Emily and Tori's Dance Recital

Saturday June 21st was Emily and Tori's dance recital. On the Wednesday and Thurday before they had dress rehearsals on the stage and since it was a weekday the whole crew had to go! They both did INCREDIBLE in the recital, I was soooo proud of both of them for the great job that they did.

Tori was in one routine called Lullabye on Broadway and Emily was in two. Pop Music, which is the flashy costume and Newsies(a musical piece). She had to do a costume change and managed to do it all in time and came out with everything in place!!

Hudson ended up coming with me to the show and about ten minutes into it he started complaining that the music was too loud that he had a headache, then he was hungry and then the kicker was when he asked if I could just drive him home and come back(its a 15 min each way trip) -- a BIG no on that one!!!

There was an intermission after 20 routines and then another 19 routines after it. It went almost three hours and to be honest after he got a 'slim jim' from the snack bar he was a different kid.

The theater was sold out with standing room at the back which ticked the theater security off. Jase and i tried to estimate and figured that the theater held around a thousand people. Neither of the girls acted nervous or scared about performing in front of that many people. Emily is in heaven doing this. I truly think she has found her calling. She is so expressive and theatrical when she is doing this. It's great to see since generally she is such a quiet and reserved girl in school and anything else that doesn't involve her family!

The girls and their teacher Miss Tina.

Tina was also in a few routines with the other teachers so she was all done up as well. Hudson and I bought the girls each a rose(pink for Tori, red for Emmy) and a medal with AZ Desert Dance Recital 2008 on the back(purple for Emm, pink for Tori). Tori's group got these really nifty bow ties for their shoes which she thought were really cool. Emily is wearing her Newsies outfit.

Emily in her stage make-up...never thought i'd put make-up on my children at this age!!!

Max had a hard time keeping the chair open at the rehearsal but he thought he was pretty cool being allowed to sit in the chairs like the big kids.

Say cheese!!!

Emily in her "Pop Music" outfit.

Tori in the backstage room waiting for her turn to perform. What a cheese ball.

All in all it went really well. It was a learning experience for all of us. I'm sure next time Hudson won't so eagerly offer to come and watch!!

Father's Day

A few weeks before Father's Day the kids had the idea to get Daddy a Build-A-Bear for Father's Day with a neat outfit. So off we went to the mall and battled the insane store known as Build-A-Bear and the kids picked out a bear for Daddy...and then one each for themselves, and then I saw that they had a turtle(yep i absolutely LOVE turtles). Yes as usual I am a sucker, so we ended up walking out of the store with...

one bear for Daddy with a #1 Dad t-shirt, cargo shorts and sunglasses that the kids thought looked like their Dad's; one turtle for Mom with a USA t-shirt and some cool looking work boots; a soft fluffy bunny for Emily with a High School Musical t-shirt (she loves anything HSM) with a cute jean skirt; a puppy dog for Hudson with a baseball uniform(Hudson's favorite sport); a pink and grey leopard for Tori with a pop star outfit with a microphone(yep our diva) and then a chocolate brown monkey for Max (since he is such a monkey and he laughed when he saw that one) with a pair of camo cargo shorts and jungle t-shirt. When we checked out the lady gave us a birthday bear for the kids to sign for Jase for Father's Day since we bought enough bears to qualify for a party...urgh! The bears ended up being their end of school congratulations gift for a year well done and they all thought that was pretty cool :)

The bear all the kids signed for Jason and made cute little comments on.

The Koala bear the kids chose for his Father's Day gift. They especially wanted the glasses since they said that their Dad's we just like them, he begs to disagree, haha.

Our Croc Kids :)

A new Costco was built close to our house and the kids and I decided to check it out. They had kids Croc sandals for a really great price and we pretty much live in sandals and flip flops all year here in Arizona. The kids convinced me that they "needed" new sandals, even though they had all gotten new flip flops the month before. Being a sucker I said why not, haha. They each chose their own colors. Emily was the first and chose purple in a womens size 5...dang. Then Hudson chose a really cool bluey green(they look less feminine in real life!!) in a womens size 7(yep he's gunna have size 15 when he gets older just like his Uncle Chris!), Max then chose blue in a kids 8 then Tori chose red in a kids 10. Yes, they all have massive feet except for Tori. If she didn't look so much like I did when I was a kid I would say she was swapped at birth!!!

Fun at Gram and Grandpa's!

Great Nanna Layton was down for a visit so we took the kids over to Gram and Grandpa's for a swim, dinner and to socialize. We all had a great time and as usual the kids hated to leave:(

Max in his floatie in the pool. He LOVES the pool, we think he looks upon it as his own giant bathtub!!

Tori and her masses of pool toys!!

Jason, Max, Tori, Gram, Emily, Great Nanna and Hudson

The guys!!

Max loved it when Jason put him under the waterfall :)

Grandpa teaching Max the finer points of how to walk down the stairs without doing a face plant. After Max was done learning, he went up to Grandpa and gave him a huge hug...it was priceless!!

Emily loves to play Gram's piano whenever we visit.

Jason giving Emily some pointers on the piano. The summer that we dated Jason used to play the piano at the condo in Kelowna all the time.

The girls!!

Grandpa's New Truck

Grandpa traded in his BMW M5 and his Nissan Frontier pick-up truck and got a brand spankin' new 2009 Denali truck! The kids thought it was a really neat truck since it has dvd players in the back of both head rests. They informed me that we needed to get a dvd player in our car so that they wouldn't be so bored, haha. Grandpa said that he told the kids that he got them put in so that his dog Murphy could have something to do when she was in the back seat. haha

It is a VERY nice truck and smells like new leather inside. All the bells and whistles on this baby!! It's nice that Grandpa splurged on himself, it's seldom that he does that!

Can't wait to go for a ride :)

Dance Photos!

This week was dance photos for the girls. They have a recital coming up at the end of June and they took photos this past week. I didn't get a chance to take one of Emily since we were in a hurry but the one she had taken on Saturday was one of her Musical Theater class called "Newsies" where they dressed up like paper boys from the 40's( think it was the 40's).

She wore a flat cap, boys dress shirt, boys dress pants(she used a pair of Hudson's church pants that i had cut off to hem and unfortunately cut them too short so i guess it all turned out to okay in the end!!) and then a pair of suspenders and a pair of knee high blue socks. I thought she looked like a cute little guy!! I initially put her hair in two low pig tails but when we got there all the girls had their hair up to look more like boys so i tired to get all of her hair under her hat and that was a no go. Her hair is so thick that it wouldn't fit under her hat so i had to pull it into a single braid down her back which ended up looking pretty good. I'm sad i didn't get a photo of her in the outfit but i'll get her dressed up in it again or just post a photo of her when we get them back. I would do it today but she has "other" make up on at the moment. (see the next post in line!!)

Emily's jazz/tap class had a delay with some of their costumes so their class photos won't be taken until dress rehearsals in two weeks so i'll post her photos then.

Tori's outfit is for Lullabye on Broadway. She let me curl her hair a bit...but not much and she wanted her hair down instead of up in a bun or pony tail because it makes her look more like a princess this way...okay if you say so, haha. I also bought some make up to give the girls a light touch up for the photos. Since i really don't own much make up i had to hit Target to buy some. Yeah i know it's sad, i'm so not a girly girl. The only make up i do use is Bobby Brown and there is no way i'm using that on my kids, haha.

Once we get all of their photos back i'll post them. The people doing them looked like they did a good job.

My Little Zombies...

Tori came up to me today and asked if i could decorate her like a vampire. I laughed and asked her what she meant. I had bought make up for their dance photos the past week and she wanted me to use the dark colors to make her look like a vampire or zombie. So, i used the eye shadow to so her eyes and blush for color and then she brought me the eye liner to make her look scarier...having no idea how to do that i just went with it and yeah i guess that is what we finally got...

She showed Emily and Hudson and they wanted to be done too. I'll have to admit putting make up on my little girls feels weird but putting it on my son just felt so so soooo wrong!!

Emily wanted me to use red lipstick to make blood on them and they were sad when i told them no for three reasons. One, they didn't need it. Two, it would make too much of a mess if they smeared it on anything in the house and Three....yeah i don't own lipstick, let alone red, haha. I might have had some i received as a gift long ago but i'm sure make up has an expiry date.

Emily and Tori dressed up, Tori said she was a baby princess vampire!

Hudson was too busy playing Warcraft to get dressed up and to want too many scars etc. Takes after his dad that is for sure!!

Dark Queen Emily

Baby vampire Tori

Hudson the zombie

Krispy Kreme!!

Over the long weekend we went to lunch with Uncle Tyler at Red Robin for some delicious burgers and a fun time. When we got out of the car we noticed a sweet smell in the air and then looked across the parking lot to where a huge Krispy Kreme store used to be but had gone out of business. To the amazement of all of us, we saw that the store was once again open for business!!! The drive thru was packed and there was a long line inside. We told the kids that if they were good at lunch that we would "see" about getting some donuts to take with us over to Grandma and Grandpa's where we were headed for a swim after our lunch. In our heads both Jase and I were like "hell yeah! we are definately getting donuts!" haha.

The kids were stellar at the restaurant (they are usually very well behaved when we eat out which is nice) and we took the left overs to the car and you could see the kids start to question whether or not we were going to get a treat or not. We told them that they had to let go of their balloons that they had received in Red Robin (since the sound of balloons popping is one of my major pet peeves) and once they did that and watched them float off into the blue Mesa sky we told them that yes, they had earned their treat. You would have thought that we had told them we were going to Disneyland or something because they were so excited.

Needless to say we all went and waited inside in the line for donuts and they each got to pick out one for themselves and Jase and I filled up the rest of the dozen. Come on what's a trip to Krispy Kreme if you don't take any home for a late night snack!!

The kids remembered that Krispy Kreme had hats that they could get and so they each got a hat. Long ago when Emily was in preschool her class went on a fieldtrip to one of the local stores and they both still remembered going to that. Tori was still a baby so she didn't remember. The memories of kids are amazing, selective but amazing!

The ride to Grandma and Grandpa's probably seemed like forever to the kids and they complained that I wasn't driving fast enough which is a change since usually i hear, "Mom are you speeding?" (which is never the case....maybe.)

The kids thoroughly enjoyed their donuts although im not sure if it was any more than Jason, Tyler or myself! Those were some REALLY good donuts!!

The kids played with their hats on the way home from Jase's parents to our house, with me asking them not to ruin them since i wanted a picture. We tried to rescue Max's hat from him but he pitched a total and complete fit when we took it away from him so we let him have it and as you can see from the picture it didn't fare too well :)

Well i'm glad that Krispy Kreme is back, since its nice for a quick treat from time to time but i'm sure my butt won't agree if we hit it up too often!!