Choir concerts

At the beginning of the school year a friend of mine passed on some information about a gospel-oriented youth choir that her daughter had been a part of the year before and was planning on being in during the upcoming year. September and Kya LOVE to sing and it sounded like a great opportunity and it was quite inexpensive compared to most extracurricular things. But money was really tight at the time and I just didn't think we could do it. But they had scholarships available and so I applied for one. They granted us a partial one with the agreement that I would be the "roll taker" for class every week. So we decided to do it and we passed the word around to other friends and September's best friend, Ariel, ended up wanting to do it as well. But they didn't end up getting to be together after all. When I originally called the director to see if it would even be possible for Kya to be in it because she was only 7 and the age requirement was 8, he said he wanted them both to come in and audition so he could hear them and help make the decision whether or not he felt she would be "mature" enough to be a part of it. There are two different choirs: a "prep" choir for kids 8-12, and an auditioned "concert" choir for kids 8-18. Well, their auditions went so well that not only did they make an exception for Kya, but September was invited to be in the concert choir! She was actually a little bummed originally because she wasn't going to be able to be with Ariel, but after reminding her that this wasn't going to be anything that they were really going to be able to interact at anyway and it was such a great opportunity, she was o.k. with it.....nervous but o.k. The first day we went September felt really out of place. She wasn't the youngest, but she was the smallest, especially considering the director had placed her in the Alto section as well which was pretty much entirely teenage girls. At first I didn't know how I felt about this and either did September. Sure, she has a pretty low voice, but just because you sing lower doesn't necessarily mean you're an Alto. But then my mother-in-law had a talk with September about it and suddenly her attitude was, "ANYONE can sing the melody!" Ha ha, I loved it. But it really is true, anyone can pick out the melody, but if you can learn alto then you can obviously sing both parts. So in the end it actually turned out to be something she was very excited about.

I have to admit, I am not one who necessarily "loves" listening to choirs and after enrolling them and looking at their schedule and all of the dates they'd be performing, I suddenly wasn't so excited anymore of having to attend concert after concert. But my mind was quickly changed as soon as I heard them singing. From the very first rehearsal I was absolutely blown away! Not only did they just jump right in with some pretty difficult songs (within the first 10 minutes of being there they were singing Handel's "Messiah"!), but they also sounded amazing! Even the prep choir sounded great. I was actually looking forward to their concerts!

The first opportunity the Concert Choir had to perform was at an Interfaith Celebration at a church here in Lehi. They did really well and afterward the kids enjoyed interacting with the LIVE nativity they had set up outside. I've never seen a live nativity before and at first we didn't think it WAS real, but suddenly the animals started moving! The kids had a blast getting to touch the animals!




Their next performance (and the one and only one for the prep choir) was held at the Alpine Tabernacle. For their grand entrance they all came walking up through the aisles and from the sides of the stage carrying these fake little candle things. It looked so cool. Logan and Peyton were being very obnoxious and hard to deal with (it had been a long day and Pey had not had a nap), but you could still feel the spirit very strongly from these sweet little spirits!

Here's Kya!

Here's September.....and proof of our "oops"! She got a little confused about what they were supposed to wear. She told me that they were supposed to wear red or black or white. I asked her if she was sure and that it wasn't just for the prep choir who didn't have uniform attire like the concert choir. She was pretty insistent that it was everyone. So she wore her black dress and we arrived to find the rest of the concert choir in their uniform blue skirts and white shirts! Oops! No big deal, right? We didn't think so until the very end when the director had them all stay up on the stage to take a few pictures......that they were going to use to promote their "tour" in the Spring. So now as if she didn't already stand out enough because of how tiny she is, she'll stand out even more. What do you do? ;)

The final opportunity we had to watch September perform (for the season) was at a benefit concert with Michael Ballam as the main performer! I completely forgot my camera and was so bummed!! The choir rehearsals are at the American Heritage school, which is a private LDS school (it's across the street from the Mt. Timp temple). Because it's a private school they do different things throughout the year to raise money for the school. Every Christmas they do a big concert thing as one of the means of raising money and for the past couple years they have been fortunate enough to have Michael Ballam come and be the main performer. The choir is an extracurricular thing and is separate from the one at the school, but they were invited to join the school choir, as well as the orchestra, in being a part of this event. Originally we didn't plan on going because it was pretty expensive, but then their director announced that they were going to be going on "tour" in the Spring and would need to raise money for it. The kids were given the opportunity to sell tickets to the concert to raise money and all but $5 of the tickets was going to go straight into their account. So we figured that we were going to either have to pay later or pay the extra $5 per ticket and go to the concert. I'm so glad we ended up going! It was an amazing night!! Basically, Michael Ballam gave the history behind many well-known, yet little known about (as far as the meanings and stories behind them), Christmas songs. It was incredible to hear the stories and it gave me a completely different respect and understanding for these beautiful Christmas songs that we nonchalantly sing every year without having a clue what they're about or where they came from. Stephen R. Covey also did some narration throughout the night, and President Uchtdorf and Elder Oaks and their wives were in attendance! The orchestra and the combined choirs sang some songs separately, and some right along with Michael Ballam. So now I can say that my daughter has performed WITH Michael Ballam!!

One more cool thing.....at one point during the night the choir had left for a while and would be back at the end. When they came back though, September was missing! I was so scared that something had happened and that she was either sick or hurt. I almost got up to go find out what had happened. But then they did some presentations of some special thank you gifts to the key performers and participants. Suddenly there was MY tiny little daughter up on the stage handing out some of the gifts!

The spirit was so strong that night and it is a night I won't soon forget! It definitely put me in the Christmas spirit!!

Riding in a one-horse open sleigh....

My kids love the part of Jingle Bells where it talks about riding in a one-horse open sleigh and have thought it would be a fun thing to do. And this year they got to do just that! There's a bunch of shops up near my parents house that puts on this event every year where some of the shops have little stands out front with goodies that you can go around and snack on. A few of the shops have different special deals going. Some were giving away freebies. Plus, there was Santa.....and even more exciting than Santa.....a horse drawn carriage ride!!! That was the single most thing the kids were looking forward to and indeed it ended up being the highlight of their night! It was a pretty chilly night (it was one of the first big snowfalls of the season), but we all bundled up and had a great time! I think it may be a new tradition!

My Mom carrying around my little Eskimo! Too cute!!

Here we are on the carriage ride. I wish we could have gotten a picture with all of us in it, but we had to take a picture of one side and then have them take a picture of our side.

Does my face look a bit tan? O.k. it's freakishly tan! There was a salon offering free spray tans for your face. I couldn't pass that one up! It looked ridiculous that night, but it actually looked pretty great the rest of the week. I would totally consider doing it again if it didn't cost an arm and a leg.

Here are the kids standing in front of the "our" horse. (There were 2 different carriages.)

They had these cool little portable fire pits set up every few feet. It gave the place a really cool look and helped keep us warm.

We went over to the boutique shop that my Mom has some items in. Peyton settled right in to this little rocking chair and found this stuffed animal.

Goodbye Pilot.....Hello Armada!!!

Can YOU tell the difference between the top picture and the bottom picture. Because apparently most people can't! :) We replaced the Pilot with an Armada three and half weeks ago....and only a handful of friends and family have even noticed. I guess most people just don't notice cars or deal with them as much as we do. Or maybe people have just lost track of what vehicle we currently have. (After all, this is #16 for us!) And sure, they're both SUV's and they're both silver, but come on people! They're totally different. It's not that I really care that people haven't noticed, I actually think it's kind of funny. It just shows me how different people are. I am just someone who notices things like that pretty easily. Oh well, what other people haven't noticed yet, we certainly have. Like how much more ROOM it has! Don't get me wrong, we LOVED our Pilot. Best car we'd ever had. It was great for hauling kids all over town. But going on vacation....ha! It just did not have much cargo space. And I think the kids were sick of holding all of their own luggage on their laps with them. I'm only half joking. But the Armada has SOOO much more room!!! I was a little nervous that it would feel too big and I'd be scared to drive it, but I actually feel VERY comfortable. It's actually great for little people like me because the foot pedals adjust and come up higher so I don't have to sit really close in order to reach them.

It was kind of sad to say goodbye to the Pilot. After all, we'd had it for 3 1/2 years, which is a LONG time for us! We'd been back and forth for a while between getting a bigger car (we'd had an Armada in mind for over a year) or just getting a car top carrier to use for vacations. Big problem though, the Pilot didn't have a luggage rack. We've been traveling quite a bit lately and plan on doing a lot more in the coming years, so we started looking more seriously at Armadas. We thought it would be at least another year away before we could afford to do it, but then we saw the beauty in the picture below at an unbelievable price that we just could not pass up. AND it had pretty much everything we were looking for.....not necessarily fancy bells and whistles, but things that were important to us. So even though it's been in the plans for quite a while now, it was still a pretty spontaneous decision. And one that I don't regret one bit!!

A boy and his tree :)

When we started decorating for Christmas a few weeks ago we had a little tree that the girls have always used to put in their room. Logan was a little sad that HE didn't have a tree to put in his room, so when we were out shopping a couple days later we saw a tiny little tree that would go perfectly in his room and it was very inexpensive so we bought it. He was SOOOO excited for his very own tree!! Right away he told us that this was a "boy" tree and he felt like it should have a name. So he thought of the best boy name he could think of. He named it "Matthew"! How cute is he?!? A few days later we were reading scriptures and Ember was thumbing through the Bible and asked, "Where's Matthew?".....to which Peyton quickly replied, "He's in Logan's room!"

Birthday getaway to Midway

For Matthew's birthday this year we decided to go on a quick one-night getaway up to Midway as a family. Our timeshare has a place up there and the kids have been wanting to go up there since we got the timeshare a little over a year ago. It's great because it's so close to home, and yet you still feel like you're "getting away". Plus, it has a pool.....which is one of the main reasons that the kids have been dying to go! It was a total treat for Ember and Kya because we even pulled them out of school to go. They're both doing so well in school, we figured one day couldn't hurt. We went up to Park City the next day and did a little shopping at the outlets. It was a fun, relaxing day!

Here's a picture of the place we stayed. Nothing fancy, but it was nice. I love the whole "Swiss" look of Midway. Even the churches have that "look" to them.

Matthew LOVES Hot Tamales. It's tradition for the kids to always buy them for him for his birthday. This year we went one step further and we bought one for him from EACH of us! They lasted about 3 days! :)

Piano recitals

First of all I would like to say that my mother-in-law is a saint! A few years ago for Christmas my in-laws gave us a keyboard for Christmas as our family gift. Shortly after, my mother-in-law started giving September piano lessons. (As soon as she was reading well enough.) Originally she told us that she could only do it for a short while (just the basics) and then we'd need to find her a real teacher. Well, here we are 4 years later and she is still doing them....along with Kya who started a couple years later. She has done it all for no charge and she has even always provided all of their books as well. AND, most of the time she comes to OUR house for their lessons! Could it get any better??? What an amazing woman she is and I am very lucky to have her as my mother-in-law! September and Kya both are very musically talented and this has really helped cultivate that talent.

Once a year or so she even has them do a recital. We just got to enjoy one a few weeks ago. They both did a wonderful job!

Here's Kya doing a duet with my mother-in-law.

September performing one of her pieces.

September and Keely (my niece, who she also gives lessons to) doing a duet together. These girls LOVE to play the piano together!

Halloween!

Halloween turned out a lot different than planned this year. I had such big plans to do a full "Peter Pan" theme. Peyton is a huge Tinkerbell fan and my Mom happened to find a cute little Tinkerbell costume at a garage sale, so I thought it would be a great idea to kind of build around that. September was going to be Wendy, Kya was going to be Peter Pan (we talked her into being a boy by telling her that in most stage productions it's a girl who plays him), and Logan was going to be Captain Hook. (He's been a pirate twice before and he makes a very cute one!) But I didn't start thinking about everyone elses costumes soon enough, on top of the fact that I ended up with swine flu a week before Halloween, so those plans all had to change at the last minute! My mom to the rescue....again!! She had found a ladybug costume that would fit September (which she actually had already planned on wearing for school since "Wendy" without the rest of the Peter Pan crew would not really look like much of anything). The costume came with its own little tutu thing, but September wanted to wear the one my Mom had made her this summer since it coincidentally was a ladybug themed one. She had even made some cute little ladybug hair things to go with it that would be perfect. Then, that gave me the idea just to have Kya wear the tutu that my Mom had made her and just have her wear her dance leotard underneath paired with her old ballet slippers that actually still fit her and voila....she was a dancer! Then, I borrowed a football player costume from my sweet neighbor friend, Katie, for Logan to wear. It would have been fun for my original idea to have come to fruition....but this was a LOT less work!!

Everybody had been sick to one degree or another that week and I had kept September and Kya home from school for a few days. They were very happy to only have slight coughs by Friday because that was the day their school was going to be doing their costume parade and parties. So I let them go....even though I wanted to be selfish and keep my "helpers" home!




Peyton was still feeling a little sick. You can see it in her eyes. I can't believe I actually got a picture with a happy face and even a smile because she was GRUMPY that day! I completely forgot to have her wear her wings until I saw them in my room the next day. Oops! But she is complete with eyes watering, boogers running down her face, and a nice red mark on her forehead from running into something!

While I was taking the picture I just knew something was missing. Duh, I had forgotten the black marks under his eyes! The only thing I really had to use was make-up, which Logan was a little leery of letting me put on him. Really? He chose that moment to be a "man". He wears tutus and leotards and plays girl things all the time....but suddenly NOW he decides he's too cool for that? I guess being in a football uniform made him feel very manly!!

Peyton getting candy out of her teeth. We were only going to let her have one piece that night since she was sick, but she kept sneaking into the treat bucket while we weren't looking!

Logan and Peyton were very sad when they saw September and Kya heading out the door with their friends to go trick-or-treating. We hadn't been planning on taking them out because they were sick, but it broke Matthew's heart to see them all dressed up but not able to go anywhere so he talked me into letting him put their coats on and take them to 2 houses. They ended up going to 4 or 5. They were absolutely thrilled!

Can you get any cuter than this???

Even though it was a little disappointing not doing the original costumes I wanted, and not getting to do some of the usual Halloween activities (carving pumpkins, going to the trunk-or-treat, watching the kids costume parade at school), it still turned out to be a fun Halloween for the kids and not much work for me!

Bear Lake with Merrill's

During Fall Break back in October we went up to my brothers cabin in Bear Lake and spent a few days. The main purpose for the trip was to do a deep cleaning of both of his cabins as a thank you for always letting us come stay in them. We hurried and got most of the cleaning done early on in the trip because Merrill's were going to be coming up and joining us a couple days later.

Chuck and Ginger stopped by to see us the first night and had just come from a ward Halloween party. Here's Zenick and Zailey dressed up as gnomes! At first I thought they were Hansel and Gretel. Either way they were adorable and hilarious! I couldn't stop looking at them....and laughing. They are too cute!!

Here's a shot of the sunrise one of the mornings. It is so amazing to see it just coming up over the lake like that.

Tate started eating before we said the blessing on the food. It was too much trouble to put the food down so he just left it in his mouth and folded his arms. We all had a good laugh!

Tate and Logan INSISTED on sleeping together on the top bunk (which is only twin size) even though no one was on the bottom (and it's full size). We tried to convince one of them to sleep on the bottom, but everyone knows that the top bunk is the coolest! So we let them. We went in a couple hours later to check on them and found them like this:

We let the kids get in the hot tub.....and they stayed in there for about 3 hours!

Kalun enjoying time coloring with the kids. He's just one of the kids! :)

Girls weekend!

It was Kristi's big 3-0 a couple months ago and for it she wanted to do a "Girls Weekend Getaway" in Park City. Kalun had rented a condo for Friday night and we had planned on doing some shopping and whatever other fun girl things we could think of. I think I was looking forward to her birthday just as much as she was! Besides the two of us there were three other girls and they were all from her ward. I know Vennessa really well, but I didn't know the other two. You'd think this might have made things a little awkward, but not at all. I actually clicked right away with both of these other girls and together we all had such a fun weekend. Turns out that all FOUR of them were pregnant (all in different stages), but we went the entire weekend without one drop of throw up! Lots of nausea and extreme exhaustion, sure.....but no throw up! Friday night we went to a fun restaurant whose name I have totally spaced otherwise I'd give it a plug because it was great food! We went back to the condo and watched a movie and munched on treats. We brought so many treats, we probably could have gone without dinner and just gone straight to the condo and snacked the night away! As we were settling in to watch the movie we noticed that there was dog hair all over the couch! This was great considering that 3 out of the 5 of us were allergic to dogs! We found this lovely framed piece of info explaining that one of the owners of the condo is a dog trainer and we assume that they occasionally must bring some of the dogs with them when they stay. The dog hair was not funny, but we got quite a laugh at this "custom framed" bit of info:


We only made it to midnight til Vennessa and Michelle couldn't hold their eyes open any longer. So Kristi, Brenda, and I took our conversation into one of the bedrooms and continued it til 3 am. We were interrupted at about 1:30 by this.....

We were sitting there on the bed when suddenly I thought I felt something crawling on my arm and looked down and sure enough there was a spider crawling along the pillow! All three of us completely overreacted and started screaming. Sorry Vennessa and Michelle! Brenda smashed it on the pillow with a shoe and scooted it into the garbage, but apparently smooshing it on a soft surface didn't kill it completely. We were scared that it would crawl out of the garbage can so brave Brenda tied the top of it and then we pounded it again. It sounds so dumb now, but it was quite dramatic at 1:30 a.m. ;)

There were pictures of dogs ALL OVER the condo! There were literally about 20-30 pictures! This particular one kept freaking Brenda out! And yet, she ended up being the one to sleep right under it!

Vennessa being silly.

Group picture: Back - Kristi, Venessa, Michelle, Brenda - Me in the front holding the tissues we all got a laugh out of. You can't see too well in the picture, but the cleaning people had done something "fancy" with them, but it really just looked like someone had wadded them up and stuck them in there. So much for fancy!

Brenda had made a delicious trifle. We had eaten some on Friday night but there was still quite a bit left so as we were driving to the outlets to go shopping we all got a craving for more and whipped it out and dug in!

Shopping was fun and I actually even found a pair of pants that I loved enough to buy! This is a huge accomplishment for me because I hadn't bought new jeans in over a year, and it's been about three years since I've bought some that I absolutely love.

It was such a fun weekend and a great break from the kids! I think every Mom needs one of these every other month or so! Thanks for having a birthday Kristi and giving us a reason to do it!

My early Christmas present.

Here I am 1 1/2 months behind on my blogging again! Day after day I feel guilty that I haven't done better. Then yesterday I was (fortunately and unfortunately) given an opportunity to catch up.

Yesterday morning we were racing around (as usual) to get ready for church. We were in an even bigger rush than usual because Matthew and I had forgotten that we had agreed to sub for September's primary class and we didn't have a lesson prepared. In my hurry I ran up the stairs and tripped, coming down on my foot in a very awkward way. I immediately knew this was an injury that I wasn't going to be walking away from. After waiting it out for an hour we decided it would be best to go to the Instacare to get it x-rayed. We called the Primary President and let her know that we weren't going to be able to sub anymore. Bless her heart, she's only been in for about a month and this time of year there are lots of people out of town or sick and I'm sure she already had people calling left and right at the last minute saying they couldn't make it. September and Kya wanted to go to church so we took Logan and Peyton over to my in-laws while we went to the Instacare. The verdict as of yesterday was that it probably wasn't broken and that it was just a really bad sprain or a torn ligament. So they wrapped it and put one of those special cast shoes on. They almost had to use a "pediatric" sized one because of my freakishly small feet! They also gave me crutches and man oh man, do I have sympathy on anyone who has to use those on an extended basis. I've used them for a total of 5 minutes probably and my armpits HURT!!! Then the Instacare called back today and the actual radiologist had taken a look at the x-rays and thinks it's possible that there IS a fracture! The dr. yesterday did say that sometimes a first x-ray won't show a fracture, and then if you do a second x-ray a week or two later that it can show up clear as day. So they told me to keep doing everything they told me yesterday and if it wasn't starting to feel better in a week or so to go back in and get it x-rayed again. So now it's just a waiting game.

I'm pretty frustrated by this whole thing because I do NOT have time for this. I am constantly on the go, and even more than usual this time of year! But I'm trying to find the silver lining and I guess this is it. I finally have a reason (well, FORCED to have a reason) to sit back and take things easy and get some things done that don't require movement.....like blogging! I'm choosing to look at it as an early Christmas present.....the gift of time! I surely wouldn't have chosen it to go this way, but I know that the Lord knows best and maybe this is what I need right now. So blogging here I come.....

New addition to the family.....

Last month we went up to my cousin's house in Northern Utah to pick up a piano. It originally belonged to my grandparents on my Dad's side and since there are only 7 grandchildren on that side of the family and none of them were married or had a house of their own at the time that they passed away, there was nowhere for it to go. So my cousin on my Mom's side offered to "store" it at her house.....and that's where it's been the last 12 or so years. We've been dying to get our hands on it for a while now since September and Kya have been taking piano lessons for a few years and for the time being all we had was a keyboard. Things never worked out to go get until.....until last month finally. When we got there, this cute itty-bitty kitty greeted us at the door. It was love at first sight! Now you have to understand, I am a cat-lover BUT I am very picky about cats that I like. We've actually had 3 cats since we've been married and long story short, for one reason or another none of them lasted very long. After the last one (about 6 years ago) we had decided for multiple reasons that we would just never do another cat.....or any other pet for that matter. But then I laid eyes on this sweet thing. I loved it and cuddled it while the men got the piano moved into the trailer. My cousin kept telling me I could take it if I wanted and I kept telling her, "No, no, we can't do animals." Then as we were getting ready to leave I was saying my goodbyes and then Matthew said those magical words that I'm sure he has possibly regretted every now and then since....."If you really want her you can have her." Oh crap! I couldn't say no after that! So the next thing I know we were off and there was an itty-bitty kitty on my lap! She slept pretty much the whole way home.

The kids were SOOO excited when they saw her. All of them were really nervous about holding her at first though. I love this picture of Kya "trying" to hold her.....

Look how awkward Ember is trying to hold her.

Could you BE any lazier? Seriously?!?

We named her Q-Tip because as you can see she has a dark tail with a little white tip. Mostly we just call her "Q". We considered a suggestion my friend made to call her "Finch" in homage to our first cat that she is a complete replica of. His name was Atticus from "To Kill a Mockingbird". We considered it for a while, but Q just seemed to fit and the name had already stuck with the kids.

Logan is often found snuggling with her.

She got STUCK jumping down off of Logan!

Not joking. It was hilarious!

Peyton absolutely ADORES her and the first thing out of her mouth every morning is, "Where's kitty?" So one morning I decided to take her to her. I went in and Peyton had apparently gotten too hot and had undressed herself!

Peyton would hold her non-stop if you let her. She's actually pretty good with her for a 2 year old.....all things considered.

So far she has been a GREAT cat. She can be very playful and fun, but she'll also just sit and cuddle with you. I have to admit, life feels a little more complete with a pet!