Chelsea, Faith, & random pics

Chelsea met Faith during their summer school PE classes in June 2010. People kept saying they looked like twins and they hit it off quickly. They have been BFF's all year. They have had countless sleepovers, movies, and have attended several school events together. We even took her to St. George with us on one of our many weekend trips. They have shared a lot of laughs and supported eachother through tears. Unfortunately, Faith's family is moving to Idaho the end of March. So Chelsea is loosing yet another friend. I hope she will remember all the good memories of her friendship with Faith.

When I was looking through her camera for the above pic, I found these cute ones of Cord. It's so amazing how fast they change and grow up right in front of your eyes. These were taken probabaly last year. Cord looks so little and cute like always.

Spotlight Dance Competition

Brianna's first dance competition since leaving dance tracks. It's a lot of fun to see all the dances and they did a great job. The above pic is one she took after applying her fake eyelashes that are part of her stage make-up. Kind of interesting view.

Good News and Bad News

We were supposed to close on our home on Friday 2/11 but because the bank took so long getting all the paperwork to escrow, we didn't close until today. We were so excited to finally be done. Both Mike and I have taken this weekend off to be able to move everything over and then have a week to clean the old house. So all is well.

That afternoon I stopped at a Walmart before dropping Brianna off at dance. When I got back I saw this! No idea who did it. The big chickens hit and run. Why did I buy a home in Vegas????

He went to JARED!

Let me start out this post by saying, I really don't like Valentines day. Can't really explain why. And with our anniversary on the 15th it's a rule that we don't usually do anything for each other on valentines. I'd rather just find some time to celebrate our Anniversary than give gifts. And I'll also say, that the only piece of jewelry that Mike has ever given me is sitting on my left hand and he gave it to me 19 years ago when I pledged to love him forever. So imagine my surprise when I saw this bag sitting on the table after he went to work. I just sat and stared at it not believing it to be true. I finally found a way to open it and was blown away! I have secretly always wanted a Pandora charm bracelet but knew that they were expensive so I didn't even say anything about it. So my mouth just popped open when I saw a bracelet in this beautiful white box. It has one charm on it right now, but it means more to me than anything. It's a little house to represent the house that we are buying together after 3 years of renting and going through school. It symbolizes that we are ready to settle down and stop living in the "temporary". We are excited to paint and make this our home. That's why it is so special to see that charm on it. I was so excited about it that instead of going to bed (needed to sleep) I hopped on-line and started looking at all the different charms that are available. And yes, they are expensive. So I'll be building my bracelet slowly, a birthday gift here, a Christmas present there. I was really touched by his thoughtfulness and didn't even see this coming. I'm the luckiest girl in the world. I might even start liking Valentines day again.

Happy Valentines Day

I so badly wanted to go to Cord's preschool to see his little party, but once again, I worked and couldn't stay awake. He came home with his little box and had so much fun pulling out all his valentines. Mason was a little jealous and had come to realize today that Valentines in middle school is much different than in 5th grade. Reality bites sometimes! But I did really enjoy the Valentine that Cord had made for me.

I've been dragging my feet, but I guess it's time to get packing. Although we haven't closed on our house yet. We did decide that we needed to pack up the important things first, then we'll get to the other things. :) We were supposed to close on friday, but we are STILL waiting for the bank to get the paperwork to the title company so we can make this official. Our new house is empty, we have to be out of this one by the end of the month. Mike and I both have this weekend off to move so I sincerely hope we can get this moving along.





At least somebody thinks this process is fun.....I don't!

Middle School Champs

Today Brianna's school dance team competed in the Freedom Dance competition for all the schools. There were middle and high school teams there. Unfortunately I was sleeping so Daddy went to support her. I had seen her dance in all the basketball games so far so now it was his turn to see their amazing dance. He said that even though he doesn't know much about dance, he could tell that they totally rocked it. I guess even one of the judges was jaming out as they were dancing. They took first place in their division and then took the overall middle school grand champions. That's what all their hard work is all about. Think about all those 6 am saturday practices. I guess they paid off. She is really having a great year on this team!

Ouch

Poor baby! He has had an infected ingrown toe nail and finger for a couple of weeks. I've been putting neosporin on it every night but it's not getting better. So I finally took him into the Dr. They had to numb him up and dig it out. It was so hard to have to be the one holding him down as he was screaming with tears streaming down his face. He kept looking at me like "mom, how could you do this to me" (MOM GUILT). So he earned a BIG slurpee after we were done. By the evening he was feeling much better as he was soaking his foot in an epson salt bath while playing x-box.

Just keep swimming

The boys did swimming lessons again this month. Mason is still working toward his swimming merit badge and now that we are getting a pool I want Cord to learn how to survive in the water. Cord always has a great time and is making good progress. But I was really proud of Mason because he is conquering his fear of the deep water. His class did a lot of things in the deep and he is feeling really good about what he can do. Unfortunately the next session is full. I really hate to loose the momentum that he has so we may have to do a few private lessons to keep him going. It's good to see Mason doing something that he really likes.

Happy Birthday - 12 years and 38 days

OK, I'll admit it. I'm such a slacker. I do realize Mason's birthday was the end of December but we are just now getting around to having a friend party. We had celebrated with cousins and I secretly hoped that he would just forget about the promise to have a friend party in Vegas....but he didn't. So I got on-line to find a laser tag place in Vegas (and made Mike go check it out). And to be honest, I wasn't sure he had many friends here, but once we got to thinking and writing down friends, we discovered that he was really blessed with several really great friends. Mason was also very adament that he have a "laser" cake. So I found this idea on-line and Mason helped me make this amazing cake. I was worried about how to make it black without making it taste horrible so we tried this black food spray. It actually looked purple despite the many coats we put on it, but it was still amazing.

So we invited Nick, Collin, Adam, Noah, Caleb, and Langdon to come play laser tag with us. On the way there the boys played "ring tone - off" (like dance off) with their cell phones. Really??? 12 year old boys came up with this idea and had enough phones to play. They voted on who had the coolest ring tones. Whatever floats your boat. Once we got there (on a busy saturday night at 4:30) they told me the next available game was at 6:20. I had told parents to pick up kids at my house at 6:30 so we had to get flexible and creative. We notified all parents that we would be later than planned and found a Little Ceasers close by for dinner. As we were sitting on the patch of grass by the mall eating, the boys kept saying "We feel like HOBO's".

We got back to Laser Quest in time for the boys to play a few games then they geared up for the game. All of the boys came out sweaty and with big smiles so I guess it was a success. After we got back to the house Mason opened presents and we had cake/ ice cream. Then I took the boys home at 8:00. I guess I totally under-estimated how long this adventure would take and felt bad getting the boys home so late. But the best part of this is that Mason had a great day with lots of fun friends, and that I'm DONE with birthday parties for awhile. :)