Sharing Talents

Ciera participated in her school's talent show last Friday. She and her friend Lexi made up a dance to Taylor Swift's song "Picture to Burn". They have practiced for a few weeks and did a great job. I was so proud of Ciera for participating! There were between 20-30 acts all told, and many of them were really well done. Ciera and Lexi didn't get one of the four prizes they gave out, but they took 1st in my heart!!

UIL Competition 2012

Ciera participated in UIL (University Interscholastic League) again this year. She competed in the Oral Reading category. Students from all three Intermediate schools in the district competed in about 12 different areas... about 12 students from each grade competed in each category. Ciera's competition consisted of students preparing a poem of their choosing and then reading it for a panel of judges. They were judged on how well they read, with expression, enunciation, projection, etc. Immediately after the competition they had the awards ceremony. Ciera got third place! Two of her teammates got 2nd and 4th place too.She was so excited, and we were so proud of her! Congratulations Ciera!

We are still here!

I can't seem to find the time to post on the blog since New Year's Day! We are still here, and still busy as ever.
Some of the things we have been doing: going to the gym (one day they had Sumo Wrestling...), playing outside (that is one good thing about Texas winter... there are a lot of "spring" days), doing school work and church activities, and having a lot of fun. We also are keeping busy working. Dave is back to normal days where he leaves before the sun gets up and puts in a full day at the University. I have been babysitting a 1 1/2 year old boy once a week for a couple of months now, and I just started watching an 8 month old boy twice a week. I also now provide a "taxi" service for a group of kids from the elementary school to their mom's workplace across town 3-4 times a week. Next week my dance classes start up, and I have two classes going this time. I am going to become really busy!!
Ciera has her Oral Reading UIL competition this Thursday, and her school talent show this Friday, so hopefully I will have posts to do about those later on! January has already flown by, and I can hardly wait to see what this year holds for our family!

Happy New Year!

I hope that 2012 brings lots of happiness and joy for all of our friends and family!

Christmas 2011

Christmas vacation has been so wonderful this year. We have had so much fun together, and really had few problems. We spent so much time as a family, and it was such a great way to end the year.
For Christmas Eve, we had our usual clam chowder dinner (which was fabulous), then we had our program. Autumn danced while Chloe sang "Rudolph", Brooke read "Santa Mouse", Chloe read "A Charlie Brown Christmas", Ciera sang "Angels We Have Heard on High" and played "The Holly and The Ivy" on her french horn, I read "The Red Sweater" and Dave read "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and the nativity story from the scriptures. (I took videos of each of the girls parts, but didn't get any still pictures of them... Dave and I didn't want videos of us so we took still pictures... that is why there are no pictures of the girls doing their parts!) After we got the girls into bed, we waited for Santa to come. Ciera FINALLY fell asleep at 12:40 am.
Chloe woke up at 3:30 am, and woke all the kids up with her! They came in to wake us up, and we told them that we wouldn't get up until 5:00. They went out and played and waited (and came in to re-wake us several times), and we finally got up at 5:00 to open presents. We were done by 6:00, opened a few of the packages of toys, and Dave and I went back to sleep for about an hour before getting up to get ready for church. The girls each got a new pair of pajamas, and have been wearing them ALL THE TIME since they opened them! They are super silly girls and it was really fun to see how excited they got over all of their presents! It was a great day!
We talked a lot about the real reason for Christmas with our girls this year. We made a "Jesus Tree" out of paper where we wrote things that we know about our Savior on paper ornaments. We did it every day leading up to Christmas. It was full of wonderful things about our Savior. We also drew our own pictures of the birth of Jesus Christ. Each day we read a part of the story and drew a new part. One day, Mary and Joseph, one day the shepherds, one day the angel, etc. Christmas morning we added the baby Jesus to our drawings. It was really nice and our girls really enjoyed it.
We had a wonderful Christmas this year, and look forward to our new year together!

A Trip to the Fort Worth Zoo

On Wednesday, we went to the Fort Worth Zoo. It was a really fun day. The weather was sunny, albeit a little cold, the zoo was not at all crowded, and the animals were mostly cooperative! We walked around the entire zoo in 4 hours, then traveled home to eat dinner out at Cici's Pizza. It was a great day!

I guess I shouldn't have procrastinated...

We went to see Santa today. Yes. Four more days to see the big guy, and we were just getting around to it. Apparently so was everyone else. We drove 35 minutes to the Bass Pro Shop in Rockwall (where we went last year), and when we arrived, the woman at the front of the store (where you check your firearms...) said that the lines were so long that they were giving time slot passes for those interested in seeing Santa. She said the only time slot they had left was for 3 1/2 hours later. I wanted to see for myself. Maybe she had been given misinformation. Maybe there was going to be a Christmas miracle. Maybe there would really be time for my girls to see Santa. When we went down to see about it, they said all the tickets were completely gone. There was no time left. There was no Christmas miracle.
Autumn said, "We can't see Santa. But, we can ride in the elevator!!"
Chloe said, "Maybe we can go get ice cream instead." So I told them we would go get ice cream.
Brooke said, "That will make me feel better!!"
We did not get to see Santa. But we rode in a elevator and got ice cream. And my girls were happy. Maybe there was a little miracle after all. Merry Christmas.