Gymnasics and other stuff

It seems like I have a lot of pictures of this little girl sleeping but this one is just to cute. Look at how long those eyelashes are I wish I had them.

Gracie loves her gymnastics and coach Billie was leaving and invited us to come to a Friday gymnastics day. Grace really didn't want to do the high wall but coach Billie convinced her to do it and she did and loved it.

 This is Gracie's favorite part of gymnastics. The rope swing she use to be afraid of it but now she asks to go higher and faster.

Gracie loves the trampoline as well she has also started doing trips like doing the splits on the trampoline. Since it was Billies last day and we thought that big wigs where not there yet. They use to let the little kids use the skate raps as slides. However last year that became a big no no they said because a kid could cut himself if a screw wasn't all the way down. Anyway we got a few good slides in before we got in trouble.

Gracie loves coach Billies daughter Ellie. She actually calls Ellie coach Ellie. After Gymnastics they decided to chillax and eat the suckers together. After gymnastics as we where driving home we passed Firehouse subs and Gracie asked if we could have lunch at meatballs. This is my only child who would ever eat here such a silly girl.

 The day after we got back from Tuscon Ryan got an award at school. Normally the kids don't know about it until they call their name at the assembly but his teacher had told him about it. Gracie was so tired but she was happy to be with me since I had kind of pawned her off on people the week before and since I was gone before she woke up the day before so she really wasn't that happy with me.

Gracie making a smile face and a silly face according to her.

For our Ward Christmas Party they asked anyone who played a instrument to come and play. Ryan went and only knew how to play the chorus of Jingle Bells but I was proud of him for doing it.

This little girl is always surprising me. I had forgotten to make her necklace that went with her Christmas dress so I started working on it one night and she wanted to do it and sure enough she strung every dang bead.

Gracie loves these Jamberry nails however they don't stay on her nails for very long. She LOVES her gymnastics nails. If I could get them in little kid sizes it would be better but I can't so we are out of the gymnastics nails for now.

The week before Christmas this little girl got sick. They doctors office told us to go to the ER we didn't end up staying forever and daddy ended up coming and staying with us till they let us come home. This was the beginning of the end for our family. The good news is that we did have a break from the sickness for Christmas but more on that later.

4th Grade Field Trip

I was able to be a chaperone on the 4th grade field trip to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. It was a very long day but it was fun and I actually did learn something. We we had 5 kids in our group Ryan and his friend James where in my group. One of the main jobs was I had to sit next to Ryan on the bus. He told his teacher Ms. Pope he wanted to sit next to her however she didn't want to hear the play by play of every freeway we would go on.

This all happened the Thursday after my super crazy weekend but I was still happy to be going with this kid. With new rules from the school district you can't take school buses out of the county lines so they had to get charter buses.

The three 4th grade classes where split into 3 groups and our group had the change to go to the class first. We learned that the Sonora dessert takes in part of Mexico. We learned about turtles and why they can't leave their shells, we where able to see a Red Tailed Hawk.

After he took the hawk out of the cage it almost pooped on a group of girls. It was funny to see how fast those girls moved.

Ryan actually wanted to get a picture like the other kids where doing. He was very scared at first and almost backed out but I was proud of him for doing it anyway. We got back to the school right around 4:30. All in all it was a good day.

December 2014

My littles one night before bedtime

Nana posted this picture on her facebook page

So the kids decided to copy Nana. They thought they where pretty funny and cute.

Some big news happened in Cameron's life. He came home from school with the biggest smile ever and a little necklace around his neck.

He FINALLY lost one of his two front teeth. His two big kid teeth had already came in behind his baby teeth. I think the only reason why his tooth was loose was because he hit it on something. After going to the dentist we found out that his other tooth is going to need a little help coming out. Since his other two teeth came in behind the baby teeth there was nothing to kill the root of the baby tooth and push it out. So in February unless by some miracle of a chance it comes out. 

Cameron loved the idea of the tooth fairy coming and bringing him money like his brother has gotten however he really didn't want the tooth fairy to take it. I said well that's not the way it normally works but maybe you can write her a letter and see what happens. He went to bed but apparently he kept playing with the tooth and lost it. He was devastated and cried but the tooth fairy gave him the dollar and responded to his note telling him not to be sad about loosing his tooth that hopefully he can find it and if not he will have other teeth to loose. 

We spent some time at Grandma Birds house and she had some fun gingerbread men for the kids to decorate.

The kids did so good with decorating the little people as they called them. This is hopefully something that they will remember for a long time and we may have to do this every year. 

The first weekend in December was Cameron's EVMCO Christmas concert. This was Thursday night at the dress rehearsal. This year they had choreography along with the three songs they sang. One Little Shepard, Up On the House Top, and Snowflake.

Cameron did so good and shockingly enough he wore the white gloves. They wanted the kids to ware them so that you can see the movements better from the audience. He sang his little heart out and I was so very proud of him.

 I was the Rehearsal Coordinator this year for the Young Singers. It was defiantly a learning experience and I loved every minuet of it and pray that I will be able to do it again next semester. This year we had 89 Young Singers that we needed to make sure didn't kill each other or get hurt and keep entertained. for two days worth concerts.

Nana and Papa finally made it down for his concert. Well Papa has been here for one but missed one due to illness. Grandma Matthews and Hollie as well as Baba, Summer and Camille came to but their picture didn't turn out it was really blurry.

 

The first weekend in December was a very busy one for this mommy. Not only did we have 4 concerts in two days but the morning of the Saturday we had Breakfast with Santa at the school. I had to get the doughnut and help at that as well as do the money for the holiday house. Nana and Papa where able to come with us so the kids thought that was really fun. I love this picture of Cameron and Gracie. That little girl loves her brother most of the time. 

These where all taken after Santa left. None of my kids wanted to sit on Santas lap surprise surprise.

Cameron is the man!

Nana somehow got Gracie to sit on Santa's lap. Nana had to sit on him first but she did it without crying. Our Santa ROCKS by the way he comes every year and is the real thing.

Not like we were not buys enough we told the kids that when Nana and Papa where here we could go and get a Christmas tree. After breakfast with Santa we headed to Home Depot I was really we could find a tree we liked at our first stop and we did. We didn't get it decorated for another few days but the kids where happy that Nana and Papa came with us to get our tree.

After that we headed to Grandma Birds to eat and hang out till it was time to go to Cameron's concert. Gracie and Nana made an awesome gingerbread house. We had enough for the boys to do but they really where not interested.

November 2014

 These pictures of Grace and her daddy are so funny. Gracie was being a stinker and I was at work and finally she fell asleep. However the only way she fell asleep was holding on to daddy.

Gracie and Daddy chilling out before bed. You can see we have a little problem with electronics sometimes. It's a good thing they are cute.

 

This has a little bit of a story. I have been drooling over these Christmas stockings at Pottery Barn for a few years now. I loved that you could get an angle one and have it personalized. If I ordered it by the time it was all said and done it would be $40.00 a stocking and that is hard to justify. I was shopping at Down East Basic and they have a lot of returned embroidered stuff.  I saw the stockings and thought I would take a chance. They had 16 hooks with at least 10-12 stockings per hanger. I went through every single one and couldn't find one of my kids name. I did see a lot of angel ones so I kept thinking hey maybe I will get lucky. The very last hook and the very last stocking was this my Emily stocking. I literally started crying right in the store. I was so happy, a few weeks later I went and just bought some cute ones with the wrong names on it and had a lady at work fix it for them. 

 My little Cameron is so sweet. We have family dinners every other week and its nice so that all the kids can see each other. Cameron went over to Jenny and asked if he could hold Shelby. Shelby is getting a little bigger and I told him that she may not want to be held. So he plopped himself down next to Jenny and she put Shelby on his lap. The look that he is giving her and the look she is giving him is so sweet.

I love it when these little ones want me to hold them. I have to remind myself sometimes to sit down and hold them because they are not going to stay little for long and the everything else can wait.

I LOVE November! Not only because it is getting closer to the holidays but also because its Time out for Women. Grandma and I have gone every year since it started except for two. This year we turned into a girls weekend. We got a hotel room near the airport so it was right on the light rail. Since they don't have a lot of food choices right around there we took the Sky Train to the airport since they have a Joes BBQ as well as a Smash Burger and a few other choices. Then we took the light rail to the convention center. It was such a nice relaxing weekend.

 Red Robin family night. It's funny that most of my family was in ASU gear. Love this little family of mine.

 These boys are a little silly. They like to hang around in undies and they became very resourceful with a way to watch a movie. They hung their Galaxy's from the top bunk and ate a snack.

 Gracie LOVES gymnastics! She really loves to go at night with the big kids. The girls do gymnastics for two hours so they go in for a 10 minuet snack. Gracie went to gymnastics with grandma and was so excited to go and eat snack with the girls. Ryan has come a long way since his time as a little devil at gymnastics. He is now a level 2 and a monkey. He loves the monkey bars so much he usually has blisters since he plays on them a lot at school.

 

Gracie loves to help daddy count money. He gets the coin jar down every once in a while and Gracie thinks its great. She has actually gotten really good with sorting money. Who doesn't love baby toes. She isn't much of a baby anymore, we bought some Jamberry nails during Ellen's party and so we decided to get some for Thanksgiving. She calls these her turkey toes. 

This little girl is just like her daddy. She has a major sweet tooth and LOVES chocolate. 

 Everyone always gets excited during fundraiser time. If they sell 10 boxes of cookies they get to go on the game truck. It is really cool it has 8 or so screens with all the gaming systems. Then it's time to silly string the principal. Mr. Comberlege had a meeting to go to that night and was dressed up that's why he has a jacket on. It was really fun to see how excited these kids got.

 Coach Billie has been so good for Gracie. Grace loves gymnastics so much all she ever wants to do is go to gymnastics. 

Cameron was so excited that he finally got to do the Turkey Trot this year. I wasn't able to see Ryan this year because I had to go to work.  I was so proud of him he ran most of the mile and he even did it with his hat on. He was so proud of himself.

I looked over the other day and saw this little monkey climb on the stove to sneak some cookies. BUSTED Mr. Cameron!
Thanksgiving was at Nathan and Jenny's again and Gracie had a super cute Turkey outfit that we got at Sams Club. I have to admit it is kind of fun dressing her up in all the cute little outfits. 

Daddy with baby Shelby on Thanksgiving. We had way to much food as normal. We are talking about 12 different pies.To say we where full is an understatement. 

Gracie gets a little silly sometimes as you can see by her silly faces. 

 

I was able to suprise Blaine with a trip to Las Vegas. It was so nice to get away for a couple of nights just the two of us. We left early morning black Friday. We stayed at the Paris hotel right in the middle of the strip. We walked a lot like you normally do in Vegas.

I knew they had a Sprinkles in Vegas so we found it. It was even better when I saw they had the Sprinkles Ice Cream. Now that is some good stuff that they need to start selling in stores. I would be their number on buyer. It was also cool cuz they had the Sprinkles ATM. We didn't buy anything from it but if they where closed it would have been something I used. 

 The best part of the trip is I had found tickets to Jeff Dunham. Blaine and I think he is so funny and he had just started his run at Planet Hollywood. Blaine knew that I had tickets to a show but I refused to tell him what show. Was was sure that we where seeing O at the Bellagio since we where right across the street from it and I talk about how good it was. He figured since we where in Vegas that I should tell him. The thing is I haven't ever really been able to surprise him with anything he always figures it out or I finally just give in and tell him. Not this time I was able to keep it a surprise will we walked into the hotel. I think he was happy so it turned out to be a good night and we had great seats.

 Now that is what you called a blinged out car. This was one of Liberace's pride and joy. They said over 1 million crystals on this car it was really neat to see. It was such a nice relaxing weekend we will defiantly have to do this again sometime. It may take us a few years to get back but we will be back.