Glasses

Courtney had her yearly eye doctor appointment last week. Her eye doctor is REALLY old but he has a lot of experience with children's eye issues. He told us last year that Courtney could someday grow out of her glasses. 

The doctor checked her eyes and told us that he no longer needs bifocals. Courney was so excited! She has 20/20 vision in one eye and 20/15 in the other. She only wears glasses to strengthen her eyes, not to correct her vision. So now we get to buy her new glasses that aren't bifocals. Happy day!!

The doctor told us that she will completely grow out of her glasses probably in 1-2 years. Great news!!

Cakes by Courtney

Courtney was given the opportunity to dance at the Stadium of Fire on July 4th in Provo.  She really wanted to do it but it costs money to participate.  So we decided that she would need to do a fund raiser so she would be able to pay us back for her participation fee.  We brainstormed and came up with an idea to make cakes to sell for Mother's Day in May.

The Young Women were having a fundraiser so I thought it would be a great time to make a practice cake so she could see how hard/easy it would be and so we would have a photo to put on the order forms.  The cake below was baked and frosted by me, but Courtney tied the ribbon (with my help), piped the pearl border on bottom and piped the flowers on top.  I was very impressed with her!

So if anyone would like a cake for Mother's Day, give Courtney a call.  They are $15 and you can choose the color of ribbon and the saying you want on top.  She will need to sell 12 cakes.

My Big Fat Tongan Funeral

You've heard of the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"?  Well, we had "My Big Fat Tongan Funeral" last week.  A wonderful man in our ward passed away and he was born and raised in Tonga.  So we had a Tongan funeral, which was fascinating.  If you want to know what they did, here is the Wikipedia entry for "tongan funerals": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tongan_funerals

Anyway, I was asked by the Bishop to arrange the luncheon after the funeral.  We talked about how they would have a lot of people coming for the funeral but I had no idea how large it would be until I talked to the family.  We needed to feed 300 people! The family was awesome and pitched in half of it (and their food was really good!) but it was a huge production getting all the food, cooking all the food, setting up tables after the funeral but before the luncheon, and then serving.  It was just like a ward party.  But everything went great and the people who helped were amazing.  I am very blessed to have so many people willing to help.

After the luncheon, the Deacons came up to help clean up.  They put away chairs, tables, vacuumed the Church, and ate leftovers (including guava cake which is really good).  I took a picture of the Deacons as proof that they worked hard!

Wonder Woman

The Jr. All Starrz are doing a character dance this year.  Courtney came home last month and said we had to get her a Wonder Woman costume.  We didn't want to buy it because you never know how the costume is going to fit so we sat down to figure out what to do.  We came up with the idea of getting a red dance leotard and making a blue skirt out of swim suit material. I Googled how to make the costume and got a lot of great ideas...that didn't really work.

I bought a sheet of yellow duct tape and cut out the Wonder Woman logo to put on the leotard.  It worked great and we took the picture below...right before the logo came off.  For being duct tape, it wasn't really that sticky.  I also had to figure out how to make the crown.  I finally came up with the idea of using gold sparkly paper and attaching an elastic to the back of it to keep it on her head.  I used the leftover elastic to make the bracelets too.

But I was really worried about the logo because it won't stay on.  Then I remembered that the people around the corner do embroidery and vinyl out of their house.  After a quick call to them they had the leotard and promised to get it back to us the next morning.  They did a great job!!

I can't wait to see her superhero dance.

Here is her costume with the duct tape.  (Ignore the mismatched socks, that's just Courtney.)

Dance Competition

Courtney had another dance competition.  They did a great job and were pretty disappointed not to get a higher score.  There were 4 other studios in their category and so they competed against those 4 groups.  They received 4th place for their jazz routine and 3rd place for their lyrical.  Bummer but that's life.  I'm still in awe of how they do.

Here are 4 of the Jr. All Starrz with their coach, Kara, and the trophy.  They receive 1 trophy that has a place on it to put the "jewels" they are given which denote their places.

Spring Recess

The kids had Friday and Monday off during Easter for Spring Recess.  They were pretty bored because a lot of their friends went out of town for Conference weekend.  So we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and went to the park for some baseball practice.  Ethan pitched to Courtney, they played catch and I pitched to Ethan.  It was a lot of fun!

Science Fair

Courtney wants to do EVERYTHING!  This year she wanted to do the science fair and was really excited about it.  She figured out what she wanted to do and finished the research in a couple of days but kept putting off doing the board.  The weekend before it was due she and I sat down and figured out what to do.  Her project was on the "Kiki-Bouba Effect."  This states that when someone looks at a pointy object they automatically will name it "kiki" and when they look at something round-ish they will automatically name it "bouba."  Courtney cut out shapes, took them to school and asked her classmates what they thought.

We typed out all the information, printed it and then Courtney put it all on a board.  It turned out really well.

The night before the science fair we went to the school to drop off her board.  There weren't too many students who entered this year so there was a great chance she would place.  The next day she talked to the judges and showed them everything.  That night we went to pick up her board and she had gotten 3rd place.  I was excited for her.  She wasn't too thrilled because....there were only three kids in her grade who entered.  But still, I think she is further along than the kids who didn't even try!

Easter

Easter snuck up on me this year.  But that's okay because I had Courtney to help me out.  She and I went shopping for her Easter dress (which we found on clearance!) and for Ethan's tie.  It was a lot of fun.

They got some Easter candy.  Ethan got a bat.

Cute kids!!

Courtney Selfies

Once in a while my phone will be missing and I'll get it back with a bunch of Courtney selfies on it.  She's hilarious!

Cougar Choir Concert

On April 1st it was the Cougar Choir concert.  Courtney was excited because they were able to wear their pjs.  She is part of the choir and the drum corp.

 Here are their songs:

Dreams that children dream:

The path to the moon:

Sansa kroma:

Monkeys in the house:

Chilling (by the drum corp):

Way to go (by the drum corp):

Fire down below:

I let her go go:

The swing:

River song:

Pizazz Photos

Courtney had Pizazz dance photos the other day.  It had been raining all week so they were a bit nervous that it wouldn't work out, but it dried up for Friday and Saturday when they would be taking pictures.  I think the photographer did a great job and Courtney looks beautiful, as always.

This is her "signature move" which is a toe touch.

 The Jr. All Starrz (Courtney is front in the center on the ground):

This is the 3rd-5th grade group.  Courtney is the front middle.

This is the entire team from Kindergarten through college.  Courtney is on the second row 5th from the right.

She has loved being a Jr. All Star and can't wait to do it again next year.

Outfield

Here is Ethan playing in the outfield!  He has been playing really well.  It's fun to go and watch him play although it has been cold and windy.

Tall Kid

It is official...Ethan is taller than I am.  Yup.  It's all over from here.

Courtney's Treat

Courtney went to the grocery store with me and while we were there she began begging for a treat.  I told her "absolutely not."  Then she grabbed a thing of sprouts and said, "Can I have this for my treat?"  Ok.  She ate half of the sprouts before we got home.  Win-win, in my opinion.

Baseball Boy

Isn't he cute in his baseball uniform?!

Ethan has been playing on the Dodgers team and has been doing really well.  We were a bit worried at first because his coach didn't hold too many practices before the games started but we have been really happy since the season began.  We watch the other coaches and they aren't as encouraging to their players as ours is and he rotates everyone so it's really a good experience.  Ethan is having a lot of fun.

Santa Clara Elementary Run for a Reason

It was time again for the fun run.  It was the 2nd Annual Santa Clara Elementary "Run for a Reason" Fun Run.  This year we were running to earn money to put iPad stations in the classrooms.  We weren't sure how many we would get so we had a contest between the teachers.  The classrooms with the most participants (percentage wise) would win an iPad station.  That way we didn't have to decide who would get one.

I woke Ethan up bright and early to help us get the race ready.  He still had hours he needed to complete for his merit badge so this would be the finals ones he would need.  Courtney got up too and so she tagged along with us.  We took Bryan's truck to the elementary school where we met up with the other moms who were on the committee.

One mom hopping on the tailgate of the truck with a huge 20 pound bag of flour and we were off.  She would hop out when there was a turn or something and use the flour to mark the road.  Courtney got bored so she hopped out to run along side the truck, but after a while that was too boring so she just ran the entire 5K and beat us back to the school.

Then the waiting began.  We had about 260-270 runners this year and it was fun to see them all begin to trickle in.  The Snow Canyon Rugby team came over to support us.  One of their players donned the Charlie Cougar costume and had the kids doing push ups and lunges to warm up.  It was great.

When it was time to start everyone lined up and the rubgy team lined the path.  The kids loved it and we had a lot of fun.  The 5K race began first so they could get out of the way and then the 1 mile race began.

After 10 minutes, everyone was gone!

Once the runners were gone, we had to move tables around and get set up for the after race snacks.  We had grocery stores who donated fruit, the orthodontist office donated their snow cone machine so we began making those, we had water bottles donated from an attorney's office in town, so there was a lot to get out and get ready.

Runners began coming back and it was fun to see them.  I handed out water bottles to the kids who crossed the finish line.  And we had a lot of happy kids!

Then it was time for the prize drawing.  We had a lot of prizes that were donated to us but the big prizes were Tuacahn tickets and Sky West tickets.  We drew those first but didn't reveal the winners.  We wanted everyone to have a chance to be in that drawing but we wanted them to stay until the end.  Courtney won some gift cards for kids meals at Cravings, my mom won a free pizza from Pizza Hut and my dad won a facial (which they gave me to).

In the end we made $5000 to donate to the school for iPad stations.  The PTA had money left over in their budget and were able to match the amount we raised.  So we were able to grant $10,000 to the school for iPad purchases.  That means that we are able to put iPad stations (4 iPads in a station) in all the 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms!  We were so excited!

We can't wait for next year!!

Popcorn Boy

Ethan needed community service hours for his Citizenship in the Community Merit Badge and I needed someone to pop a TON of popcorn for the fun run.  So it was a win-win situation, I think.  A local orthodontist donated the use of his popcorn machine along with all the supplies for our run.  At our meeting we decided it would be easiest if we had all the popcorn popped before the run so we wouldn't have to worry about popping it when people were finishing the race.  So I took the machine home so Ethan could pop the popcorn.  FOUR HOURS later he and Bryan had popped all we needed, put it into bags and put the bags in boxes so we could take it to the school the next day.  I'm sure Bryan and Ethan ate their fair share of the popcorn.  I am sure our neighbors were wondering what was going on at our house because it smelled so good!

Ethan wasn't a very happy camper when we finished, it was a lot of work, but he racked up some hours for his merit badge.

The secret is in the salt!

Banks Rose

A few years ago Bryan gave me a Banks Rose for Mother's Day.  I love it because it is a climbing rose and is so beautiful.  The only problem is that it doesn't bloom for very long.  But when it does I like to get a photo of it.  This is the photo from this year.

Rank Advancement

We had a Stake Court of Honor and Ethan was able to advance to a Star Scout.  He received a bunch of merit badges also.  What a great kid!!  Doesn't he look great in his uniform?

Orchestra Concert

Courtney had an orchestra concert.  She takes early morning orchestra which is Monday through Friday from 7 to 7:40 a.m.  She loves it and has done a great job learning the violin.  Our schools are all part of the "Snow Cone Site" which means that all our elementary, intermediate and middle schools feed into Snow Canyon High School.  So each year they have a series of "Cone Site" concerts where the teachers can show how they have worked with the students.  I was amazed at how well the early morning orchestra performed.  These are kids from the 4th and 5th grades at local elementary schools and they do a great job!

Here are the videos of their songs for you to enjoy:

Sword Dance:

Burst:

Bossa Nova Triste:

Stake RS Conference

Our Stake put on a Relief Society conference and it was amazing.  They invited a speaker from the Salt Lake area to come down and talk about dresses through the ages.  It was fascinating and really neat to see all the original dresses she has accumulated through the years.  She had original civil war dresses and dresses through the 1960s.  She talked about how women got dressed and it was fascinating.  I had to take Courtney because the boys were doing Scouting for Food and she learned a lot.

Here are some photos of the displays.

Dance Competition

Saturday was a dance competition for Courtney.  I hadn't seen their new lyrical dance so I was pretty excited.  It is to the song called "Oh, Sweet Lorraine."  I didn't know much about the song until Courtney explained it to me.  There was a songwriting contest and a 96 year old man entered a poem he had written for his recently deceased wife of 75 years.  It was amazing and was put to words and has sold millions of copies.  He won the contest.  If you want to know more about it you can watch this video from YouTube: "Oh Sweet Lorraine"

The girls do a wonderful job when they do this dance and I cried.  Courtney is on the right hand side in the front but she moves around.  She is the one they lift.  Sorry the video isn't the best but I will take a better one at another competition or at her end of the year review.

Here are the Jr. All Starrz waiting for the results of their jazz dance.  Courtney is the second from the right.

Eschell Review

Courtney had a busy dance week.  On Friday night they were asked to dance at the Eschell Review at Snow Canyon High School.  They did their usual jazz routine so here it is....

Funny Ethan

Ethan is in drama right now at school.  It isn't his favorite class but he is hilarious at it.  The other day he came home and told me about an interview he had to do in a character he had made up.  It was hilarious.  So I had to put it on here for everyone to share.  His name was Flub Dub Cumberbunch.

Once Courtney saw it she just had to do her own version.