Melissa made some French Toast...
Jayden set the table (here he is trying to get the silverware out of the dishwasher)...
And Melissa was nice enough to wipe up the floor when Jenna was done, and Spencer spilled some of the brownie batter on the floor, but Melissa helped him clean that up too. What a great morning! 
And then each kid individually... First Melissa
In the above picture, Melissa is the last girl in line in the front row. This was one of the only still shots that I took. I was running out of camera battery and wanted to make sure that I had enough battery for the videos.This was their Hip Hop number they did the dance to the High School Musical {can't remember which number} song, "Getcha Head in the Game". I was nervous about them using balls as props because so much can go wrong with a ball for a prop, but thank goodness they all held on real tight. They got first place at both competitions for this one.
This was their lyrical number. The song is "Love Story" by Taylor Swift. They got first at both competitions for this song too. Melissa is the front middle {just in case you were wondering which girl you were supposed to be following}. As a little side note the guy in the orange hat which sometimes pops into the picture had THE WORST BO I have smelt since Jr. High. It was so bad, first I looked to find on the program to see if he would be leaving anytime soon because we had pretty good seats. However after I realized he was there for as long as we were, I gave up my good seats to just get away from the stench. And everytime he turned around to say sorry for leaning on my knees I thought his breath would make me pass out. Yeah, he was THAT bad.
This was their Jazz number it got a second place at both of the competitions. I posted two videos of this number the one is at the beginning and the other is at the end of the song. Melissa is on the far left in the front row.
This is the last one... This was their Show tune which was a hip hop number. Melissa is the point in the triangle.
It was a very fun past two weekends! I really like going to her competitions not only to see her dance, but I also like to see the other groups dance as well. Some people come up with some pretty creative stuff. There are also those groups that are just down right strange or disturbing. There was one group where the girls had eyemasks on their face and were wearing purple wigs and on the back of their heads were white masks that were kind of like the scream masks, that was disturbing. And if it weren't for my battery I would have taken a picture.
Spencer's big kick right now is Pokemon cards. And with me it is a love-hate relationship BIG TIME! I love that Spencer is in to something other than video games right now, but I HATE that he carries them around with him EVERYWHERE! And if they aren't in his hands, they are in his pocket. Which I am surprised that they haven't ended up washed yet with the clothes. However, there was one night that I swore the kids were all asleep and then Spencer comes in the family room in a panic, "Mom! have you washed my shorts yet?" He was terrified that I washed his shorts and it would have ruined all his cards. Little does he know, I am not that on top of laundry that I would have already washed shorts that he took off an hour ago. Want to know where they were? In the bathroom... he put them down on the counter while he was brushing his teeth. At night before he goes to bed, he puts them in the crack between his bed frame and his mattress. Then of course in the morning he's got them in his hands at the breakfast table. I finally had to make him put them on the desk in the kitchen while he eats, just so that his hand doesn't permanently conform to the shape of holding cards in his hands. Not to mention his teacher has banned the cards from class. I am sure that if any of the other kids are like Spencer, it got to be a problem. I don't know if they actually play with the cards either, or just look through their decks and trade them. He had some friends over on Friday and they even played tag out back with their pokemon cards in their hands the entire time. I guess it's better than video games huh?
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.
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
