Happy Day After Thanksgiving...

We had a fun DAY AFTER THANKSGIVING celebration at Granna and Grandpa's....we had a Mexican Fiesta! Complete with a Pinata and BINGO! Thanks, Granna and Grandpa for a fun night....

Happy Thanksgiving 2009

We had an excellent Thanksgiving celebration at Patti and Jason's! After a YUMMY feast, all the kids put on their annual Thanksgiving play...this year it was called "The Nightmare Before Thanksgiving"...so cute! Then Kathryn, Erik and Niklas performed some songs from their ever so popular band "The Tree Huggers"! Then we had a dance party in the garage! It was a wonderful celebration with wonderful family and friends...

This is what happens...

when a 9 year old figures out how to use the video recorder...

Luke's Thanksgiving Presentation!

Luke was a "Pilgrim Father" in the Reader's Theatre presentation of The First Thanksgiving...


Check out these little turkeys singing a cute song...

Happy Birthday, David and Kyle!

My sweet nephews, David and Kyle, turned 7 years old! We had an awesome celebration at the BOWLING ALLEY! The kids had a blast (us grown ups tore up the lanes pretty good, too!).

We love you, David and Kyle, you are our precious miracles!

Party like a ROCK STAR!

We had so much fun at Devil's Martini at the Celebrity Martini Casino Night with our Boomtext family! We were invited by one of the guys' customers, and had such a fun time! We danced the night away and stayed out way too late...but it was totally worth it!

What a HAM...

My nephew, Daniel, played the role of Little John in the 5th and 6th grade production of "Robinhood" at this school. Daniel BLOWS ME AWAY with his talent. He is SO expressive and confident and just DARLING up there on stage. He definitely stole the show with his adorable acting as he batted his eyes and "posed" like Maid Marian - it was priceless.

What a lucky girl...

I can count on my hands the amount of times I have received flowers from someone.

But 2 in one day?! How could I be so lucky?! Aunt Patty brought me these beautiful roses when she came over...

and there was a knock on my door, and I had these beautiful dasies sent to me from my sweet neighbor, Karen, for getting her tickets to the symphony....
Getting flowers sure brightens up a girl's day!

Aunt Patty came to visit!

We had such a great time with Rich's Aunt Patty from Tulsa! Her 4 kids are all grown up now, and she just loved being with all of ours! Her youngest, Chris, was the ring bearer in our wedding...he is 17 now...how did THAT happen?!

She is so special to us, and the boys ADORE her!

The boys taught her how to play Guitar Hero, and she did AWESOME!
Go Daddy! Go Patty!

Luke always wanted to be sitting right next to her.

Farewell, dear friend!

My friend from Symphony Chorus, Leslie, is moving to Lawrence, Kansas to be with her fiance, and start a new chapter in her life! We sent her off in style with a party, and then what a nice extra gift to have Bob Moody in town (he's visiting from North Carolina for Musicfest Rehearsals) to spend time with him after the party! Leslie, we will miss you and we love you!

Nixon in China

The latest Symphony project has been a concert version of an opera called "Nixon in China", which is about....you guessed it....President Richard Nixon's historical visit to China in 1972! It's written by the American composer John Adams, and they call his work "post- minimalist" music, meaning that there is a LOT of repetition, and steady rhythmic pulses. It's pretty "out there". But it's actually really fun (AND HARD) to sing! I had a great time performing it with all my TPSC friends....

Veteran's Day Performance!

All the first grade classes put on a precious performance of Patriotic Songs. Notice my little tenor front and center!

Max's speech on Michael Jordan

Trip to the Train Museum...

We had a nice visit to the Chandler Train Museum today! Our neighbor, Karen works in the gift shop there and gave us our own personal tour! Thanks, Karen!

the boys wanted to pretend they were in one of those movies moving from train to train like they were being chased...

What a fun morning we had!

Happy Halloween!

Schoolhouse Rock!

Max did GREAT in Schoolhouse Rock! This was his first experience being in a musical, and he had a BLAST! It was so much fun to watch him up on the stage. In the program, each actor wrote a bio about themself...Max's said "Hello, my name is max and I have 2 little brothers and I love to play video games. I am a pretty funny guy once you get to know me. I'm in the 4th grade at BBS. I am the singer of Conjuction Junction in this play. I like to play football, basketball, and baseball."

I loved watching him dance during this song!

Here's his big solo in "Conjunction Junction"!

Happy Birthday, DAD/GRANDPA!

We had a wonderful time celebrating my Dad's birthday last night! We all jumped out and shouted "SURPRISE" when the birthday boy arrived! Each kid made up a fun game for us all to play and Grandpa got some very nice presents from each grandkid! Fun night!

Sam's Birthday Party

What an AWESOME time we had celebrating Sam's 3rd birthday! When we asked Sam what he wanted for his birthday, he always answered, "Everybody at my party." That is exactly what he got and had the time of his life! All his cousins, brothers, grandparents, aunts and uncles together playing.....that was the best present of all! Sam loves vanilla ice cream and SPRINKLES. So, we enjoyed some of that as well. What a special celebration for my special Sam.

I will never forget the sweet look on his face while we were singing. He was so excited it was actually happening!

Vacation Time!

We had a great family vacation to Rocky Pointe, Mexico with the Verdugo family! We enjoyed sun, fun, relaxing, and time with each other...

Max's discovery speech on his name...

Max did his second Discovery Speech on "Where my name came from". This was such a fun speech for Max to research and do. Max is named after Rich's gradpa, Max, and it is just precious to hear him talk about his Great Grandpa Max. What a truly awesome man he was, and I pray my little Max grows up to be just like him.