Emma, the science gal.

Emma is taking middle school by storm. She’s getting perfect grades, she has wonderful friends, she’s involved in yearbook and the school play, and she still does dance three days a week. This kid is rocking her busy schedule.
One day I noticed her at work. “What are you doing, Em?” “My science project.”
What? I didn’t have to help pick a topic? Or do an experiment? Or anything? Nope, she did it all herself. She got the data she needed, did all the research, typed everything up…amazing!
I helped her print a couple of things for the poster, but other than that, she was on her own.
Even more amazing? She advanced to the District Round.
Great job, Emma-lu!!

New Beginnings!!

This is my first New Beginnings as a Young Women’s leader. It was awesome! Our dear President created a knock-off of the t.v. show “The Voice”.
We had our four judges: Adam Divine, Ceelo Mean, Christian Attributa, and Fake Shelton. Our girls, Seo, Koko, Kaitlyn, and Nikki played them, respectively. They were hilarious! Totally in character.
 
Our host, Pray Daily (Emily) kept things going. Each new Beehive was introduced by a current Young Women, then read a quote about the value they were representing. After they finished, the judges (some or all) turned around to give their advice. The new Beehive picked a team (the good guys, Christian and Adam) and joined right side.
We even stopped for this commercial  - take a look.
We continued until each of our 7 new Beehives was introduced! It’s a great group and includes our very own Emma!
We had a beautiful musical number, then heard from a sister in our ward who just got home from her mission in Russia.
Dakota and Nikki both earned several ribbons for their Personal Progress. Yay!
 
Bishop Brady wrapped things up, he is truly a great man, inspired, and close to our Savior. I feel very blessed to have him as our Bishop.

It was an amazing night! Welcome to Young Women’s Emma!!

Writing for the paper…

I have been working for the West Jordan Journal since October. Over Christmas, I was assigned to also contribute to the Cottonwood Holladay Journal and the Murray Journal. This is fun stuff, people!
My first story for Cottonwood Holladay was about a group that will meet at Whitmore Library to support families with Celiac Kids. Are you kidding me? That’s my life!
So, here’s the picture I took to accompany the article:
You can also read it here: Gluten free kids can join ROCK group

Enjoy!

Christmas Choir Concert

Once again, one of my favorite things of the season…watching my kids sing in their Christmas concert.  They are so cute! Koko and Emma are in different choirs, but sang a few songs together.  Emma’s choir sang some really fun songs, Koko’s choir had some great songs and some interesting choreography.  It was a very fun night!! Every time I go to these performances, I laugh at the Kiva Guy.  The speakers are his eyes and nose, the screen is his mouth.  He looks unimpressed.  Does anyone else see this? 

Friday night, movie night

Since Emma has dance on Fridays, we have to wait until she’s done to do family activities.  Well, we found a theater that was showing the One Direction movie right after she was done…perfect!  I got our tickets, the girls wore their concert t-shirts, and we were on our way! 
I think they were excited…

Koko is so dang cute.  And a teeny bit obsessed…The movie was okay, the company was fantastic!!  My favorite kind of girls-night-out…

School pictures

At Albion, they did pictures the first week of school.  Which means, the girls got their picture taken for the yearbook then came home and we took our own. 
They are beautiful girls.  Not just really, really good-looking, but good and kind and smart and wonderful.  I’m a lucky mommy!

School. Yep.

The opening band for One Direction was called “5 Seconds of Summer”.
That’s what this felt like.  Maybe it’s because school ended in June and started August 19.  Maybe it’s because we had so much fun, it just zoomed by.  Maybe because it was just too dang short. 
In any case, summer is over and school has begun.  I’m so proud of my kids (except the growing up at the speed of light part). 
Koko is in 8th grade this year. She decided to wear her (fake) One Direction glasses over her (real) contact lenses.  Fashion first, people!  Plus, she looked darling.
Emma felt like a pro after her mini-day at school last week.  Off to 6th grade with you, you cute old lady! 

Colin is now the oldest elementary school kid, he’s in fourth grade this year!  He’s muy bueno, and my amigo.
Camri is my little 2nd grader.  How did that happen?  She is so smart and social, she will have a great year! 
Baby Beau is not a baby anymore…Kindergarten!  He had his meeting with the teacher today, but has to wait until next Monday for his first official day.  Pure torture for a kid that keeps asking, “Is is school yet?”
Little Annie is my stay-at-home buddy this year, so she gets her picture too!!

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Off to school!  Have an adventure! Learn new things! Make good choices!
And most of all, I love you!!
The Middle-Schoolers had carpool, so they were on their own.  I joined the elementary-schoolers.  They were welcomed to school with a red carpet and cheering teachers! 
Annie and Beau helped me with Safety Patrol this morning, then we were on our way.  Let the fun begin!
                  

Speaking of One Direction…

My girls are utterly, undeniably, whole-heartedly in love with One Direction.  It’s fine with me because their music is clean, they seem like good kids, and they ARE pretty cute.  Koko loves Liam, Emma loves Niall, and Camri and Annie love Louis.  It’s adorable. 
When we found out they were coming to Utah, we tried to get tickets.  But because we tried after the first 10 minutes they were on sale, we missed the boat.  There were still tickets available for only a mere 300-500% increase over face value.   You gotta love those ticket brokers!
Anyway, Joe called Jake who is a big cheese at Zion’s Bank, who happens to be a sponsor of the Maverick Center where the concert was being held. Jake pulled some strings and was able to get 4 suite tickets!! Hurray!!  The plan was for Liz to take Sammie, Koko, and Emma.  We were so happy that our girls got to go see the concert, how could we ask for anything more?!
Jake is very persuasive.  A few days before the concert, he called to let us know that he had secured four more tickets!!  What?!  That meant that Joe, Camri, Alex, and I were able to go!!  After all his efforts, Jake wasn’t even going, he was out of town for work that day. He is the man!
We had the time of our lives!  The day of the concert, the girls put on some fake nails with their boy’s faces on them.  Annie joined them and had the coolest nails I’ve ever seen on three-year old. 

It was crazy!  Picture thousands of fan-crazed teenage girls, 100 degrees outside, and everyone trying to be louder than everyone else.  It was awesome!
  


  
  
It was ridiculously loud in there, the girls were in heaven!  I had to cover Camri’s ears most of the night, and even then, it took a few days to recover to full hearing again. 
The band “5 Seconds of Summer” opened for them.  They were pretty good, another British boy band and a few years younger than One Direction.  And since we were in the suite, dinner was also provided.  They had hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixin’s, plus popcorn, fruit, candy, drinks, and an ice cream bar.  Yum!When THE BOYS finally came out, they began on the main stage, but after a while, they rode a platform to a center stage and were much closer to us.  Very cool!
  

I think they girls liked it…
They sang all their best songs and we were waiting for the debut of their new song which just came out earlier this week…”Best Song Ever”, but they never did it.  Bummer. 
We can’t complain, though, because it was everything the girls thought it would be and more.  Generous Joe bought t-shirts for all the girls so the cousins could have an official concert shirt.  It was a night I’ll never forget because I loved watching my girls have so much fun.
      

“So we danced all night to the best song ever!!”