Busy, Busy, Busy

So I am thinking that I am a little overwhelmed right now.  I feel like I have so much to do in the next week and not enough time to do it.  I know I am not the only person that feels like this right now, but I thought I would complain a little about it.  My major problem is that for some reason this time of year is my most creative time.   I don't know if any of you are like that as well.  I think of all of the fun things I want to make, either to decorate my house with, or as presents for my nieces or for Hannah.  This year my niece Maddison called me and asked me if I would make her a dress for her school talent show.  She is singing the Taylor Swift song called Love Story.  Her request was that I make her a dress like the one Taylor wears in her video.  Of course I couldn't tell her no.  So I head off to the fabric store and try to find a pattern and fabric that would easily replicate this dress (but for a 10 year old).  I was surprised that it was relatively easy.  Anyway, I had to alter the pattern a little bit, but I didn't take into account that I wouldn't need as much fabric.  Needless to say, I had about 3 yards of fabric left over after making the dress.  So what do I decide to do, but make my other niece Brooklynn and Hannah matching dresses out of the same fabric.  While it has been a ton of fun, I have been either teaching school or sewing for the last month or so.  Well all my work has paid off and I have three beautiful dresses to show for it.  Hannah was able to wear her dress to church on Sunday and she looked absolutely beautiful.  

Family Traditions

The last couple of weeks at school we have been talking about family traditions during the holidays. I sent home a letter to parents for them to sign up for a 20 minute time period to come to school and share one of their families favorite traditions. I was actually surprised at the response. Everyday, we have had at least two families share sometimes as many as four. What also has surprised me is the number of dads that come with their wives to share. It has been a lot of fun for me to see the different things that other families do to bring in the spirit of the holiday. Last Friday, my mom and dad actually came into my class and helped me share one of my favorite family traditions. The thing I remember most about the holidays is getting matching pajamas on Christmas Eve with my four sisters. Then we would all have a big slumber party in one of our rooms and stay up all night. I showed my kids some pictures of me as a kid with my sisters in front of the tree in our pajamas. They got a real kick out of that. Here are some of the pictures that I shared.

1985

1989

1998

2004

Pretty Funny Huh!!!
Another one of my favorite traditions is making Almond Rocca. Maybe it's because I love eating it so much. Well for Family Night last night I taught Hannah how to make it. her job was to sprinkle the almonds on the pan before we poured the candy on the sheet and after the chocolate was melted. She thought this was the coolest thing ever. After a while she looked at me and said, "Mom, thanks for making candy with me." She is so sweet I know. I told her that it was a lot of fun for me and that I used to do it with my mom when I was little. Then she says, "And now I'm doing it with my mom!" It was really sweet and it made me realize how Thankful I am for families and the times that we spend together. So please comment and share some of the things that you do with your family to make the holidays a little more special.

Mom and Hannah making candy

Dad gets the hard job of stirring the candy forever. Like I said I am out of shape

Shout Out

Here is a shout out to my good friend Nisha. I went to her house last night to work out and well after 20 minutes I was done working out (I am so out of shape) and so I asked her to help me re-vamp my blog. As you can see the finished product is so cute! Thank you Nisha!!

Thank You

Thank you to all of you and your suggestions for the Ariel Baby doll. I was actually able to find one at Target. Now let's hope she doesn't come up with anything new.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I have been hearing over and over again the last couple of weeks from several different people that they can't get into Christmas because it's not snowing yet. I personally say that this feels exactly like Christmas to me and I am grateful that it hasn't started snowing. The last couple of weeks have been filled with "normal" Christmas time happenings. First of all we took Hannah to see Santa Claus at the mall. I was a little nervous about this because last year she totally flipped out. Needless to say, I spent the whole car ride down to Orem prepping her and letting her know if she doesn't tell Santa what she wants for Christmas, she might not get what she wants. Well she did great. I could see her talking and laughing with the big guy, but unfortunately I couldn't hear what she was saying. Afterwards, I asked her what she told him and she informed me that she asked for candy (check), books (check) and an Ariel baby doll (what!!) that is the first I have heard of this. I had to clarify this one, so I asked her you mean like the Barbie doll you already have. She looked at me all disgusted and then said, now mom a baby doll, that I can hold and rock. Oh great, where am I going to find one of those? Do they even make such a thing? If anybody out there knows of such a thing (that is inexpensive, because I was supposed to be done with her) just let me know.

I am Thankful for...

So a couple of weeks ago, Hannah ended up going to Activity Days with me because Chad was doing something else. Anyway, for our activity we talked about Gratitude. I had the girls look through magazines and cut out pictures of things that they were grateful for. To my surprise, Hannah got totally into it and she was able to identify many things she was thankful for such as princesses, necklaces, juice boxes etc. It was very cute and her collage has been hanging on the fridge ever since. Over the next couple of weeks she has continued to notice things around her that she is thankful for. Instead of saying I like this, or I like that, she says "Mom, I am thankful for this or that" It is really quite cute. Last night as I was tucking her into bed she looked at me and said Mom, I am thankful for you and for daddy, but I am especially thankful for Jesus." Needless to say, I couldn't help but feel extremely blessed. Hannah can be such a sweet girl and it scares me sometimes at how intuitive she is. I am thankful for her.

Beauty and the Beast

So last night we took Hannah to Lehi High School to see their production of Beauty and the Beast. I have to say I was totally impressed. Now you have to know something about me. I was a total drama geek in high school and totally into this kind of stuff. There was always one major problem though and that was that our theater program was really lacking in a lot of ways. We didn't have the means or the support to do anything so cool. Just to give you a mental picture, at one point we performed one of our plays in a rented retail space at the local strip mall where we had to build a stage. That's how pathetic it was. Anyway, enough about me, this play was really great. They had great costumes, sets, effects and the main characters all did a fantastic job. Hannah of course loved it (all except when the Beast yelled). All in all it was a great evening and I highly recommend to anyone in the area to go. It was well worth it.

My Sweet Little Princess

From This...

To This!!!

So many of you know that our little Hannah is crazy about princesses. She has always been all things girl, that is until just recently. It all started a couple of weeks ago when Chad was just flipping through the channels on TV. He stopped to watch The Incredible Hulk. Well it is safe to say Hannah was mesmorized. She had never seen anything like it. She was full of questions and Chad patiently answered all of them. I know he was thinking to himself, "This is great, my little girl is into the same things I am into." After that Hannah wanted to watch Hulk all the time. Of course it was never on when she was able to watch it! So Chad decides to introduce her to his collection of Batman cartoons. The life of my sweet little girl will never again be the same. She absolutely loves BAT MAN! She wants to watch it all of the time. I don't know how many of you have watched Bat Man recently, but it is in my opinion too scary for her to watch. Chad on the other hand doesn't agree with me because he still thinks its really cool that he has an excuse to watch the cartoons he loves most again. At dinner time we have conversations about Scarecrow, and The Mad Hatter, Clay Man and the Joker. I of course have no idea what the two of them are talking about so I try to change the subject. You would think in a family of two girls and one boy I wouldn't feel so outnumbered.
Anyway, last night we went to the local community center to go swimming and when we got there we noticed they were having a boutique. As we walked past the entrance Hannah spied nothing else but a BATMAN CAPE. She was falling all over it and saying over and over again that she just had to have one. So forget the dollhouse, I think I am going to have to make my sweet little princess a Bat Man cape for Christmas.

A Doll House for Hannah

Last night I was talking to my sister Jaci and she told me about a doll house they sell at Country Loft that is so cute.  I immediately got to thinking about getting it for Hannah for Christmas.  The deal is that I work at Country Loft a few hours a week doing displays.  For the amount of hours that I work I get trade in either inventory or preschool payment for Hannah.  So I worked it out that I could work 2 hours a week from now until Christmas and pay for the doll house and all the fun accessories.  When I got home and talked to Chad about it, he wasn't thrilled.  He tried to explain to me that even though it is trading hours for the doll house, it is still paying for it, and we don't need to do so much for her for Christmas.  Don't get me wrong I totally understand where he is coming from, my only dellema is that I don't know if I would ever be able to afford to actually buy her this kind of dollhouse and I know she would love it.  So what should I do.  Please vote to the right and/or comment to let me know what you think I should do.

2 going on 20

So I came home from school on Friday and had the most interesting conversation with my sweet little 20 year old, oh I mean 2 year old. This is how the conversation went
Me: Hi Hannah
Hannah: Hi mom, how was your day
Me: It was fine.
Hannah: Oh! Thank you so much for telling me that story about your day!
Me: How was your day Hannah?
Hannah: It was kind of long.
Me: Why do you think it was so long?
Hannah: Well, daddy was yelling at me.
Me: Why do you think he was yelling at you?
Hannah: Probably because I peed and pooped my pants
Me: Oh maybe you should try going potty in the toilet instead of your pants and daddy won't yell.
Hannah: Yeah your probably right. I will try that next time.

As we were having this conversation, I was trying really hard not to laugh. As I have thought about it since, I thought I should really appreciate this level of reasoning in a conversation considering once she hits about 10 there will be no reasoning with her at all and I won't have a clue what I am talking about.
Anyway, I hope this makes you laugh as much as it did me.