Christmas Choir Concert :)

Just so that everybody knows, Mrs. Jolley is the most amazing teacher you will ever meet. Honestly. I don't really know what else to say :)

This is Chamber Choir singing at our concert. There are only 27 of us, so we get to go sing at other places for people. This year we did three other gigs, one of which was a Relief Society party (only in Utah haha). We learned 9 songs but only sang four in the concert, but that's okay because we sang most of them at our gigs. This one was my very favorite.


I'm on the front row, second girl to the left

I'm trying to convince Chamber to be a Flash Mob. If you don't know what that is, look up Hallelujah Flash Mob in Food Court on Youtube... its pretty sweet.

The Only Reason I Love Winter....

Halloween

Halloween was successful again. Morgen used my fairy costume, Jolly used Morgen's gypsie costume, and I used McKay's banana costume (and earned myself a breakfast at Kneaders with Uncle Rick in the process). Caleb switched his costume every day, Nate was some scary thing that I still don't know, and mom and dad were Harley dudes. We had sweet costumes this year.

At the YWs party, my dad came to help out so our whole family ended up being there, and we had to find a piece of gum at the bottom of a whipped cream pile without using our hands.

The harley dudes.

Lots and lots of candy. 6 pounds each.

This was before the stake dance on Friday. It was soooo much fun! Except I think the guys were scared to ask a banana to dance because I only got asked once and it was a 17 year old in my ward.

Trading our candy.

Finally Finished...

This is the quilt that Satan really did not want me to finish. It took FOREVER. But I finally got it done and I am sooooo happy!!! It was definitely longer than 10 hours. It was probably longer than all my other projects put together. My grandma and I spent 6 hours alone just drawing out the design and cutting the scraps of fabric from her closet.

The scraps are probably my favorite part. I have pieces of fabric from my blessing dress, and a quilt that my mom made, and my grandma's trek dress, and a bunch of other things. My other favorite part was that she wrote part of the Young Women's theme in the border. Oma Kim is amazing.

This is what it started out as... just a big piece of paper in a drawing.


Then I sewed the blocks together and that took FOREVER, especially because I sewed the first six squares and then found out that I was sewing a 1/2 inch seam instead of 1/4 inch, and the squares were way too small. By an inch. So I unpicked all but two of them and resewed them. Then, when I was stuck at home while the rest of my family was in Lake Powell, I finished all the squares and left them laid out on the basement floor like this... and Zoee had a little accident on them. Actually, a big accident. Zoee's babysitters washed the squares but it didn't help. So I resewed six more squares. I was so mad.

This is what it looked like before the border was on. I was sick of it and ready to be done with it at this point. Until I found the border, which I am IN LOVE WITH.

Ironing the binding.

The border that I am IN LOVE WITH and the theme in the brown.

I decided that I am really grateful to have such awesome Omas. They are all amazing. I love them a ton. And my mom is really awesome for keeping me sane while I was resewing the whole quilt. Plus she passed on her sewing skills to me. I am related to some pretty awesome people. :)

Baby Champ :)

From this itty bitty string bean...

... to this handsome chubba bubba...

Champ is so adorable (but what baby isn't?)! Aunt Melissa asked me to take some pictures of him at FHE at Oma Kim and Opa Brent's house a few weeks ago. I did it with a fancy camera from my dad's work, but then the memory card got fried and some guy recovered it and they have been on my dad's computer forever. So I'm finally blogging them! I didn't get a ton of good ones because he is soooo squirmy and he won't smile but there are some cute ones. I love his huge blue eyes.

Church Stuff

A few Sundays ago we got to go up to Temple Square to listen to Music and the Spoken Word and it was awesome! Jolly couldn't believe how many people there are in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And I found out the other day that only half of the choir sings at once, so it is really twice as big. Crazy. But it was so beautiful. We had the German missionaries show us around Temple Square and that was cool, too. And the cutest part are the boys!!! They are going to be chick magnets when they are older. I'm in the process of convincing Nate to be a chick magnet for Halloween this year. Its going to be great.

PPP PARTY

Tonight was the awesomest start to the awesomest four day weekend! We had a Personal Progress Party! And a contest to see who could have the best outfit that started with P... so...


Me and Jenessa were A Pink and Purple Pregnant Ping Pong Playing Pair. It was amazing. We had socks, footwear, pajama pants, shirts, pretend ping pong paddles, fingernails, hair, and makeup that was purple. And we were preggo. And we put sticker Ps on our nerd glasses because we can't dress up without nerd glasses.

Volleyball or Music?

I have a dilemma. I have always wanted a scholarship for volleyball, and now I want to major in music, which means get a musical scholarship, and I can't do both volleyball and music in college... So I have decided that I still want to play volleyball in HS, just not for college, which is a problem if we are putting more than a thousand bucks a year for it and its not even going to pay off with a scholarship. But the thing is that I can't just give up volleyball and forget about it. I still want to play high school volleyball, and we can pay for that, but club is the expensive part (in the spring) and I'm afraid that if I don't do club and keep up my skills, I won't make the high school team next year. But, club takes a ton of money and a lot of time that I could spend in voice or guitar lessons to help me on the music track. I really really love music and I know that in the long run, it will pay off and that I will benefit more if I can play the piano than if I can play volleyball when I'm an old lady. But I can't just quit cold turkey on volleyball. I have no idea what to do. Any suggestions? Opinions? Please.

I Love My Dog

I just have to say how much I love my dog. Apparently I haven't posted in a while and I need to put on more pictures. But my life is pretty much just volleyball and I don't even have any pictures of that, so I can't really post about it. So I am telling you how much I freakin love my dog. She is awesome.


Play? Play? Please, somebody anybody, play?


Yes! Play play play!!! I'm going to chase a rock into the lake and then it will sink and I'll come back so that Nicole can throw another one!!!

Jolly!

This is Jolly, our new sister! Shes our foreign exchange student from Berlin, Germany. She will be here for the whole school year and we are all soooo excited! So is she. She is pretty much awesome. Jolly is way outgoing and tries everything.

So far she doesn't like licorice or root beer. But that's ok because I hate licorice and I used to hate root beer, so we are weird together. She isn't any religion, so when we went to Church she thought it was really weird. When they passed the sacrament, she turned to me and said, "They are giving us food?" She has also been trying really hard to say oh my gosh instead of the other word, because she knows that we don't say that. She's really sweet like that. She said she felt a little awkward in church, but she didn't complain about it at all, and eventually I think she will like it. I'm so excited to have this missionary opportunity!

Haha she came to my volleyball game and they kept the gym at -10 degrees, I swear, and she came and asked me if I had a jacket in German. I looked at her funny and then she realized she had just spoken in German!

She also thinks that my dad is really funny- which is true. And when he talks about good food, his eyebrows go up and down (which I have never noticed before, but Jolly thinks thats hilarious).



Last Sunday was our cooking day. My mom made rotkohl (which she has only had a few times in her life, believe it or not) and bratwurst for dinner. Jolly and I made banana bread with some really rotten bananas, and she was kind of grossed out, and the sad thing is that the bread didn't even turn out that good. We used a new recipe and it wasn't fabulous. We also made brownies. Lots and lots of brownies.

Family Home Evening on Sunday night. She fits in perfect! And of course the boys aren't paying attention and Morgen is bored and cold.

Young Womens- we had an ice cream social in our backyard. Jolly probably thinks that we are the unhealthiest people in the world because at the moment we have 5 1/2 gallons of ice cream in our freezer. We keep telling her that we never have ice cream and she should enjoy it while we do, and then a celebration will come (like the Fantasy Football draft party) and we go buy more ice cream!

Fantasy Football Draft party- Jolly thinks this is the weirdest thing she has ever seen since coming to America. A bunch of 40 year old men in the same room, each with their own laptop. I couldn't agree more, now that I think about it, but before I wouldn't have even thought it was weird, because thats just what these guys do every year!

For Young Womens this week, we had a Modesty Fashion Show, and it was soooo much fun. Jolly even participated! She borrowed one of my dresses and rocked the runway. She is so much fun to have around and I'm so grateful for this awesome missionary opportunity.