The Nutcracker

As a family we went to see the Nutcracker Friday night and we all loved it. I was not sure if it was going to keep Abbi and Jess' interest for the full two hours, but it did. I loved the questions that I kept getting from Abbi. She wanted to know who all of the characters were and what there names were and what they were doing. Thank goodness I have seen the Nutcracker before and know the story because she was not happy with the simple answers or watch and see. In the program was a short version of the story and John read it to Jess while we were waiting for it to start, so that helped the two of them understand the ballet. I was very impressed at how well the dancers did, it made it so fun to watch.

I don't have any pictures because I forgot my camera, which ended up being fine because we were not allowed to take pictures of the performance anyway. It was a great night out as a family, one I am sure the kids will always remember.

Photography!!

So as many of you know photography is a hobby of mine. I love taking pictures and then editing them. It is especially fun for me when the subjects are my kids. Here are some pictures that I recently took while at a local park.


Jessica is always so photogenic and loves to come up with poses as we do our photo shoots. She is always finding fun places and then says "mom take a picture", the one of her standing is one those poses that she did all on her own.



John often does not like to do a photo session as he finds them "boring" and is getting "too old"!! But he was very fun during this photo shoot and most of the pictures turned out great. He is growing up way too fast though and no longer looks like a child, he is turning into a very handsome young man.


Last, but not least, is my beautiful Abbi. She loves to take pictures and is very cooperative, but on this morning it was very chilly, that is why her coat is on. No matter how much I tried to convince her that she would be fine without her coat for a few minutes she would not take it off. Towards the end of the shoot she did finally take it off, but I love these pictures with it on.

Matt Loves Halloween!!!

Halloween turned out to be so much so fun this year. My kids are finally at an age where I don't have to drag them along, as a matter of fact they drag me now, and we can stay out longer than 20 minutes without whinning. Our Halloween fun started on Friday night with us attending our wards Trunk-or-treat. It turned out to be a chilly night, but that is to be expected in South Dakota. Jess wanted to be a mummy so I attempted to make her one by tearing up some material and wrapping her up. By the time we were done with the trunk-or-treat she was carrying half of it in her hands. But it was cute while it lasted!!

Abbi wanted to be a fairy this year and I decided I could make her costume as well. I made her little skirt and bought the wings, it turned out looking cute. Here she is pretending to fly.

John was a scary looking scarecrow that scared all of the little kids, but he loved it.

Because the mummy costume did not work well Jess decided to be something different Halloween night. She got into our bin of costumes and found John's old vampire costume. Here is Matt putting on her makeup. She looked great as a little vampire.


While Jess was going through our bin of costumes Abbi saw this old skeleton cosutme of John's and decided she needed to be something different as well. She loved the skeleton costume because it glows in the dark.

Not what Abbi would typically be because she is always all girl, but she loved it.

We also have a Halloween party every year and invite family and friends over. One of the highlights of the party for the kids is when they get to do Matt's treasure hunt. Matt does very elobarate treasure hunts that invovle a little haunted house for the kids. This year Matt's theme was Egyptian Hieroglyphics. Clues were hidden through out the hieroglyphics that the kids had to search for using clues that Matt gave them. Once they were done they had to find Cleopatra (me) and tell her the answer to the clues. If they were right I led them to their treasure. Here are a few pictures of Matt's hieroglyphics.




This was all painted with paint that lit up under black lights. It was really neat looking when all you could see were the hieroglyphics all lit up.

This is Matt's mummy that the kids named Larry Legs.