Showin' Some Bravery

It was that time of year again....Show Choir tryouts. Jared went back and forth for weeks trying to decide if he wanted to audition or not. You have to receive an invitation to tryout from the teacher, so getting the invite was apparently the deciding factor for him. I was surprised when he handed me the permission slip and said that he was going to go for it. He decided to stick with something that he couldn't mess the words up on and that would show his range, so he went with "Happy Birthday." On the audition night both the kids went pretty late into the evening so Jared had plenty of time to get himself worked up into a frenzy. His face went completely pale when the teacher called his name and he had to walk up on the stage. The first picture is of him really trying to keep it together and not break down and cry in front of everyone.

Well, try as he might, he couldn't get control of his fear and he started to cry. Everyone was so awesome and cheered him on and encouraged him and let him know that it was alright. Then my friend Christin offered him 10 bucks if he would not only sing, but sing it to her. So, what did my little man do? He pulled it together and sang the song to her and won a standing ovation and 10 bucks! Way to go J, we are so proud of him. I think that I would have passed out right there on the floor and would have had to be dragged off the stage in a stretcher!!!!

Emma was just about the last one to sing that evening and she sang "Angel of Music." She practiced the song for weeks and did it A Capella. Hello, hard!!!!!! She sounded like an angel and once again amazed us with her nerves of steel. People have a hard time believing she is so shy when she can get up there on stage and commit full voice to her songs like that.

Ethan could hardly control himself the entire evening and wanted desperately to be on the stage. He ran up on stage several times between auditions and he was singing along to everyone's songs that he knew. This kid is obsessed with music. He has several favorite songs and gets on the computer to get the lyrics to his favorites and likes to listen to them over and over again on youtube. I guess we love to sing in this family.

Really Sick!?!

Of course the minute Nate leaves town the kids decide to get "sick." Jordy had already missed Tuesday because her stomach and head were hurting her but I convinced her to go to school on Wed and Thursday. By Friday morning Ethan was complaining of the same thing and of course Jordyn was ill again. The rule when you are sick is that you have to stay in bed until the school day is over. Apparently Ethan and Jordyn decided that my bed was a good place to camp out and they invited all their animal friends to join them. Busted, you little turkeys!!!! When I found them like this I wondered if they were feeling well enough to go to school. Well, they had a sudden surge of illness and fell to the bed moaning in agony. Little fakers! They got themselves some kisses for being so darn cute and then they had to clean up all the animals and go in their separate rooms for the rest of the day.

Punkin Around

We went to this pumpkin patch for the first time last year. Since the kids had so much fun we decided to do it again this year. Last time we went on a Saturday and so I decided to try out the weekday experience this year. They only allow field trips on weekdays so I called them up and asked if a church group could go and they said sure. So, I got some friends and family together and off we went. The only day we could get a reservation for was the day before fall break which was a short day anyway so I let the kids skip school. Do my kids know how lucky they are???? :) Because it was a field trip day at the farm some of the kids' favorite things to do were closed. I wasn't sure they would recover from being mad at me and then I reminded them that they could be at school and that solved the problem pretty quickly.
Ethan was cracking us up because he seemed to have some goat whispering capabilities. They kept coming up to him and letting him hug them. What a nut that boy of mine is. I guess he may get it from me...... We had to take a picture of the guy on the hay ride in his army camo and his hunting camo. He kept disappearing and reappearing because he blended into nature so well.......ha. Lesson number one in fashion. Never mix camo's!!!! Lesson number two. Never wear hunting camo anywhere other than hunting or camping! Just sayin!

We packed a nice lunch and enjoyed all the activities that were open and had a very enjoyable and relaxing day on the farm. Life's good.

5 AM

We have lived in Abq for 11 years and had not been to a mass ascension during balloon fiesta. We tried to go last year and didn't leave until around 6am and the traffic was so bad that we never even got to the exit off the freeway and missed the whole thing. It wasn't a pretty site inside our car that day. Hunger and grumpiness got the best of us for sure. This year we decided to try one more time, but leave at 5am. Yea, it worked. We got to experience mass ascension for the first time. The difference between a mass ascension and a glowdeo is lift off. It is one thing to be standing next to the massive balloons and another to then have them lift off and fly away. Next on my list is to actully fly in one. It really was spectacular and I highly recommend it. You get home around 10am and then you take a nice long nap.




The tradition that we do every year is go to the balloon glowdeo. It is always hit or miss if the balloons will actually inflate because if the wind is over 10 mph they will burn up when they go hot. We knew when we left that it wasn't likely that they would go up, but there are lots of fun booths to check out and lots of grass for a picnic. So, we went anyway and sure enough it was cancelled. But we still had lots of fun. Christin is obsessed with a chin hair that she has named Maurice and he had made a reappearance. Since I had a flashlight and some tweezers, I took care of Maurice for her. Too funny. I also got a hat from one of the booths and Brennan really thought that yellow was the way to go, so he got one too. Don't we look awesome? We took a virtual tour of Texas and rocked out to a cover band that was playing and ate lots of good food. I look forward to this time of year and I'm so sad now that it is over.

I've said it before........

I've said it before, but I'll say it again.....I'm spoiled! I'm not the kind of person that is all giddy about the latest and greatest in technology, but I have recently been moved to sing a little tune....."technology, I love technology. I love you, but not as much as technology." haha When a fancy app filled phone came out, didn't want it. When the fancy book reading gadget came out, didn't think it was worth the one capability, then a rival to the app phone came out with an alien name, and I was almost tempted.....But, I knew that I wanted something that could do all the things the other's could do, with the exception of making phone calls, and I decided to hold out for what I really wanted. We were going to be taking a trip to Brazil for Christmas to see Nate's parents while they were serving a mission for the LDS church, but his Mom started having some heart problems and had to return to the states. Nate wanted to help make the 2 day trip to Brazil a pleasant one and bought me my little rectangle of love that is ever so poorly named. I could watch movies, read books, play games, check on my schedule, listen to music and so much more. Nate teases me that I will start sleeping with it under my pillow. It is pretty much attached to me and I don't go anywhere without it. I use it so much that I don't ever even go onto our pc anymore. Nate also finally took pity on my after only a few weeks of ownership and got me a wireless keyboard to go with it. Heaven, I'm in Heaven. I am typing on said keyboard as we speak.
Well, it's time to go read scriptures with the kids and put them to bed. Guess what I will be using.....yep, my rectangle of looooovvvve! I really need to give it a proper name.......Jordy thinks Lulu sounds good, so, Lulu it is.....at least for now. :)