surprised faces. Ha! Ha! Ha!

My cute Twister,

our sweet Tinker Bell,

and a bag full of Jelly Bellies. 

We stole this idea from Pinterest, but Abbie made the whole thing herself with nutrition facts and all. At Micah's work party she tied for first place in the costume contest. Micah and I won third place with our plug and outlet costumes. I can't believe Micah talked me into wearing that costume again. I'm hoping to score us a new couples costume when all the costumes go on clearance for next years parties.

Micah helped Aliza carve this cat face with bloody eyes. (Yes, totally all Aliza's idea)

And Avery and I worked on this freckled faced lady with long stringy hair.

Abbie missed out on the pumpkin carving this year because she was on a field trip with the school for three days. She missed out on trick or treating too, but she didn't mind because she was in Catalina Island doing all sorts of great activities. She got home at 9:30 Halloween night. Totally odd timing for a school field trip, but she had a good time.

This was the only quick shot of Avery I got during the school parade. She was so distracted talking with her friends that she didn't even notice me.

I was able to plan Aliza's class party which was a lot of fun. We played Halloween Bingo, made a yummy witches hat to eat, made a spider web craft, ate lots of yummy food, and played this fun game Aliza and I made off of Pinterest. The eyes, nose, teeth, and mouth were magnets so they could mix and match the parts as they would roll the dice. The first one to make a whole pumpkin with all its parts would win. It turned out great. This was the first year that Micah and I both walked around together with the kids to trick or treat. I have always felt guilty not being home to hand out candy, but it was much more fun to walk around together. We met up with the Lewis family that live by us, and we had a great time. We left a bowl of candy with a sign that said "please take one." Knowing that kids would take more than one was just a given, but we did it anyway. Micah even scared a group of teenagers that of course took a big handful. It was hilarious. We really didn't have a lot of kids out trick or treating this year in our neighborhood, so it turned out fine. We were home and able to hand out the rest of the candy before the night was over. We picked up Abbie from the bus at 9:30, and then crashed. It was a great year. Can't wait to see what the kids pick to dress up as for next year.

Updates

I figure it's been a while since I mentioned how everyone is doing these days. It honestly took me until just last week to feel back into the routine of school, and like I had time to sit down and write a blog post. Abbie is doing really well in middle school and comes home happy every day. Her grades are wonderful and she really enjoys all her classes except for math. For some reason Abbie has a harder time with this subject, but we all have our weaknesses and strengths in different areas. She is very excited to go on a field trip to Catalina Island at the end of the month. I'm not super excited to let her go for three days on a school field trip, but considering what an awesome opportunity it is for her, I'm letting her go. She will stay at a marine biology school and be able to work with marine animals (her dream), and even dissect an octopus. How cool is that?

She left this note for me on my pillow one night a few months back. I love her dearly, and some day she won't be saying these words to me, so I'm documenting it. :)

We did cave and buy Abbie her own cell phone. I said I wouldn't do it until she was much older, but then the reality hit that with us not carpooling with anyone to school, It would be nice to be able to contact her in an emergency. So far we have been able to use it twice after school. Once when I was running late, and also when there was a huge rain storm/flash flood right when school got out. I was so thankful we had a way to communicate. It was scary not knowing where she was, and if she could make it out to the car. She basically had to walk through calf deep water to get to me, and was frightened with the huge downpour of water, but we were able to meet up thanks to her having a phone.

Avery is doing well in school also. She tried out for Student council, but didn't win. I was so very proud of her for just putting herself out there and trying. Abbie and her came up with this cute poster one day after school.

Avery started choir at school two weeks ago, and also started taking an orchestra class along with her other group violin class she has each Tuesday night. Between that and her private violin class each week she is a busy girl. Abbie and Avery will both be playing their violins this upcoming Sunday for our ward primary program. I can't wait to hear them, but am kind of sad that her grandparents or other family can't be there. That's how it goes when you live far away I suppose.

I receive cute notes from Avery sometimes too.

I finally had time last night to upload all my pictures from my phone. This is what I found. :)

I had to erase at least 200 pictures of nothing that Aliza has taken on my phone. They were hilarious because there would be several random pictures of the wall or floor, and then a silly picture of Aliza. That stinker needs to stop sneaking my phone.

This is what Aliza and I do in our free time. Not really, she was just bored one day and asked if she could give me a massage. I then had a take a picture of my cutie. She is doing well with her reading, and I find little post it notes all over the house that say cat, hat, bat, rat, and so on. She thinks it is so fun to find rhyming words and then writes them on anything and everything she can. She is a smart girl.

I signed up to volunteer for way to many things this school year. I'm room mom in Aliza's kindergarten class along with another mom. With a few years experience being a room mom I just thought it would be nice/fun to share the work. So, I asked a friend to help me out who has a son in Aliza's class too. These fun treats above are for the Student of the Month luncheons that I am now chair person for. We had our first luncheon the first Wednesday in October and it went really well. It was stressful, but now that I have done it once I kind of know what to do for next time, which is nice. All that along with volunteering, driving kids around all day, keeping up house stuff, trying to get in some exercise and Young Women's my days are full.

Micah and I were able to see Wicked in September at the new Smith Center here in Vegas. It was such a fun evening, and the play was AMAZING! It was even better than I thought it would be. Next time we will take the kids to see it too. I think they would really enjoy it.

This picture is old, but I just love our friends Kristi and Cole. They went with us to see Wicked, and Jerry Seinfeld a few months back. Jerry Seinfeld was such a great show. We were laughing the entire time, and to make it even better it was clean humor which is rare these days. I would definitely see his show again.

Lake Mead

We were invited by the Lewis family to spend a fun day on the lake last Saturday. The Sondrup family joined us, and it was a wonderful day. We got up bright and early to make sure and get a good spot on the beach. It was a beautiful day to be at Lake Mead!

When we first got there they loaded up the boat with all our supplies for the day, and left us and a few kids behind at the dock while they found us a beach. About 20 minutes later they came back for the rest of us, and we were headed out on the water for the day.

At the dock the kids enjoyed watching the fish in the water, and teasing the ducks.

Once we were on the boat I don't think Aliza stopped smiling the entire time. She was giggling when we started going faster and said "Mom, I think this is my first time in a boat." It's not, but she doesn't remember any of the other times. She loved it!

This was our camp set up for the day. It's more of just a rocky beach, but the kids enjoyed just being by the water. Aliza and her good friend Violet are in the tubes behind the boat. Again, Aliza was grinning ear to ear and yelling faster, faster. She is fearless.

Abbie and Avery got their chance at knee boarding, and Abbie also tried some wake boarding. I think it was harder than she thought it would be, but I'm so glad she tried it.

When Micah wasn't on the boat he was taking kids over for cliff diving. You can't see him well, but this is Micah jumping. Avery was loving the rock diving as much as her dad. You can see her pink lifejacket climbing up the rock.

The scenery was beautiful, and we love spending time with these two families.  It was a wonderful day, and a much needed break from our routine. Micah's birthday was the following day so we were able to sing to him after lunch, and Lindsay even brought him cupcakes with a candle for him to blow out. On the last trip out on the boat Grant hit his head on a knee board and needed stitches. So we quickly packed up camp, and headed home. Lucky for him his dad is a doctor and could just stitch him up at home. I was glad to see Grant at church the next day and it didn't look as bad as I thought it would. His dad just glued it, and he looked great. I wish I would have taken a picture of everyone together, but I didn't. These kids are such great friends, and I'm so glad we were able to spend the day together.