Spelling Bee numbah Three

Yep she did it again!  Kaylee once again won her school spelling bee and moved on to the county bee.  Her nerves weren't too bad until she realized she had to go first.  I can't say I blame her.  It's hard for me to sit through these bees because honestly it makes me question my intelligence.  I used to be smart, really.  Back to Kaylee.  She did excellent and when I say excellent I mean she won the whole shebang!  Yes Kaylee Edwards is the reigning 8th grade Clark county spelling bee champion! (The 5th largest school district in the country thank you very much).  This means she gets to move on to the state spelling bee in March.  A funny little side note, Kaylee doesn't really like all the recognition and praise that comes along with being a champion.  She says it makes her feel like bragging.  Brag away dear daughter, brag away:)

6th grade

7th grade

8th grade champion!

With the host Nate Tannebaum.  She still can't quite believe she won

Just some pictures

Visit to Hoover Dam

                                            Chris the stylist                 Crazy faces...and pants

                                            "O" lunch                           1st grade thanksgiving feast

Christmas breakfast Nativity(Ashton/Mary, Aiden/Karate Angel) 

 SANTA!!! We have the best one

Happy Anniversary/Thanksgiving

The biggest problem with getting married on the fourth Saturday in November is that sometime your anniversary (or actual wedding for that matter) falls on the BYU vs UofU game!  Coming in at a close second...your anniversary is on Thanksgiving.  That was the case for us this year so we celebrated a little early.  I got a fantastic deal ($49 + two free breakfast buffets whaaaaat!) on a newly renovated room at the MGM  the night before our anniversary/thanksgiving. My mom was kind enough to watch our kids and we ate at a nice Brazilian steak house.  Chris has recently gotten into some online/google game involving portals or something and my gift to him was to follow him around on the strip while he was conquering the world without complaining (that there is the kind of patience 15 years of marriage gives ya!).  It was really nice just to spend time together and be in love.

Halloween 2012

I think I was pretty costumed out this year.  I really didn't even think about it until a week into October.  The kids had some thoughts on what they wanted to be, but it's hard to put sooo much work into a costume and no one knows what it is (vain I know).  i.e. Ashton wanted to be Galinda from Wicked.  Not the fairy-esque good witch with the sparkly poofy dress , the school uniform new student of Shiz with a "ga".  Cute but not easily recognizable.  About a week and a half before Halloween I decided everyone was going to be a Lego or they could make their own costume.  Kaylee decided to make her own and I was able to make three costumes in a day and a half for less than $20.  I think I like this new kind of laid back Halloween:)

 

In my new chill Halloween attitude I completely forgot to take pictures.  This was the end of the Halloween haul.  Kaylee was the nyan cat, some internet sensation.  She has a rainbow cape on the back.  She made it mostly by herself and I am very impressed.  The tech-savvy generation she belongs to knew exactly what she was.  The adults on the other hand needed an explanation.  By Halloween night she was tired of explaining so she took off the cat ears and  told people she was a pop tart:)  She's clever that one!

Nyan Cat

Wicked! Wicked! Wicked!

Wicked is in Las Vegas for six weeks and I reeeeally wanted to go.  Ticket prices, however, weren't really cooperating with my desires.  Last week I was checking the site again for maybe some miracle price reduction when I saw the "Wicked Lottery".  Two hours before each show they lottery off  twenty $25 orchestra seats.  You put your name in a cauldron and each name drawn can buy up to two tickets.  The theater is five minutes from where Chris works so on Friday he decided to give it a shot.  He didn't win.  I wasn't surprised.  We decided to keep going until we won, so we loaded up the kids and headed out on Saturday.  I thought we should bring the kids because we weren't going to win and we might as well take advantage of being so close to the strip and find something to do.  When we got there we found out anyone over four can put their name in the lottery.  Bonus!  Everyone who wins wants two tickets of course, so when they pulled the tenth name and it wasn't ours we were already making plans for Chris to keep coming back after work and I would meet him with the kids on Fridays and Saturdays.  The tenth name only wanted one ticket!  We still had a chance.  Eleventh name drawn didn't want a single ticket.  Neither did 12 or 13.  Number 14...KAYLEE EDWARDS!  And she said yes thank you to that single ticket, then gave it to her mom for her birthday!  (My kids are the best:)

 We decided to try again for the evening show so every one in our family who wanted to go would get a chance.  After the matinee I met up with Chris and the kids and we tried again.  While we were waiting, Chris went to talk to some people who had been at the afternoon drawing.  They had made a comment about "those mormons bringing all their kids and ruining everyone's chances" (don't worry they were mormon too it was all in jest:)  This time around they had brought 14 people with them.  I'd say they were determined.  Name three, our new lottery friends won!  Name five, they won again!  Name eight, you guessed it, they won again!  As they were going to the box office to pay they told us if they didn't need all of the tickets they would let us have them (see why I call them friends).  Our names weren't called but our friends decided they only needed five of the tickets so they let us have the other one.  Once they actually did a count it turned out they really only needed four so Chris got to take Kaylee on a pretty fancy date!

Fast forward to Wednesday.  Chris went after work and there were probably twice as many people putting names in.  The odds are getting smaller and Chris was there by himself:(  I was at work and got a text from Chris.  HE WON!!!  Are you kidding me!  Awe-some!  These tickets went to my mom and Ashton.  I feel like we've probably used all our luck, but we might try a few more times.

Perfect 10

More double digits!  You know the next stop is teenager don't you?  Lucky for me my double digit kids are pretty awesome! 

Skylanders portal!  He has been wanting this for-ev-er (well forever in 9 year old time)

Cake

Friend party

Some of this ten year olds favorites:
Color:  Blue
School Activity:  GATE
TV Show:  Phineas & Ferb
Food:  Watermelon
Restaurant: Subway
Place: the park

Did you know...

Did you know that you can change the date on your blog posts so it looks like you're totally on top of all things blog-wise?  Just sayin;)

First day of school 2012

I like having my kids home for the summer, but it is pretty much a bazillion degrees here and that makes it hard for me to want to leave the comfort of my air conditioned home.  I think the kids are happy to go back to school so they have something to do.  I don't know, it's a theory.  This year the middle school changed start time (again!) to 9:00 so the elementary school got moved back to 9:30.  There are three schools basically starting and ending at the same time.  Plus there is a bus yard right behind the school that the buses are all trying to get to at the same time.  Traffic is a mess!  That said, it's kind of nice to have all the kids at school at the same time.  I get six whole hours to do whatever I want!  That's right, I can clean the house and go grocery shopping and take a shower all on the same day.  It's a whole new world, and I think I can get used to it.

 

 

The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Two Weeks...

A couple of weeks before I went to girls camp I was noticing some warm spots on our floor.  After some googling it sounded like it might be a water leak under the floor.  The Saturday before I left for camp we had someone come check it out and sure enough a leak.  It hadn't come up through the floor yet so we scheduled to get it fixed first thing Monday morning.  Sunday afternoon I thought Dalin had spilled some water on the floor but it kept coming back after I wiped it up.  The leak came through.  Luckily we were already scheduled to have it fixed and the insurance will cover it.  Poor guy, out of the 15 years we've been together it ended up being the absolute worst time for me to be out of town and I couldn't get out of it.  Here are some highlights from the rest of the week that Chris had to deal with. Alone.

• Chris had to do his own work from home and cover for two of his other co-workers who were out of town.
• Our nephew was supposed to come for a visit on Monday after 5pm.  His dad showed up at 11 am and asked Chris if he could watch him for the rest of the week.
• Floor and baseboards had to be pulled up and replaced
• To prevent mold high powered very noisy fans were running constantly for almost the entire week
• The kids bathroom wasn't functional because they rerouted the pipes through the attic and started in the bathroom
• Watching his two nieces for several hours (that's seven kids folks!  In our tiny house with no furniture in the front room)
• The kitchen was being used to store furniture thus rendered less than useful
• Chauffeuring kids to various activities (karate, mutual etc.)

When I came home they had barely put the couches back in the front room but there was still no flooring.  I felt so bad that I couldn't be there to help out.  But wait there's more.  While I was in NY the fun continued!

• Still working from home
• The flooring was being installed so the front room and kitchen couldn't be used again
• The air conditioning went out.  Do you know how hot it is in this village! (Luckily a guy Chris knows from work was able to come fix it fairly inexpensively) 

 I tell you what, Chris more than earned his keep!  When I came home there was still a day and a half of floor and baseboard installation, but really I missed the worst of it.  I think I complained about what Chris had to deal with more than he did.  My husband is AWESOME!

NYC!

My brother and his little family got sealed in the Manhattan temple, and due to great generosity from my parents and sister I was able to go.  So less than 36 hours after I got home from girls camp I was on a plane to NYC.  I traveled with my sister and we just kind of winged it.  Chris couldn't believe that we were only talking about what we might want to do about an hour before we left for the airport!  Whatever, we had a great time.  We got there about noon on Monday and we were pretty proud of ourselves that we made it from the airport, to the bus, to the subway to the Staten Island ferry without getting lost.  We didn't fair so well the rest of the week, but I'm clinging to our first triumph.  I'm not usually very good at remembering to take pictures, but when I take them on my phone they are stored on our home computer as well.  Chris was able to see where I was and what I was doing so I took more pictures than I normally would have.

Lady Liberty and me

I wanted to have a true NY experience and to me that included buying food from a street cart.  Here I'm buying a way over priced shish kabob that wasn't even good.  You like how my purse is a wide open invitation to rob me?

Time Square!

I'm on that billboard!  Can you see me?  That's okay, neither can I;)

Can you see the angel Moroni?  I knew the temple was just on a city block corner, but it was so cool to be walking past all these buildings then look up and there's the temple!

So cool!

Another food cart try.  Jenked again!  Overcharged for a dry soft pretzel.  I blame TV for leading me to believe it should have been great.

Grandpa and Penelope

Central Park with my seester:)

Porgy and Bess.  Carmen wanted to see a Broadway show.  Our journey to this theater kind of overshadows our previous direction achievements

Dave wasn't even there.  Where's the love man!

Empire State Building.  I'm not really impressed by tall buildings, but this one got me!  It's kind of amazing.

Austin, Amelia and Penelope