Some of our happenings...

The girls getting a pedicure during our quick trip to Park City....

I went as a chaperone to Amanda's photography field trip to the zoo. It was really fun and not crowded at all.  The best part is that we got in for free! Manda took some amazing pictures of the animals....as well as lots of her friends...The above is the kids we hung out with all day...including a couple that didn't get in the picture.

Amanda, Susie and Maddy and they rode the carousel!

The lighting that day was so good for pictures, too.  No editing done on any of these.

The tiger was so vocal while we were there!  Amanda caught him in action!  He is so pretty, too!

Sydney had a Christmas recital for hip hop last Saturday. Her costume was so cute!  She did a great job and can't wait to join this studio next year.  It's going to be hard to keep her interested in ballet for the next 6 months....

Classic Sydney posing....

I finally blocked out two days (during the day before piano) to get the office painted! Mike did the ceiling and patchwork and then I primed and put two coats on the walls.  It took forever, but the girly room purple is gone and it's ready to be an office!  I am refinishing a desk to put in there. That's my next project....but hopefully it will be done soon.  Maybe I'll have time to work on it tomorrow...cross your fingers.....

It turned frigid here last week! I wouldn't even let our kids sit at the bus stop because it was 0 degrees and they won't wear coats!  I was even cold....and that doesn't happen often.

Amanda stayed home from school last Friday, so we met Mike for lunch. We went to Mel & Becky Mauris' new restuarant, Bountiful Greek. It was soooo good!  Mel is Amanda's soccer coach.

The first Saturday in December was a busy one!  After Sydney's dance recital, Amanda had some dance rehearsals and then we went to the Arveseth cousin party. Bowling and dinner at Doug & Cath's again. It was super fun and I'm glad we got to stay this year instead of running off to an indoor game.  Maddie had to do that this year.....Super fun and I hope we keep this tradition up actually...After that, we headed to Festival of Trees and the girls and I bagged trees.  We took Susie and Maddie with us to the cousin party because they needed a ride down to SLC.  Did I mention it was a blizzard!  The roads were icy all day long.  Treacherous drive, but we were safe. Mike took Brandon home after the cousin party.  We planned to stay at my parent's house because they were out of town and I didn't want to drive home, but when the girls started talking about an all nighter and showering at my parents and eating, I changed my mind. Even though it was icy and 2:00am, I didn't want these girls to destroy the house!  Plus, they needed to be at Susie's house by 7:45am to go deliver the trees on Sunday morning and I didn't want to get up that early.  We made it home safely, of course.   I decided to sleep through Sacrament meeting and just go to Primary.  I got a call at 9am from Shanna asking if I was doing Sharing time today.  Argh!  So, I had to get up and get the lesson ready. It all worked out :)  But we all took naps after church!

Here are some pictures of our Thanksgiving day trip to St George and Vegas.  Sydney and Mike doing the book where you unfocus your eyes and see different pictures...kept them busy all morning!

After hanging on the strip for awhile, we decided to leave and go see the Temple! We had to clear our minds!

Girls in front of Caesars Palace

We rode the roller coaster at New York New York and Amanda dreaming of going back!

We went to Serendipity!  I tried so hard to go there in NYC.  When I heard they had one in Vegas, Mike made us some reservations.  They are famous for this Frozen Hot Chocolate and it was ok.  The waitress suggested the deep fried Oreo sundae and that was delish!  Super fun weekend!

I'm going backwards here, but since it was just us and my parents for Thanksgiving, we decided to go to Little America!  It was great food and no clean up!

Amanda loves loves loves chocolate covered strawberries and had 22?  Chocolate all over her face, but she was happy!  We left for St George right after dinner and my parents stayed with us.  They hung out with the Smiths and with Bud & Kay, too.  It was a great weekend and so great to spend it with my parents!  Great weekend!