Happy Anniversary!

This weekend, Mike and I celebrated our 8th anniversary. I thought we weren't doing anything special because we had to go to Mike's work party, but I was wrong. First, we went to the Grand America for the party. We had dinner and a concert by Kurt Bestor. Afterward, we started to head for the elevators that would take us to the parking lot but "accidentally" got on an elevator that was headed up. We got off at the 10th floor and Mike opened the door to a room he had reserved. He stopped there on his way home from work and scattered rose petals all over and left some flowers in the room. I was pretty surprised. The next day we went to breakfast, the Joseph Smith movie, and stopped for some lunch at the Lion House. It was a fun little trip and a good anniversary surprise.

Here are the flowers my awesome husband got for me-- isn't he amazing!

Christmas Time Fun

I love all of the festive activities that happen around Christmas time. This month we've had fun going to a few of Hallie's dance performances and participating in activites at her school.

Hallie posing in front of Santa at her performance at FLIPS last night

Joni & Bryant playing the supporting role of little brother and sister who want to dance, too

Monica with her cute new baby on their first outing

Hallie is singing the Hanukkah song(not the Adam Sandler version) with her class at school. For their culminating activity to their world religions unit, we planned activities that celebrated Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. I was in charge of helping with Christianity. We frosted Christmas tree sugar cookies, acted out the nativity, read the night before Christmas, and made wish lists for Santa. For Judaism, they made a star of David ornament, learned a game to play with a dreidle and sampled Jewish foods. For Islam, they learned another game and sampled spicy middle eastern food which Hallie did not like.

Here is Hallie and her friends acting out the nativity.

video of Hallie's Christmas concert

We're expecting!

We are expecting baby #4 at the end of June. This will be our last because I am tired of being sick and fat and pregnant; I am dreading being cut open again; I am ready to have my body back... and we know we're done. We're crossing our fingers for a girl, but will love a boy just the same. We won't know until February. So, check back later to find out. Yeah! We're done!

Festival of Trees

This year Hallie performed again at the Festival of Trees. She loves performing for dance and watching others dance. After her performance she had a major melt down because we wouldn't let her stay and watch the other dancers perform because Cameron was really sick and it was WAY past their bed times. So, needless to say, we left the Expo Center with 3 screaming children. What a fun night!

A few of my favorite things

Christmas is definitely a time when I get to do one of my favorite things... decorating. So, here are a few pictures of our new house decked for Christmas. It wasn't exactly as elaborate as I had dreamed but I am already so spoiled with a new house, so I had to rein in on the spending and use what we already had.

outside-- not a great picture

one view of the home teacher room

our entry way

Santa's entry way