The Good, The Bad And All The Rest

It's been a couple of weeks since I've been able to post anything so I thought I'd sum up what's happened recently in our lives.

*Kaycee won Queen again for her solo at the dance competition at Spanish Fork High School. She's on a roll and we continue to be so proud of her - win or lose!

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*Kaycee's cousin Claire competed at the same team competition and then they got to hang out for the rest of the day. Claire did a great job as well (her team took a 1st and 2nd place in their division). It was so fun for them to be together and watch each other dance. Kaycee idolizes her older cousin Claire and they are great friends.


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*Kaycee's STARS team performed great too. They took 1st place with their jazz routine and 3rd place with their lyrical.

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*For their March book reports, Kaycee's class had to write a fantasy or science fiction story, make a paper quilt of pictures to go along with it and then tell the story to the class. Each 3rd grade class then had to take a written vote on who they thought had the best story. Kaycee was chosen in her class and now she will be telling her story at a story-telling assembly on Monday. Way to go Kayc!!!

"THE MUZZLEMORK's TREASURE MAP"

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*Luke bore his testimony today in church. The decision to do it was all his (I think he was influenced by the fact that one of his friend's did it)and he just went up to the stand, stood confidently, and bore a great testimony. Good job buddy!
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*On Thursday night I got together with some of my friends from high school. Tiff came from out of town and it was a great excuse to get together. These gals are some of my favorite people and I would never have survived high school without them. We laughed together, cried together, and had fun together. We went through a lot back in the "old days"and it's always great to reunite and share old memories. Nowdays between families and busy schedules we manage to meet up about once or twice a year. It's always a good time. This time we met at Noodles and Co., ate good food and enjoyed hanging out. The time always goes by fast when you're having fun.

Natt M., Jessica, Tiffany, Michelle, me and Megan. Cute, pregnant Deanne came late and kindly declined a picture. We missed you Kelly, Kim, Amy and Rebecca

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*So last week the weather was beautiful. We set up our new tramp that we got for Christmas. Everybody (including me) had fun in the sunny, warm weather. Our spirits were healthy and we felt so happy. Then this is what I woke up to on Thursday morning. Snow everywhere. Cold. Wind blowing. Slick Roads. It was even white-out conditions when I took the kids to school. Drab, yucky, winter was back. Are you kidding me? It's the end of March. I honestly had tears in my eyes and that depressed, blah feeling came back. It snowed again today. I AM SO DONE WITH WINTER!!!

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*ROAD CONSTRUCTION. I'm tired of it. It now encompasses every entrance to my neighborhood and the main street in my town. As if traffic wasn't bad enough already! I totally get how bad we need it but I'm just very impatient and don't think I can wait until it's all done - sometime in the fall. A sweet lady in our ward made a great comparison in testimony meeting. She said that the road construction is like the trials we go through in life. It's terrible when you are going through it but it's something that has to be done to accommodate growth and in the end the outcome is worth it and we are blessed. PATIENCE and a BETTER ATTITUDE about things. That's my goal this week!

Class of '93 takes 2nd place!

It's official! John's team took 2nd place in the Lehi High School Alumni Tournament. Not bad for a bunch of old "have beens" - especially when you consider that young teams like the '09 team didn't make it to the finals. I am so proud of them. They played hard and did a great job! They had to play the class of '97 three times. They won the first game and '97 won the last two. Most importantly they had a blast! 7 games in 5 nights. It was an exciting, fun, "brutally hard" (John's exact words), and long week! John has the bruises all over his body to prove it.

OUCH!

I know I write too much about basketball but what can I say. It's one of the loves of the two special men in my life and it's what they're up to these days. John was invited to play in the Lehi High School Alumni Tournament. He graduated in 1992 but was asked to play with his old teammates from the class of '93. Last night was their first game. They played the class of 2002. It was a fun game to watch. I love watching and cheering on my Johnny Boy! John came down on a teammates foot after a rebound during the 3rd quarter and hurt his bad ankle. They stopped the game, took him out, gave him a short rest and then he went limping right back into the game. John played hard and did a great job but age and youth beat out. Ultimately the class of 2002 won. They have another game tonight (against the class of 2005)and we'll see if he can play. His ankle was still hurting and he was limping this morning. Good Luck Hon! We Love You!

Luke idolizes his dad and he's John's biggest fan. He loves to watch him play ball. He was really concerned after he saw his foot. Last night after we got home from the game Luke said our family prayer. It was so sweet he said "bless dad that his leg {foot} will be made better, I mean gooder, soon."

*Update: John's team won both of their games yesterday - against the class of 2005 and the class of 1985. John played with his bad ankle and it made me so nervous everytime I saw him jump. Go '93! We'll see how they do tonight. I am tired of the 9:00pm games.

Just some random action shots. Sorry that my pictures are always fuzzy. I get really shaky!

You've gotta love the purple walls.

What Luke was doing at every time-out, quarter, half-time, etc.

John's ankle when we got home!

Ice feels nice!

The ankle the next day. The bruising wrapped around his whole foot and underneath (sorry for the gross foot shots! I am so not a foot person!)

Almost everyday after school (on good days) you can find Luke at our neighbor's house up the street playing basketball with their son, Jantzen. They both love basketball. Thanks Jeanie and Nathan for letting Luke live at your hoop!

Luke's VIP!

*OK so I'm doing Luke's hair today and if you know Luke at all you know that he loves his hair with a part on the side because he thinks it looks like Luke Skywalker on Star Wars (no he is not named after Luke Skywalker). He won't let me spike it or do anything different. In fact when I take him to get his haircut at Fantastic Sam's almost all of the girls know him as Luke Skywalker and know how critical it is for them to style his hair with a side part. Well today as I am combing his hair he says "Mom when I get older, about as big as dad's size, my face will look just like Luke Skywalker's on Star Wars." I said "It will?" "Yes" he says "and I'm going to look in the mirror right now so I can tell." How I love him and I hope for his sake that his wish comes true!

Luke was the Very Important Person in his class on Friday. His birthday is on Memorial Day this year so he got to celebrate it early in his Kindergarten class. I was able to go and talk all about him and show the class a bunch of pictures. I also read them a story. He has the greatest teacher, Miss Gurney, and an awesome class! At the end the students got to ask Luke some questions. My three favorite answers were:

-What's your favorite thing to do with your dad? "Tackle him"

-What's your favorite thing to do with your sister? "Get her"

-What's your favorite thing to do with your mom? "Play with her" (do you notice a difference in Luke's responses? I'm the boring one who reads, plays games and colors with him. I leave the rough-housing to John and Kayc).

Luke cheesing it with his kindergarten class!

Luke C. and Luke H. These two are good friends who met in their kindergarten class and love to play together before school

Kaycee Takes Queen!

On Friday, Feb. 27th, Kaycee competed her first solo in her first competition at Thanksgiving Point at the America Onstage dance competition. She competed in the Novice category. She took queen in her division and we are so proud of her! She looked so cute and as always had a great stage presence. She totally smiled it up! She did so awesome - especially for her first time! She was so excited for it last week and only started getting nervous about an hour before her performance. The stage was so slippery a lot of people lost their footing -they didn't clean it off after performances and there are feathers all over. Her performance is below - again remembering that I'm a terrible photographer and I like to yell out my support for her.

Looking sassy in her Firecracker costume

Nervously waiting for the awards to be announced

Happy little queen

Misty (owner of and Kaycee's teacher at Ultimate Dance Etc., Kyra (who also won queen for her duet), Kennedy and Kaycee after Kaycee's win

All of Kaycee's earnings

The next day, Saturday, Kaycee's team - the Stars - competed. They are so cute and they did a great job! They took 1st place on their lyrical, The Power of a Dream, and 2nd place on their jazz, Mercy, in the intermediate category. I am so proud of them for doing so well in what was a harder category! Here are a few pictures from that day. Sorry I didn't really get many of them dancing because it's really hard to watch and take pictures at the same time. I really just wanted to watch them dance!

The Stars Team in their lyrical costumes:
Makaelen, Kyra, Kennedy, Aly E., Sydnie, Allie V., Kaycee and Riley

Aly, Allie and Kaycee

Smiling pretty during their lyrical

A fuzzy picture of them at the start of their jazz routine