Christmas 2017

Seriously glad to be to Christmas this year--with the month being jammed packed right up thru the 24th!  It was a nice Christmas here at home with just US!  Hallelujah!  We slept in--7:30 am--that was sleeping in for us:)  Opened presents and then headed out to see Jumangi at Harkins--my new most favorite movie!!!  HILARIOUS!!!  Then Carlie headed out for a week at Disneyland and Universal Studios with her BFF Kayleah--this was Kayleah's present from her parents.  Lucky Carlie.

New PJs and puppies!!!

Tatum got...A HEAD!!!  What?!
It's so she can learn how to fix her own dang hair!!!

"It's a Major Award"
Max has needed a lamp for his nightstand!

Nice Ethan...
JUMANGI was AWESOME!!!

Carlie & Kayla off on a grand adventure!

YAY!!!  She likes it!!!

A Christmas Story!!!

Now it is IMPOSSIBLE for me to pick my most favorite play that my kids have been in over the years but this play is definitely in my top 3 favorite OF ALL TIME!!!  Max was a STAR for sure.  He felt the pressure of this play for sure but rose up to the challenge and knocked it out of the park!!!

Out of the 11 performances, I watched 9 of them.  I couldn't stay away!!!  I was CRAZY PROUD of all these kids in this cast!  They pulled this performance together in 7 weeks.

I was a crazy woman the whole month of December making sure Max stayed healthy!  I was washing sheets weekly, towels every other day, oils/Vicks every night, etc...and HE STAYED HEALTHY and gave amazing performances EVERY DANG TIME!  Super sad/glad/relieved that's it's over.  LOVED EVERY SINGLE MINUTE of this experience.

I made the bunny slippers:)

Even our Elf got into the fun of this play!

Opening night--me with my
"You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!" shirt!

Max & Harrison (Little Brother-Randy)

Kristianna (Mrs. Shields) & Max

Ben (The Old Man) & Max

Mrs. Askins--5th grade teacher at CTA
She has taught both Max & Tatum:)

Papa Frank & Grandma Sherry

Kylan (Grover Dill), Jorian (Scut Farkus) & Max

Max & Hailey (Mom)

Adam (Schwartz), Max, & Grant (Goggles Kid)

Max & Noah (Jean Shepard)

The Deacons came out too!!!

The Parker Family

More fun at Higley Center for the Performing Arts!!!

Tyler (Flick), Max, & Adam (Scwartz)
The fellow Wimps!

Max & Ava (girlfriend for a scene:)

Max & Madison (Chief Elf)

Like I said, this was a CRAZY yet REWARDING experience that will always hold a special place in my heart.  Well done A Christmas Story cast.  You were all ROCKSTARS!!!  

23 Performances in 23 Days!!!

We had a CRAZY December to say the least!  We had 23 performances this month with our 4 kids--band concerts/choir concerts/youth symphony/Temple Light concerts/A Christmas Story.  And I'm NOT even counting the performances that we were called upon to perform in our church/stake meetings.

Here are a few pics and a video I grabbed in all the CRAZINESS!!!  (Yes!  I love my boys too!  For some reason, I didn't get any pics of them with their instruments!!!  Sorry boys:)

My most favorite part of the choir concerts at school--Carlie's singing solo.  She pretty much ROCKS!

Carlie's Solo at the Temple Lights

Heritage Choirs at the Temple

Tatum ROCKIN' the french horn thing!
This concert was a whopping 10 minutes:)
Not that I'm complaining:)

One of my MOST FAVORITE scenes in Max's play!!!
The photographer took this one especially for me:)
It's Ralphie winking at the audience right after he asks
Santa for the BB gun:)

Silent Night--Heritage Style

These "kids" have known each other and performed together for over 6 years now.  I almost cried at church watching them perform this--mostly because they are all seniors now!  I'm going to miss this crazy group of kids.  LOVE them to pieces.

Carlie & Kayleah

I've been recording these girls since they were 11.  Just LOVE listening to them.  These videos are just slightly better than their 11 year old videos:)

Max's Short Film!!! "Under-Bed"

Here it is!!!  This was the final project of an ASU film student--hope he got an "A."  It was a great learning experience for Max for sure.

UNDER BED from Ardez Studios on Vimeo.

December TRIES to kill me every year!!!

So I'm not sure why but it seems that when Chris leaves for the Pearl Harbor celebrations every year in December...ALL HELL breaks loose on ME!

This past week was hellacious to say the least.  Chris was gone, Max had tech rehearsal EVERY night until 11 pm for "A Christmas Story."  And Max was an emotional wreck!  The role he has in this play is hands down the most difficult/biggest role and he was sure feeling the pressure of it.  Every night I picked him up, he was in tears!  So he missed 2 days of school and I kept him home with me to drill lines and singing solos/parts and just helping him to RELAX.  I even stayed up until 1:30 am on Wednesday night emailing questions he had to the directors AND to type up an outline for him so he could see the flow of the play.  All my late nights paid off with the most AMAZING opening night I've ever seen!  I was there and seriously held my breath most of the time and I cried at the end of it because I was so dang proud of my boy (and exhaustion I'm sure was a big part of the tears too:)

Carlie's car broke down and so we were down a car--but thank goodness for Ethan's car.  $600 later, her car is all fixed!  Yay!  Merry Christmas to Carlie!  She's got a brand new alternator this year:)

Somewhere during the week, I missed the email regarding Tatum's Spelling Bee.  She had won her class Spelling Bee and had moved onto the school Spelling Bee.  The Spelling Bee was Friday morning at 9 am and of course I had a million other things to do that morning.  I was with Max on Thursday night for his opening night so I could not even practice with her.  I asked Ethan to help that night while I was with Max.  Apparently Ethan wasn't much help--Tatum "misspelled" a few words "on purpose" to see if he was even paying attention--NOPE!  So that was all the practice she got!  So feeling like the WORST mom in the world, I dropped her off and school Friday morning and told her that I LOVED her more than anything and no matter what the outcome, I would take her for a Circle K soda after school.  I left the school in tears--crying twice in a week?!  That's a rare occurrence for me.  Thank goodness for a good teacher/friend at the school.  While I was visiting teaching, I was getting text updates from Mr. Martin:

"Tatum is doing GREAT!"
"She's in the top 6 now!"
"Top 3 now!!!"
"Drats!  She missed her word!  Couldn't tell you what the word was.  It was too tough for me!"

So my little Miss Tatum placed 3rd in her school Spelling Bee!  (Which was PERFECT because the top 2 students advanced to district and I loathe the spelling lists they have to practice for that!)  She came in 3rd to two 6th grade boys.  Way to represent the girls AND the 5th graders!!!  CRAZY CRAZY proud of this girl!!!  I took her out to for Circle K and then to Dairy Queen after Max's play! Her teacher came to Max's play that night--Ms. Askins was Max's 5th grade teacher as well.  I even asked her what word Tatum had missed (because Tatum couldn't remember either) and Ms. Aksins had NO idea either!  So pretty good word to go out on right?!

So what seemed like the LONGEST week actually turned out pretty dang okay:
*Max's play has come together in the most amazing way
*Tatum won 3rd place in the school Spelling Bee
*Carlie has a car that runs again
*Ethan was asked on his first date!!!

Max, Ms. Askins, & Tatum

Celebratory Blizzard for the amazing Tatum Jane!!!

Ethan gets asked on his first date!!!

Okay!  Just to prove the CRAZINESS of the girls at Heritage...

Ethan was just asked to the Sadie Hawkin's dance.  This is a girl-ask-guy dance that won't happen until March 1, 2018.  Neither Ethan OR the girl who asked are even 16 yet but she was determined to get him asked before someone did.  (They will both be 16 by the dance:)

My sweet, unassuming, kind Ethan had NO idea how to even act--Carlie caught a recording as the set up was in the trunk of Ethan's car:)  LOVE this sweet boy of mine.  Now...HOW to answer???

December Piano Recital!

Poor Tatum.  She's the only one of my kids that I still force to do recitals--and she had to play in 2 quartets because of a last minute recital dropout:)  But she's a good sport AND a pretty darn good little pianist.  Way to go baby girl.  CRAZY proud of you!

Winter Formal 2017

So Carlie did a little something CRAZY this year and asked a boy she barely knew--who goes to a different school even!--to her Winter Formal at Heritage.  Going to a smaller school has its advantages and disadvantages for sure.

*Advantage--you are 99% likely to be asked to all school dances--which does NOT happen at the bigger schools.

*Disadvantage--there are more girls than boys at this school so the girls go crazy and start asking in September for this December dance!  

So Carlie refused to be a "crazy" girl and asked someone outside her school to this dance.  This boy she asked is actually the son of my husband's boss:)  They've kinda known each other over the years--Chris has been working for the same boss for over 20 years now--they follow each other on Instagram and stuff like that.  

So once again, I forgot to take a picture of the cute poster Carlie made for Docker.  Her school mascot is the "Heritage Hero" so it was something to the effect of "Would you be my Hero for a night?"  She delivered it in person and everything--I went and sat in the car and watched:)  It was fun.

He responded with the Wonder Woman cape:

She was in a big group this year with 9 couples--4 other girls had asked guys from other schools so Docker was not the only outsider:)  

She's likes TALL guys:)

See what I mean?

Carlie and her BFF Kayleah who FINALLY made the switch to Heritage for her Senior year.  Carlie just LOVES having her there!