"I Like Pie"

Felicity celebrated her 11th birthday last month with a little family party. For her birthday she wanted to go to the mall and go shopping - especially to Claire's and Bath and Body Works. So that is what we did. I took her to the mall and for 2 hours we went shopping. After picking out her birthday outfit (green fleece jacket, green shirt and new jeans - all on clearance - she's wearing it in her pictures) she spent awhile in Claire's trying to convince me to let her buy some make-up. Sorry babe, maybe next year. She finally settled on a couple of lip gloss sets (her purchase, not mine). Then we went to Bath and Body works where we sampled some smelly-goods, but didn't get anything.

We went out to dinner Saturday night at one of our favorite restaurants - Lissy's choice. It is Japanese fusion restaurant owned by our home teacher where Shawn likes to get Sushi. This time we sat at the tables that have a grill built into the center of them and were able to grill our meats right at our table. The girls had fun watching that, since Shawn and I did all the actual grilling.

Felicity also wanted to make her own birthday cake this year, so I helped her make that on Sunday afternoon. One of her favorite things to say is, “I like pie.” Don’t ask me why – I don’t know where it came from. She just thinks it’s funny. Anyway since she “likes pie” and her favorite color is green she decided to make a lime pie. It was a simple recipe with Jell-o, cool whip, and a graham cracker crust so it was perfect for her to make and it turned out to be quite refreshing.She got some things for her room - new curtains, a chandelier mirror, an "F" paperweight - some sweet homemade presents from her sisters, a Tinkerbell doll, a new set of markers, cards and $ from her grandparents (always a hit! - she even got a box of chocolates this year, which she gobbled up right away!), a new dictionary, a Harry Potter Clue game and some accessories for her ZhuZhu pet.

She looks so grown up in this picture for some reason - maybe it's the hair-flipping :)


Here's a good shot of the braces - complete with green rubber bands, of course.

Watching the antics of a ZhuZhu pet - don't you all wish you had a mechanical hamster that made sounds like a toilet flushing?

Brave Girl and Proud Mom

On Monday for family home evening we had a quick lesson from the “For the Strength of Youth" pamphlet about watching movies and listening to music that is appropriate. I guess the girls were dancing to a popular song (Tik Tok) in their hip-hop dance class and they asked me about some of the lyrics and so we talked a little about the song. (It has references to getting drunk, alcohol, etc.)Felicity and Lydia decided that that particular song probably wasn’t appropriate and Felicity told her dance teacher last night that she didn’t think the song sent a good message to the young women in the class. Without hesitation, her teacher told her they wouldn’t dance to it any more. I think Felicity was pretty nervous, but I was so proud of her for standing up for her values and so grateful that her teacher responded the way she did.

Mirror Craft

Here is my one craft I completed this month - and it was super easy. I started with a $5 mirror I picked up at Tai Pan during my trip to Salt Lake.Then I used my Cricut to cut out a black, vinyl chandelier and stuck it in the middle of the mirror. Voila! Cute and easy decoration for Lissy's "Paris" bedroom.
She's been wanting it for awhile now and I finally got it done for her birthday. If you attempt to try this at home - make sure you don't stick the vinyl on sideways the first time (like I did) or you will have to do it twice (like I did).

Crazy Hair Day 2010

Every year at the girls' school they have a Crazy Hair Day. Here are this year's creations. Lissy slept in a few curlers and attached a doll pillow and blanket to her hair and went with “Bed Head.” Lydia slept in lots of little braids to make it kinky and then put lots of bows and a few toothbrushes in her hair. Evie also slept in curlers and wanted her hair in a cone shape (we used a Styrofoam cup under it to hold it up) and attached some Littlest Pet Shop toys to it.Evelyn won a prize for being the girl with the craziest hair in her classroom – a giant pixie stick. By the way, Evie's face makes me laugh. She looks like a Who from a Dr. Seuss book or something.

Where's Evie?

You know the Where's Waldo books? Well, for the past couple of weeks, that's what Evie's room has reminded me of. One day I walked in and literally could not find her. Can you? I promise, she's in there somewhere. And the spot of beige carpet? That's the only carpet you could see. And this is just one corner of her room! We told her we couldn't tuck her in anymore because her room was too messy. We told her no more Wii, dance, karate or playing with friends until her room was cleaned. Then the magic motivator came. An invitation to a friend's birthday party. We went and got a cool gift. We told her she couldn't go unless her room was clean. Well, it took a couple days, an hour of "professional consultation" from mommy, but she finally got it clean. She was 20 minutes late to the party, but the room was finally clean! Thank goodness for birthday parties....

Happy New Year!

We had a fun little party last night with 2 couples from Shawn's work. We had some yummy food, played lots of Beatles RockBand and BandHero, and lit off fireworks at midnight. We got to bed about 1:30 and didn't get up until about 10:30. The kids were up earlier though.

We also had a great Christmas - very relaxed with lots of new Wii games being played. On Christmas Eve we went and saw "Where the Wild Things Are", had dinner at our home teacher's Japanese restaurant (Shawn loves their sushi), and looked at Christmas lights on the way home. At home we let the kids open their jammies, read the Christmas story from Luke and then left cookies out for Santa. Santa brought our family 3 games for the Wii - RockBand2, Beatles RockBand and Mario Kart. We all like to play them together and our Band skills are coming along quite well. The girls have also been doing lots of reading over the break - Felicity is reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Lydia has started the Magyk series (she is on book 2), and Evelyn finished a 5th grade level book in a couple of days(Franny K. Stein). I have been working on getting primary stuff ready for next year. Shawn has been doing some projects around the house - putting up Lydia's full-length mirror and the girls magnet strips that they got for Christmas, using his new snow blower, and hauling decoration boxes up and back down the stairs.

Today we woke up to a couple new inches of snow and it is still falling, so we may try to stay home today. We are doing laundry and will probably watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I hope to go through our files and shred old papers and get things ready for tax time too.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you! We have enjoyed reading your Christmas cards and messages. We hope you are all safe in your travels and have a truly blessed holiday season with friends and family!

Things here have been SUPER busy the last two months - that's my excuse for not blogging. However, I just couldn't stand to see the Halloween pictures as the most current post anymore. Here's a quick run-down:
- Lauri's get-away to Salt Lake with her friend Melissa
- Hosting Thanksgiving for Lauri's side of the family
- Lauri's 2 month tooth-ache that ended in a root canal today (well, actually, my dentist couldn't even finish the root canal yet)
- Lydia's 3rd grade Christmas program
- Felicity got braces
- Evelyn's first grade musical play - Melton the Warm-hearted Snowman
- 2 class Christmas parties
- Shawn put together our ward choir Christmas program
- The Stake Christmas music fireside
- Christmas planning and shopping
- Shawn took on directing the 5th grade play - Romeo and Juliet. Rehearsals start in January and Felicity got the part of Lady Capulet
- All three girls had their Christmas dance recital
- Getting ready for the new year in primary
- School, church, work, volunteering, a few minor illnesses and life in general