All on her OWN

I have been trying and trying to get a feel for what Ali loves. I have signed her up for many things over the years and there is always something she doesn't like about it to keep her doing it. I have tried many different areas but come up with nada! She loves just being home and chillin'. Which is great, but I don't want her to get older and say "why didn't you make me do anything?" so when she finally got a little excited about violin i waited. I didn't want to just jump in and have yet another thing she didn't like after a week. Finally after asking for a few months I agreed.

I lucked out and got a teacher that one of my patients referred me to who teaches at UVU and is also with the tabernacle choir orchestra. She is great and ali really likes her. I have always deep inside wanted ali to like one or two of the things I love but I wanted her to always choose for herself, and I am so excited she is so excited about the violin also.

Finally after 3 years of asking

Since ali was 5 she has asked for a telescope for Christmas and birthdays. I kept thinking she was just going to grow out of it. But then again it hit the list, and another year later still there. I thought it was so funny because what 5 year old GIRL asks for a telescope. Well my 5 year old. I knew she was to little to really enjoy it but this year it moved from top 10 wants to TOP want. So I finally broke down and got her what she wanted.
There is nothing worse than getting a new toy or gadget for christmas and it won't work. Well that was the problem we were having. Fro took it out and couldn't see a thing. After a few days he finally tweeked a few things and changed out a few lenses and BOOM!!

What we saw was the clearest, most beautiful view of the moon. You could see all the craters and everything was in such fine detail. We were so excited and when it was Alis turn to look she said, " Wow mom there is neil armstrongs feet prints and the american flag!"
Pretty sure we had a good view but I didn't get the luck to see that!! She has enjoyed seeing the sky from a different perspective and even jupiter and 3 of it's moons. It is amazing to me how kids come so programmed with what they do and don't love. She has always found space fascinating.

Starting Young

A neighbor of mine took this picture of Cam in one of our sunday school lessons. He thought it was so adorable that he was studying his scriptures at such a young age. I loved it too and wanted to always remember it.

Ali is in a class which is now officially having scripture races so to speak and poor ali has only her little flimsy book of mormon. She came home after church and said, "Mom can I please get those nice scriptures with the tabs. My teachers had to help me find everything." I felt so bad picturing her being "that kid" that has no clue about where to find things in the scriptures. I immediately told her we would have to get her some of her own now that she was old enough to take care of them. So I took her a few days later to get he own scriptures with tabs. She picked out a quad that she liked and told me she would love to have her name in cursive on them. I thought that would be so perfect since she is learning cursive right now in school. They told us it would be an hour wait and to come back. So we went and bummed around and had some mom and ali time. Then we headed back to the store. She was so excited!! I loved seeing her get excited about her own scriptures. I asked the store clerk to get them for us and we waited. As he came back through the door alis face just lit up. She looked at me with the most excited expression ever and said, "there they are!!!" It was so great to realized that in all my efforts to relay my love for the church and the scriptures it has helped her to realize they are special and seeing that excitement was such a great moment for me as a mom!!

christmas 2011

 

I love Christmas so much, especially when NO one in our entire family is sick this year!! It makes it so great when everyone gets to be there. For Christmas Eve this year we had my parents over for our annual Christmas turkey dinner. It was DELICIOUS! We then had all my siblings come over to decorate sugar cookies i made so they could take them to santa. We then let all the kids exchange gifts and then it was the birthday cake story. Every year since i was a baby my mom reads this story called the birthday cake. It helps set the story for Jesus and the real reason for christmas. So everyone gathers around her on her chair and candle and listen so quietly. Well this year Cam was actually paying attention to the description in the story of the cake. As my mom read the description and the part that says it had raisins cam said,"EW GROSS!!" Everyone broke out laughing for a good few minutes because it was so funny and timed perftectly! I know it is going to be a memory we all will carry forever because it was so cute to see this three year old trying to listen so intently and realize it sounded so gross. it was hilarious!

Christmas Morning is my favorite part! I even made Fro and the kids do our family tradition train. As a kid I loved doing the train. We all wait on our pillows in our door way. My dad would come around with his train whistle and one by one pick up all our family members. He would make it so fun and I was so happy my kids and Fro participated this year just for me!!
When we got downstairs it truly was amazing. I love watching ali and cam get so excited! Their eyes went CRAZY!!
Our game this year was Shoot the Christmas Bingo. It was Bingo, but you had to shoot a dart at the clues to match to the bingo board. It was a lot of fun and the kids loved it. Each person had a specific color of smiley face sticker on their present and Cams was green so all day he just kept saying, Mine were the green ones. He loved opening so many fun things!!
Ali has been wanting a Telescope for 3 years now. I kept thinking she would grow out of it, but it was put on the TOP of her list this year. So i hid it in the other room and left a note on one of the other presents to have her look in the office. I told her it was from her mom and dad because she is such a bright star to us everyday and she was SOOOOOO excited about it.
Cam had asked for a green or BOY dollhouse. He loves playing with alis stuff but wanted a boy version of things, so he got a big BATCAVE and a lot of Heroes to play with it like batman,and superman, and flash, and batgirl, and a bunch of others.
We were all spoiled and had such a great day. It was just fun getting to be together and play . We then had to drive up to fros sisters house in kaysville for lunch and play with the uncles and cousins. It was a fun day and we were all tired by the end of it!!

More Christmas time fun

 

At christmas going iceskating is a must for me. I have always loved going iceskating in december, it just makes it feel more festive to me for some reason. This year fro couldn't skate again and we didn't want to have to drag cam around the rink- that is no fun for anyone, so this year I got to take just Ali and my neice madison. We had a great time and they skated non-stop, except for the zamboni, for over 2 1/2 hours. My legs were pretty tired and they didn't want to stop, but it was tons of fun, and really special that it was just me and the girls!
We also took the kids to South towne mall to see santa. My sister Brittany and her kids came and they each took thier turn to tell santa what they wanted. Ali wanted a telescope and Cam wanted a boy dollhouse (batcave), and heros to go with it. We then went to Cafe Rio and b98.7 was there and i won a family 4 pack to the aquarium and to Planet Play. It turned out pretty good for us, and gave us even more things to do with our time off!!

Browns Talent show 2011

 

What my sister Brittany wants, my sister Brittany gets and in all our glory~~ Brittany came up with doing a christmas talent show last year and we thought that was good, but NO she came back again and said she wanted everyone to perform a talent this year also- since it was on her birthday!! So since we all love britto we all tried to come up with a talent. My family decided to do a family dance to LMFAO party anthem and it was pretty dang awesome. My sister Brooke and her two girls did the three amigos my little buttercup dance, Noah and steve amazed us with their jump rope talents, Kate and maddie did a penguin dance, My mom played the harmonica, and my dad played the piano upside down, and to top the night my sister britt pulled our our old school keyboard from when we were little and played a "demo" song we all grew up pretending we knew how to play and it was Hilarious. It brought back so many memories, and her doing it again with a wig made so many more. It was a funny night and so fun to share with my family. We had our annual white elephant auction and among the greatest gifts were gifts fro and I stole from my sisters houses and wrap up and gave away. it was priceless watching thier faces realize the gifts being given were their things they had no idea were missing!! It was a lot of fun- lots of chia pets, roosters, and cut up credit cards thanks to the year of Dave Ramsey revisions!!

Christmas Activities

 

Even though my husband is not working and that sucks for everyone, it has been pretty fun to see more of him and get to do some fun things while ali is out of school. Every winter for the past 4 years we have had someone injured or a new baby or some reason we couldn't go to temple square. Despite Fros arms being broken i decided it was no excuse to miss it and we needed to go. I was glad we did!! The weather was great and we went at about 5ish before it got crazy busy! we got a parking spot right outside the temple and that made our whole night!! that doesn't happen often! We showed the kids the lights, and went to the top of the JSM building and looked out and had dinner- it was a lot of fun.
My sisters neighbor makes the best toffee and i was wanting to learn how to make it so my sister in law camille came over and between the two of us, we made some pretty good toffee. I learned some tricks to make the next batch even better, but it was fun to finally get that under my belt! We had a night to make gingerbread houses, and my sister brittanys birthday, and the time off was just getting started!