Under the Mistletoe

Deidra attended her first High School dance Saturday night 

"Under the Mistletoe".

It was girls choice and she asked her date the day before her 16th Birthday. She had a poster board with the word "Christmas" and a big ? mark. She then had 6 cute boxes that were themed with a different Christmas picture on it, put a letter of her name in each box, wrapped it up with some cute twine and left it on his door step, and ditched after ringing the doorbell :) We should have taken a picture of how cute it was, but his dad was out doing some things in his car while we were there, so that may have been a bit more awkward then it already was. 

About 15 minutes after we got home she got a text from him saying "I really wanted to go to the Christmas dance with you, but someone by the name of "Raided" just asked me" (due to all the boxes have a single letter from her name in them, he had to unscramble the word) It was pretty funny.

About a week and a half later he came over with a bunch of candy canes (with bows tied on each one) and made a trail through our back yard to a box, it had 2 more candy canes taped in the box and a note that said "I "candy"evn believe it's a question, I can't wait" and a big "YES" written on the lid. 

We rented her dress and sweater thing, which having 3 girls, we are very happy to know that this is an option.

She looked stunning!

We had our cute cousin JoAnn make Brayden's boutineer, and flower that she wore in her hair (she also made a cute bracelet corsage, but Brayden bought Deidra one so she wore that one instead) The one Brayden gave her had white roses, some pine greenery, a cute silver bow with silver snow flakes and silver bells hanging off of it, super cute, but we didn't get a close up of it...we are rookies at this dance thing :)

Mike was recruited to take photos of the kids, and it was just our luck that it started snowing about 3 minutes after Deidra went to pick Brayden up :( We made due and some of the photos turned out great!

Over in Farmington they have the new movie theaters and restaurants they also built this cool fountain, so we took photos outside by the fountain, then moved into a room they also built for people to sit in and enjoy.

They had 5 couples in their group and went to Oliver Garden to eat dinner, then headed to the dance. After they went to one of her friends houses to hang out and eat some more.

Of course her curfew was extended quite a bit due to it being a dance, but Mike and I waited up (OK I waited up as it was so past my bed time, Mike is used to staying up late so it was no biggie to him) to hear all about the dance.

She had a wonderful time!

It was so fun to hear all about her night. We are so blessed she went with such a great young man and a great group of friends.

The Jazzy Nutcracker 2012

The girls had their Winter dance recital today, and they did not disappoint! 

Deidra is in the oldest group, so they get to do a lot with the younger classes.

In this picture the older girls are bringing out the tree and presents, Deidra's face is the best, they had to act as if they hadn't seen the younger girls forever, and she nailed it :)

     

This is Kendra's hip hop class "Santa Clause is coming to town", she loved it and you could tell by the smile on her face how much fun she was having.

Deidra's pointe class. This dance was combined with the younger girls classes (even Kendra's hip hop, so I'm not going to list all the songs, but it was fun, as they did many different things).

Again, same pointe class, here she is a "Barbie", ya know, "living in a Barbie world".

This is Tiff's ballet class, I love this costume, one of my favorites over the years, she looks like a real ballerina! 

They danced to "Reed Pipes"

Kendra's ballet class did "Africa", I love this costume too, it's just so fun! Again, by the look on this girls face, you could tell she enjoyed every second being on stage. 

Tiffany's Jazz class did "Spanish", this was a fun dance to watch as well. And I think the teacher nailed it with these costume's, so cute! 

Deidra's final dance of the day was "Dream", this was a cute dress too. (gosh, I guess I'm loving all of this years costumes, well almost all of them :))

We are so blessed with 3 talented girls who all love to dance. We always enjoy watching them up on stage. 

It's also fun to see a lot of our neighbors kids as well since they take from the same studio. 

Can't wait for May's recital!

Thanks for enjoying dance girls, we love watching you perform! 

Sweet 16!

Happy Birthday Deidra!

16 years ago today, you were born! We had waited many hours for you to arrive, but when you did it was all worth the wait!

16 reasons we love you (but there is a million more, I just have to save some for later :))

You have such a great personality, everyone loves to be around you!

You have a hugh heart!

You are excited about driving!

You are excited about dating!

You have a great sense of fashion!

You enjoy school, especially Debate! 

You are super excited about NYC!

You will help your siblings when we ask!

You help around the house when we ask!

You love dance!

You LOVE your friends!

You have great friends!

You are beautiful inside and out!

You are truly funny!

You are REALLY REALLY exited about the Biebs concert!

You are You!

Thanks for being you! We love you so much and are excited for all the new experiences you will have now that you are 16! We appreciate all you do for us and your siblings! You are the best!

Happy 16th! 

State Fair 2012 (a little late)

Well the State Fair has come and gone and I'm just getting around to blog about it!

Kendra and Tyler both received free entrance tickets to the fair and one free lemonade from some lemonade stand (I don't remember the name of the place, but it's fresh squeezed, and pretty darn good), which was a good thing, considering the prices to get in these days are so high!

They have a "locals only" store, they have some of the best honey in that store, meaning different flavors that if you found somewhere else would be pretty darn expensive, so we look forward to buying some new fun honey every year! 

Some of us ate funnel cake, really who goes to the fair and doesn't eat funnel cake, it's a must!

And some of us go to the fair and eat ice cream!

Funny that you can buy a boat at the fair, wouldn't be my first place to look, but Kendra and Tyler were interested in it!

Every year for fun, the kids can get a little "souvenir", this year Tyler got this remote controlled helecoper, and Mike, Tyler is totally addicted to it. We are thinking more are on the Christmas list!

Justin Bieber took some time out of his busy schedule to join us at the fair! 

Deidra saw a guy making these signs, and when she saw one with JB she knew it had to be hers.

Then Tiff saw "toy story" and wanted one!

And then Kendra saw "Tink" and knew that is what she wanted! They are actually pretty cool, each letter of your name actually has some sort of bird in it, for example, the "D" is a penguin. 

And just before heading out Tyler and Kendra shooting some hopes!

Another fun day at the fair, until next year! 

The Quilt

 For Deidra's final project to complete her personal progress and earn her Young Women medallion she decided she wanted to make a quilt. 

So some time ago, Mike's mom met Deidra and I at the fabric store to help us pick out the fabric. Deidra wanted all the colors in the quilt that are associated with the YW.

Mike's mom has made many quilts and knows what goes good with what, because if it were me just picking out the fabric's I would have just picked what I liked; but there is a lot that goes into matching it up so that you don't have too many circles together, or that one fabric doesn't clash with the one that is going to be next to it, ect!

Last summer Deidra spent several days up at LaRue's making the quilt, she had a lot of fun hanging out with grandma sewing her quilt. I believe grandma sewed one square for her (correct me if I'm wrong :)) to show her what to do then Deidra did the rest. 

Every time I saw it I was amazed that my daughter was making her own quilt, I loved how it was turning out. 

After she finished sewing it, we needed to plan a day for her to spend with Mike's sister Connie. She has a quilting machine in the basement of her home and let Deidra come over to "quilt" her quilt. (Again ladies correct me if I'm wrong, because I do want to give credit where credit is due). She had given Deidra a paper with a design for her to practice on, then when it came time to quilt she had Deidra help her set it all up on the quilting machine, then showed her how to work it and let her loose. 

I got text messages and pictures throughout the 7+ hour day of her working on it. (I sent those to my email but can't get them off the email onto here, if anyone knows how to do that please let me know) 

I think they had a great time that day, I know a really good lunch was involved and i'm sure lots of talking and laughing. 

They finished it off and it's beautiful! We used the "minky" fabric for the back, it's black and it makes all of the colors in the quilt pop. Seriously the picture doesn't do it justice!

The Sunday after she finished it, she received her Young Women's Medallion, I'm so proud of her, it was a lot of work, but well worth it. 

How fun for a 15 year old girl to have made such an amazing quilt with two of the most wonderful ladies in her life. Connie, Deidra, the quilt :) Grandma LaRue! 

She will have this forever, and what a great example she has been to me and her sister's!

Thank you LaRue and Connie for being such a big part in all of this, we love you!

Labor Day 2012

With Labor day being the last day of summer for the kids and Mike having the day off of work, we headed up to Park City to ride the coaster. Mike had been up 2 weeks prior and had a great time so he looked forward to taking all of us on it.looked forward to taking all of us on it. 

Well apparently everyone else and their dog from the Salt Lake Valley had the same idea we did, we got there and the line was HUGH. We waited to get on the ride for about an hour (maybe it was more, my memory is at a loss). We were all excited to ride! (it doesn't show it in the pick of Deidra and Tiff, but they did enjoy themselves)

 Tyler and Kendra drove Mike and I :) The ride up was super fun, you do nothing but sit there and enjoy the sun and company as you are pulled up the mountain in your cart. 

As I said, Kendra drove me, and the girl would not slow down, there were times I honestly felt like we were going off the tracks, A few time's I did have to ask her to slow down, but she didn't take my advice, she likes to scare me :) 

 After the coaster we headed to our favorite restaurant in Park City, called "Flippin' Burgers" they were busy too, but so worth the wait!

We had such a good time spending our last summer day together, I'm sad summer has come to an end as I really enjoy hanging out with the kids and not having any schedules to worry about. 

Get Air

 A few weeks ago I got an email about a deal for "Get Air", a local trampoline park, so I jumped on the chance to get some discount tickets to take the kids. Deidra is the only one who hadn't been before, so I was super excited this deal came through. 

I would get so nervous watching the kids jump, as they would get some serious air;  they landed in a pit of foam squares so I knew they would be OK, but it was still crazy to watch.

 Tyler is a total dare devil, he wasn't scared of anything.

Kendra really has a good time going to Get Air, but needs to use her inhaler as all that jumping gets to her. 

Look at that face!

They have a section where you can play dodge ball, I guess Deidra won :)

I can't wait to go back again, it's such a great time!

Football anyone?

So the first Saturday of every month Home Depot has a kids craft and our kids love to go.

This past month they made Football goal post's (I guess that is what you call these :))

The kids get to build the whole thing them selves, meaning they get to use hammer's, and screw drivers  and gluing. It comes with instructions which are pretty easy for all kids to follow.  Sometimes they let the kids paint. They can be as creative as they want with the painting. 

After it was built, he loves it!

Not many people look this good doing carpentry work! 

They love doing this. 

This was after they were finished, look at how intense this game was.

They have made so many fun things including 

Mother's day planters and an office organizer for Father's day!

Thanks Home Depot for being such great host's for our kids!

Happy 14th Tiffany

 Happy Birthday Tiffany!

14 year's ago, you came into this world ready for fun, and you have had it ever since!

We are so proud of everything you do!

You give everything 110% and it shows, you have amazing grades, you kick butt in dance, you have great friends, and you are still incredibly caring for everyone around you.

You will be in 9th grade this year, and you are still smaller then some of the 7th graders, and I know it drives you nuts, but one day I think you will love being on the smaller side :)

We appreciate everything you do, thanks for having such an amazing spirit and being such a good example for us all. 

We love you! 

Have a wonderful day :)

Top of the Charts

Wednesday May 2nd the girl's had their spring dance recital!

It consisted of songs that were "Top of the Charts" from 1947 to current.

Of course having 3 girls in a total of 7 different dance classes these girls were in a lot of dances :)

Up first was Deidra's Hip Hop class dancing to "Run It" from 2005

I love hip hop, it's my favorite of all time, they aways wear fun outfit's and it's totally entertaining. 

Deidra's was fun as they started out in their jackets, then mid way through the dance they put their hoods on bent over and stepped on the hood to take the jacket off, and ended up in their red cami's.

Deidra's next class was "pointe" they danced to "Wind Beneath my Wings" from 1989.

I still have no idea how these girls get up on their toes in their pointe shoes.

It's very pretty to watch as well.

Kendra's first dance was "Music" from 2000

This girl was all smiles all the time. She loves dance so much. 

Tiff's first dance of the evening was "Vogue" 1990

I loved this outfit, it was also such a fun dance (for not being hip hop :))

I loved both the top and below pictures, so sassy!

One of Deidra's dance's was to "Footloose" 1984. 

That has been my favorite movie for such a long time, I just wanted to get up and dance with the girls :)

They all got to pick out their own dresses, as they were doing the dance from the "prom" scene.

We scored with a $10.00 dress on clearance from Kohl's. 

But it was fun and different as everyone had different dresses on. 

Deidra's next dance was "Bleeding Love" from 2008. 

She did a lot of costume changes, but it was oh so worth it!

Kendra's second dance was to 2000 "I hope you dance", one of my favorite songs, she did a great job!

Tiffany then danced to "Rollin in the deep" from 2011

These costume's were on lone from the High School drill team, they were darling.

Tiffany's last dance was her Hip Hop class, they danced to "Imma Be" from 2010

Again, the Hip Hop class did not disappoint. 

The girls just have so much fun in the hip hop classes, I seriously need to find me a hip hop class, it looks so fun :)

Our beautiful dancer's!

It was such a fun night. 

We are so proud of each of our daughter's for doing such a great job, We love you. We can't wait for the next one!

And here is Tyler, he was so very thankful for the IPad, I would tell him when the girls were on, he'd look up, watch and go right back to playing his game, silly boy!