Life is Good: 06/27/2010

Saturday, July 3, 2010

The Muppets: Stars & Stripes FOREVER!

I have been a huge Muppets fan ever since I can remember. I owned several pair of Miss Piggy shoes growing up. I, of course, had a Muppets lunchbox. Some of my first portraits I ever took with a camera were of my Kermit the Frog doll that had velcro on his hands and feet (which made posing him for pictures so fun!). I watched The Muppet Show faithfully every week and even did a funny skit with my fellow Muppets fan, Kori, when we were in college. We won the Miss Alpha Omega contest in our college sorority. Our talent was doing a puppet show lip sync with Kermit and Piggy puppets singing Neil Diamond and Barbara Striesand's "You Don't Bring Me Flowers". We laughed so hard we cried every time we practiced. It seriously was awesome! One of my happiest memories during our Disneyland trip last fall was watching Angela watch the Muppets in Disney's California. She was seriously belly laughing. It made me so thrilled to see my next generation appreciating something that I've always loved! Kori sent me this today - thanks Kori!! (O: The Muppets always make me happy. Enjoy - it's very touching.

2nd Annual Neighborhood Parade!

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When we got up this morning I thought it would be fun to do the girls' hair up and in patriotic bows for the neighborhood parade, but I forgot that their hair needed to be "helmet-ready". Darn! Good thing I got a picture before the piggies came out!

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Last year, as a Personal Progress goal, I planned a neighborhood bike parade for the 4th of July. It was a small event, but everyone who came had fun and several people offered to help make it a tradition. This year, I had the HOA's support, including a small budget to use towards the event and several people involved in helping plan, shop and set up. It was so great having so much help and we had a bigger turn out this year! Everyone was talking about ideas for next year to make it bigger and better. I think we have an official tradition!

The girls loved decorating their bikes/scooter this morning. Natalie had the cute idea of attaching her dog doll to the bike with a patriotic bow.

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Our fabulous judges Ryan and Andrew! They thought of fun awards to give out like "Best use of pinwheels" - which Sarah got for her pinwheel helmet. (O:

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Rebecca's cool, new bike was perfect for the parade!

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A few of our audience members!

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So many of my sweet friends helped me out. This is Karen pulling the wagon 'o parade music.

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Announcing the winners!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Jumping Jellyfish!

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Guess what we got?

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Swimming!

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We totally lucked out and got some GREAT swimming lessons this summer thanks to a timely phone call from my friend Tina. Just around the corner there is a neighborhood pool that offers lessons to it's residents. However, once they have signed up for the classes they want, the rest of the classes are open to the public. I got a last minute call from Tina who heard it was the night to sign up and just decided to run over and see what they had. I'm so glad I did! I got all three girls signed up for lessons at the same time and got Tina's daughter in the same class with Angela and Natalie. Pretty lucky considering they have a class size limit of 4 children. It worked out beautifully and I loved these lessons WAAAYY better than the parks and rec. setup. It's small, parking is a cinch and we didn't have to fight crowds. Plus it's closer. This was a fabulous way to kick off our summer for the first two weeks! Not to mention, I was thrilled with how much all three girls progressed and learned. Natalie and Angela made HUGE strides. They went from being totally chicken and scared of getting their faces wet to swimming with their faces totally in the water to their teacher. It was miraculous to say the least! They are now ready to start learning the front crawl. Sarah learned diving and perfected her freestyle. She is ready to move on to the next level and learn more strokes. Not only did I enjoy watching them become better swimmers and being up close for good pictures, but I got to visit with Tina every day at the pool. Good times!

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Sarah's "nose plugged" dive she was doing at the beginning of the week. By the end of her lessons, she learned to 'let go' and dive for real!

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Thursday, July 1, 2010

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In our Relief Society presidency meeting this week (relief society is a worldwide organization of women dedicated to service and education - each ward in our church has its own 'branch' of relief society)- Jan read a quote from President Harold B. Lee - who was prophet of our church when I was born, in the 70's. It was powerful and I wanted to share some snippets from his book "Ye Are the Light of the World". They are perfect for this patriotic time of year. While President Lee wrote these words decades ago, they ring even more true now than back then . . .

The Lord help us to keep in memory our ancestors that we might be willing to uphold and sustain, by our lives and all that we possess, that for which they gave so much.

. . . We should not be concerned about finding out what is wrong with America, but we should be finding what is right about America and should be speaking optimistically and enthusiastically about America.

We are living in a time of great crisis. The country is torn with scandal and with criticism, with faultfinding and condemnation. There are those who have downgraded the image of this nation as probably never before in the history of the country. It is so easy to clamber onto the bandwagon and to join the extremists in condemnation, little realizing that when they commit their actions, they are not just tearing down a man; they are tearing down a nation, and they are striking at the underpinnings of one of the greatest of all the nations of all the world—a nation that was founded upon an inspired declaration we call the Constitution of the United States.

I plead with you not to preach pessimism. Preach that this is the greatest country in all the world. This is the favored land. This is the land of our forefathers. It is the nation that will stand despite whatever trials or crises it may yet have to pass through.

Like a Chicken With My Head Cut Off...

That describes my state of mind these last two months. I got behind on so many things including blogging. It has been a rollercoaster, mostly lots of highs, but a very busy time for our little family.

The month of May was particularly busy when Billy Bob* got called into the bishopric and I was still doing my calling - young women's president. For about 4 weeks we brought the girls with us every Wednesday and attempted to balance our hectic schedules. That definitely tipped my sanity more towards the "crazy" side of things on top of all the school and booster club events also happening. And then my photo shoots started picking up and I got a new calling (Relief Society secretary). And now we are finally getting into a sort of homeostasis. Knock on wood. I hope to get back on the bandwagon and stay here for a while. I've missed keeping everyone connected - especially my family. So sorry for my absence.

In addition, you may notice that my blog has a new look! I've been wanting to find a way to make the pictures bigger for a long time, but never had TIME. Thanks so much to Kaylynn who took some time to show me the ropes! You're the best!

Ballet Class

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Aren't these girls adorable?

Natalie and Angela had ballet every Wednesday this spring. Our Wednesdays were a little crazy. Sarah - piano at 2:30, Angela ballet at 2:30 (luckily these were only about a mile away from each other so Sarah got dropped off a couple minutes early), then Natalie had her ballet at 3:15. Whoever was not in a class brought homework or books to read and I often brought projects to do in the car.

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Miss Sally is a great teacher and so cute with the girls. They really learned a lot about ballet in fun and creative ways. And the girls just looked so darn cute!