Fall Festival

Our ward recently had a Fall Festival, they don't do a trunk or treat here but they had all kinds of games and a chili cook off. The kids had a ton of fun, running from one game to the next trying to get as much candy as they could. We all dressed up for the festival. There were no masks allowed so I did a little modification on my costume. Kurt & I always do our costume as a pair, so he was The Green Hornet and I am his sidekick Kato. If you haven't seen the movie The Green Hornet, I highly recommend it. We thought it was really good. Anyway, we are all superheroes this year. Alaina chose Supergirl all by herself, Emmitt chose Captain America, and Maddox is Thor. When I took the kids shopping for costumes I could not believe how expensive they were. It took a while to choose since alot of them were $40 for one!

Back to the Festival, I made a creamy white chicken chili for the chili cook off. I'm pretty sure it was a hit because it was gone FAST! I was bummed that they didn't announce winners effectively so I have no clue what place I got. Oh well. The kids also got their faces painted. Alaina got a black cat, and Emmitt got a spaceship. Maddox just had a blast throwing his hammer at Kurt all night long, lol. Which reminds me how talented my husband is, we realized we forgot to buy Maddox his Thor hammer about 10 mins before we had to leave for the party. So Kurt being the genius he is, made this one all by himself, using a milk carton and a foam sword. Ta Da! Amazing!

Alaina playing the donut game, she had to eat the mini donut hanging from a string w/o using her hands

Emmitt building his gumdrop toothpick tower

Alainas gumdrop toothpick cat

Eliana, Alaina, and Bree doing the 3 legged race.

Let Freedom Ring

I was hoping to have the other pictures from this fun 4th of July weekend we spent with Kurts family especially his sister Kailie wo flew in from Utah, but her camera is in need of a battery and so I continue to wait. So here are the pictures I have from the fourth and maybe sometime soon I will be able to post pictures of the days spent before the 4th. For our fourth of July celebration Kurts family came over as well as our friends the Gunsons. We spent the afternoon swimming, eating a yummy spread, and later watching the fireworks with the Gunsons. We went to mall this year like we did last year, i hate traveling on the fourth so the mall does it for us. It was a good show, and we were able to get descent seats on the grass by Target. A great weekend to celebrate our freedoms with friends and family.

The fam playing afind the object game

The kids ready for some fireworks action! This really nice man in front of us asked us how many kids we had in our group and gave them all free glow necklaces.

Chase and I- we're buds, yes I am partial to this cute boy.

The crew- let's get this show on the road!

My american girl

Jenna, she's such a great friend.

Maddox laying with Daddy, I loved watching his reaction to the fireworks.

An o-k shot of the action my camera wasn't the best at picking up good fireworks shots.

Kurts random picture taking

Las Vegas Videos

So this is the video from our camera that Kurt filmed. I am working on figuring out how to upload the video that we purchased that is from the video camera strapped to my hand. So hopefully I will have that up soon.

Dana Point Videos

I have tons to catch up on, but before I jump to our Vegas vacation I thought I should post these Dana Point videos that I forgot to post earlier. Stay tuned for Vegas....:)

Leighton Meester Concert

Last night my awesome husband watched the babies for me so I could attend a concert in Beverly Hills/Santa Monica area with my good friend Jenna. I had heard about it on Twitter and bought tickets right away. Leighton Meester, for those who don't know, stars on the tv show Gossip Girl and the movie Country Strong along with a couple others. Yes, I admit I am a fan of Gossip Girl. I love it actually and Leightons character is probably my fave. Her love of Audrey Hepburn movies show she's a girl after my own heart. Anyway, she has started to dabble in the music biz and she has a beautiful voice. You can get an inkling of her voice on Country Strong where she sang all her own songs. This concert was different than the music you can find of hers on the net, she has some country songs and some pop songs but this show was more acoustic music. Totally loved it! She played with a band called Check in the Dark who were also awesome. It was fun to go with a girlfriend, Jenna is a fun girl and we always have a good time together.

Cute TINY Leighton- ya my camera sux.

Check in the dark, they opened for her and also were her band for the night. The lead singer did a cute duet with her as well.

Memorial Day

I just realized I never blogged about our Memorial Day, so better late than never. Our church did a Memorial Day breakfast honoring the veterans in our community. I was hoping that my Dad and brother could come down and go with us but they had to work. (For those who don't know I have alot of marines in my family- my grandpas, my Dad, my brothers, etc.) It was a really nice event, they had some patriotic musical numbers and served a big breakfast. I spent the majority of it chasing Maddox around making sure he wasn't getting soaked. The celebration was outside and the sprinklers had just come on the one side of the building so there was a bit of a flood going on in the grass area. And of course, the kids thought it was the coolest thing. I got a kick out of watching these three little guys run around together.

Chase (my buddy-he calls me Mimi it is the cutest thing), Maddox (my munchkin), and Oliver (this cute boy cracks me up).can you hear my man voice on the video? I had this voice issue for two weeks.

They are the best of buds, they are all pretty much the same age and go to nursery together.

Kurt took theses pictures of the kids when we were out in the garage ready to leave, I love them.

After the breakfast we spent a little while at home before heading to the aquatics center! Our kids LOVE the aquatics center and frankly so do we. It is awesome and just a couple bucks for the family to go. Memorial Day was their first opening day for the summer, I thought it would be super crowded but it wasn't at all it was really nice. Emmitt got to go on the big water slide for the first time, he finally made the height requirement. He was so excited! I walked him over and sent him up the stairs, I could tell he was a little nervous but did it anyway, he came flying out of that thing! The look on his face was like, "Whoa whoa" lol. He said he loved it and that he went so FAST! Days like these make me so grateful for my little family. My children and husband light up my world. Reflecting on all of the great things that we enjoy in this life make me grateful for those who fight to protect our freedoms. The sacrifice their families and they themselves make. And continually grateful to our Heavenly Father.

Farm Videos

We have gone out to the "farm", Kurts parents house a couple times this month. The kids love to play with the animals, they didn't get that from me. Isaac tried to give me a chicken to hold.. I am NOT an animal person! Everyone got a good laugh. I have found a new favorite hobby there. They have an xbox kinect which is definitely on my list! SO MUCH FUN! I am not a video gamer but this kinect thing is sweet especially the dance game!! It's all I want to do when I am there now. Audrey and I have had a few dance battles. The family was hanging out playing cards one night while I went through as many songs as I could on the dance game. My favorite was Teach me how to jerk by Audio Push. Such a fun dance. You can't hear the music in the video and it's sideways but oh well.

The real teach me how to jerk video, if only I could pop like the pros.

St. Patricks Day

St Patricks Day has always been a holiday that's special to me. Could be my Irish roots, or it could be that I have these fond memories of my Dad being particularly "irish" on St Pats. My Dad loved St Pats and would use his best irish accent and walk around in his green beaming. My Mom also helped to instill my love for the holiday, she would do her best to green everything or make us Irish meals. So I continue the Irish fun with my kids. Ever since Kurt and I have been married I make an Irish dinner and try to add some green to other meals. St Pats morning I made the kids green eggs and ham for breakfast. Emmitt had school so we sent him off sporting his green. Kurt had a couple jobs to do so that left Alaina, Maddox, and I. I love Alainas little green outfit, I asked her to stand still so I could take a picture, apparently she wanted to model instead.

We first went to the store to get the last of our meals ingredients. While at the store I saw this pretty green and white bouquet and decided to get two and drop one at my friends home whom I visit teach.

Isn't the green and white so pretty? Plus, it has daisies my fave flower. :) Kurt came home right as we were going to deliver the flowers so he came along with us. After our delivery Alaina and I started making our rainbow cupcakes. This was actaully really fun, I thought that it was going to be a lot of work and contemplated not making them but it was worth it.

I combined two different recipes. I got the rainbow idea from disney family fun and used an irish cream cupcake recipe. So the cake was a vanilla buttermilk, and the icing is Irish cream with regular green decor icing. I know what you all are thinking.... Irish cream doesn't that have some kick in it?? lol. I used irish cream flavored creamer for the icing. It was an idea that I randomly thought of and while talking to my Mom asked her if she thought it would work, she said probably. And it did and it was delicious!! Tasted as though I did in fact use Baileys. MMMM!

Cupcakes ready to bake...cool colors huh? I love how pretty the cupcakes turned out. Not only were the fun to look at but sooooo yummy!!

For dinner I made a traditional Irish dinner- corned beef roast and potato cabbage casserole. It was really good! The corned beef I have had a challenge with in the past but this years was by far the best, and I found an awesome potato cabbage casserole recipe off of Better Homes and Gardens that was sooooo goood! The kids loved it and ate every last bite.

Emmitt and Alaina informed Kurt and I that leprechauns are VERY tricky, so in that spirit we played some tricky games after dinner.

Then Kurt took Emmitt and Alaina to the skatepark, where they rode their bikes up and down the ramps.

CRAZY Choreography!

I found this guy about a month or so ago on youtube and he blows my mind! I LOVE his choreography and his work has been on Ellen and fox news. I found out he teaches classes at IDAhollywood and now I am dying to go!! I would kill to take his classes, and dance like this:

This little girl Chang CHang was on Ellen dancing to whip my hair, she is so cute.

Alainas First Dance Recital

A moment of extreme joy for me as a Mom was watching my baby girl perform in her very first dance recital!! I was enamored. Being a dancer myself this was one moment I have been sooooo looking forward to. Alaina had her very first dance recital this past Saturday, despite the terrible weather she did awesome! She performed a tap numbner with her class to the song Cool Yule. The weather was horrendous, raining like crazy. I was so worried that her costume and makeup would be ruined before she even got on stage. Her number was the fifth one from the very beginning of the show and it couldn't have come soon enough for me. Kurt and I watched with the boys, and Grandma Lark came as well to cheer her on. The studio dhas a lead girl for the younger classes on stage front and center with them so they have someone to watch when they forget the moves. Alaina came on stage and almost immmediately I teared up (something I was definitely not expecting to do) I was beaming and I just felt so much joy as I watched her tap her little heart out. Kurt was standing in the back taking video, the videos not the greatest quality, he was trying to hold Maddox and film.

She was given a trophy at the end of her performance and she had so much fun. I for one am looking forward to many more dance recitals.

First Sleepover

Emmitt & Alaina had their very first sleepovers last month. I wish I would have thought to take pictures but I didn't. Emmitt went to cousin Shays house to hang out with Blake, and Reese came to our house to play with Alaina. Alaina LOVES Reese! I have a feeling she will be very sad when they leave us here in a week. The girls had so much fun- we had pizza, watched old school cartoons like She-Ra, and they had a dance party to the chipmunks in the playroom. We did get video of the girls dancing, Maddox was getting his groove on as well. I have been talking to Shay about these videos because Reeses dance techniques in the second one are hilarious to me...you'll see what I mean.

Some cute videos

The following is tickle time with Daddy:

Playing Ball (his very favorite thing to do)with Mom:

I was teaching myself the Whip your hair dance the other day, Maddox and Alaina decided to rock out with me. I love Maddoxs sway dance. P.S. That dance gave me some whiplash issues! lol.

Alainas Bubblegum dance taught to her by her Aunt Eliana

Maddox playing peek a boo with me on the way home from AZ. The first couple minutes he just keeps saying cheese to the camera.