Alyssa's Kindergarten Devotional

At Alyssa's school, each of the grades has the opportunity to present a devotional. The Kindergarteners get to do the Devotional in December. They sang songs, recited scriptures, and took turns saying their parts in the microphone-telling the Christmas Story. It was so cute to see those little kids up there, and they did such a great job with all of their parts. The spirit was so strong in that room as they talked about the birth of Jesus Christ and the true meaning of Christmas. I was glad that Alyssa got to be a part of it and that we got to watch it. Here is a picture of Alyssa with her class right before the program started. She is on the front row on the very left side.

As part of the program they sang a song about angels that came down from heaven and played their different instruments instead of singing. The kids were all tested to see which ones had the rhythm and abilities to be able to play. Alyssa was chosen to play the drum. It was a duet with one other boy. I've been trying to post the video of it all week, but it isn't working. She really got into her drum playing.  It's funny because I had heard her drumming around the house to the phrase "strawberries and whipped cream" for the past couple of months, but I didn't realize why she was doing it. I even heard her trying to teach Ashley how to do it. After hearing her play the drum to that song, I finally understood because the beat fit exactly.

Here are a couple more pictures of her durning the program. She has really bad red eye in all of the pictures that I took.

Pumpkins in December?

I feel like I have really neglected my blog lately. I just haven't really pulled out the camera, even though we have done some camera worthy things. I finally decided that since it is December it is probably time to move on past the Halloween posts. So I took all of the pictures I had on my camera and am turning them into the post that you are seeing today.

We had a really nice Thanksgiving. We hosted it here at our new home for some of Danny's family. We had his parents and his grandparents over. We also got to have my niece Brigitte here with us for a few days since she is going to BYU and her family lives in Connecticut. I took pictures before people arrived for dinner, but I didn't pull out the camera much after that. I was pleased with how the table turned out.

 And here is the kids table(just Alyssa and Ashley).

 After dinner, we each got to put three feathers on the turkey for the things that we are most thankful for. Alyssa got to glue and place them on the turkey.

 Great Grandpa's birthday happened to fall on Thanksgiving this year, so we got to celebrate that after dinner with cake, pie, presents, and a game about Great Grandpa.

 On the Friday after Thanksgiving, we pulled out all of our Christmas decorations and decorated our house. We were glad to have Brigitte around to help us. That night, we headed up to Salt Lake to go to the Tree Lighting Ceremony at the Grand America Hotel. They had a little scavenger hunt for the kids which won them each a cookie in the end. They also had pictures with Santa, but we didn't want to pay for them or wait in the line, so we got a picture with this fake Santa instead.

 Alyssa liked those little cupcake/candycane things so she wanted a picture with them. They were right next to a candy shop.

After the Grand America, we rode the tracks over to Temple Square. Unfortunately before we made it there, the cold temperatures made it hard for one of the little ones to delay going potty and she had an accident. We tried to find a store that could sell us a change of clothing close by, but we were unsuccessful. We took the tracks back to our car with the promise of returning to see the lights on another night.

Pumpkins

I let the girls pick their pumpkins out at Cornbelly's this year. Alyssa wanted the biggest one she could find and Ashley wanted the smallest one she could find. I don't know why. Since I knew they were going to want to paint them when we got home, I let Ashley pick out two.

Alyssa named her pumpkin "Facey Pasey" since she drew like 4 different faces on it.  

 I hadn't planned on carving them, but Danny suggested it to the girls when he saw them and then the girls were set on carving them. We carved them on the Saturday before Halloween and cooked the pumpkin seeds for them to try. Alyssa kept saying "this is gross" when I had her scoop out her pumpkin. Once I loosened all of the insides from the sides of the pumpkin, she was pretty good about scooping it out. Ashley didn't want any part of that. Alyssa wanted to carve it herself but after her first attempt with the knife, I decided that was a really bad idea. I took the knife away from her and handed her a smaller carving tool instead. Alyssa didn't like the seeds and Ashley loved them because they were a means of getting large amounts of salt into her(she loves salt). I didn't take a picture while we were carving the pumpkins because I had pumpkin guts covering my arms up to my elbow and Danny wasn't around to take the picture while we were working on them. I did snap this picture of the girls as we were getting ready to leave to go Trick or treating that night. The smaller pumpkin came from the Lehi Rec Center Party. Alyssa designed the faces almost exactly the same.

Trick or treating was a big hit with these girls. We started it off in downtown Provo around 3:30 and then headed home for a quick dinner before going out into our neighborhood. They spent a good amount of time running up and down driveways. We came home pretty worn out and with a large amount of loot. Now to get rid of it without eating it myself and letting them chew too much with their cavity prone teeth.

Costume Activities

During the week leading up to Halloween, the girls had many opportunities to wear their costumes. The first opportunity was to Ashley's preschool on the Wednesday before Halloween. Here is Ashley with her preschool class on that morning.

That same evening, our Ward had a Halloween Party. Both girls got to dress up. The party consisted of dinner, a costume parade, and then a treasure hunt. They had fun, but Ashley and both parents were pretty worn out by the time we got home.

Two nights later, I took them to a Halloween Party at the Lehi Rec Center. They went all out in decorating the place for the night. Three of the pictures below were taken before we even went through the doors.  

 The 4th was taken after we had gotten their faces painted and their balloon creations made. Alyssa chose a purple swan and Ashley chose a yellow and green flower.

They also got to play a few games(the ones that had short lines that I was willing to let them wait in), listen to a story, go trick or treating, pick out a few free pumpkins to take home, and grab a helium balloon to take home as we were leaving. They also offered a spook alley and dinner with a movie playing(one of the Shrek movies). We decided to skip out on those two things as the girls were too scared to go in the spook alley and we had already eaten before we got there. I thought it was a good event for them and super cheap for all of the things they got to do. I was very glad that we got there right at opening though because within an hour of opening, everything had lines that were too long to wait in and I wouldn't have been as willing to let them do all that they got to do.

Witches, Witches, and More Witches

Another thing that we ventured out to do this Halloween season was Witchfest at Gardner Village in West Jordan. It is an outdoor, cutesy shopping area and they put all kinds of witch displays out during the month of October. Shannon talked us into going with her and the girls had more fun than I expected them to have. Alyssa loved trying on the different witch hats.

 They both had fun posing in front of the different witch displays. That hula hooping witch was kind of fun. You can't tell from the picture but she moved to make it look like she was hula hooping.

 There were a couple of non-witch displays too, like this creepy looking one.

 These two witches were playing baseball with a third witch that didn't fit in the picture. The girls loved this one.

 We went during the day, so it wasn't crowded at all. In the evening they have a lot more activities going on so I'm sure it gets a lot more crowded then. It is a fun little shopping area with a lot of unique stores. The girls especially loved the candy store where I let them each pick out a candy. It was a fun afternoon.

Cornbelly's

I love this time of year. I don't know why, but when Halloween comes around I feel the need to take my kids to everything that the city and local area has to offer. The first thing that we ventured out to do this year was a corn maze/ pumpkin patch/ play land called Cornbelly's. Aunt Shannon came along so that we could go during the day and I could have a little bit of help with the girls. I forgot my camera, so I used my phone to snap a few photos. We were there from like 1-5pm and we were all worn out by the time we got home. Here are some of the things that we got to do there. 

 They had a little hayride that went around the outside of the corn maze. We got a little peak from the hayride at the Haunted Corn Maze that they offer in the evening. The ride was bumpy and the girls had fun pulling the hay out of the bale that they were sitting on. In the picture below, I noticed that you can see the big 'ol pile of horse poop that we had to sit by before the tractor started moving. Yuck!

They had an area that they called Princess Play land. They had a stage set up and some princess/prince dress up clothes to put on. Alyssa loved that. Ashley didn't want to put a dress on. Below is Cinderella's carriage to the ball. It is really hard to see the girls in this picture, but they are sitting in the seats inside the carriage. 



This corn crib was also part of the princess play land. Both girls played in it quite a bit. Ashley mostly wanted to throw the corn kernels. Alyssa wanted to bury herself in it. I wish I could have found an angle to take this picture from that didn't have that sun spot in the background.



 They had a few different train rides that the kids could go on. This one was called the cow train. They loved it because I let them go without any adults with they (mostly because there was no way I would have fit into that tiny cow car).

 We also watched pig races, played on numerous play sets, the girls enjoyed the inflatables, we went through the corn maze, but ended up cutting through the corn when Alyssa was done walking through it (we had lost Ashley and Shannon early on in the maze). We also spent a good amount of time in the section that has all of the haunted stuff during the night. I couldn't imagine what it would be like when it actually had scary people inside of it. It was a fun afternoon and well worth the money that I paid for it. Can't wait to take them again next year.

Fall Festival

At the beginning of the month, Alyssa's school had a fundraising event called Fall Festival. It was basically an auction(both silent and live), but they also had dinner and a bake sale. They had kids activities set up also. One of the things they had was free face painting. I had always avoided face painting in the past because I wasn't willing to wait in line or pay for it. I gave in this time, mostly because we had worked our way through everything else and we still had some time to spare. Kids were cutting in line throughout our wait so it ended up taking twice as long as it should have, but the girls were so excited to have butterflies painted on their faces (Alyssa smeared hers less than 10 minutes after getting it painted on).

One of the things that their Grandpa(who works at the school) had told them about was the marshmallow guns that were for sale. By the time we had gotten there that night, they were already gone. So Danny looked up online how to make them and went to work. After they were made, he let them decorate their guns.

And the finished product. Danny and I had as much fun as the girls that afternoon shooting marshmallows at each other.

Up and Running

For anyone who has been checking our blog in the past few weeks for updates, I apologize. However, I have a good excuse for not updating. Our computer got a virus, actually over 2000 viruses as the Geek Squad confirmed for us. Therefore, we have been without Internet and even the use of our computer since the beginning of the month. We are so glad to be up and running again. Bear with me as I try to post updates of what has been happening with us in the past month. It may take a few days or even longer depending on how successful I am at getting some pictures off of my phone.

We are doing well. The girls are so excited for Halloween and all of the fun stuff we have going on leading up to that night. We have already done a couple of fun fall/Halloween outings. Alyssa is loving Kindergarten and all of the new things that she gets to learn. Mostly, she is excited to see her new friends that she has made. Ashley is enjoying her one-day-a-week preschool that I'm doing with some of the other Moms in my neighborhood. Both girls are taking gymnastics at our city Recreation Center and are loving it. We also try to fit in story time at the library once a week. I manage to get some kid-free exercise in almost every day and I volunteer in Alyssa's classroom once a week. With all of those different activities scheduled in, we stay pretty busy and have a pretty solid routine in place. Danny is enjoying his job and hiring new employees each month. He will get more and more busy the closer they get to the Grand Opening in April so we are enjoying the time we get to spend with him before then. We actually just enjoyed a four day break from both work and school. We didn't do anything exciting, but we enjoyed spending those days together. It was hard to see it end and to go back to school and work today.

I will get some pictures posted soon of some of the fun things we have been doing lately.