Dance Dress Rehearsal and Showcase

For the competition dance teams, the girls start learning their choreography in August.  So they are pretty excited by February when competition season rolls around.  The Dance Company always does a big "showcase" right before the first competition where the girls gather for about an hour and a half and everyone does their team dance in front of the rest of the elite team.  It's very fun and motivational for the girls.  I love seeing the amazing choreography and dancing that everyone has worked so hard on.

Jordyn and Lexi have a lyrical dance with Hannah called "Miss Invisible".

Their jazz dance with Roberta is to "Applause".

On the way to dress rehearsal. I thought Jordyn looked so pretty, I had to take a picture!

Then their lyrical trio with Jessie to "Turn to Stone".

We had a little scare with Lexi falling in dance class and tearing some ligaments in her arm just two weeks before our first competition.  Luckily, it healed fast!!

This is what we get emailed out each month for elite team rehearsals.  This is separate from their weekly dance classes.  It's a bit of a puzzle.  And I am thankful for a calendar on my phone!

I get the privilege of gluing on hundreds of rhinestones before the competitions start.  ;-)

At The Dance Company, the girls all have "dance sisters" each year.  They pair an older girl up with a younger girl just to encourage them to root for each other and inspire each other.

Jordyn has Karriemen

Lexi has Gracie

And Peyton has Peyton!

Peyton and her buddy Kayla

The Elite team 2013/2014

This-n-That Post

I love my job!  I snuck a picture of me working with Glen.  He has pinhole vision and wants to get stronger at street crossings, so he wants to do lessons blindfolded.  He is awesome.

I did the vinyl for the front door of The Dance Company.

Oh Rusty, thinks he owns our bed sometimes!

A little selfie from Lexi on my phone :-).

This is the fourth year the girls have gone to a basketball game with the Nelson's.  It started four years ago when I was in school and Tucker was traveling...Jonia offered to have them for an evening to give me a break.  And now its sort of a tradition.

Sooooooooooooooooooo nice to get our car back.  Even though it cost us $700 to re-key it.  Rosita is part of our family!

Took the dogs to get groomed one morning after I took the kids to school and they were SO sad to watch the girls walk away.  By the way, I think driving with two dogs is more dangerous than driving and texting!  They run all over me!

I have this thing about homework.  I get so annoyed at it.  I try to be supportive, but I just feel like it takes away time from my family!

Cristal and I collaborated on a gift for Mrs. Farrell.  Peyton's first grade teacher just went on maternity leave for the rest of the year ;-(

This is our "winter".  It really is amazing.  Sometimes I crave just a BIT of colder weather, but for the most part, the 60's and 70's are beautiful.

We saw this telephone booth and Peyton just had to pose with it...just like One Direction!

Last Day at Disneyland!

It's sort of hard to describe in words what it's like to walk out your front door and have your car not be parked where you left it. To say I was confused would be a big understatement. It took a few minutes to register what was going on and what I was seeing, or not seeing, and was shocking when I realized our car was stolen.

Of course I was upset that our car was gone. But I think I was equally as upset that it ruined the surprise that I had planned. Friday, January 24 was the last day of our Disney annual passes. The girls had been asking every single day for us to try to go one more time and we kept telling them we were too busy. So I decided that we were going to wake up and get ready for school, but instead of going to school, I was going to just get on the freeway and head down to Disneyland. After a few hours of sorting through the mess, I decided to rent a car and still go down to Disneyland. 

By the time we got the rental car, and got down to Disneyland, it was after 430. So ridiculous! But the girls and I ended up having a really fun six hours! We rode almost everything they wanted to, including California Screaming several times. We got to a hotel around 11:30. We slept overnight, and headed home the next day. I think it was so worth it and memorable, even in light of the drama of our car being stolen.

Cake Pop Fail

Jordyn has had a fascination with cake pops for a long time. She always asks to make them, but somehow we don't have the ingredients, or it's not good timing. I've never made them, actually, so I have no tips. I also don't love them very much, so I don't have a lot of motivation to learn how to make them. 

But yesterday there was no school and no dance so she decided to try them. It took several hours and she was quite disappointed at the end result. They were crumbly, didn't stay on the stick, and therefore you could not roll them in the white chocolate. I, on the other hand, was extremely proud of her for trying and sticking with it!! Maybe better luck next time?

Are You My Mommy?

I love the way the mind of a child works. While we were in Utah, Peyton was playing with Eliza...along with a bunch if other children. Somehow the topic of Eliza's dad came up. Peyton told me that Eliza happily said "my family is just me, my mom, and Sol and I love my family just the way it is!". After Peyton told me that, she said "Mom, I can really tell that Tiffany loves her kids". So sweet!

Well, about a week later, Peyton and I were at Costco and she (out of the blue) said "Are you my first mommy?". It caught me off guard! And I chuckled a bit...remembering our conversation about Eliza. And I went on to explain to her that she grew in my tummy so I am her first mommy. It was a cute question, and I thought it was a fun insight into her little mind and what she was pondering.

December Randoms

I have never taken my wedding ring to any other jeweler than Philip & Co, where we bought it.  I had been needing to fix a crack in the ring, plus I wanted to see how I could change my band (that I had designed a few years back, and never liked) by taking out the little diamonds and embedding them into my original setting.  Well....when they completed it and texted us a picture, it was NOT what I had asked them to do.  Instead of embedding the diamonds, they put them in little crowns on the side of my diamond.  It totally changed the look and I was frustrated that they didn't tell me before they went ahead with it.  It took me a few days to digest the change and I felt guilty for changing my original setting so much, but it's grown on me and I like it.  I figure...it's pretty silly to complain about a diamond ring anyway.

 

Me...in action with my signs.  This was the Saturday where I did 20 signs in one day.  Whew!

 

One of my favorite things to do at Christmas time is to make Beth's Grandma's famous coffee cake.  YUMMMMMY

This is me, one day in December...trying to pretend it's winter when it was really 70 degrees!  That's a California winter for you!

Good ol' Elfie.  He was back this year and one night he had a party with the barbies!

Pey had her first facial at Eden's birthday party at the "Skin and Wax Bar" in Kingsburg.

Signs!

I am not very good at prepping for the holidays as far as signs go.  This is my fifth Christmas at Trinkets and I still wasn't good at being totally prepared.  So it makes for a crazy, hectic sign-making season!!  My house is a bomb and my mind is frazzled.  But a lot of people are happy gift-givers because of the signs!  Thank goodness Lindy still was able to make and sell signs from Texas, I could have never done them all.  This is only a couple photos of the madness.

Jordyn and her friend Nataly wanted to learn to make signs so they actually got an order from one of the aides at school.  It was a sign for her grand daughter and they let me help them make it.  It turned out really cute!  They charged $20 for this sign, and she ended up ordering one more family sign for $25.