Cheer!

I put Madilyn in Cheer about a month ago.  Her cousin Katelyn goes there, and has such a great time.  Madi’s talked about wanting to do it for awhile.  Well, she was in Ballet, so I thought we’d do it maybe in the summer or something.  In the end, I really didn’t like this new studio she was at, and so I pulled her out of ballet and now she does one night a week of cheer and tumbling, and then one night of just tumbling.  She is having SO much fun!  It was great to see her perform at her recital.  First of all I couldn’t believe she remembered as much as she did…simply because she’s only gone to class maybe 4 times!  And also, she seemed like she was having a blast on stage. 

Here’s her performance.  I couldn’t find her with the camera at the beginning so it takes a few seconds before she’s on the video.  She’s toward the left.  Lots of times there’s someone right in front of her, but she’s there :)

November

My little Indian, “Fast Bolt”!

We hosted dinner this year.  The thing I was most worried about was the turkey and gravy.  Thankful they didn’t burn and were edible, so all was well.  My family brought tons of yummy food and pies!  We moved almost all the furniture out of our living room.  I was so worried everyone would be cramped and that we didn’t have enough room.  This actually worked out great!  It definitely wasn’t fancy!  But it was such a fun day with family.  We did face time with my mom on the iPad.  We were able to show her everyone and talk to her.  When we got disconnected, I tried to call her back.  Next thing I know my dad shows up on face time!  He was in his suit, and I was so confused.  My first thought was, Oh, dad got home from work so he’s with mom..  No, we had totally called during a meeting at the office building; and I’m sure when he answered it you could hear all of our crazy noise in the background!  We’re not a quiet bunch.  So he laughed and he showed us the people in his meeting, we waved to them, and then we hung up.  So random and funny!  But it was good to at least be able to talk to my dad, even if just for a second :)

The grandkids!  I’m bummed I didn’t do a better job at getting everyone’s faces.

For family home evening we went to a Christmas Open house at a nursery in Kaysville.  They had hayrides, reindeer, other animals, lights, cocoa, face painting, and Santa.  All for FREE!  That’s my kind of party :)

Halloween and First Snow

This first picture is of Madi with the hand made little treat bags she made with Grandma Murray.  She was excited to give them out!

This is from a couple weeks before that when they were stamping them with Grandma.

This they’re excited they ran into each other?!  Madilyn and Madeleine. 

Cute cousins playing in the snow!

Our backyard neighbor Adam made this awesome hill between our two yards.  It got to the point where they were able to go fast and really far!

And the aftermath…sleeping in their long johns all tuckered out :)

I had to post a picture of our Christmas lights.  Since we’ve gotten married, Mike and I would dream about the day when we’d be able to put lights up on a real house (until now we’ve only lived in condos).  So we were excited when it turned out that this was the year!  A lot of unexpected changes happened to our family throughout 2012.  All which led us here.  We feel so blessed to be in home and in an area where we’re excited to raise our kids.  We know the Lord’s hand is in our lives and are so thankful for it.

Piano Recital

 

Madi had her first ever piano recital!  She did so good!!  She wasn’t even nervous.  Her song was Monsters Everywhere.  She had only started playing piano a few weeks before this!

Madi with her Aunt Marci (who doubles as her piano teacher :)

Colorado

We headed to Colorado for a long weekend to visit our dear friends, Matt and Kiley Stottle.  They have two adorable little boys, so our kids had a great time playing together!  Mike and I always have so much fun with them.  The adults stayed up late playing games, talking, laughing so hard I cried, and watching funny videos on the internet.  Good times!

We went to the most beautiful zoo in Colorado Springs.  It honestly had the coolest exhibits, it was up against a mountain (talk about a view!), and the kids were able to dress up and trick or treat.  That night we found a Zio’s and HAD to eat there of course!  That was me and Mike’s favorite date spot in high school; and Kiley grew up in The Woodlands so even she knew about Zio’s!  We had to introduce Matt to it :)  One of the days we were there we went to Hotel Transylvania.  It was actually really really funny!  We had SUCH a great time there!  We miss the Stottle’s so it was fun to hang out for several days in a row.  We’ll have to make it tradition!

Jackson and Max are like two weeks apart in age.  They are great friends.  Elijah was not a fan of being in the picture.  Haha

This picture makes me laugh so hard.  It’s Max struggling to find a pose.  The other guys squatted down and so Max didn’t know what to do.  Hahaha

Indiana Jones!!  Max even got to hold his treasure.

This guy was a cool batman.  Kiley and I kept joking that it had to be Christian Bale in there.  The guy looked so much like him and was so serious!

Our last night there we rode the train into Denver.  We were gonna walk around and see some fun shops and stuff. Little did we know there was a Zombie Convention going on downtown.  Like for real, it was terrifying.  The kids were so scared and a random mob started marching down the street.  I’m sure it was all just people being silly, but lets just say, I think we all felt very vulnerable!!  I mean, it was wall to wall zombies.  Moaning, blood everywhere, dragging a leg.  Ah!  Not exactly where we want our kids to be (or have them see!).  Anyway, looking back on it now, it just cracks me up!!  We felt like parents of the year!  Haha