Hip Hop Princess

My cute little niece, Grace, had her practice recital tonight. She started taking hip hop dance last year (I think) she has gotten so strong...(how she is holding this pose with a smile ? ? ?)

Just for fun!

We were so nervous about making it on time. My sister asked if I would come take some pictures of her, after waiting through 3 turn lights and running through the parking lot while holding my camera and Alyssa (thank goodness Austin chose to stay home with dad) we didn't think we would make it, she was the first performance! Luckily, we made it as the lights dimmed, and the curtains rose, to see Grace and her wicked awesome (is that what the kids are saying these days) moves!!!!

Check out her hair, she must have an Amazing Aunt (ME!) to do her hair!

New Moon

So, my amazing sister in law D, called me just now. She said 2 things. 1. do you have your tickets to see New Moon, yet?

me, confused thinking I missed something and it is coming out sooner than I thought, say NO, NO why?

she then says 2. Do you want to see it with me?

OF COURSE!!! WHY!!!! Whats going on?

Well, her amazing Visiting Teacher works for a company that rents out a theater, and they are already reserving tickets to see New Moon for the night it comes out in JULY!!!!! And D, being the amazing, beautiful girl that she is, was nice enough to ask if I wanted to go with her!!!!

     Y  E  S  ! ! ! ! ! !

Guess what we aren't doing anymore?!?!?!

M O V I N G ! ! ! ! !

at least for now...maybe in a couple years OR if you all keep telling your friends and family what an awesome photographer I am, maybe not at all :)

I hope it's the latter of the two...

Sometimes I wish I was a procrastinator because now I have to unpack everything that I already packed...my whole living room looks like this.... Oh well, at least I got some deep cleaning done!!

"on some stairs..."

A few weeks back, Chad and I were taking some boxes to Chad's moms house and Chad missed a step walking down the stairs and fell down. As he fell he heard a "SNAP!" We had a birthday party to go to right afterward and said he didn't think it was broken. As the day wore on it kept getting more and more swollen. Finally I talked him into going into the insta care especially since he heard the SNAP! Come to find out he Sprained (tore ligaments) his ankle very badly. I kept laughing at him because the check in lady, the nurse and the Doctor all asked him how it happened and he would respond ..."on some stairs." I told him, to give them more information than that, tell them about the snap and the fall, and he said he didn't want to seem like a wuss. So I just laughed, and I told the Doctor the story :) They gave him a formed fitted brace/cast. And told him to go home relax and put his feet up for about a week...I wish someone would tell me to do that, I would have no problem with that treatment!!!

More Twilight...

So my awesome friend Miranda had the inside scoop, once again (I think she e-mails the cast personally, with the info she knows :)) and told me to go to the DVD release party at the Walmart in Riverton because Rachelle Lefevre a.k.a. Victoria from the Twilight movie was going to be there. How she knows this I don't know. It's crazy that of all the places---Riverton, Utah. We had a lot of fun amongst all the chaos! I got my signed copy of TwilightDVD. Unfortunately I ate a black frosted cupcake right before I met Rachel so my teeth, lips and pretty much whole mouth was stained a dark purple...she probably didn't notice and thought I was trying to look vampire-esque...

waiting in line for a long time does crazy things to a person...

Thank goodness for the law enforcement there otherwise we could have been trampled in the stampede to catch a glimpse at "Victoria" at once point my face was in a B.O. filled armpit....yum!
Mrs. Lefevre herself, after she just signed my DVD....how a smile is still on her face I don't know....
Ashley and I so happy to have our copy of the Twilight DVD....the had employees pushing around carts FULL of the DVD, it wasn't a problem getting a copy

Oh ya, I was the second person in line and to get my copy of the DVD. woo hoo....pure luck! And the lady behind me was just doing her grocery shopping and had no idea what Twilight was, and was confused why everyone was there and screaming and dressed up....don't worry I filled her in, and told her to read the books!!! (Much better than the movie, if you ask me)

This is what I will be getting tonight at midnight....

I know, I know....'Bite Me!' :)

Spring has Sprung!!!

And how do we celebrate at our house?!?!?!

We jump on the trampoline in our underwear!!!!!
(mine, chads and Alyssa's pics will be posted later ;-) )

Dinosaur Museum

Austin has been absolutely fascinated with SHARKS and DINOSAURS lately. We have spent a lot of time on the internet looking at Shark pictures and videos and rented videos and books from the library. We finally compiled all of Austin's favorite pictures into a book, so he can look at them any time he wants, he loves to show everyone. We started trying to look up dinosaurs and they didn't have as great of pictures so we took him to the place that has amazing dinosaurs...Thanksgiving Points Dinosaur Museum!!! I took lots of pictures to make a dinosaur book for home. Austin was just in AWE the whole time we were there. And then we came to a point in the exhibit with the prehistoric shark and you would have thought we were in Disneyland. He was in heaven!!! There are so many hands on exhibits and great/fun things for kids to do...

The part that disturbed me a little was "THE SCALE" they have a scale where you can step on and see what dinosaur you weigh as much as...that was a little scary that I weighed as much as a dinosaur....yikes! The scale is big enough for several people to step on, and our whole group together would have had to been times by 50 (or maybe it was 100) to weight as much as the supersaurous. thank goodness we will never run into him in a dark alley.

Did I mention we got to dig for dinosaur bones!!!!

Check out my moms cute new haircut...(thanks Ashley)

Who says these exhibits are just for kids????

Austin building his own dinosaur with a museum buddy

Alyssa doesn't discriminate where she throws her fits...anytime and any place!

I honestly think Dinosaurs weren't just boring green and brown, I think they had polk a dots and were pink and purple and blue...I was glad the museum had a fun display so you could change the color of the dinosaurs skin...

Happy St. Patricks Day!!!

Look!!! We found the end of the rainbow...sadly no gold coins were found only butterscotch disks, and little bits of the rainbow (skittles) and a few Lucky Charms for us, they say if you eat them the luck only intensifies. There were also some green outfits for the kids to wear to school today so they don't get PINCHED!!!!!  Hopefully you all remembered to wear GREEN today, or else, watch out for me, I love to pinch, pinch, P I N C H !!!!

Inquiring minds NEED to know...

I got my hair cut and colored again and have had so many compliments and questions as to where I get it done. My family has a hair problem we have a TON of hair, very, very thick. And in the past we have only been able to wear our hair one way...poofy!!! I don't know how she does it, she is a miracle worker. I have absolutely LOVED everything that she has ever done to my hair, every color, every cut, every style, she is the one that cut 15" off my hair and not a tear was shed, she is AMAZING!!!

So how do you schedule your appointment with this miracle worker? I'll tell you...

Her name is Ashley Williams,
she works at Taylor D'Shaw Salon

call her at 801-201-4922

Tell her that you were referred by me (blog stalkers welcome, she's not going to ask me if I know you just say "I got your info off Kristen's blog" and you'll get the discount) and she will give you a discount!!! She's AWESOME!!!

She does it all...Women/Men/ Children cuts, colors, styles, perms, deep conditioning treatments, waxing, special occasion style, etc...

I know that you will be THRILLED with your new look!!!!

Last day..

Yesterday was our last day teaching our sunbeams class. They are so cute and so sweet we are really going to miss them!!!!

No worries!!!

I wish I could say we were moving to Europe, or we found a school that Chad can get into now, or that we found an awesome deal on a house that we can't pass up, BUT I CAN'T!!! Nothing exciting, we are just moving from South Jordan back to Sandy. Chad's job is really unstable right now. They laid off a 1/3 of his entire company the beginning of February and just let go 3 more people in his building last week. I am not making enough to support us (sniff, sniff) So off to Sandy we go. Chads sweet mama and step dad are crazy enough to let us come move in with them for a while. We are so thankful that, that is even an option for us!!! THANK YOU!!! I am so thankful summer is fast approaching so that we can be outside and stay out of their hair, we are going to try to be as "un-annoying" as possible, BUT since that is IMPOSSIBLE when you have 2 kids who are 4 and 2, we will stay busy outside!!! So all my friends that are out there answer your phone, because I'm coming over to play!! I am so thankful for Luan and Rich for their willingness to let us come move in, and I apologize for anything and everything that is about to happen to your quiet, clean house :)

I am so sad to leave our friends in our neighborhood and ward...so we're not. I am still going to be coming back to our old house M-F to watch my sisters kids...My mom and my sister and her 5 kids are going to move in together in our house, so we are still going to be able to see all of our friends, so still call for park play dates!!!!

So thats that, WOO HOO!!! Exciting stuff, huh??? Oh ya, all of this is happening THIS MONTH!

Our BIG Announcement!!!!

We're Moving!!!!

(bitter-sweet)

Chad got his letter....

He was placed in a lottery for the nursing program (we've been playing a lot of lotterys this year) and they drew all the names out and placed them on the waiting list for the nursing program. And he will be able to start in Spring Semester of 2013...WHAT?!?!?! Yep, 2013. Only 4 more years of waiting and then 2 more years of school, then more school on top of that....shouldn't he be a Doctor?!?! 

They said in the letter that it is averaging about 2 1/2 years because of other students dropping out, changing majors etc... And I can see why they get discouraged. 

It's a good thing Chad saved some classes to take during this "waiting period"....

Due to this information, we will have an announcement to make within the next couple days or maybe weeks....

Happy Birthday Laynee!!!

Our niece Alayna turned 4 yesterday!!! She is so sweet, we are going to her birthday party on Saturday and can't wait to see her and give her big hugs and kisses!!! Love you Laynee hope you had a great day!!!

Bon Voyage!!

Chad's Dad and Rose moved to Europe!!! Can you believe it?!?!? Well, they did, they say it is only going to be for 6 months to a year BUT I am thinking they are going to fall in love with it and never want to come home!!! All of us kids will just have to keep sending them pictures of our kiddos so they will want to come home sooner!!!

They left last Thursday 02/26/09 and the night before we all got together for dinner...I tried getting Alyssa in the picture but she wouldn't cooperate...


Chad and I were going to take a trip over to Holland, and while there visit Paris and London, but then we remembered we don't have money$$ So that shut down those plans pretty quick! We love you and will miss you!!! Please go to the Eiffel Tower for me, since this whole money thing wont be changing for a while :)!!!

Happy Birthday Preston!!!!

Our cute little nephew turned one on 02/27. I can't believe it's been a year already!!! I got to see his picture (that I took, yay!) for the one year old birthdays on 'Good Things Utah' I just happened to look at the T.V. at just the right moment. We went to his birthday party today, he was so cute!!!! He ate his birthday cake so delicately, eating the frosting with just his index and thumb, with a little encouragement he got into the cake a little more. He is such an angel! We love you Preston, we hope you had a very Happy 1st Birthday!!!!