Christmas Piano Recital + Christmas Dance Review = 1 Crazy Night

Last night Samantha had her Christmas piano recital and her Christmas dance review.  The poor boys were bored to death!  

Luckily Caleb took a train & Nash took something to color so they were mildly entertained.

 Brooke was just happy to be there & barely made a peep during either performance!

 Amazingly enough, her dad was home for BOTH performances!  He has yet to see a piano recital in person.  He did go with to Festival of Trees so he got to see a few dances there.

We kinda had to book it to get to piano recital dressed and on time.  The dance recital was at 5 at LaShars and the piano recital was at 7 at the Hyrum City Office.  She was glad she didn't have to change in the truck (I did take her dress with just in case though!).

The boys were thrilled when it was all over AND they got a cookie!

I video taped all 4 dances she did and I only managed to video 1 piano song.  I got her solo & then half way through her duet I realized I should have been filming!  Duh!  Since Blogger gives me grief, I'm posting them all on my fb instead.

Let the Christmas festivities begin!

Friday, December 16th Samantha had a half time show for the Logan High School basketball game.  I took a video so we'll see if I can get it to upload.

Saturday, December 17th Nash had his last basketball game.  Apparently they lost...badly.  After Nash & Travis got home from the basketball game, we headed for Manti.  We had the Whitlock Christmas party on Saturday night.  We definitely felt Grandpa Charlie's absence.  It was a good, fun party though.
All 8 of the great grandsons got chaps.  A bunch of leather and buckskin was found after the funeral that Grandpa Charlie had been holding onto.  The leather was taken to my Grandpa Russ to make chaps out of. I didn't get Prestin, Kash or Talon in the picture.  The boys LOVED their chaps.  Especially my boys.  My boys wore them the rest of the night and part of the day on Sunday.  You should have heard all the boys change their voice, their vocabulary and their swagger.  I think Caleb has the best swagger!  They kept stealing Trav's cowboy hat to wear while they played with their chaps on!

All 9 great granddaughters got buckskin purses.  I didn't get Kenzie, Peyton, Brookelyn, Olivia or Savara in the picture.  The girls were thrilled with their purses.  Especially Samantha.  She had seen the purses as Grandpa Russ worked on them and kept telling him and me how much she wanted one.  They wore them around the rest of the night as they played dress ups!

Olivia and Brookelyn sure played cute together.  You'd never know these two were only 3 days apart and that Olivia was older.  Brooke weighs more, sits up by herself and likes to stand on her legs.  Not Liv!  They played really cute together though.

On Sunday we had the Christmas party with the Bowns.  Santa Clause came as we were finishing up dinner.  Caleb was excited to see him.  It was cute to watch him wait so patiently to get his turn.

 Sam was a bit embarrassed to get on Santa's lap.  Not sure why.

 Nash was a little shy too.  He got off as quick as he could!  I was lucky to get a picture of him!

 Brookelyn, as you can see, DID NOT like Santa.  I didn't figure she'd have a problem because she did so well with the Santa at the mall.  Boy was the a wrong assumption!

Despite not liking Santa too much, she did like her present.  She was pretty content to just sit and play with it all wrapped up for awhile.

Nash got a Nerf gun from the cousin that had his name.  (Yes, Samantha has been shot - it the face, by Caleb) with said gun since we got home.)

 Caleb got some new Legos.  He's already been building with them too!

 Brooke loved this little camera.  It talks, plays a bit of music and has blinking lights.  She sits and plays with it in her walker for quite awhile.

 Nash & Caleb also got little ATV's and a guy from Grandpa and Grandma Butter.

 All the great granddaughters got new night gowns from Great Grandma Butter.  They all look so cute!  Sam LOVES these jammies from Grandma Bown.  She has had several over her lifetime and she wears them until I take them away and put them in the too small box.  Even then she gets a bit miffed if I put them away!

These last pictures were taken on Friday night.  Trav's mom has a bear for every year since 1980-something.  The collection takes over the entire front room.  We have a picture of the other kids in with all the bears so I thought we'd better get at least one with Brooke!

Today was my last day of work until Jan. 3rd.  Tomorrow I plan to get the house cleaned and then I can do all my baking done on Thursday & Friday so they can be delivered on Saturday.  Got to finish the last little Christmas sewing too!

Phone Photo Dump

Yesterday as we were on our way home from Manti, I realized I had about 60 photos on my phone.  The more photos on my phone, the fewer text messages my phone can hold before I have to start erasing.  So, I texted myself a bunch of pictures.  I think I may have posted some of these before, but, oh well!

Little sister has recently discovered her tongue.  It's pretty funny to watch her when she gets it going.  Good, old fashioned, cheap entertainment!

Trav's mom sent this build a snowman thing home with us a week or so ago.  It's like a window cling, but stickier.  Yes, it's stuck to my door.  No, it hasn't pulled paint off.  No, Caleb hasn't torn it down since it went up.  Yes, Caleb has rearranged the snow flakes.  No, Samantha is not holding Brookelyn - it's a doll!

This is one from preschool from quite awhile ago.  My mom picked Caleb up after preschool & sent me this picture.  It's so cute.  He still has the bandanna and eye patch and loves to go around saying, "Hey matie!"  Cracks me up when he goes pirate!

Little sister with some more tongue action going on.  She thinks it's quite hilarious when we all start laughing at her.

Just being extra happy in the tub.  This was quite awhile ago too.  I got rid of the sponge after Caleb saw it in the bathroom sink & decided he wanted to pee on it.  Yes, it was in the sink & Caleb PEED on it.

I know I posted about Nash's staple incident.

Caleb got this hat when his preschool class went on a field trip to the fire station here in Hyrum.  He wore that sucker around for like a week!

My sister in law crocheted this hat.  I think it's adorable.  Caleb was modeling it for us & whipped out this "scary face" for us.

Brookelyn's 7 month photos

On Saturday I took Brookelyn with me to the boutique I was doing.  Lucky I did.  Everest Photography was there.  They are based in Logan.  I paid $5 for the sitting.  He took TONS of pictures.  I was able to jump online tonight & view all the pictures he took.  I could buy whatever pictures I wanted for $6 each - that $6 releases the copyright so I can print them myself.  I ended up buying 11 of them.  They are all adorable.  I saved all the pictures to a folder on the website & may go back & buy more.  I didn't get Brookelyn's 6 month pictures done, so we did 7 month pictures instead!  She was sooo happy the entire shoot too!

With Miss Sunny June

Just look at her grin!

This hat was of of theirs:

The girls were too funny together.  Sunny kept pulling the hats off.  She was like, "Here.  Let me help you.  You've got a little somethin' on your head!"

I love the raised eyebrow: