Paint the Town December

Before the winter break rolled around, the first graders at Lily's school put on a holiday performance. Lily is our little star. Standing up in front of a gym full of people doesn't even seem to faze her! Plus, she loves any excuse to get all dressed up! (OK, let's be honest, I love any excuse to get her all dressed up too!)

When we got to the school on the night of the performance, Lily was thrilled to discover that her picture had been chosen for the program cover! I love how the simple things mean so much when you're a kid.

When Lil's turn rolled around, she stood up and gave her lines like a real pro. She said them loudly and clearly with great expression. She even got a laugh from the audience. And yes, I AM a proud parent, and I am not ashamed to admit it!

After the show, a few parents told me that Lil was the highlight of the show. (OK, too much bragging?) Plus, she had her own fan club there for the show:

On an unrelated note, I was also quite proud of her hairdo that evening. I just had to have a picture for posterity!

For Your Viewing Enjoyment

I am getting better at keeping track of the important moments, but I need to remember to savor the small things as well. So, here are a couple of small things that I don't want to forget.

Hunter brought this poem home from school the other day. It's priceless because it is so "him" at this point in his life.

If I Were In Charge of the World

By Hunter Monson

(Inspired by Judith Viorst)

If I were in charge of the world

I'd cancel Barbie

Dora and Boots,

pills and also,

vegetables.

If I were in

charge of the world,

there'd be no vegetables,

no vegemite, and

everything for me would be free.

If I were in charge of the world

You wouldn't have pink.

You wouldn't have shots.

You wouldn't have bedtime

Or "Don't go outside it's raining".

You wouldn't even have rain.

If I were in charge of the world

A chicken fried steak dinner with mashed potatoes

would be healthy.

All movies would be PG.

And a person who sometimes forgot to clean,

and sometimes forgot to do homework,

would still be allowed to be in charge of the world.

And as an added bonus, here's a picture of the Bug that totally cracks me up. She is such a ham!!

She came up with this outfit, and the pose, all by herself. Maybe she was supposed to be alive in the 1970's!!

WiCKED

Last week was a week for making memories with my kids. Last Thursday, after many weeks of waiting, Lily and I went on our big outing to the theatre. Let me rewind...

I LOVE the musical WICKED. I've seen it four times now, and I love it every time I go. My sweet husband let me buy tickets yet again when we found out the show was returning to Denver. After some discussion, we decided that the time was right for Lily to have her first "big girl" outing. Since I love the music from the show, she knows a lot of the songs. She had asked a few times if she could please go see the show if it ever came to Denver again. So Tyler took one for the team to stay home with the other kids, and Lil and I had a date.

I wanted to make the evening as special as possible, so we dressed up in our best clothes and went to dinner before the show.

Here is Lil at Bubba Gump Shrimp Company. She has a new found love for seafood, and the restaurant is only a couple of blocks from the theatre.

It's hard to tell in the dark, but that's the theatre in the background. Didn't she look pretty?!

This was really a special evening for both of us. She acted like such a lady the whole night. I can't even count how many people told her how pretty she looked. She was one of the only kids there, and people kept stopping her to tell her that she looked like a princess and that she was so pretty. The usher even thanked her for putting on her best clothes to go the the theatre. It was absolutely perfect. She loved the show and was mesmerized by her first real stage production. I was so afraid that she would get tired and fall asleep, she is definitely my biggest sleeper and the first act is rather long. But she didn't. She made it through the whole show, and then she fell asleep in the car not five minutes after we left the parking lot. I was very proud of her, and it's a memory I hope we can both keep forever.

Chalk Talk

Last week, Hunter and I got to go to this cool event sponsored by ESPN called "Chalk Talk". It's a program ESPN puts on in cities when they are in town for Monday Night Football. My ESPN Insider husband got the tickets, and then he had to leave town for work. So I did something that I never do. As the teacher inside me was screaming "NOOO!", I went and pulled Hunter out of school for the rest of the day and we headed down to Mile High Station for the event. There was a fancy catered lunch and a program. (And if you're not a football fan, you can stop reading here, 'cause I'm about to start dropping names!)

This is Hunter on the second floor looking down on the set before the program started.

Here is Denver Broncos owner Pat Bolen, (left), NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, and a big wig from ESPN whose name I don't remember.

These are the hosts of the program, EPSN MNF reporter Michelle Tafoya and ESPN analyst and former Bronco Mark Schlereth.
This picture was from the "Legends" portion of the program. You might recognize (from left to right):

Former Bronco Safety Steve Atwater, former Bronco wide receiver Rod Smith, fomer Steeler great Jerome "The Bus" Bettis, and former Bronco Guard Mark Schlereth.

It was SO fun to be in the same room with all these guys, and listen to them talk to each other and answer questions. Then, on the way out the door, we all got handed a gift bag, complete with Monday Night Football cooler and tumblers, plus a Broncos yearbook!!

It was really a fun afternoon, and you know how I LOVE football, but the best part was having some fun one on one time with Hunter. He and I don't get to do that very often, and it was special to take him to do something that he and I both thought was exciting. It was a good day!!

Pirates and Skeletons and Ninjas, Oh My!

Now that Thanksgiving is just around the corner, I guess it's time to post the Halloween pictures. I'll catch up someday...maybe!

This year we had a pirate, a skeleton rocker, and a ninja. Halloween gets more interesting around here every year. I kinda miss the days when the kids were little and would wear which ever costume I deemed adorable. Those days are gone! I can remember my halloween days as a kid. Every year, all I wanted was to be something beautiful and sparkly...an angel, a fairy, a princess. Apparently, my girls don't feel the same day!
Sophie loved wearing a costume that allowed her to say "aarrghhh!" and swing a sword. As a bonus, she got to have red streaks in her hair and wear a cool hat.

Lily was a "Skele-Rocker" this year. She LOVED this costume, from the pink hair spray to the dog collar and the pleather skirt with a ruffle. This was SOOO Lil, pink and ruffly, but big and bad at the same time. She is something else!

Ninja Hunter. A nine year-old boy with multiple weapons. Enough said!

And just for fun, here's a picture of the kids with cousins. What a crew!! I am so sure that the big boys are standing behind the little kids threatening them with their weapons. Yep, that sweet ninja is mine!

Historic St. George

The weather threw us a curveball the day we left St. George and we had to leave early, so we didn't get to see all the things that we wanted to. We did get to visit a couple special spots though. We took the kids to the temple and the visitor's center, which they really enjoyed.

We also took the kids to the St. George tabernacle. It's abeautiful building, and fascinating to think how the saints built that building with the technology they had at the time, and in that climate!The cute senior missionary who gave us a tour of the building was very sweet. We were the only tourists there at the time, so we got some special attention. The missionary told the kids that every president of the church from Brigham Young to David O. McKay, along with some others, had sat in that front pew and spoken at that pulpit. He asked the kids if they wanted to sing in the same microphone that prophets had spoken in. Then he turned on the sound system and they sang "I am a Child of God". It was a very sweet moment, and pretty incredible for us to hear their little voices reverberate through that entire tabernacle.

And just for fun, here is a bonus picture of Lil having lunch at Marv's. She was so impressed by this corndog, and she ate every bite of it!

The Glitter Hole

"The Glitter Hole". All you had to do was say the name, and my kids were hooked. The Glitter Hole is actually just across the border from St. George in Arizona. It is basically a huge hole in the ground in the middle of nowhere where gypsum was mined. Now you can go there and "mine" it yourself! Here are the kids with their mining tools. For some reason, we didn't really trust Sophie with the hammer or the pick.

Here is Sophie on "her mountain". She declared it was hers, and none of the rest of us were even allowed to get close.

Love this picture of Jackie and Lil

It was really interesting to see how the gypsum had been buried under layers of another kind of rock. It's the white stuff at the bottom.

It's hard to tell, but that's Hunter way up there!

We packed up two boxes of the "glitter rocks" that we mined and hauled them all the way back to Colorado. So, if you need some gypsum, just let us know!

Lunch Time, Mateys!

While in St. George, Grandma and Grandpa wanted to take the kids to lunch at Pirate Island Pizza, the coolest kid restaurant in town. I thought it was so sweet they wanted to take the kids there. Just to take our three kiddos we had Grandma and Grandpa, Jackie and her two sisters, plus Tyler and I. I am sure that all the adults really loved their pirate lunch!

Actually, the restaurant is pretty cool. Cannons fire and pirate songs play. Plus, the kids got tokens to play in the arcade after lunch. Pretty sweet deal!

Sunny St. George

Well, I am finally getting around to posting the rest of our pictures from our fall break trip. After our whirlwind Saturday in Provo, we set out for Sunny St. George on Sunday morning. We were so grateful to be able to stay with Tyler's grandparents for a dew days, and we got lucky enough to be there at the same time as his mom too! She played tour guide for the day on Monday and took us to some really cool "hidden" places.

Monday morning we put our tennies on and headed for the petroglyphs.

pet⋅ro⋅glyph  [pe-truh-glif] –noun
a drawing or carving on rock, made by a member of a prehistoric people.

There is this really cool area in Ivins, not far from St. George, that was home to a native tribe over a thousand years ago. On the top of a huge hill overlooking a little valley, they left behind a record of sorts carved into the rocks. It was really fascinating. We were the only people there, wandering on the edge of the hill, looking at glyphs carved over a thousand years ago. So cool!

Jackie and the kids

Provo in a Day

If you know me very well at all, you know that Provo holds a special place in my heart. I am true blue through and through, a Cougar heart and soul. Not only did I love being a student in Provo, but I met Tyler there. And of course, there's Cougar football. When we decided to go to St. George, we also decided to squeeze in a day in Provo. It also happened to be homecoming weekend, so how could we say no? So, we decided to spend one day in Provo and do it all! How, you ask, can you do it all in one day? Well, here's our attempt!

6:15 am Leave the hotel in Green River Utah

8:30 am Arrive in Provo and drive straigh to Lavell Edwards Stadium, where they are shooting College GameDay live. You have to understand, we are BIG sports fans, and this was a big deal. We watch College GameDay every Saturday morning. Those Provo football fans are crazy!

This is a crappy picture from our crappy camera, but if you look closely and use your imagination you can see (from left to right) Desmond Howard, Chris Fowler, Lee Corso, and Kirk Herbstreit sitting behind the desk.

The surprise guest "picker" on GameDay was none other than Mr. Lavell Edwards himself!

It was especially fun to take Hunter to Provo. His is SO into sports, and he really enjoyed the atmosphere. He's actually old enough to start forming opinions about where he'll land for college some day, (heaven forbid!) Let's hope its Provo!

Here's a better picture of Desmond, Chris, Lee, and Kirk!

We waited until the end of the broadcast to see if Coach Corso would pick BYU or TCU, and then we ran to the other end of campus...

10:05 am Homecoming Parade!

We met Tyler's sister Tiff and her husband Brian and their two little girls to watch the parade. We literally crossed the street to our seats in front of the first float, just in the nick of time!

11:30 am We decided to squeeze in a quick visit to the Bean Museum with cousins Megan and Emily, which the kids loved.

Hunter's class is doing their Colorado history unit right now, which of course includes the Rocky Mountain Bighorn Sheep!

Somewhere around lunch time...we headed to the heart of campus. We, of course, had to stop for the obligatory "standing under the Y picture" on our way to the bookstore. We caught up with Tyler's youngest brother Trent, who accompanied us to the bookstore. I love the bookstore. Every t-shirt, sweatshirt, souvenir, and knick knack you could ever want, all in Cougar blue. Plus, chocolate covered gummy bears and mint brownies! Not to mention the creamery ice cream in the Wilkinson Center...but I am getting ahead of myself.

Once everybody had a BYU souvenir, we headed out for lunch.

1:00 pm (maybe?) J Dawgs!!

I have only had these excellent dogs twice now, but they are awesome! You've got to love a great hot dog on a sunny fall day and playing in the leaves with cousins!

After our JDawgs we walked back up to the Wilk to get everyone a creamery ice cream cone. Roasted almond fudge is now officially my favorite new ice cream.

2 p.m. (ish) We took a few minutes to walk over to the Hickley Alumni Building, which I had never gotten to visit before. It is absolutely beautiful. Apparently so beautiful that I forgot to take any pictures.

3:30 p.m. We headed for another building I had never seen, the UPC (University Parkway Center). The McKay School of Education was holding a Homecoming Gathering, and I was actually in Provo to attend! We got a free dinner, door prizes, and had our family picture taken. Too bad everyone was tired and dirty by then! They're still pretty cute though, aren't they?

5:30 pm Finally, we headed to one of my favorite places on earth, Lavell Edwards Stadium. My SIL Tiff, BLESS HER, kept Sophie and let us use her ticket, she is a rock star! I admit it, I got teary when I walked into the stadium and saw the crowd. I love the smells, the sounds, the ROARRRR from the jumbotron, the fight song, ALL OF IT!!

Now, we aren't going to waste time actually talking about the game itself. It's too painful. However, it was still so good to be there.

9:30 p.m. We wound up our day at Magelby's to have dessert and see some old friends. We got to meet up with a couple of Tyler's old roommates and their families. We also got to try the buttermilk pie, which was very good!

We finally got to our hotel in Sandy a little after 11:00 pm. It was a very long day, but very worth it!