Holiday Dance Concert

Hayley's been back dancing at Jazzle Dazzle this year. We signed her up with two of her friends from my mom's neighborhood, and into a class that was actually for first through third graders. She was a little bit nervous to perform.



And while she knew the dance well, she was a little out-shined style-wise by all of the older girls in her class.



She said she likes it, and likes being in a dance class with her friends, but I think I like it a little better when she is one of the oldest in her class, rather than the youngest.



I asked her if she wanted to be in two dance classes, and be able to do two dances in the next concert, and have two costumes.



She was all for it. Which means a class where she can shine a little more, and a class where she can be with her friends.



Our little Dancer Hayley did a great job!

December Happenings

We've had a very busy month so far, but here are some of the highlights.

We went to the Festival of Trees last weekend. Hayley was much more concerned about the Bubble Machine that they have there than seeing any of the trees. :) It is pretty cool, I have to say.



Friday I went out to lunch and did our gift exchange with all the girls that I teach with at Jordan Hills. It was fun to see the great gifts that we all picked out for each other, and to be able to take more than forty-five minutes to eat a meal together.



Saturday we went to Breakfast with Santa at the Fitness Center before Hayley's basketball game. Hayley did great, with Santa and at her game, where she dribbled the ball down the court, shot and scored. She was so cute and so proud of herself!



Jackson, on the other hand, started freaking out as soon as we got in the line to see Santa. Like yelling out to anyone who would listen, "Nooo! Help! Help!" I made him sit with the Jolly Old Guy anyway. Because it just may be the last Crying-Kid-with-Santa picture I ever get.



We finished off the weekend with some visiting with my dad, who has been out of town working on a job. Jackson was happy to get some quality story time in. He loves being read to lately, especially anything about animals.



On another note about reading, Hayley's teacher told me last week that Hayley was doing really well, and she had moved her up to the highest reading group! This is in addition to finding out that Hayley had gotten 100% on her 1st term math benchmark test. I am so proud of that sweet little girl of ours.

Feelin' Thankful and Black Friday

I only remembered to take pictures at one out of three of our Thanksgiving dinners. That's right, three. We're kind of spoiled. :) Dinner #1 was at my mom's house on Wednesday night. Lots of fun, yummy food, and good times with my family.

Maybe too much of a good time even. :)

The next day on Thanksgiving we headed to my Aunt Carol's in the afternoon, and then Jeremy's parents that evening. It was so nice to have Jeremy with us for all of the festivities, especially since that will not be the case for the Christmas this year; he has to work Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Yuck. No pictures from the two get-togethers on the day of Thanksgiving, mostly because I was busy scouring ads and planning my strategy for Black Friday, or Black Thursday, since stores started opening at 9:00 on Thanksgiving Day. It went something like this:

9:00 p.m. - Toys R Us. It was a madhouse, probably because they were the first to open of the night, but I ended up getting everything I wanted. I didn't even get in the door until a half hour after they opened!

Step 2 Cottage Playhouse
Little Tykes Slide
Little Tykes Table
Razor Scooter
Thomas Train Set

12:00 a.m. - Unloaded Load of Loot #1 at my mom's house. Revamped strategy since we had now missed the opening time for WalMart and Target.

12:30 a.m. - ShopKo. Still really busy after opening at 12:00. Waited in line for an hour to check out. Actually got a cart though, which is a bonus on Black Friday.

Princess Toy Box/Seat
Thomas the Train Toy Box/Seat
3 Drawer Craft Cabinet
Squinkies

2:00 a.m. - WalMart - It was dead by the time we got there, since they had been open since 10:00 p.m. the night before. We were in and out in less than an hour.

Leapster games
Cute Cheap Jammies
Cute Cheap Sweatshirts
Ants in SpongeBob Squarepants game

3:00 a.m. - Kohl's. My mom wanted to go over, so we did, but I was pretty much a zombie by then. I didn't buy anything. At least not that I can remember. :)

4:00 a.m. Unloaded Load of Loot #2 at my mom's house. Ate some turkey. Decided to stay at her house since if I went home my kids would be waking me up in 2-3 hours.

9:30 Woke up feeling refreshed enough to go out for another round. Picked up another it up another WalMart (Dora Kitchen and cute cheap t-shirts), Target, Kohl's (jewelry for me), WalMart again, Famous Footwear, and JoAnn's. Oh yeah, and I also went to a movie on Black Friday at 11:10 p.m. with my sister, Breaking Dawn, finally. Loved it.

Such a fun, long weekend. I'm looking forward to giving these kiddos their loot on Christmas morning!

Love

After a 14 hour day and 15 parent teacher conferences, I came home to these:



Jer got me a card and roses for our anniversary, even though we said we were going to hold off until next week when life's not so busy. (Right, because that ever happens, that life isn't busy...) Thanks so much honey for making today and so many other days of our lives so wonderful. I love and appreciate you more than you know.



Hayley left me a little something too: A ribbon-wrapped leaf and a note that said:

"thez Ius u spRIs Far the anavRSRaRee"
(This is a surprise for the anniversary.)

Love my kids, love my husband, love my life.

Carnival #2 and a Duck Butt

Saturday morning we headed to the Halloween Carnival hosted by our neighborhood ward. As a bonus, Jackson actually wore his costume. I should have realized earlier that a little bribery was all that was needed. I just waited until we were in the parking lot, stuck it on and zipped him in, and then pulled him in to the carnival and handed him a piece a candy. He got over being all costumed up pretty quick. There were games, and crafts, and Hayley's favorite...



Eating a doughnut off of a string! (I really should have videoed this. She thought it was so funny! She kept pausing every few bites to laugh.)



On Halloween night we headed up to Aunt Kimi and Grandma Bachman's neighborhood to go trick-or-treating. Hayley was so excited to see Payton! Good thing I got this picture of them before they took off, because after they started, they were out in front of the rest of us as far as we would let them go. They had a blast, and gathered a stash!



Jackson had a good time too, and was so cute tagging along after his big sister. Too bad he wouldn't look at the camera for anything! I had to resort to taking pictures of his cute duck butt backside, which wasn't all bad. :)



It was a very happy Halloween! Fun times with family, tons of candy, I feel like we got our money's worth out of Hayley's costume, and I'm just relieved that Jackson wore his at all!

Halloween Carnival #1

The Thursday before Halloween we headed to the Kearns Recreation Center for their free Halloween Carnival. I was glad Jeremy could come with us, since he would be working during some of the Halloween festivities during the weekend before the holiday. No surprise that Hayley was really into the spook alley, games, prizes, and candy, but it was so fun to see Jackson really get a lot more excited this season.



Hayley's a cowgirl this year. Her costume turned out super cute, especially considering I bought all the pieces on sale at the after Halloween sales last year. I know you can't see her face in the last picture, but that face I am making is me laughing at Jeremy as I ask, "Are you taking pictures with the camera upside down?!" He was. Because, you know, why make things easy on yourself?



I bought Jackson the cutest duck costume last year for him to wear this year, but he was having none of it. I put it on him a few times, and he would just walk (waddle?) around and cry and pull at it until we took it off. So then my mom got him a cute puppy costume in an bigger size, thinking maybe the duck one was just too small. Nope, same result. It was only when I put the boring skeleton shirt on him that I actually started to get some Halloween smiles. So I cut him some slack for the carnival, but I may give the costumes another shot on the actual holiday.



We finished off the night with free drinks and cookies. The kids had no problem sharing the "cookies as big as my face!" as Hayley put it.

Traditions

October, Halloween, and all the related activities seem to become more and more busy each year. There are lots of traditions that I look forward to, including going to The Pie and then Thriller with my mom and my sisters. This year, before we got to our seats, my mom could not find her glasses, and it took her a while, and dumping out her entire purse, and finding a pair of Hayley's sunglasses, before she found them. In the front pocket. Thriller was great, complete with scary zombie dancers.

From Thriller, I headed up to meet the girls from my fourth grade team for our annual weekend at Debbie's cabin. It was so beautiful, and peaceful, and the Rhino rides and company were lots of fun.



On our ride we saw this broken deck, a porcupine, a sun dog, and the amazing view from Windy Ridge.



And we found "my" lane. Too bad it was "dead."



One last tradition that we finally started this year was carving a pumpkin with Hayley. Neither Jeremy or I are big into carving pumpkins. We both think it's kind of gross, and messy, and stinky. Plus, it's the adults that end up doing most of the work. Hayley drew the little face though, and I carved.



The little yellow guy did turn out cute!