Victoria's 2nd Quilt

Victoria just blows my mind!

Before I left, I showed Mom the colors I was doing in the baby's room. Victoria then looked through different patterns and then got my opinion as to the one I liked best.

She then spent the entire weekend, while Chris & I were in Vegas for the race, sewing away. She pretty much worked on it for 3 days straight and didn't want to do much of anything else - which left Christianna bored on more than one occasion!

When we got back, I asked if she got her homework finished and she gave me that "uh oh.." look. The conversation went something like this:

Mom: "Did you get all your homework done?"

Victoria: "Ummmm....no....but I just wanted to keep sewing the quilt!"

Grandma: "I understand honey (because many things are put aside when she is quilting)...but you should have been honest with me."

So a little honesty lesson was inserted here - but it was understood how badly she wanted to finish the quilt before we got back! She just loves to quilt!

She finished her homework - she did have most of it done though.

Then we got a picture of her passion!

I so love it!!!
All that is left is the back and we are hoping to have her spend time at Grandma's in June so she can get it all finished.

Mutual Ice Skating

Tonight we spent my birthday having a blast ice skating with the young men and women. We took everyone up to the University of Utah rink. Some may think I was a little crazy for skating while pregnant - but I love to skate and didn't want to sit this fun activity out! That is one thing about me - just hate to be left out. (Just ask Chris, he'll tell you!)

This here is a picture of some of the leaders.

This is our awesome Bishop! (He didn't skate though...party pooper!)

(Don't let this picture fool you - Liz had a good time and wasn't on her phone all night.)

My girls just LOVE to skate! They were so excited to be able to come with us on this activity. They both have only skated a few times in their lives, but they picked it up so fast.

Once Christianna and I took a couple trips around together, she had enough confidence to just go at it alone!

I think this was taken right after I had fallen on mybackside.

It wasn't my fault - entirely! I was skating in the direction we were supposed to be going and I had my camera out taking some pictures of the youth. Well, these 3 younger kids came from the wrong direction and totally cut me off! I tried to stop, but instead fell. Hey - it was the first and ONLY time I fell too. My little camera totally broke. As I was looking at it, a couple YW came up and told me that that little group of kids went off the ice chatting with themselves and said "You totally made that old lady fall!"

NICE!!! AND HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!! Do you think 32 is "old?"

Anyway - they came up and apologized to me later on about the old lady comment. I am still bugged that my camera broke.

Here I am with Liz and Jessica - the most wonderful counselor EVER!!!

I may be explaing to Jazzen that his head gear isn't appropriate and that he should put it back on the ice....

....what do you think?

Looking at these pictures totally made me cackle - LOUDLY.

Chris getting ready for his big move...

...ooops!!!!!

Isn't it great that he can laugh at himself??? (That's why I didn't feel too bad laughing too.)

I just had to include this picture of Christianna's backside. In learning to skate without me, she fell a few times. She just got a little wet :-)

Here are a few of our fearless leaders. Peter, Sylvia and Nelson.

Not sure what really happened here - when I went to investigate, the story sounded a little fishy.

And thus ends another fantastic activity with our youth!

Today Chris and I were able to go to a special program that the Red Pod had put together. It was called "The Melting Pot of the World."

Victoria's class started off with reading a poem. They also had some teachers talk about their native land. We learned a lot from Mr. Ghafarri and all he sacrificed to come to America for a better life and education. The other teachers also shared where their ancestors were from. It was really neat to learn about them. It was also great for the kids to learn how people can be different and from different places and still work together in our great nation.

Christianna's class sang the Star Spangled Banner. She had been practicing the song at the house for weeks. Apparently the shower has some awesome acoustics! Watch the video of them singing - it is cute.

Good Deeds!

So Victoria just came inside and told me this:

"Mom! There were these boys walking down the street and I saw them ripping open the leaf bags and throwing it on the street. So I went and hid behind a car and when they walked by, I jumped out just as they were going to go to another one & yelled,

'Hey! Leave the bags alone!!'

and they took off running like crazy."

I then asked the girls if they could move the bag from the road and if they would like to put the leaves in a new bag. They said "SURE" and went to work.

I definitely have the 2 greatest daughters in the world!

Halloween 2009

This post will have lots of pictures. Our Halloween celebrations went over 3 days!!! So instead of 3 separate scary posts - I have them all together.

I will start off with the pumpkins. We actually carved them at about 6 pm on Halloween night. Better late than never, right?

The Witch - by Victoria

The Scary Faced Pumpkin- by Christianna

It all started on Oct. 24th. Laycee, our cute neighbor, had a special kids Halloween Party at her house. We were watching the boys while Heather & Aaron were at the Utah game. So we have here, a Renaissance Princess, 2 awesome ninjas & Laura Ingall's.

On Thursday, Oct. 29th we had our Ward Trunk or Treat. Guess what! Chris went this year as a.........COP! Shocker, right? The kids really like the flashing lights & police stuff. Actually, the lights were on as I was taking the picture, but it snapped it at the precise moment when they flashed off.
Here are the girls together: Christianna, Laycee & Victoria. You may have noticed that Christianna is in a different costume. Well, we had found out from Heather that a little costume shop up the road had princess costumes on sale. I was thinking "Awesome, cheap dress-ups!" and Christianna thought, "Awesome, I can be an actual Disney Princess for Halloween!"
Hence, the wardrobe change.

The next day we had the school Halloween parade & parties.

Here is Christianna with her cute friend Abby. They take all the kids and march them through the entire school. It is always fun to see what the teachers are going to do.

This here is Mr. Olsen, Victoria's 4th grade teacher.
Funny guy!

Victoria really wanted to go as Laura Ingall's. She loves to watch that show. I think it is because Laura has lots of freckles, just like my cute Victoria.

Victoria & Laycee - the vampire girl.
Laycee's posing was making me giggle a little. She took her part seriously.

Man, she does fit that princess-y part, doesn't she?

This year, Chris & I volunteered to help out with Christianna's class party. We had 3 stations: story time, mummy wrapping & a Halloween version of duck, duck goose. I was in charge of the mummies. They had so much fun wrapping each other with toilet paper.

Thanks Heather for that great idea!!

The last thing we did was make Halloween wind socks...pumpkins, ghosts & witches. They turned out super cute & the kids had a great time.

After a fun morning of games & treats, they sat on the carpet and sang songs until it was time to leave. They sang my favorite song from Kindergarten...the spider song.

Later that day, we invited the Lyman clan to go with us down to the Police Station for some Trick or Treating.

They had police cars, the SWAT truck, the bomb squad robot, a K-9 team, firetruck, motors and the Mobile Command Center outside to check out. The boys were loving that.

Victoria spent a few minutes making Moe feel all loved. He is the coolest bloodhound ever! His handler even gave Victoria biscuit to run away with. He started his howling and then after he was released, he ran right to her for the treat.

You can't pass up a chance to sit on a real police motor cycle...at least if you're a kid.

Victoria & Laycee

John & Christianna

Brett & Spencer
(Spencer, Brett's friend, really got into it!)

Gage

To me, it is looking like he is just too cool for this bike. Either that, or he was born to ride!

He cracked me up!

Tanner - a ball of sunshine wrapped up in cuteness.

He had a major piece of candy stuffed in his face.

On the top floor, swords a blazing, we got a picture with the Police Chief. He was laughing at John since he was swinging his little bag in front of his face...the picture taking was...let's say: difficult & funny. The picture I took after this one, the chief is hugging John so he couldn't swing his bag! It was funny.

Then, later that night....

Heather had invited us to have dinner with them. Sweet - since I had nothing planned. Once dinner was done, we visited & then later went to a fun Haunted House. It was actually built in our friend's yard for trick or treaters. Since we were in the ward, we got a sneak peek of it the night before. The kids loved it!

Finally, to top off our Halloween Festivities, we went Trick or Treating on our street on Sat. Oct. 31st. Brett and John were trying to avoid the camera...but sneaky me got John as he was peeking around the tree.

We had a fun time walking around the neighborhood and they got even more treats. One of our neighbors had these awesome pumpkins outside. Thought I would share.

And there you have it - our fun filled Halloween Madness!!