How important is a Dad to his daughter?

Ava had her Thanksgiving presentation and feast yesterday. We had a great time but there was one priceless moment, and lucky for me, I caught it on tape. The kids sang 5 or 6 songs and then the parents surprised the kids and sang a song for them. I wasn't planning on taping Ava at this point but she was making funny faces. Chris had not arrived yet, see if you can tell from the video when he walks in....Priceless.

Edward saw me naked today!

I have been laughing all afternoon about this.

Today I dropped Ava off at school at 1:00 then ran home to shower and try to be back to the school for her Thanksgiving presentation and feast at 1:30. I hopped out of the shower and went to plug the straightener in but it wasn't there. Arrrggg. I figured Chloe or Olivia had taken it to their room and being in such a huge rush I just made a run for it.......buck naked. I ran up the stairs and into Olivia's room only to be assaulted by her giant size picture of Edward (above) on her wall.....Before I could even process a thought I screamed, jumped back and covered my self. The weird thing is I actually totally felt embarrassed and my face went red before I came to my senses......its a poster!! HA ha. I can't stop laughing.

My Wingmen!

Everyone needs a good wingman! Yesterday I had 8.

A wingman (or wingmate) is a pilot who supports another in a potentially dangerous environment. The idea behind the wingman is to add the element of mutual support. A wingman makes the pilot both offensively and defensively more capable.

I woke up with a busy day ahead but then got an email from my co-committee chair for the Holiday store at school that she had left town and all the fliers, envelopes and advertising was not done and was left up to me. I went into full panic mode. It all needed to be done yesterday and I couldn't see how I could possibly pull it off.........enter wingman #1 My Sister Leslie (so awesome!) She called me first thing in the morning and said what can I do? I told her the situation and sure enough she said "no problem, I am on it....just leave all the paper work to me". While I ran errands and worked with the school on scheduling, she designed all the fliers, handouts and envelopes and within 2 hours had them all emailed to me. They were amazing.

My awesome sister!

Then I had to shop for additional items for the store. This was a huge undertaking and I knew it would be long and I would have a car full of merchandise from the dollar store.....enter wingman #2 Karen. She just happened to call and when I told her what was happening she said. "Oh bring Ava over here, she can play with Livy and then I will take her to school. I was able to shop without any worries, deadlines or children.....priceless!! 3hours later and $1200.000 poorer I was done. Whew!

I went home to begin printing......whadda ya know my printer wouldn't work. I knew I could take them to kinkos but I had to pick the girls up from school....I quickly called Karen (yes, wingman #2 again, and my friend Tana (Wingman #3) and they each agreed to pick up my older girls, who are at different schools. I took all the files to Kinkos and had them printed the only glitch is they couldn't print on envelopes so we had to print labels that would go on the envelopes. I got it all done and headed home.

At this point I had not even cleaned up breakfast. I headed home dreading what I would find. But!!!! Wingman #4 Chloe had gotten home and seeing the mess had taken care of everything and cleaned it all up. Oh what a relief. Chloe

I grabbed the girls and we headed straight out to go to piano lessons. I brought all the labels with me and while Chloe was in her lessons. Wingmen #5 (Elle) #6 (Ava) and #7 (Olivia) put stickers on over 600 envelopes for me!!

Ava and Elle!! My littlest wingmen!

Olivia kept asking if she could do more to help

After lessons we headed home for homework, dinner and putting kids to bed. It was a rushed evening and I finally got everyone settled. Now the big job began. I had to finish putting labels on and then paperclip all 700 fliers to the envelopes, I thought "no big deal" but it was a big deal. I worked and worked but after 2 hours I only had 150 done.

Enter wingman #8 (and oh is he a sexy wingman....I am thinking Top Gun here) My husband!!The night before we had gotten only 3 hours of sleep because our house alarm malfunctioned and was blaring in the middle of the night. He had then gotten up at 5 am to drive to Dallas, worked all day then drove straight to the university to teach until 10 pm. I knew he was exhausted but when he arrived at 11:00pm and saw what I was doing he insisted on helping. We sat together on the bed until 2am and put the whole thing together.

If you could see his eyes, he is so tired but hung in there with me!!

I just couldn't have gotten through this day without help.

I am so grateful to these amazing people in my life,

I hope they all know that I have their backs too!
Ava and Elle helped put them all in the teachers boxes this morning.

Chloe Shines!

This past weekend we got to see Chloe in action as she was the lead in her school play. She just shone on that stage and sounded beautiful. There is nothing more rewarding than watching your children work hard and excel at the things they love. I am so proud of her and know that she worked so hard and had many late nights trying to keep up with homework and school as well as play practice. She played Sarah in Guys and Dolls!!
She just doesn't look 13 to me. Maybe I am just freaking out watching my daughter grow up, but I keep thinking..."hey wait, you are growing up too fast.

Connections and Influence

Yesterday I had a weird experience, I got an email from someone telling me that she had read someones blog and that they had linked my blog on theirs. I figured she was wrong because I don't know this person so I hopped on over to that blog and sure enough she mentioned me in her blog and had linked my blog to hers on that post. This is why this experience was weird. First of all she was saying way too nice of things about us and secondly, it was my reaction to reading her post.

I must preface my reaction with an explanation so you don't think I am weird. I blog as a journal. I tell the tale of my life and share my feelings about it. I am not a writer or a photographer which so many bloggers are. I have no talent with crafts, scrapbooking or style ideas. I don't really have anything to offer as far as skills go. This is really just a simple place to say the things I feel about the things I love. When I started I sent the link out to all my family and very close friends so they could keep up with me. Then after a few months some weird things started happening like getting a comment from someone I didn't know. It actually was a good thing and I have made a couple of friends with women I admire that I would never have known without my blog. I suddenly saw a bigger purpose. Before I sound like a recluse who is lonely and on the computer way too much searching for connections I am not!! I am so busy I find it hard to even keep up my friendships with my close friends here.

So what was my extremely weird reaction to this nice persons post.....I cried. I am so embarrassed saying that. It truly makes me sound like a fragile lonely girl and I am really just the opposite. It is even worse because on her post she was talking about our family being pretty and even though that is a huge complement I don't want you to think for one min that I was crying because someone thought we are pretty, it is not important to me. I couldn't figure out why I was crying....It was baffling me. I called my sisters and told them my weird reaction. I wasn't sad, I love this persons blog and felt honored that she felt to talk about our family. I realized last night as my husband came home from a week long trip and we sat and talked for a long time. It is influence. I think I cried because I think I am living a quiet anonymous life but people may be watching and I hope I am good and my influence is positive. I know that I have not in any way influenced this nice woman who talked about me but I suddenly realized what a powerful tool a blog is. Sometimes people we don't know may read and find some comfort, joy, or clarity just simply by how we live our lives. It doesn't have to be any great thing. In a world where there are so many who tear down, devalue and make important things seem less, I love to read blogs of women who are hopeful, confidant, wise and sometimes, if you are lucky really funny. I always love a good belly laugh. If my little on line journal lets just one other person know that they are not alone then how awesome is that.

I can not count the number of times I have come to the decision to make my blog private and then the next day I just kind of don't end up doing it. I know that there are several women who don't know me whose blogs I read that if they made their blogs private I would be very sad. So I continue for now to keep it open and am thankful to be connected and I am thankful to this woman who made me realize that we are all watching and learning from each other and that is a good thing. Here is her blog link of you would like to meet a great writer who has a lot of interesting things to say!

Say Cheese!

Growing up, the camera was an untouchable. It probably didn't help that I grew up very poor so that roll of 35mm film cost good money and those 24 shots were like gold. Mom and Dad used the camera except in the rare instance that you were asked by Mom and Dad to take a shot. So fast forward to today....with digital cameras and endless pics to be taken that can be deleted in a heartbeat I have no problems letting my kids have at it with the camera. Let me say here that I am NOT skilled in any way with photography. My camera cost us about 100 bucks and so I don't live in fear of them breaking it.

Every time I sit to download pictures I am delighted (and sometimes horrified) by what I find. The girls just love to endlessly take goofy pictures and some of them are priceless. They capture facial expressions that I don't get when I say "say cheese". These pics I found of Elle today cracked me up....I asked Elle what they were doing and she said. "Mom, I hate those pictures because Ava (my 4 year old) was chasing me around and I had no pants on and she kept taking pictures of me." She doesn't look so mad to me in the pictures but her expressions are ones that I see everyday but have never captured on film nor do I think I could capture them unless I was a creepy Mom chasing them around with no pants on taking pictures!! I love the digital age. (I did crop them so she wasn't flashing her panties on my blog. )

Of course with 4 girls in the house I also have endless self portraits.....

And then there are often silly video clips!! I had a fun time finding all this on my camera today!

Twilight the review

We just got home from a great evening. A mother daughter outing to the Twilight premiere. So here is my take on the movie.....STOP right here if you have no desire to hear my opinion on this movie and would rather form your own.

Did it follow the book? Somewhat but not exactly. For those who have read the book....say two or three times, you will be noticing things right away that are off. Be prepared to feel that way the whole movie. I actually suggest just forgetting the book because I probably ruined part of the movie for myself because I spent the first hour comparing it and then I finally let go and just enjoyed.

There were times as I was watching that I thought "I LOVE this movie" but there were also times that I thought "what were they thinking!" It was back and forth for the whole 2 hours. Overall it was good but, of course, the book is ten thousand times better!! I cringed through most of the first 30-45 min because I was looking for it to be like the book but then it came to its own and somewhat redeemed itself. Baseball scene was awesome!

The Character development was somewhat shallow because it would be impossible in 2 hours to have all the depth that would be required. I wish it would have been a mini-series....seriously, they could have done so much more with more time. I left wanting more of the cullen family.

The big question....Edward?. There were times in this movie that I saw the Edward that I had imagined, and they were delicious, but overall he was off mark for me. There were also a few times in the movie that were meant to be very serious but the whole audience was laughing. I thought that was weird.

For moms...I didn't personally find anything offensive at all. I can't remember even 1 cuss word. The book is way more steamy and the violence was not over the top. I would say it is PG 13 but very very light on the 13.

It was a lot of fun. You must go and you will enjoy, but the book is way better. Isn't that the way it always is?

Chloe wants to add her 2 cents....

Hey its Chloe! So we saw the twilight premiere and.....

My opinion on the actors/actresses

Edward- ok so in the beginning they were trying to make it comical with him and made it weird. he had weird facial expressions and was acting like a spaz. In the book he is supposed to keep cool . Later in the movie the Edward we all know and love definitely came out. He was charming and definitely cool. You know how he sparkles in the light? yeah they made it weird. People who haven't read the book are going to be like what? He looks like a pretty little princess....yeah weird

Bella-ummm... a very monotonous character...she had one facial expression through the whole movie and was very one dimensional.

Alice-LOVED HER!!!THEY HIT THE NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD! She was beautiful yet pixie like and still managed to look fierce. BRAVO!

Jasper- UGH! This character is supposed to be deep. They made him into a comical character. it was weird and girly. He had extremely strange facial expressions.

Rosalie- I wasn't sure about her when i saw the pics but she was PERFECTO! I thought she wasn't going to be pretty enough but she did a fantastic job! She wasn't your norm skinny little blonde and she also looked fierce yet beautiful.

Emmet- DEFINITELY grew on me. I LOVED HIM! Something about him was just lovable...like a big bro! Great job!

Carlisle-Great job on casting him! He managed looking mature and older yet good looking. His eyes were very kind and he did a great job acting.

Esme- Just how I imagined her! EVEN BETTER! She looked like just a kind mom and was very welcoming. She was also beautiful yet fierce.

Charlie- I imagined him a little fatter LOL but otherwise he did a good job!

James-Perfect! What more can i say? see for yourself!

Laurent and Victoria - well casted and did a great job!

Nothing offensive or crude at all whatsoever, I will see it again and again!

Don't be jealous....but...

Chloe and I are going to the Twilight premier tomorrow night!!!! We are so excited. Tomorrow I will write my review............Wait, I just realized, you may not want me to write my review?? hmmm How about this? If you don't want to read it and want to form your own opinion then don't come to my blog tomorrow. If you are just a little bit curious. I will give you the scoop.

WE ARE SOOOOOO EXCITED!

BTW...we won the tickets. Thanks to 2 Movie Guys. You rock!
I had to add an addendum: Last night after I posted this I decided that I needed to read Midnight Sun again in preparation for tonight's premiere. At around 12:20 am I found myself falling asleep, then waking up and reading a few more paragraphs then dozing again...I struggled for about 30 min then gave up and fell asleep only to wake back up at 2:00 am and finished reading it at about 5:00am . I am soooo tired, I hope I can stay awake during the movie tonight. So excited, mostly to be on a date with my daughter and seeing her excitement!

My 4yr old is writing music...wow who knew!

With all her older sisters writing music all the time Ava decided that she is a writer too. She stopped me today and asked me to listen to her new song. Take a listen.  Please excuse my daughter and husbands' interruption in the middle.  So Cute!

"That look!!"

I arrive at church later than Chris. He sits up front and every week there is a moment that I anticipate like warm gooey brownies with vanilla bean ice-cream on top. It is "the look" he gives me each week when I walk in. It happens every time without fail and I have never mentioned it to him so that he would feel the need to keep it up.

When we arrive the kids always walk in first and he breaks into a huge smile but when his eyes wander down the line to mine that smile moves from an upturned mouth to his lips becoming slightly pressed together and his eyes become low and get this little mischievous twinkle in them that says" there she is and she is mine!". It is the absolute sexiest, loving and most anticipated moment of my week. My stomach gets all tingly and I feel like when we were in college and he kissed me for the first time.

I have kept this "look" a little secret joy of mine for a long long time but today I started getting ready for church in anticipation of that look. I found myself carefully choosing an outfit in hopes that I would maybe cause that look to be a little more surprised or intense than before. When I walked in he gave me that low, loving intense look and once again my stomach triple flipped.

I know that I am not imagining this look because during Relief Society I was asked to sing so he came in to listen. He peeked his head in and scanned the room. As soon as his eyes met mine he got "that look" again. The sister sitting beside me elbowed me and said "oh my goodness....do you see how he is looking at you? wow, that is so cute, he is so in love with you." We have been married 16 1/2 years.......I wonder if he will still look at me that way at the end of our next 16.

Chloe and Olivia's song

Here is the song that Chloe and Olivia wrote for Grandpa's wedding.  They did a great job.

Tortillas and other important things

We just got back from a week in California.

I need to start this post with an observation; border states have AMAZING tortillas. In the summer we went on a trip to Colorado with our friends the Farnsworths (amazing family that we are so lucky to know). They are from Arizona and brought along these tortillas that we ate and ate and they were about the best things ever. So last week we went to SanDiego and stayed with our friends the Wilkinsons for a couple of nights. For breakfast they had these tortillas that, like the Farnsworths tortillas, were To DIE FOR. I find myself dreaming about them. I try to find anything that resembles them here and I am coming up empty. I WANT GOOD TORTILLAS. Ok, I am done.

So California was great. Here are the highlights.

The Beach

We went to the beach 3 times and had the BEST time!!

Disneyland!! I took this picture as I sat in front of them on the Roller coaster!! so cute!

Chloe and Olivia with their friends Maddie and Kat Wilkinson on the Indiana Jones ride.
And back to the Beach!!

They had a blast finding millions of Sand Dollars at the beach.

Oh did a mention that we went to California for a wedding, yes Chris's Dad got married and we had the best time. Chloe and Olivia wrote a song for the wedding and they did such a great job. I will post a video of the song tomorrow. My camera broke just before the wedding so I have no photos and will have to hopefully get some from other family that was there. Yeah for Dad and Aurora. We love you!!

We also got to spend time with my brother and his wife and son.....once again, no camera so we have no photographic record but it is recorded in our hearts.

Hallows Eve

Elle was a 70's girl and Ava a Snow Princess

What a great Halloween, We flew in from California on Thursday night(I will post about that trip tomorrow) so I had one day to be ready for Hallows eve, one day to get ready for Chloe’s party (30 kids).

Here’s how it went:

Run errands

Shop

Run more errands

Leave my purse in the Wal-Mart shopping cart in the parking lot

30 min later Realize I don’t have my purse and suddenly my head is pounding and I am thinking I am going to have a break down.

Ask Olivia to say a prayer for me as I drive back to Wal-Mart; she prays that someone nice and honest will find it.

No purse at Wal-Mart……I have a break down.

Go home to be comforted by my husband…..walk in the door……Chris tells me a nice lady called and has my purse…..whew!!!

Chloe’s party was a blast.

Here they are in our front yard!! (Chloe was a vampire)

They started out by trick or treating. They had just one hour and then when they came back we gave out prizes for things like; The one who got the least appealing item in their bag (This is usually something gross like circus peanuts etc…..the winner “A beef stick”. Who gives out beef beef sticks at Halloween???

We had the fog machine going all night

Then came the best part of the evening. FORTUNE TELLING.
Chris and Ryan....nice pink robes boys!

Chris was the great Zamboni They had to go through a haunted hallway to meet with the “Great Zamboni “. By candlelight he told their fortune and it was hilarious….I was laughing my head off. Most of it was ad-lib and he was fantastic…..the kids LOVED it. When they got through with Zamboni they were taken deeper into the darkness to meet the with "Ryan the Mystic" who called in spirits from the dead. Ryan was incredible at scaring them to death. The room was dark and he had his 8 year old son hiding in the corner making noises and the kids all came out screaming and laughing. They had the BEST time. They then had a dance and it was such a great evening.

Elle and Ava loved trick or treating and they thought they were so grown up because they got to participate in Chloe’s party.

Olivia was a cheerleader and spent the evening with her friends at another party