My Favorite Christmas Song

Back in high school my mom bought a Collin Raye CD. It was a Christmas album.  As mom played it that first year I fell in love with one of the songs on the CD.  I'm not sure why I love it so much considering it isn't a traditional Christmas song, but it has a very strong message.  When I went off to college I stole this CD from mom.  I had so me roommates that year who were less then considerate and managed to crack my CD when they threw it on the floor to put in their CD.  The CD still plays but skips on my favorite song.  Since them I've been meaning every year to buy to copies of this CD.  One for mom and one for me, but I keep forgetting.  My Christmas money is spent for this year, so hopefully I'll remember next year.

I think I've become more attached to this song with the passing of my Grandpa a few years back.  Grandpa didn't fight in WWI but he did fight in WWII.  Grandpa never said much about fighting in the war, but everytime I hear this song I think of grandpa.

As far as I know there is not an "official" music video for this song.  I found this rendition by a lady on YouTube and thought it would do.  I hope you enjoy the song and the message it shares.

All sent!

FINALLY all my Christmas cards and letters are sent.  I dropped off the last batch about 30 mins ago.  I also sent out an e-mail with them last night.  If I somehow I missed anyone {and I'm sure I did} will you

a.  Ask your spouse if they got the e-mail

b.  Just wait for your letter to arrive in snail mail if you are family

c.  If neither one applies above, leave your e-mail as a comment so I can send you the letter.

I'm quite pleased with the way my card turned out this year.  I used a great scrapbook kit called One More Sleep by my friend Amber.  She sells her stuff HERE if you like to check it out.  Also, another good friend took our picture.  I love how Allie is so excited in the picture!

First Day of Nursery

Allie turns 18 mo. next Sunday.  Since we are going to be traveling, I decided to send Allie into the nursery a week early.  I was bit nervous that she wouldn't stay because she is sooooo attatched to Russ and I.  She is very skeptical of people she hasn't been around much.  But my fears were in vain.  I asked her if she wanted to go to nursery and she nodded her head yes.  I let go of her hand and she ran in and started playing. I snuck out the door after explaining to the nursery leaders what was going on.

It was nice that I was able to take care of my primary duties without having to entertain Allie, and keep her from distracting the kids.  But a part of me missed her, and worried that she was upset.  Every cry that came from the nursery next door I listened to intently to see if it was her.  It never was....When church was over and she saw me, she came running into my arms.  I asked her if she had enjoyed nursery and I got enthusiastic nodding of the head. It is comforting to know that Allie will love nursery and be at ease in there as much as Lily was, but that she loves seeing her mommy and daddy afterwards.

Santa Clause comes to the apartments!

Every year I search out where there Santa will be appearing so I can take the girls to see him.  This year I was thrilled to find out that Santa would be visiting our apartments at the Christmas Party.  I was ecstatic until I found out that Russ would be in California for it.  How was I going to take the girls by myself to this AND get a decent picture of them without him there pulling silly faces.  I hemmed and hawed over whether to go or not, but in the end I did.

We walked down and started to eat our breakfast when Santa showed up.  This guy was amazing!  He really was jolly, had belly the jiggled, and his beard was just perfect!  Lily was amazing and jumped right onto his lap for a picture.

Allie cried as we got close to him.  Santa was amazing though and kept talking to her.  He gained some trust and she inched a little closer to receive her candy cane reindeer.  But when offering his hand for her to come take a picture with him.  The ladies over the office told me to go stand with her and they would take a picture.  I handed them my camera but they took one with theirs instead.  They said they would print one out for us and hand them out.  Okay, sounds good. 
ETA:  We never received the picture even after asking them repeatedly for it.  Soooo mad!

We finished up our breakfast and headed out the door.  Lily waved to Santa and said goodbye, which prompted Allie to shyly wave at him.  It was too cute!

We headed home and I snapped a few pictures of the girls with their Reindeers.  They love them so much.  Super glad that I sucked it up and went to the party by myself.

I wish I had my camera...

Today I heard the girls giggling in the backseat as I stopped at a stoplight.  I turned to see what was going on.  Lily was showing Allie something out the window and they were laughing.  But the real kicker?  They were holding hands.  It was one of the sweetest moments I've seen with these two.  I only wish I'd had my camera to capture it for forever.

Walking group!

Back in August I was asked by the Relief Society to start a walking group for our ward.  Doing what I knew was right I agreed even though I hated that I would be in charge of something.  So I made some fliers, passed them around in church, and made sure it was announced in all the auxiliaries.  The first week no one showed up.  The second week no one showed up, or so I thought.  Carolyn asked me in church if I was going walking.  I said yeah, but no one had shown up.  She let me know that she had shown up the previous week, just late.  So we discussed it and agreed on meeting the following day at the walking path.  Since then Carolyn and I have been walking most Mon, Wed, and Thurs. together.  It has been really enjoyable to get to her better.  Lily also gets exercise walking around, and at the end of the walk Allie and Nate get some exercise on the playground.  It is a win win for everyone!  We even occasionally have a few other sisters in the ward come walk with us.

It has been chillier her lately, so we decided to take our walking group indoors.  We've been meeting at the local mall to walk.  I sometimes get a good laugh out us walking there because most the other people walking are 80 years old.  I feel so old, lol!   I'm certainly lucky to have found such a great friend through something as simple as a walking group.  I guess it sure shows how inspired the general presidency was when they came out with the "groups" idea for Relief Society.

Christmas Cupcakes

Walking through Target's Christmas section the other day I chanced upon a Funfetti cake mix with Holiday colors.  I was in love as soon as I saw it.  I snatched it up with Lily wide eyed and asking, "Do we get to make those?"  I agreed but warned her they weren't for us.  I had plans to give them away to the ladies I visit taught and also for Russ to give them to the families he home teaches.

It took a few days but I finally got around to making them.  However, things didn't go as planned...

It started by Lily helping out with the batter while Allie sat in her chair eating her snack.  Lily really enjoys helping with things like this so I let her even though I would have proffered to zoom through by myself. Towards the end, Lily even snagged a picture of me finishing up the mixing of the batter.

We cooked the cupcakes and let them cool while I made up my mom's yummy frosting.  The frosting began and I remembered why I hate cupcakes.  I cannot for the life of me frost them in a nice pleasing manner.  Nope the frosting always comes out looking insanely uneven and it even has the appearance of looking nasty.  I thought maybe I could mask the nastiness with sprinkles.  Nope! That didn't work either since sprinkles wouldn't stick.  So I had to use my hand to make them stick, which in turn messed up what little smoothness I had achieved while putting the frosting on.  I guess we'll just have to eat the horrible looking but tasty cupcakes ourselves! Darn ; )

Light at the end of the tunnel..

I should be making our Christmas cards right now, so I can get them sent out.  But I'm not because I decided I've neglected this poor little blog too long.  It has been on my To Do list for awhile, but keeps getting shoved down the list.  Somethinig about "feed kids" and "get kids dressed" seems to rank higher on the To Do list than "blog about the last month"

I've been adding a few things from November, so you can peek at those if you want. But what I wanted to write about today was Russell's traveling schedule.  I know I talk about it a lot, but right now, our lives revolve around it.  Our time is spent discussing what day Daddy comes home from California and what day Daddy leaves for California.  People ask how I'm doing with Russ being gone, and I laugh and tell them that I get through one day at a time.  That mentality truly is the only thing that keeps me going sometimes.  Those days when you just want to sit and cry are the days I think to myself, "If I get through today, tomorrow WILL be better, and I'll be one more day closer to Russ being home" 

Don't think all days are doom and gloom like that, because they aren't.  The girls and I have a lot of good days.  Take today for example.  We went to walking group and I let the girls play at the mall playground, which is one of their favorite things to do.  Then we had fun doing some "Daddy Christmas Shopping".  After an equally productive afternoon we got a call to have dinner with a family in the ward.  That was a relief because I'd forgotten to get things ready for dinner earlier in the day.  Dinner was great.  We came home and the girls went to bed.  Awesome day in my book. :)  

So to get back to the point of this post...Russ is in California right now.  He'll be there until the 18th, which stinks because he'll miss my birthday.  What can you do though?  But he found out some GREAT news from his boss about his upcoming schedule.  First off after Russ gets back on the 18th he doesn't have to go to California for work until Jan. 25th!!!  I get him for a whole month!  The other good news is that Russ's boss in Texas told the boss in California that after March he wants the traveling to go down.  Probably to like one week a month.  I SOOOOOOOOO can handle that!  Things are looking up for our little family. 

Advent Calendar

Two years ago we got this advent calendar.  I can't remember if we got this from Leslie or Suzi.  It took a little work to put it all together.  All the styrafoam people were in pieces and needed glued together.  A few times I almost gave up on it.  At the time I just didn't have the patience for it.  But I persevered and finished it up.  Lily has fallen in love with it.  She loves seeing what piece she gets to put up.  Today was the camel.  Just look at the pure joy on her face.  Things like this really remind me what the Christmas season is all about.

Failed brownies....

Most of my Try-it-Tuesday recipes I try out on Saturday if it is a dinner, or on Monday if it is a dessert.  I decided since I had a little extra time today that I would make these brownies today instead of tomorrow.  In general it would make my day a lot less hectic.

I broke out the supplies and whipped them real quick.  Then I noticed I was supposed to have a mini muffin pan.  Shoot!  I had one but it only held 12 muffins.  That would take me forever to do!  Oh well, I bit the bullet and poured them in.  Now I didn't grease my pan because a) it ruins your pans and b) the lady who wrote this recipe said that you didn't need to.

I waited patiently for the timer to ding so I could have some of those ooey-gooey pepperminty brownies.  I pulled them out and knew something was wrong.  They looked crisp.  I waited a bit for them to cool, and started chiseling them out of the pan.  The bottoms were hopelessly stuck and the peppermint had burnt.  It was now a chalky, crumble in your mouth, slightly brown clump.  After getting a few out I gave up in frustration.  I looked at all the batter and decided to try again using a regular sized muffin tin.

Lets just say it was a repeat performance.  I guess everything I bake can't be a success.  I did look over at my "attempt" to get them out afterward though, and thought it would make a fun picture.  At least I know how to poke fun at my failures ;)

A New Do

I've been feeling that I need to have make a change in my life.  For some reason when I get feeling this way, the first thing I do is go and chop off my hair.  I have been growing up my hair since May 2007.  Since then I've only gotten one teeny-tiny trim by Stacy.  My hair tends to grow straight and stay healthy so trims aren't usually necessary.  Anyway, today I decided that I needed to change, and change I did.  This is the longest I've had my hair since high school when I was able to {almost} sit on it.

When I get these haircuts, I've always donated my hair to Locks of Love.  Today felt a little different when I asked for the address to send my 10" of hair to.  It tugged at my heart more, to know that I was helping a cancer patient. 

Sadly, the haircut didn't turn out perfectly.  Obviously the girl was inexperienced.  Before she put the layers in my hair I asked her if she would like me to part my hair.  She said "No, by having it parted down the middle all your layers will be even."  Stupid me believed her, because I don't know a thing about hair.  I got home and styled my hair, and quickly found out that she was wrong and I had been right.  With my hair parted on the side my layers are longer on the left and slope upwards to the right.  I don't think you can really tell in the photo though.

Even though things didn't turn out right, I'm glad I got my haircut.  I'm loving it in fact!  I can't wait to grow it out a little so that I can go get it fixed by a "professional".  Oh and what does the front look like?  Well, I didn't have time to curl it, but this is what it "somewhat" looks like.  In reality it flips outward on the bottom, and the layers higher up curl around my face.  It normally doesn't look all straggly.

Snow

It snowed yesterday.  Yup, good ol' Gulf Coast Texas received snow yesterday.  Russ and I were quite in shock that it was actually snowing.  We thought we wouldn't be dealing with snow anymore.  I guess nothing is for sure anymore.  It snowed on and off the whole day, however the ground was so warm that it didn't really stick.  It also was switching from snow to sleet quite often as well.  I got a good chuckle when I heard that because of this storm schools would be starting later in a lot of areas, in order to allow time for the "dangerous conditions." LOL!  The snow left me missing home quite a bit.

This morning Russ walked the garbage out to the dumpster and can back asking for the camera.  After disappearing for a few minutes he came back and said, "Post this on the blog for proof."  He didn't catch a picture of the snow, but something that would display that OCCASIONALLY we can get cold weather down here too.  He was a little miffed about having to break out the ice scrapper again. 

 

 And this picture just cracks me up.  If you look really closely you can see that the frost only extends as far as the shadow of the apartment does.  When walking over where the shadow ends you discover that the grass is just wet not frozen at all!

Texas weather {and people's reaction to weather} makes me laugh!

Blog Book: Feb 12 - June 30, 2008

I've been waiting forever to publish my first blog book.  So many things have kept me from getting it done:time, money, difficult software, moving, etc.  Blurb came out with an awesome sell recently that I knew I had to take advantage of or kick myself in the bum for a long time.  I kicked up he notch on my "editing" of my blog book, and I got it done in time to get the deal! 

Today I finally got my blog book!  I thought it would be delayed because of the snow, but UPS came through! The pictures I was able to take are horrible because we had no natural light coming into our apartment, but I couldn't wait to post this so here they are.

The cover

Double page full paragraph writing.

Double column writing

 Here I got creative.  I made my own layout for the left hand page.  I also loved doing full bleed pages.

More full bleed photo paired with text.

I learned how to do this layout by watching a tutorial on blurb.  It wasn't too difficult once I understood the concept.

And then one more full bleed page.  I really liked how I got these pictures to work out to be side by side.

Of course I love this book even with the flaws.  Yep there were flaws {my fault of course}, but it wouldn't be my book without them.  I always have a flaw on things I make.  Just to point out a few....the alphabet I used on the cover was of low quality and was fuzzy bits on the edges instead of crisp clean lines like it was supposed to have.  On the screen that wasn't visible, but when enlarged on the book it was all too evident.  Speaking of the cover, I wrote the wrong beginning date of the book.  For some reason Valentine's day was on my mind instead of Feb 12 when I wrote it.  There were a few typos through out the book that I didn't catch.  But that is it! 

I'm so excited about this and have already started the rest of 2008.  A few things I learned/regretted about my book....

1. I wish I had done a full year instead of half.  I had been worried in the beginning that my full year wouldn't fit in the 400 page limit that blurb puts on their books.  That would have been in vain because half a year was well under 200 pages.
2. Use more full bleeds, and picture only pages.  Again I was worried about size, so I tried to cram everything together without being too crowded.  Things worked out okay, but I would have preferred to see more white space in it.
3. Make more of my own layouts.  Blurb has a bunch of great templates that makes the editing process go so fast.  However, I found myself making quite a few of my own because I felt they were more eye pleasing than the ones blurb provided. This time around I'm checking out how to make pdf's and use them instead of using the blurb templates.
4. Make sure ALL pictures have been edited.  Don't trust your blog to have your perfect pictures that you want in your book.  Unfortunately I didn't realize that my pictures hadn't been edited until after I printed the book, so some of my pictures turned out a little dark.  That could have been fixed if I had been paying attention to what I had put on my blog.
5. Definitely splurge on the premium paper. I got the premium paper and you can totally tell that it is high quality paper.  It is thick and stiff.  Not flimsy at all.  Russ commented on how high quality it is.
6. Definitely get the picture wrapped hardbound book.  This made for such a nice professional looking book.

I know I had more things, but I can't remember them.  So if anyone is interested in making your own blog book head over to: http://www.blurb.com/ Also feel free to ask me if you have questions about making your own blog book.  I don't profess to be all-knowing about this, but I might be able to answer some questions.

Where's Allie

Allie loves her cupboard "house".  She has gone from just sitting in the cupboard, to playing in the cupboard, to now hiding in the cupboard.  Many times if I can't find Allie, I'll look in her "house" and there she will be waiting to see peek-a-boo.  We got her on video doing this, luckily this day we knew ahead of time where she was.

Going Postal!

Mailing presents. I have always heard about how horrible it is to mail packages at Christmas time.  For heaven's sake my dad and sister work for the post office. I've heard ALL the horror stories.  I've avoided the Post Office like the plague at Christmas time in past years.  But this year it was inevitable that I mail packages to my family.  I would love to claim that I'm "on top of the ball", but truthfully when I went walking yesterday a good friend reminded me that things were starting to get out of hand at the Post Office.  I immediately forgot that I needed to wrap when I got home.  Today however I drove by the post office and saw that the parking lot was full and it all clicked in my head.  So tonight I asked Lily to help me wrap presents so I can mail them tomorrow.  Just look how excited she was that I was letting her help me.

Christmas Wreath Craft

If you can't tell by now, I LOVE crafts.  It really doesn't matter what kind of craft it is, I'll usually try my hand at it.  As Russ decorated for me this year, I realized that I only had one Christmas decoration that I had actually made.  That Christmas decoration was made when I was 12!!!  I began to get bummed out be this until I remembered that I had saw a Christmas wreath that I had wanted to try and make.

Even though I still haven't been feeling 100%, and probably shouldn't have gone to the store without Russ, I was DYING to buy the Christmas bulbs I needed to make my wreath come to life.  That fact led me to only go to one store, where I was disappointed that they didn't have the color of bulbs I wanted {silver}  So I settled for some pretty green, red, and white bulbs.  Later that night, I conned Russ into holding the wire for me while I meticulously threaded all my bulbs on it.  It was a little tricky and took a couple small "do-overs", but I was pleased with the finished product.

I ended up hanging this on our bedroom door mainly because I was too lazy to go back to the store and get a metal door hanger.  The plastic one we have makes it difficult to close doors.  I plan making more of these next year when we are in a house.  I thought a silver one would look beautiful hanging above a mantel.  Call me a dreamer, but I hope I have that mantel next year!

I saw the tutorial for this on another blog, but I'm not going to give the link.  The tutorial that the person wrote up was TERRIBLE! If anyone wants directions on how to make this, leave a comment and I'll post them on here.

New Moon

Russ took me to New Moon the other night.  The only way I could get him to take me was to promise him that during the "wolf" scene he could interpret it for me like Guillermo.  We can't stop laughing at this video.  Russ explained to me what a chupacabra is.  Apparently to Latins it is a mythical creature.  Kind of like how we "believe" in a Bigfoot. Thanks Ashley for posting it originally!

Decorating the Tree

Russ knows that decorating the tree the weekend of Thanksgiving is very important to me.  I wasn't feeling well enough to really participate in decorating this year, so Russ took it upon himself to do it.  As a boy he would always help his mom decorate for Christmas, so he didn't mind doing it for us this year.  I got to be bossy and tell him where to put things, and take pictures of all the happenings.  I enjoyed at least being part of the festivities even if I wasn't that much help.

Russ carefully and patiently arranged our little cheapy fake tree to my liking. {I can't wait until next year when I have a real one!}

At first the girls watched with excitement

 

But the process started to get to long for them, so we pulled out their nativities for them to play with.  They got both of these last year for Christmas and didn't get to play with them much.  By the excitement they had at seeing them today, I'm sure they will use them a lot this year.

  

And of course we had to let the girls help put on the ornaments.  That part is always a little nerve wracking especially since Lily likes to hang them on the lights. 

 

The finished product....

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was quite unusual for our little family this year.  Normally we would drive the four hours from Idaho to Utah and spend Thanksgiving weekend with my family.  We have done that every year since Russ and I got married. This year we obivously couldn't do that.  A friend had invited us to share Thanksgiving with them, but declined.  On Tuesday I had been given some news that left me highly emotional.  Add that to my first major holiday away from family, and I knew I would be an emotional mess.  I realized that I didn't want to subject that experience on my friends family, so I told her so.

On Monday I began to prepare for the holiday.  I wanted to see if I could replicate my mom's Thanksgiving dinner, but only a quarter of the size.  I called her and got the menu, and braved Walmart with both the girls to get my VERY LONG list of groceries.  The only way we made it through that experience was by me bribing the kids to be good with animal crackers.  They complied quite nicely.

Tuesday I received nine homemade uncooked rolls from my fore mentioned friend.  Apparently her recipe makes a ton and she had to get rid of a few.  Nine was just right for us!  And after receiving bad news, a small gift like this brought tears to my eyes.  Of course I cried in the car, not in front of my friend.  Ugh that would be way embarrassing! :D

Wednesday I deemed as "prep" day.  There was a lot of things I felt like I could get done that day and make Thanksgiving a much less labor intensive day.  I made pumpkin pie dessert, green jello salad, toasted the bread for dressing, and I poked the turkey to make sure it was defrosted!

Thursday came, and Russ let me sleep in.  He is awesome about letting me do that.  I think part of it is that he can't sleep through the girls yelling that they are awake.  I sure can!  I got up and made the dinner.  I had to call my mom a 100 times asking about this or that.  She declared herself the "Butterball Hotline" by the end of it.  I had great plans of taking pictures of my food and us before we ate.  But I forgot.  Too many things on my mind I guess.  I did snatch these two of the girls with their whipped cream beaters.

Dinner turned out pretty good.  I discovered after we had eaten that part of the Turkey was still pink.  EEKS!  The good news was that it wasn't the part we had eaten.  All of our pieces had been cooked.  After talking with my mom about it she said that I probably should have cooked the stuffing separetly, or cooked the turkey longer.  Turns out that the "Butterball Hotline" doesn't always have the best of answers.  Just teasin' mom!

After our dinner we Russ declared we were going for a walk.  It was gorgeous outside and the house was stuffy from the oven being on so long.  I was a bit grumpy about going since I didn't feel well, but conceded.  I must admit the fresh air was wonderful.  The streets were so quiet as we walked since everyone was home with their families.  I'm glad Russ suggested it.

The rest of the day was spent relaxing, sleeping, playing on the Wii, calling family, and looking at Black Friday ads.  Yes I'm one of those nutty people who go out shopping on Black Friday.  I think it is fun!  Now only if I can rope someone into going with me!  Happy Thanksgiving!

Sneak Peek of My Blog Book

Slowly but surely I've been working on my Blog book.  Then a few weeks ago I got an e-mail from Blurb.com {the company that I'm using to make my blog book} that they had a sale going on.  20% off with free shipping!  I was ecstatic and pushed forward with finishing my book.  It came down to the wire, but I got it done on time.  I must admit there are a few "awkward" page layouts, but I just didn't know how to fix them.  Hopefully  on my next book I'll know how to fix that.  A lot of it has to do with the fact that graphic imagery is not my strong point.  I thought I would leave you with a Sneak Peek of my blog book until it comes.  This is the cover....

Festival of Lights: Part 3

As soon as Lily finished dancing I grabbed her off stage, and stuffed her back into her pants.  Mainly I didn't want her to freeze because it was getting cold outside but I also wanted to be able to hurry and get a seat to see the light parade.  A friend had suggested that we watch the parade from the area across the street from the museum.  That would have been just dandy, but we were too late and all the spots were taken.  We crossed the road and sat in front of the Museum.  It was a little wet, and mucky there, but not too bad. The girls were waiting for the parade to start.

The parade was scheduled to start at 7:00, but by this time the girls were almost to the point of having had TOO MUCH fun during the day.  They were tired and antsy.  Russ bravely bought Lily a light up top that sang a song.  She loved it, but was a little ungrateful for it.  Allie on the other hand was quite grateful and kept requesting it be played more and more.  With Lily's attitude I saw a melt down coming so I took her for a walk.  I had the intentions of finding some hot chocolate so she would quit complaining about how cold it was.  The lines for hot chocolate were horrendous!  I knew we would miss the start of the parade if we waited. 

We scooted along and were going to go back empty handed when I saw some popcorn for sale.  The girls LOVE popcorn and I knew that would bring smiles all around.  I bought the bag, and then realized it had white chocolate on it.  Oh well, more for me if the girls didn't like it! When we got back I found Allie and Russell like this....

Apparently Allie had been complaining of the cold too, until Russ wrapped her in his coat. Then she was content. 

I started dolling out the popcorn and all complaints about cold toes, noses, hands, or bums were forgetten.  Munching merrily on our popcorn we watched the parade.  It wasn't quite what I had expected.  It was mainly businesses that had decked out their company vehicles with Christmas lights.  But the girls really enjoyed it.  I did learn from the parade though, that if there is ever a fire we have plenty of fire trucks to come help out.  I think there were atleast ten that went by.  Everytime one did we crossed our fingers that it wouldn't honk its horn.  Lily was terrified of the loud noise. The parade ended and wearily we trudged back to the car.  I really enjoy days like this where we get to spend it doing just family things.  With Russ traveling they are few and far between, but I've come to cherish the ones we do get!

Festival of Lights: Part 2

After enjoying part of the festivities we ran home and allowed Allie to take a nap.  Lily, Russ, and I played New Mario Bros Wii.  We rented it from Hastings to see if it was worth buying.  It was a lot of fun, but we are still undecided if we are going to buy it.  Then it was a quick supper, and into some warmer clothes.  The girls had hats and sweaters, while Russ and I just had sweaters.

Lily and her dance class were performing for the Festival of Lights.  She was really excited.  I don't think this girl has a nervous bone in her body.  After parking in the Police Station parking lot again, and walking very quickly we made it to her meeting spot with one minute to spare.  I helped her get out of her jeans and tennies and into her ballet shoes and tutu.  I made her keep her jacket on until later.  While waiting for other girls to show up, a few of the girls grabbed hands and started dancing in a circle.  Cutest thing in the world to see the little ones dancing around in their tutus.  None of them really know each other that well, but because they were all ballerinas, they were all friends.  It was so dark that night, and the area wasn't lit well, so most of my photos didn't turn out.  Including this adorable sight of the dancing ballerinas.

Miss Daniel rounded up the girls {all 15 or so} and had them go line up and sit down on the stage steps.  Lily is such a chatterbox that she kept talking to her neighbors the whole time!

Daniel pulled me aside and told me that she was going to have Lily lead off.  In class she has pointed out that Lily is driven by patterns.  EVERYTHING must be done in the same order or else Lily goes haywire{aka tantrum central}.  She wanted Lily to feel comfortable so she had her lead out.  Have I metioned that Daniel is awesome?

Russ was in charge of watching Allie and videotaping.  I was going to take pictures.  But apparently we hadn't planned well, because before Lily even got on stage the camcorder ran out of tape!  I swear I checked it, but must not have.  So I pulled double duty.  Even still I was able to enjoy her performance.  I have never seen her dance routine, because I've always had Allie had practices.  Since a toddler can be disruptive, I've never watched the practices.  It melted my heart to see Lily up there on stage.  She knew most of the steps without watching her teacher, and even more amazing she knew the words to the songs!

 

 

 

These videos of her are about a minute long.  The first is of her doing a dance to My Magic Tutu.  This is her favorite dance....

This second movie is her doing a dance move across the stage....

I can't express how happy I am that I decided to put Lily in dance class.  I know it has helped her socially, mentally, and physically.  It makes me happy that she enjoys it so much!

Festival of Lights: Part 1

Twinkling Christmas lights are one of my favorite sights of Christmas. As a child I loved to go turn on just the Christmas tree lights and stare at them.  Sometimes I would read by the tree, do my homework, or take a nap with the twinkling light carrying over to my dreams.  When I heard that our city does a Festival Lights, all those wonderful memories came flooding back.  Come to find out though, the Festival is a weekend long fair type thing.  

 

Yesterday Russ was still on his way home from California, and it was raining furiously so I didn't venture out to the Festival.  This morning after making a short stop at a realtor we headed to a local church.  There was a craft show going on inside the church, and I couldn't resist stopping by.  I'm so glad we did!  I found a bracelet and butterfly hairclips for Lily for Christmas.  They both were really cheap, and very pretty.  She was excited to pick them out until she found out they were going to "the little girl in China".  Yeah, I probably shouldn't lie like that to her, but she is so good about believing her presents are being sent to China that it makes Christmas shopping so easy.  She actually isn't all that dissapointed when we tell her they are going to China, so I don't feel TOO bad about lieing to her.  

After the craft show we headed to the fair.  We parked in the Police Station parking lot and crossed our fingers that we wouldn't get a ticket. Of course as we walked into the fair the first thing that greeted us was the smell of food!  Their were food stands everywhere!  We hurried past them to the giant blow up toys.  The city had rented about 10 different blowup toys, and the kids could go on them for FREE!  Lily was so excited as she climbed up to the top of the giant slide.  Mind you it took her about 10 tries because those little arms and legs of hers wouldn't work very well.  I don't know if it was the cold {Mid-50's which is cold for us, plus the humidity made it even colder} or the fact that there were so many kids pushing and shoving to get to the top.  Russ got this one picture of her coming over the top, and then our batteries went dead {Of course we forgot to bring spare batteries!}

We let Lily run around on a few more blow ups before dragging her away to look at some more craft booths.  She came pretty compliantly because we told her we would come back and ride the train.  There was little train that was driving around a parking lot.  It was free as well!  The craft booths weren't all that cool here, so we decided to grab some lunch and go back to the train.  We bought some potatoe stack thing.  It was fried potoatoes with some kind of cheese sauce.  It was gross and good at the same time.  Since getting my gallbladder out REALLY greasy things have made me sick.  This was one of those things that made me sick from the grease.  

Since I wasn't feeling well, Russ volunteered to ride on the train with the girls.  Lily couldn't stand still she was so excited.  At first Allie was pretty indifferent, then she reached forward and grabbed onto the bar that you could hold onto.  She was all smiles and excitement after that.  It would have made the cutest picture those three....stupid camera!

The high school drum corp started to play right as Russ and the girls got off the train.  It had been recommended by a friend to listen to them.  We started ambling towards the stage when Russ saw a Funnel Cone stand and told me story about the last time he had one.  I mentioned I had never had one, and he insisted on getting me one.  One look at it and I knew I had to share it with the family.  It was HUGE {and I still wasn't feeling well}  We listened to the band and ate our funnel cake.  It was a lot of fun.  Allie was ontop of Russ's shoulders and was having a great old time.  She would clap her hands like the cymble players, beat daddy's head with her hands like the drum players, and dance on his should like the whole band.  So hilarious to watch.  She wasn't very happy when we decided to leave before it was over, but we had a few things we needed to get done before returning a few hours later.

Bump at the Playground

I've been hiding in my house the past three or four days.  I've gone out once to go to walking group, and twice to go to the store.  I haven't wanted to see anyone.  After telling Russ this last night, he suggested I go to play group for the kids sake.  I woke up this morning and I didn't want to go.  The kids were climbing the walls by 10:00 and I thought, "Well maybe I will go for them"  But I kept feeling like I shouldn't go.  Finally I hurriedly got us ready and got to play group ten minutes late. 

I hung out over on the playground barrier trying not to talk to anyone.  We've been to this park quite a few times, so I knew the kids were okay if they wandered while I watched from my seat, or so I thought.  Allie went up onto the small play area meant for kids a little older than her.  Normally she will just keep walking forward and then go down the slide.  This time I watched in slow motion as she started to try and go down some spiral stairs that she normally doesn't even pay attention to. I got up in time to watch her fall off face first into the dirt.

By the time I got to her she was crying the "I'm hurt" cry.  Sure enough blood was coming out her mouth.  It took quite awhile of struggling with her and sticking a wippy in her mouth in order to see what exactly had happened.  On her bottom lip she had two cuts.  One REALLY deep and one mildly deep.  I couldn't get them to stop bleeding.  I finally forced some water in Allie's mouth in hope that the coolness would help the wound seal up.  It worked like a charm on the small cut, and the larger cut slowed in bleeding.  Finally after 10 min or so I let Allie go even thought the large cut was still dribbling blood.

Poor Allie has a fat lip and of course the two nasty looking wounds in her mouth.  I wanted to take a picture so Russ could see it, but Allie won't let me get near her mouth.  I guess I should have followed my feelings about being anti-social and stayed home.

Another Giveaway

 

I can't resist telling you about another giveaway over at LeeLou SWAG.  ScrappingSimply is giving away a $100 gift certificate to their shop!  I use ScrappingSimply to print my 12 x 12 scrapbook pages.  Their quality is awesome.  Check out the giveaway for yourself by clicking on the button!