Saturday, January 30, 2010

SuperStar!

In the fall Camryn started taking musical theater classes at Hollywood Kids. They had auditions and have been practicing for their Dazzling Disney Review Performance. Camryn was a little nervous and very excited.

Camryn was in 2 dance numbers - Be Our Guest from Beauty and the Beast and Supercal from Mary Poppins. She was also in scenes from Cars, Rattioulle, and Alice in Wonderland. She remembered all her lines and projected well.

The kids also had the option to sing a solo. Camryn sang This is Me from Camp Rock. She had me make this sparkly vest for her number. I'm not great at sewing, but she had this rock start type outfit in her mind and I guess I'm a sucker. She seemed so confident and even held the last note a long time. I was so proud of her. I would never have had the guts to do something like that.


The whole class was awesome and fun to watch. Ms. Kim did a great job preparing them for the stage.





Friday, January 22, 2010

I Wanna Rock n' Roll All Night and Party Every Day

Last week Beatty had a day where students were to dress up as what profession they would like to have when they grow up. They had people from the community come in and talk to the kids about their work. Sadly, no rock stars showed up to mentor Camryn. Yep, Cam wants to be a rock star when she grows up. I guess she could buy me the Mustang GT I've always wanted.

Seth wanted to be in a picture, too - so, he is rockin' a pink guitar. Very butch!


"If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?" - Vince Lombardi

Our Martin Luther King Day holiday was a rainy one. We needed to come up with something to entertain the kids indoors. I came up with the idea to have a game tournament. Each player (our family plus the twins) got to choose a game. We tallied up who won the most games and the ultimate champion got to pick a treat for the family to go get.


We played traditional games like Hot Potato, Clue, and Snorta.


And we played Wii games like Sing it, tennis, dodge ball, and a car race game.

Camryn ended up being the champion, winning 3 of 7 games. She choose to go to 7-11 to get Slurpees. It was a fun day full of good quality family time.



It's All Fun and Games....

We invited everyone on our email lists to come play in our cul-de-sac on Staff Development Day. Kids kinda came and went, but at the peak someone counted 39 kids.

The older kids played 4 square, kickball, and dodge ball; while the younger kids mostly rode bikes around our little street.

The Mitchell's got out their Power Wheels Princess Car. They took turns driving. The boys didn't even care it was princessy. Here is Seth taking Spencer for a ride.

Between games, there was a lot of discussion about what to play next - and a lot of complaining about little kids playing the games with the bigger kids. Once they got playing a game, eveyone had a good time though.

The kids finished up the games with a little Red Rover, then our neighbor, Gary, ran to the store and made hot dogs for everyone who was still there (yes, I live in the best neighborhood ever!). It was a fun day with perfect weather.

Monday, January 4, 2010

Friends and Flowers

Between Christmas and New Years we made a trip down to the Bellagio's arboretum to see the Christmas display. Each of the kids brought a friend.

Alexis and Tyti

Camryn and Savannah

Seth and Allie

Christmas Is All Around

Christmas Eve included Dave's new favorite dinner (B.J.'s Parmesan Crusted Chicken and Mashed Potatoes), and opening gifts from Mom, Dad, and Grandma Hill. The presents were a little sparse this year - the main gift was the Disney World tickets. Then the kids slept together in the loft, so no one could see what Santa brought until we all went down together in the morning - although I'm pretty sure someone (Camryn) snuck down crazy early anyway. Grandma Hill and her dog, B.J. spent the night too.

Santa brought:

Alexis a keyboard (Mom and Dad promised lessons from Grandma Jenkins' piano teacher, Sister Jex).

Camryn got a Nintendo DS.

And Seth got a Spiderman bike.

We went to Grandma Jenkins' house for a waffle breakfast and to exchange gifts with cousins, aunts and uncles, and grandparents.

That night the whole Jenkins clan came over for Wii games,

playing with Legos and light sabers,

and for an adult ping pong tourney. Lee remains champion.

Christmas, Christmas Time Is Here

After Jo's wedding, I felt like I could finally think about Christmas. We took the kids to see Santa at Bass Pro Shop. The Santa looks great and was so nice. They give you a free picture and don't care how many with your own camera. The kids asked for the things we expected, thank goodness!

We also had the neighborhood kids over to decorate Christmas cookies. We had extras from the preschool party and enough sweets in the house, we thought the kids could help us get rid of them. They had fun and used plenty of sprinkles.

My kids did not over decorate - I guess I have rubbed off on them.

Ma-widge, Is What Bwings Us Togeder Tuday


My youngest sister, Jolynn, finally got married December 19th, 2009. It was really special to have everyone from Jolynn on up in the temple together. Bo was outside with ALL the kids. Good thing the older girls are getting old enough to watch out for the younger ones. It was a nice ceremony and I did tear up a little.

The kids were actually very well behaved and looking very shiny and clean that morning.

Our kids sadly, don't think of our temple when they think temple, because we actually take them to visit the St. George or Salt Lake Temples more often (they have Visitors Centers). I wanted a picture of us in front of our temple, so maybe they can picture themselves getting married there someday.

Jolynn disregarded my intense fear of making wedding cakes and asked me to make hers. She found a picture of a cake she loved online. The cake was inspired by a china pattern, hence the woodland animals and horse heads. I finally gave in and said I would make it. Things went fairly well, until the drive to the church. The cake started sliding off the cake board in the car and I was trying to hold it together and was screaming the whole way. When we got there, I had to do a few repairs but it all turned out and Jolynn loved it.

December School Days

After getting back from Florida, we were pretty busy with school activities. At preschool, we had our Christmas party. We put on a Nativity play. Seth played Joseph again this year, because none of the other boys would (maybe the girls make the other boys nervous). We also decorated cookies, had a scavenger hut to find a present, and played a hot potato game to unwrap the present that was wrapped MANY times to find candy inside. The party was fun.

Alexis had her first choir concert. She even got the grandparents and Aunt Jacquelynn and Uncle Bo to come. The choir sang holiday songs. They did a good job, but I won't miss Alexis practicing the actions to the songs around the house.

Camryn got an award for being on the A/B Honor Roll. She was only a few points away from straight A's. I was very proud of her and even dragged myself away from working on Jolynn's wedding cake to go to the award ceremony.