Christmas Dance Recital

The girls had a great recital!

Jasmine did pretty well in her dance. She didn't do all the steps but she is just so precious that it was cute anyway. Her little friend lost her tap shoe at the very beginning but she was a trooper and kept dancing with one shoe.

You know how there is always one little girl in the dance class that all the other little girls watch? Well, Alison is that one. She knew all the steps and all the other kids were following her. All except Lizzie. She knew almost all of the dance too.

Jasmine is on the bottom right.

Alison is the top left and Lizzie is second from the left on the bottom.
The girls all got a flower from their Dad after their recital. Jasmine was so cute, when Craig gave her the carnation Jasmine said "For Me?!?!". So cute!

What the......

Snow!!!!!!!!!

Yep!  We have snow in St. George!  It is the first (and hopefully only) snow storm of the season.  We actually get one good snow storm every year but this is the earliest it has ever come.

The kids are having a great time and it should be gone at the end of the week.  I really, really hope it will be anyway.

Mission Reunion

This weekend we took a quick trip to Salt Lake for Craig's Mission Reunion.  His Mission President is visiting the States clear from Switzerland so it was a good time to get together.  Unfortunately none of his companions made it there so he was kind of bummed but we still had a good time.

Our drive up to Salt Lake was an adventure.  It started snowing and we had blizzard like conditions and super icy roads.  We saw tons of slide-offs and ever a few roll-overs.  Luckily we were in the Jeep so everything was great for us. (Ya Jeep!)

Greatest Cookies EVER!

Tequila Cookies
I know it's a little early, but it is time to start baking for the holidays.
Christmas Cookies
1 cup of water
1 tsp baking soda
1 cup of sugar
1 tsp salt
1 cup of brown sugar
Lemon juice
4 large eggs
1 cup nuts
2 cups of dried fruit
1 bottle Patron Silver Tequila
Sample the Patron to check quality. Take a large bowl, check the Patron again to be sure it is of the highest quality, pour one level cup and drink. Better if chilled first.
Turn on the electric mixer. Beat one cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl. Add one teaspoon of sugar. Beat again.
At this point it's best to make sure the Patron is still OK, try another chilled cup just in case.Turn off the mixerer thingy.
Break 2 leggs and add to the bowl and chuckin the cup of dried fruit.
Pick the frigging fruit off floor. Mix on the turn er. If the fried druit gets stuck in the beaterers just pry it loose with a drewscriver.
Sample the Patron to check for tonsisticity. Next, sift two cups of salt, or something.
Check the Patron. Now shift the lemon juice and strain your nuts.
Add one table. Add a spoon of sugar, or somefink. Whatever you can find. Greash the oven. Turn the cake tin 360 degrees and try not to fall over. Don't forget to bean off the turner.
Finally, throw the bowl through the window, finish the Patron and make sure to put the stove in the dishwasher.
CHERRY MISTMAS

Tooth Fairy

Alison lost her first tooth!  She has been a little impatient to lose her teeth because one of her best friends has lost six or seven teeth already!  

This happened while I was at the church for Enrichment night.  Alison was already in bed asleep when I got home (I know, a total shocker!).  She must have been ready for the tooth fairy to come.  Luckily, the tooth fairy made it to our house and left a shiny.... more like wrinkled old dollar bill.

At four o'clock in the morning Alison came into my room with her wonderful tooth fairy dollar.  She is just so exited.  I asked her what she wanted to buy with her dollar and she said that she just wants to save it.  Smart kid! 

Thanksgiving Weekend

We spent lots of time in the desert this weekend.  After stuffing ourselves on Thanksgiving day, we spent the rest of the weekend getting some fresh air.

Of course this involved jeeping and Steven and his family brought their four-wheeler.  I actually did some driving and it was scary and fun all at the same time. 

Alison and Briana playing in one of the holes.  These holes were all over the place and the kids had tons of fun playing in them.

Jasmine played in these little holes with her cousin Anne.

Lizzie and Carissa found this rock that looked like a chair.  The kids had so much fun playing with their cousins.  I went on a little hiking expedition with my girls and their cousin Briana.  We climbed up the rocks and ended up on top WAY above our little picnic site.  My girls are quite the little hikers! 

Joys of a Jeep

Yes, I am the only person alive that blogs about my car.  But my car is more than just a car, it is my Husband's favorite toy!!!!  Here is Craig taking it to the extreme.  By the way, I was not with him for this little outing,  I probably would have had a heart attack.  He was with his Friend Devon.  What a great toy!  The girls and I do get to go out with him on less dramatic trails and it is a lot of fun.  

Halloween

Tinker bell came to our house!  Oh wait, that is Jasmine.  She is my cute little fairy.

Lizzie is Hanna Montana.  I got her a great wig which she wore to all the parties this week but on Halloween night she didn't want to wear it.  By the way, Lizzie is our little poser.  I didn't tell her how to stand or anything.

Alison is a White Fairy.  After we watched Disney's "Fairies"  she decided that she was Queen Clarion.  Alison had a white wig but she didn't wear it for trick-or-treating either.  That was fine with me.  The wigs kind of hung in their faces and I would rather have them able to see and be a bit safer running around the streets at night.

Aren't they cute?!

Ta Da!

Hey all! I FINALLY figured out how to get these cute backgrounds on my blog. I don't know why it was so hard for me to get! Well, now I can have a cute blog like the rest of you!

When in Rome...

September 1st.

Surprise, we went to do some business with a CNG company in Italy and got to do a little sightseeing in Rome and Venice while we were there. We were in Regio Amelia for most of the week. This is a little church in the old town area. As far as the old and also more touristy places go, we liked Regio Amelia the best. It was the cleanest and more real and quaint than Rome and Venice, probably because it isn't over run with tourists but is more for the locals instead. We went out on Wednesday night, which in Italy is like an extra Friday night, and got to hang out with some locals. The best meal I had was also here in Regio Amelia, Salmon pasta, Yum!

This is part of the ancient city of Rome.

Here we are at a little cafe sitting at a table on the sidewalk. Most if not all of the places to eat had tables out on the sidewalk or even in the street. We paid 4 euro for the Cokes that we had here, that's 6 US Dollars for two teeny tiny, itty bitty, Cokes!

San Pietro (St. Peter in English) in the Vatican City. Designed and partially built by Michelangelo (he died before it was finished) it is the largest dome in Rome. I'm telling you, it is big! This is where the Pope goes to speak to the people.
The inside of St. Peter. OK, this place is massive. In modern terms it probably isn't that big but considering that it was built in the 1600s just blew our minds. The thing in the middle is St. Peter's Basilica. Supposedly the body of Peter (the apostle Peter from the bible) is under that.

The Plaza in front of St. Peter.

This is a real live castle!

The Colosseum at sunset (that is why it is so orange). This place is amazing just because it is so very, VERY old.

The inside of the Colosseum. On the bottom there are passageways and tunnels. So the ground of the Colosseum actually had tunnels underneath for moving that gladiators and animals. It was covered with a wooden "floor" and that was covered in sand.

A might tiger! Actually just a kitty but I bet that kitty didn't have to pay 11 euro to get in like we did!

Here is a pic of the outside again but if you look real close you can see how it is crumbling were they have reinforced the structure with brick. There is only about 40% of the structure remaining today.

The Vatican Museum was big and full of naked art! well, not all of the art was naked but there sure was a lot of it.

Not naked art but a real live mummy!

Venice

On our trip to Italy we went to Venice via train. We were in Venice Friday September 5th and Saturday the 6th then went back to Rome on Sunday.

This is one of my favorite pictures of the rivers in Venice (above). I don't really know if you would call them rivers or canals. It was actually sea water that smelled like dead fish.

Craig and I over the big river in Venice.

St. Mark's in Venice. I love this picture with the crowds and the girl in the black dress running. St. Mark's was beautiful with a gold mosaic ceiling and a Tile floor that Craig couldn't take his eyes off of. OK, so the floors were pretty great too. They are tiles that create different patterns and illusions. Unfortunately they don't allow people to take pictures inside.

Here are two gondolas in the big river. The actually move around with an oar, not a long pole like everyone thinks. The cool thing is that they only use the oar on one side of the boat but they manage to keep the boat going straight. We were going to take a gondola ride but it was WAY overpriced. $120 for a 20 minute ride! And it was even more after sunset.

This is a smaller canal and also more typical.

The "streets" of Venice. The doors of these buildings came right to the water and they were rotting away at the bottom. It made me wonder how people got inside.

Jeeping in the desert

So this is what I drive! Well, some of the time. Remember those commercials where the two people try to get ready first so they can drive the new car? Yeah, its like that at my house.

My jeep is actually white. We just haven't taken any pictures yet. It is so fun to take out to the desert. We took it out this weekend and drove up the side of a mountain quite literally. The funny thing is that its not going up that is scary, its coming down.

Anyway, we love our new jeep!

Memory Lane

Here is a fun little game... leave a comment on my blog of a memory that you and I have had together. It doesn't matter if you've known me for a short time or a long time, anything that you remember!

Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It is pretty funny to read the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you are playing and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. On your mark... get set... blog those memories!

Splashin' Cousins

Playing in the water is so much fun, especially when it is 105 outside!

We love the splash park by the library! It has a really neat river for kids to play in. The best part is that kids can play in a river without the mud factor. My girls and their cousins had a great time plugging up the river with their bodies so that the water would get really big.

By the way, it was a week of lots of girls! Craig and Steven where busy most of the time so it was Laura and me with 6 girls and 1 boy. Poor guy! Thats OK because Alison had a blast with Don and he played really well with her.

My First Race

Well, here it is, my first race EVER! The Midnight 5K.

(To get a closer look at the scrapbook page just click on it!)


Craig and the kids came to cheer me on even though Lizzi fell asleep. The race was actually a bit more challenging than I thought it would be. It was super dark outside because the moon didn't come out. We all had little LED headlamps but sometimes that didn't help much. We were running through a golf course and it was ALL HILLS! Nothing flat! Besides the fact that it wore me out almost instantly, the hills would suddenly pop up and I ended up tripping over them.

Overall, this was a great experience and I would do it again in a heartbeat. In fact I am probably going to do the next 10K I can find!

Race results: I took 27th place in the womens overall ( out of 115) and 13th in my age group (25-29).