Dance Time!

Taylor loves taking dance. She has a fabulous memory and thus remembers routines very well. She loves to dance at home and is often found standing on one foot with her other foot up by her knee. She did great in her performance at Christmas. Her teacher asked that the kids have their hair in a pony tail with lots of curls. Since Tay's hair won't go into a pony, we did a small pony on top with lots of curls. It looked so cute! This is the before picture. This is her dance pose - kneebent with her foot by her other knee. And her arms in a little pose too!For the performance they wore black leotards and pink tights with little snowflake skirts and hairbows. Taylor LOVES her bow! Taylor is toward the middle - the shortest one. Her friend Bailey from the neighborhood is on the far end.

Tay knows the routine so well that she actually did it with the teacher who was in the front but most of the other girls did it a second behind, making Tay look a second ahead. It was really cute - a little ripple.

Taylor and her dance teacher Ms Kim. She also has Miss Mady who helps her class.

Tumble, flip and roll!

Taylor and Jessica take a gymnastics/tumbling class from Ms Heather. They love their classes. Heather does a really good job with the little ones. They have fun and learn a lot but its a very easy going environment. Here are a few pictures from their performance before Christmas!

Taylor doing a back bend.
Taylor starting a cartwheel. Taylor doing a flip on the bars.

Jessica's turn! Flipping on the rings after doing "Mickey Mouse ears".

Jessica marching on the beam.

Jessica flipping on the bar.

A Preschool Christmas!

Jessica was very excited to sing her songs ... until she got there. And then she was more interested in looking around the room. She did a great job though.

This is "Up on the Housetop!"
Jessica peaking out from behind Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.What a happy little girl! So glad to have her in our family!

Jessica with her teacher Ms Suzee - getting ready to sit on Santa's lap!
Jessica told Santa what she wanted - little Princesses (the Polly Pocket size ones!)

Santa's helpers

This year, rather than give gifts to our neighborhood friends, we agreed to be Santa's helpers. We adopted a family and split it out for each of us to shop for different people. Then we all met at one house for a waffle dinner (thanks Lisa!) and then at another house to decorate cookies for ourselves and wrap the presents for the family. It was really fun to see everything this family is getting and a nice reminder of how blessed my family is. Thanks Michelle for coordinating it! After all the wrapping was done, we sang a Christmas song or two and Alyssa and Kayla sang a song from choir. It was a fun evening!

Jess with Steve and Alyssa.

A big group all squished on the couches together.

More of our friends

Kayla and Alyssa after they sang "Chocolate in my stocking."

So, the picture above reminds me of something. Alyssa LOVES this sundress. I bought it for her to wear over her swimsuit this summer, but when she lost 2 dresses - 2 days in a row at swim team, I refused to let her wear this one to practice. But she LOVES it and wants to wear it all the time. Imagine, 25-30 degree weather and my childi wants to go OUTSIDE in nothing but this sundress and some slip on shoes (no tights, no sweater, no t-shirt under the dress, no socks) ... it makes me cold just to think about it. I can honestly say, we have argued about clothes (this dress, a couple pairs of short shorts and some skirts) at least 1 day out of 3 for the last 2-3 weeks. I'm about to go nuts! Anyway, she wore this dress on Sunday afternoon (after church) with this sweater. I argued with her about the sweater - a size 6 and she wears an 8 - but gave in when I decided it wasn't worth the stress ... so yes, its a sundress on a cold snowy day in December and yes, the sweater is too small. What can I say? I just have to pick my battles!

Breakfast with Santa

Some brave the line at the mall, or the free Santa that appears at different stores as a promo for the store ... not us. We fork out the money and go have breakfast with Santa, the Grinch, and other characters at Thanksgiving Point. This year we saw a Fairy, the Gingerbread man and Mrs. Claus although in years past there have been other characters too - like CindyLou Who, the Coke Bear and a few others.

Jess wasn't so sure about the Grinch but did let us take this picture of the three of us. Taylor wouldn't get close at all! This is the Grinch from the END of the story - the nice one who has a heart.
Alyssa loved the Gingerbread man, but despite my MANY attempts during the day, I could never get Jess or Tay near him. Steve said it was the eyes ... the pom poms he had for eyes kind of pointed wall-eyed.

The little girls loved the fairy though although Tay wasn't thrilled about the picture. The fairy loved to show off her wings in the pictures ... that was a big deal to her.

Upon arriving this year, we had some fun surprises. First, we noticed our friends the Oswalds. They have a daughter in Taylor's kindergarten class and a son in Jessica's preschool class so both were pleased to see some friends. Then Alyssa told us Karianna was there (Karianna is my office/home assistant/babysitter that my girls LOVE). Steve and I didn't believe her at first until we saw Karianna. She was there volunteering. Then, Karianna told us she had just seated our friends Jason and Michelle and "some other people they knew." We looked over and there were the Webeckes sitting with the Taylors. How fun!

In addition to breakfast of eggs, sausage, bacon, potato wedges and french toast, they give you each a cookie and frosting, and there are lots of activities for the kids to do. They can color several different things, play a couple of little games, make Grinch masks and Santa faces with beards of cotton, sit on Mrs. Claus's lap and get recipes of Santa's favorite cookies.

Of course, there is the line to see Santa, which we did as a group to have pictures taken. Each family had their own shots taken and then we put all 9 kids (Alyssa is the oldest at 8 1/2) with Santa and snapped a few. They didn't turn out too badly, although I'm hoping Michelle or Michelle have better ones.

And then of course, the all-time favorite ... FACE PAINTING! We were the very last ones to have our faces painted! Alyssa had gotten in trouble for not doing her chores the day before and not being so honest with me about it, so she didn't get to participate in the coloring or face painting activities. We're hoping that when she realizes what she misses out on by not being honest and doing her jobs that she will be more willing to do what she should.

I'm almost caught up ... - this is from last Saturday. I have one from this weekend and one from last night ... oh and then I'll have 2 from today, 1 for tomorrow, 1 for Thursday and a weekend full of things to blog about... and that's all before Christmas! Thanks for reading my blog and letting me share my "journal" of all our activities with all of you. Merry Christmas!

One more ...

We love Christmas music at our house and have it playing throughout the house on our audioShare almost constantly. Last week, Taylor and Jessica told me they wanted to hear the "Rub a Bum Bum" song ... yep, that's exactly what they said. It is Little Drummer Boy.

A new born King to see, pa rum pum pum pum Our finest gifts we bring, pa rum pum pum pum To lay before the King, pa rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum, rum pum pum pum.

But in their eyes, its this way:
A new born King to see, rub your bum bum,
Our finest gifts we bring, rub your bum bum bum.
To lay before the King, rub your bum bum bum, rub your bum bum, rub your bum bum.

The joys of little ears and how they hear things!

Jessica had another funny the other day. We were in the van and I asked the girls what they wanted for Christmas. Alyssa tells us "a surprise". Taylor says "A Barbie Diamond Castle". Jessica tells me a Christmas kind of Mickey Mouse with lights. I asked her where she saw that. Wasn't sure what exactly she meant. She tells me "I saw it when I turned my head and it was there." Gee ... profound for a 3 year old! I finally figured out she meant the Mickey Mouse with lights at Home Depot in the Christmas lights section. The girls love to look at it while Steve and I shopped for lights this year. : )

Lots to say tonight!

Ok, so I had lots to say tonight, hope you are ready to read and see lots of pictures! Sorry I was so behind. I still have 2 more posts to go to be caught up, but I'm working on it. Gotta crash for tonight. Its going to be a busy week this week! I've got to finish Christmas shopping, help my mom with her shopping, finish some work items, get more ready for my tradeshow booth in January, attend 4 more Christmas programs (preschoool, gymnastics, dance and school sing-a-long), pack and be ready to leave for Vegas on Thursday night! Oh, I need to finalize Christmas cards for my friends and family (most have been mailed but I'm still gathering a few more addresses - if you haven't sent me yours, PLEASE do - leave it in the comments and I won't approve it so it won't be public), do the cards and gifts for my clients too, end a BoxTops contest, buy prizes for that, wrap all the presents and I think that's all the major stuff! Its going to be a crazy week! But I love my life, busy as it is.

For those of you who don't know, we're headed to Vegas to see BYU play in the bowl game. This is the 3rd year in a row for our family to go, Steve went the year before that with his dad. We take the whole family and our babysitter. We do lots of fun things during the days and she watches the kids at night so Steve and I can go to a show and the game without the kids. This year we are taking everyone to see Mystere and Alyssa is going to the Cheerleading clinic with the BYU Cheerleaders and gets to perform at halftime at the game. She doesn't know yet - its a surprise! But I know she'll love it! M&M World is their favorite place ... any other suggestions of fun things to do with kids in Vegas? They like seeing the lions in MGM too.

A Tradition at our House

Every year at Christmas, we plan and host a party for some of our friends - just the adults. This year ... "An Olympic Christmas". We played the events that didn't make it to the Olympics with all of our Olympic contender friends! First though, we all enjoyed lots of treats brought by everyone! Artichoke dip, homemade sushi, avocado rolls, crackers and cheesball, chips and 7 layer dip, so much more!

Event 1: The spoon and string relay! Each team must attach a spoon to a ball of string then pass the string and spoon down each person's clothes to the end of the team, essentially tying everyone together and then remove it, roll the string back up and yell done!

Event 2: Balloon archery! Each team must work together using random supplies provided by us to create some kind of arrow that will launch through the air and pop balloons. The catch, all 5 people on the team must help with the in some way - 1 holds, 2 launch it, 1 aims and 1 retrieves it. Creative minds at work ... unfortunately, nobody popped balloons without cheating although some of those arrows were deadly and had they come close to the balloons they would have easily popped them. Just a few aiming problems! As soon as the instructions began and the supplies started coming out of the bag, everyone started scheming (although this group of girls took some time for a pose with friends). Before the creating began, they fought for their supplies. We even had an injury, a toothpick stuck in someone's hand - sorry Met! While the teams created, Steve and I set up the balloons. Event 3: Feather curling! You've seen curling in the Winter Games, right? If not, you're missing out on a very exciting team event. :) So, the goal of Feather Curling is to pass the feather through the air from one player to the next player and finally land it in the box ... without touching the feather. You've probably played the feather volleyball version ... well this is curling! Event 4: Pompom ShotPut! We wanted to do watermelon shotput but figured it might be a little cold and messy out on the street! So, we opted for small pom poms. This event was cancelled due to CHEATING! Wet pom poms are not legal (even if the judges forgot to mention that at the beginning). Wrestling was NOT an event at our party ... but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Our teams take their events very seriously and competition leads to wrestling matches from time to time!

Event 5: Hoop Hurdles! This one was the only non-original idea. We give credit to a Chinese Game Show for this event. The goal of the team is to role the hoop (hula hoop size but industrial strength) from one end to the other end of the room with three players in the middle jumping the hoop! Quite impressive hurdling occurred! Although, a few had some height issues and some timing issues landing on top of the hoop. Three rolls (plus one mulligan) were granted to each team and a point was awarded for each person who successfully jumped the hoop (9 points total available). The first team scored a perfect 9! Being tall has advantages!

Oops - this would be one of those, didn't quite make it moments!

And another!

Sometimes the hoop was a little off course and we had some lopsided jumps.
When the last team was headed for a perfect score of nine, the judges ruled style points for this team's jump BACKWARDS!

The winning team, of course was awarded a gold medal and a box of official Olympic Wheaties with Nastia Lukin on the front! Go team!

The party ended with our annual gift exchange. Each couple brings one gag gift, and one nice $15-20 gift. And we roll the dice! When you roll doubles, you open a present, steal one from someone else that you like (maximum of 3 steals per gift) or trade yours with someone else (if you have one you don't want!). We always have some creative and fun gag gifts. No exception this year! Some favorites: the returning picture of Jason that has been at every party since we started it (framed snapshot that now has been artistically altered to have makeup too), a puzzle of Jason (the same picture) that first appeared about 3 years ago, and the picture of Jason cupcakes, the "I love Steve" written in chewed bubble gum, some bubble wrap, a bra bigger than anything I've ever seen and the coconut bra returned as well!
Thanks to all of our friends for such a fun evening. We really enjoy this party and hope you do too! We wish more of you could participate, but we barely fit as it is! We are so grateful for all of our great friends - those that came and those that didn't, including those who live far away! We love you all!