Roadshow

This past weekend was my stake's Roadshow activity. Our stake does a 24-hour roadshow, which meant that the youth in each ward have 24 hours to learn and rehearse their own roadshow (8 minute skit which includes singing, dancing, and speaking parts). Then each ward preforms their roadshow on Saturday night. The 24 hours also includes making the set and costumes. We met at 5pm on Friday and practiced until 10pm, and then we were back bright and early at 8am Saturday morning and practiced all day until our preformance at 7pm that night.

I was one of three "roadshow specialists". We had been planning the roadshow for months and were so excited to get started. Here is a picture of what we handed out to the youth at their Tuesday night activity before the roadshow weekend to get them excited.

We also dressed up and acted out the roadshow for them!

Here is one of the dress rehearsals on Saturday.

A last minute rehearsal in the parking lot outside the stake center.

Hair and makeup.

Joran, Sara, and me. These are the amazing ladies I got to work with on the roadshow.

The youth. Our roadshow was Romeo and Juliet meet America's Best Dance Crew with a little West Side Story action and an 80's theme. It was a blast!

I was so proud of the youth and amazed at how hard they worked and how quickly they learned. It was so much fun to work with them!

Dress Up

Cala loves to play dress up lately and loves it even more if she has someone to play it with... and most days Ethan is the lucky one that gets to play with her. But... we don't have any boy dress up clothes (I'll have to work on that). Cala had wanted Ethan to be Flynn Rider, but since we didn't have anything like that she settled on Ethan being a princes and she would be the witch. In the first picture she was trying to be funny and pull the hat brim over her face (notice which finger she is using).

Come soon Spring!

Even though this has been the mildest winter that I can remember I'm still longing for spring. We went for a hike over the weekend and the trees were bare and brown. I just can't wait for new leaves to sprout and flowers to bloom. Spring, we are ready for you to arrive!

Happy Valentine's

I love Valentine's day! The decorations are so fun, all that pink and red. I love the candy and telling those I love how important they are to me.

Cala and I made and decorated some sugar cookies.

The kiddos waiting to eat some cookies... notice Ethan's teary face... he wasn't waiting so patiently.

Decorating the cookies.

My valentine's treat for Mark. I mixed up all the cookies in a bag and he had to figure out what they spelled. It didn't turn out to be as easy as I thought it was going to be :)

Cala all ready for the Valentine's party at preschool. Mark accidentally took the wrong set of car keys when he left for work that morning, so when I went to take Cala to preschool I didn't have keys to the car! Thankfully, grandma Chris saved the day! She dropped what she was doing and came right away to pick Cala up for her party.

Mark and I ready for a date. We went out to dinner and one of my favorite things was getting to talk to him with no interruptions from kids. We probably could have eaten fast food and I would have loved every second... it's the little things in life. Thanks to Mummi for babysitting the kids!

Snow, finally!

After last winter in New York I was ok that we hadn't gotten ANY snow yet this winter, but last night we finally got some. We woke up this morning to a winter wonderland. Cala could not wait to go outside and play! After shoveling the driveway we went sledding in the front yard and had a great time.

Look carefully and you'll see that Ethan is still wearing Cala's flowered snow pants from when she was his age and he also has her disney princess snow boots on... poor little guy but at least he has a boy coat!

Visitors

Last weekend one of my best friends came to visit with her family while her husband interviewed at a nearby hospital. It was so good to see all of them! The kids played and we talked and talked. Those couple days went by way too fast!

The last time I saw Millie she was about 3 days old and now she's a little girl! This was Ethan's first time meeting her and he was smitten. He just stared and stared.

Cala and Georgia picked up right where they left off. They danced, played barbies, played babies, laughed, and danced some more. Sadly, these are the only pictures I have of them together, probably because I couldn't get them to sit still long enough :)

One of the nights they were here we all went swimming at their hotel. The kids loved it!

I miss you Tiana! I'm hoping that in about four months I'll be helping you move in and we'll be living close to each other again!

Warm bubbles

For the last few winters we have lived in New York in very old, drafty apartments. The winters were cold and heating was expensive. Needless to say we were almost always cold even with layers on. The house we live in now has a wood stove and I am in love with it! Once we get the fire blazing it keeps the house nice and warm, almost too warm, but I'm not complaining about that!

We also have a jetted tub which makes for some amazing bubble baths. That is Ethan's new smile, it looks like he's in pain but he's actually smiling.

Here's Cala showing off her bubble art work.