Melissa's talent

Melissa's school is doing a talent show for the 4 - 6 graders. They had talent show in each of the classes, and then each class chose 4 acts that would compete in a Grade level competition and then they are going to chose 4 or 5 from each grade level to perform in the 4-6 grade talent show. Melissa was one of the 4 chosen from her class, and yesterday was the grade level competition. She finds out today if she competes in the school-wide one, but I thought I would share her "talent" from yesterday.

I thought that it was funny how the boys would react everytime she did the splits. You can see it a little bit in the 30 second spot I did above, but I really didn't notice it until after the filming and so I didn't get a real good shot of their reaction. After she performed and went back to class, I was walking back with her so that she could change and I could take her costume home, the boys kept begging her to do the splits and touch her toes. I asked her when she got home from school if she ever did it, and she told me she didn't. She did do a really good job on her performance. This was her solo from last year, and I think she a pretty good job remembering it from a year ago. Their regular dance competition for this year is tomorrow and next Saturday. I am looking forward to it. She isn't doing a solo this year (money's tight). Which I think she has been kind of sad about, but she is looking forward to doing one next year.

I can't help it!

Originally, I was thinking that I could just blog something about how Jenna likes to play computer games, but I figure I would be more up front with the actual reason for the post... Her hair! Turned out cute don't you think? It helps that she's a pretty girl too!

Oh yeah, and she does like to play the computer too, but I like to do her hair more!

Classic Jayden

Thought I would post another one of Jayden's self portraits. He's actually getting better at it I would say. So, here's a conversation I had with Jayden a couple of days ago.

Mommy: Jayden I think it is time to have a nap.

Jayden: I don't want to.

Mommy: But you are tired.

Jayden: No! I not ever!

Mommy: OK, good luck with that, let me know when you are tired.

Jayden: It's time to go night-night.

Like I've said before, that kid plays till he's ragged and most of the time doesn't mind going down for a nap.

Spring Break

For Spring Break, I packed the kids in the car and drove down to Tucson, Arizona to visit my sister Michelle with my parents. I car ride down actually went pretty well unless you count the fact that it was snowing here when we left which made for some slow spots and then also that a couple of my kids get car sick and threw up. Although, throwing up is nothing new for my kids, so they just threw up in their little throw up bags and we just kept on driving. Then when we got to a place with a trash can, we would throw the bag away and keep on going. Jenna threw up twice and Spencer threw up once. I know, TMI, but this is my journal, so you get ALL the gory details.

We were supposed to leave at 5 in the morning, I even set my alarm so that I could get up shower and then get the kids ready. However, I must have just turned my alarm off and went back to sleep because the next thing I know, there is someone ringing my doorbell at 5 in the morning and I was thinking, "Who in the world would be ringing my doorbell at 5 in the morning?" Then it dawns on me that I overslept my alarm. It was my parents they were all ready to go. So I jumped out of bed, got dressed, and while the kids got ready with Steve's help, I packed the cooler (the rest of out stuff was already in the car) and then we were gone by 5:30.

When we first got to Michelle's house (around 5:00 we made pretty good time) Spencer was VERY excited to see that they have a Nintendo Wii.Melissa immediately changed into shorts (remember, it was snowing in Utah).And Jayden headed outside to play in the backyard. Where he continued to play for the rest of the week.We mainly just hang out at Michelle's house. It was nice not to have things scheduled all the time and just let the kids play and relax. On Wednesday, my parents went to the Grand Canyon (Thank goodness because my Mom has only been talking about it for the past SEVERAL years, and now she can understand why we haven't wanted to go with our little kids) so Michelle and I took our kids to the Desert Museum which has some animals for the kids to see. The first thing we did is took our kids to see a bird show. But man was it crowded and mostly with old people with huge cameras. I think there were several groups of senior citizens there. And they had all of the up close spots. You just stand along a trail, and so our kids could only see the birds when they were flying right above our heads and that was only for a split second.That was where Jayden has his first and only melt down. He was not happy to be standing there with a bunch of tall people all around and no clue what was going on. Not to mention, it was a little hot just standing there in the sun.So, we said bag that and just left the bird show and took our kids to see the rest of the stuff. Here's Jenna, Jayden and Meagan (Michelle's youngest looking at the Gilo Monster. Funny thing is I have a picture of Melissa, Spencer and Rebecca (Michelle's) oldest doing the same thing the last time we went like 5 years ago.
See, funny how that works!

Thursday night, we took the kids to Mesa for the Mesa Temple Easter pageant. My Dad and I had all the kids (minus Meagan) in my van. They mostly just watched movies while we drove up there. Thank goodness for portable DVD players.Here is the kids with some of the cast from the show.
We took a picnic lunch and ate that there for dinner and then when it got dark, moved over to the seats.

I think this was the ONLY time my kids were even the slightest bit cold the entire time we were there. The weather was is the 70's and 80's every day. All in all, I think that the kids all had a pretty great time while we were there. I should have taken more pictures of the kids just doing the everyday stuff, but I didn't think about it. I was too busy enjoying just doing nothing! Thanks Michelle and Brett for a great time!

Melissa's Birthday

Melissa's now officially only two years from being a teen-ager. Scary huh? So, we planned a party and what a party it was too. I don't know who had more fun me and my sister Lisa, or the girls. To start off, when the girls got here (they all wore their pajamas), we had breakfast for dinner. We had french toast and waffles with either strawberry or apple topping, bacon, sausage, juice and chocolate milk. Once dinner was taken care of, the REAL party began. My sister Lisa came over and she and I did all the girls hair in some fun 'prom style' dos. In preparation, she and I probably watched several hours of "You Tube" trying to get all sorts of ideas for hair. And man, let me tell ya, there is A LOT of good stuff to learn about hair. I do pretty good when it comes to cute little girl hair dos, but the whole teen or "tween" (as I have learned is the correct term for Melissa's age group) hair is an entirely different endeavor. Lisa was majorly prepared, even came with a pad of paper full of notes. Good thinking on her part because I was kind of stumped when a new head of hair was presented in front of me. Here's Melissa's up-do (Lisa did it - and I think she outdid me on all the hair do's).

Melissa was sure excited about it. She even slept in it over night, and had it in all the next day. We used so much product (hair spray and such) in their hair, I wouldn't be surprised if all the girls could have worn their hair for several days and it look pretty much the same. I think 11 was the perfect age for this party because many of the girls were just so excited to wait to get their hair done. We had some make-up and a movie going for the girls who were waiting their turn, but most of the girls were excited to just wait and watch the other girls get their hair done.

After the hair was all done, the girls made some music videos. I will have to post those some other time because I didn't shoot the video on my camera, so getting it posted on the computer will take some time. After the videos were made, the girls had cake and sparkling cider.

That was followed by the gifts...

All in all, I think the girls had a really good time and more importantly, I think Melissa had a good time. I was glad that it all went so smoothely. We planned four hours for the party, and used every minute of it! Thanks again to Lisa for coming and helping out, we certainly couldn't have done it without her. We enjoyed doing the girls hair and listening to the girls talk about whatever. I think there is something to be said for a girl talking when she is getting her hair done. Boy, the stylist gets an ear-full but it was all great, I think I learned a lot about girls in that 4 hour time slot. I have to say that I was very impressed with all of them. They were so concerned about making sure that no one felt left out, and were so great with the compliments towards one another on their hair. It made me think that Melissa's got a good group of girls to be hanging around with.

In case you were wondering, this is what Melissa's hair looked like after we took it out the next night. Yeah, we used THAT much hair product in her hair!