Merry Christmas!

This year for Christmas, we decided to use our gift card from Grandma Moore and take the family to see " A Christmas Carol" at the Hale Center Theater in Gilbert. We had a great time, the girls were well behaved and it's such a treat to do something a little different to mark an occasion like Christmas.

Sorry for the angle on this one...if anyone knows how to fix it, this stuff happens to me all the time and I don't know how to fix it! Raegan wanted her picture taken with this actress because she said their dresses matched. :)

The girls got such a kick out of being so close to the action. The Hale Center theater is a theater in the round which means the stage is in the middle and the seats surround it. We had actors and actresses right next to us singing and dancing. You could see the sweat on their faces or the smiles exchanged as someone flubbed a line. This experience will be one that the girls will talk about for Christmases to come. Thanks for the opportunity Grandma Moore!

Cookies and holiday concerts

We look forward to the girls' holiday concert every year. This year, Mom was on the ball and everyone had a cute outfit with their hair done. :) Last year, I was escorting Raegan up on stage in the middle of a song. It's hit and miss.
This year, my maternal grandmother passed away and we got to keep some of her costume jewelry. She had a lot of Christmasy pieces, so everyone got to wear something of hers on their outfit for their concerts.
Raegan and Rylee both sang with their classes a medley of Christmas and holiday music. That was fun to watch.

Aubree and Kiersten both play violin in the Jr/Sr high orchestra. They also had a medley of Christmas and holiday music, but were able to participate in a quartet and duet as well. I hope they have as much fun playing as I have watching them!

We love to do sugar cookies for any holiday and have collected an army of Christmas shapes. Scott bakes them, I decorate them, and the girls help with both. YUM!

Canon decided he wanted to take part in this family tradition. He would put the coookie cutter down several times before he moved on to a different shapen making each shape impossible to move. He also ate a lot of the dough, so everything he touched had Canon cooties on it. :) In the end, we pretty much let him do whatever because he was having fun.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Decorating for Christmas is usually a slow process at the Moore house. Too many interruptions to think we might get it done in one day. But the tree is up and the rest will come slowly but surely.

Ummm...Rylee there's no presents under the tree yet.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know it's a little late, but Happy Thanksgiving to our family and friends. :) We had lots of food, some football and Kiersten managed to stay healthy this year. She's usually the one who's sick on Turkey Day.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but we have a tradition that takes place right after we've gorged ourselves on a Thanksgiving feast. Everyone gets a little present with their name and a poem about them. Next year it will be our family's turn to make up the poems...better start rhyming now. :P
Anyway, Raegan got a bracelet for her little gift, and then we headed over to the park for football. I told her to put her bracelet in the diaper bag for safe keeping. She decided she knew best and wore it while she played at the park. At some point, she thought it would be fun to have buried treasure. So she picked an inconspicuous place, and buried her new bracelet in the sand. Several minutes later, after not being able to find it, she came to ask for help. Kiersten and I spent the next hour checking all the conspicuous places, and then raking the inconspicous places with golf clubs because Grandpa's shed was locked and we couldn't get his rake. We must have looked pretty comical. But we did find it, thanks to Aunt Kimmy's keen eye.

They're famous!!

inmaricopa.com did a youtube video about our Veteran's Day assembly. If you go to their website, there will be a story about Veteran's Day and a video to watch. Or you can just go to youtube and search Veteran's Day 2010 in Maricopa AZ. The girls haven't seen it yet, but they will be so excited they made it to youtube!
I also posted a link on my Facebook page. Thank you again,Veteran's!

Thank you Veteran's!!

We celebrated Veteran's Day with a pancake breakfast and ceremony at the girls' school.

We got to fill out stars for all of our family members who had served in the Armed Forces. We have quite a few in the Moore/Morris line. :)Aubree and Kiersten got to play some patriotic songs in the full orchestra, as a quintet, and then Aubree got to play a Yankee Doodle medley in a duet with another violin. I was so impressed and proud. I didn't even know they would be so involved in the program.

Raegan's class got to participate in this sign. She says hers is the red hand. :) The ceremony ended with a fly over of 2 F-16 jets. I don't care what country you live in...THAT IS COOL!!!!

Happy, happy birthday, Canon dear!

Our family tradition is to go out and eat wherever the birthday boy/girl wants. That was a little difficult with Canon because he just repeated whatever anyone else said. So we narrowed it down to pizza or tacos and got him both. He started out on the taco and ended on pizza, so either way, we know he's happy. :) Canon had a lot more fun opening presents this year because he knows there's something inside to play with. He got some trucks and books that all make noises from the birthday fairy (thanks Aunt Tena) and a light up spinning toy from his sisters.

When Canon was done looking at this truck, Dad had a fun time figuring out that it made 3 different noises, and rolled forward on it's own if you pull it back. It's Canon's toy, Dad!

Guess who's 2 today????

The birthday fairy also gave him some oreos, which he began shoving in his mouth. :)

Dear Heavenly Father....

Dear Heavenly Father...Please bless that my mom won't still be mad about the mud incident. JK This kid refuses to sleep in the afternoon when I want him to, but can't quite make it to bedtime without a nap. He usually ends up falling asleep in the car when I'm picking up the kids from school, or in the middle of dinner without finishing his food.

Too cute to not take a picture. Maybe he's just faking it so he won't have to eat his broccoli!!

No training wheels!

We noticed last spring that Raegan had learned to balance enough that, even though her training wheels were still on, she wasn't using them to ride, just start and stop. So this morning, Scott decided we would take them off since the temperature is bearable in the morning and the kids are out of school for October break.

She started riding on her own the first time he pushed her off, and within 5 minutes, she was starting herself. There were a few spills when she tried to turn around to come back down the street and she still doesn't quite know how to use the brakes. But she will be distracted for a few hours. Maybe we can get something done. :)

Such a Boy!

So what do you do when you walk outside and find this? You grab the camera, duh! It was all fun and games until we told him we would have to hose him down. Not so fun to play in the mud anymore huh?

We're in transition from summer to winter garden, so there's nothing in these plots but the water still runs. Canon thinks it's a great mud bog and we caught him playing in it.

Don't look at me...I'm hideous!

What do YOU do during Conference?

We like to pull out the legos and make trucks!! Well, at least Scott and Canon do. :) Scott took a trip to the lego store for his birthday last month, and showed amazing restraint as he waited to play with his new toys until it was time for General Conference. This has become a tradition for our family to play with legos while we listen to the words of the prophet. I think it started when we were trying to figure out a way to keep Scott awake. :)

C'mon Dad! I want to play too!!
We enjoyed listening to General Conference on the internet, as the cable station that used to carry Conference wanted too much money to broadcast it this year, and the Church said no. I'm so grateful for modern technology that allows us to listen to the prophet in the comfort of our own home. The internet CAN be used for positive things.

When they were younger, Scott used to make little trucks for all the girls to play with. Now they are old enough to copy his design and make their own. Canon likes to take the trucks Dad makes and crash them. I don't think Scott likes that game very much. :P See how he protects his semi so Canon can touch but not destroy?

Saguaro Lake

We got to go as a family to Saguaro Lake on Fri with another family from our ward that had access to a boat. Previously, taking small children out on a big, deep lake has filled me with anxiety. But there were a lot of precautions taken to ensure everyone's safety. And the kids are a little older, so it seems my apprehension is directly related to their age. :) The older they get, the less apprehensive I am. Here is Rylee trying her luck at wake surfing. It's where you surf the curl of the wake. Done correctly, you don't even have to be hanging on to any ropes from the boat. You just use the ropes to get into the curl, and then the force of the wake propels you behind the boat, just like surfing a big wave. It is slower than water skiing or wake boarding, but looks really cool. :)

Aubree actually got up on water skis! It was pretty rough...it's her first time. But it helped that Dad was in the water with her giving direction and encouragement. She was only up for about 20 seconds, but it was a great experience. Now that she knows she can do it, next time won't be so difficult.

Scott got really close to being successful at wake surfing. He almost got up on two feet, but it takes so much out of your arms, you tire easily. I just thought this was a really cool action shot. Look, Mom, only one hand!

Canon was absolutely giddy in the water. It was infectious. He learned how to say boat and water on this trip. He was able to communicate water before, but it sounded like "waller". Now he can annunciate both words. His favorite thing to do was stand on the back deck of the boat, which was about 2 1/2 ft wide and kick water at the girls who were swimming. What a stinker!

Kiersten was the only one that had a little fear of getting in the water. Some areas were cold and she didn't like the idea of not being able to see the bottom. But we got her in eventually and she had a blast! We talked this family into taking us again this Thurs for Scott's birthday. :)

First Lion's Pride day of 2010-2011 school year!!

Lion's Pride days occur at the end of every quarter grading period. At the beginning of the grading period, each student is given 10 Pride points, and in order to participate in Lion's Pride days, they have to hang on to atleast one point. It's a system of rewarding good behavior. I am in charge of planning and carrying out Lion's Pride days and I decided that since we're still setting heat records in the Valley of the Sun, we would have a water day!
So the fire dept came and hosed down our students as well as our camping tarps that acted as a big slip and slide for our first activity. It took a few minutes for the kids to get crazy, but after just a little while, even the teachers were taking over the hoses and sliding down the tarps.
We had the water on for about 30 minutes, and the field was wet and muddy. But the kids are obviously having fun.

We also played water kickball, where the bases are kiddie pools and you literally have to slide into home plate because it's a slip and slide. Some of the other stations were drip, drip, splash played like duck, duck goose, only with BIG wet sponges, water volleyball with water balloons, and water dodgeball. We filled up about 2,000 water balloons Thurs afternoon, thinking that would be plenty. By the time we were on our second of 5 rotations, they were asking for more. It was a frenzy trying to keep up with the demand for water balloons.

It was a successful activity with only minor sun burns and a few bruised egos. I would really like to keep the energy going with a killer Lion's Pride day in Oct. Any ideas for a theme??

Traditional first day of school breakfast at McDonald's

We've been lucky enough the past several years to be able to eat breakfast together on everyone's first day of school. This year it just happened that Scott's boss was out of town and he had to work later that day, so he didn't leave at 4 am like he usually does.
This year, Aubree started high school, Kiersten started Jr high school, Rylee is in 5th grade and Raegan is in 1st. Parent/teacher conferences are this week, so we will see how well everyone is doing in class.


We love being involved with school and helping when there is something to be done. Aubree and Rylee both ran for Vice Pres in student council for the jr/sr high and the elementary and won. There will be a lot of opportunities for them to serve the students in their school.
I decided to volunteer with the parent organization this year and am in charge of anything to do with the jr/sr highchool. I also help with fundraising, book fairs, teacher appreciation, etc. It is a lot of work. I set it as a project goal in my personal progress program and had the 10 hour minimum in 2 weeks. I love being around this age group, especially when the kids are well behaved. I love seeing the look on their faces when they realize that I know their names.

Our trip to the Grand Canyon

We decided on our way home from Page, we would take a little detour and visit the Grand Canyon. Aubree was the only one of the kids who had ever been there and she was 2, so didn't remember anything. We picked a bad day to go because the cloud cover was so thick, you couldn't see anything. It was drizzly and a little chilly. We weren't prepared for that kind of weather, so we were a little cold. And being on the edge of a huge, deep chasm with little children (one of which is extremely headstrong and doesn't like being told what to do) was a little nerve-racking for me.

But we tried to make the best of it by laughing at eachother and having fun. This lady in the background asked if she could touch Canon's cheeks and take a picture with him. It was a very random request and she giggled the whole time. This was another area where we heard a lot of different languages.

Scott is making the best of it... silly man! Atleast he made us laugh. :)

This was the view no matter where on the canyon you went. There was just nothing to see because the clouds and f0g were soooo thick. It was disappointing for us, but I can't imagine traveling half way around the world to see a wonder and not being able to see it and not be able to plan a trip back next year.

Here we are getting rained on. I think we'll come back in a few years when everyone is older and the clouds aren't so thick!

Visiting Page and Great Grandma and Grandpa Moore

C'mon Grandpa! I said this was the "crazy pose" picture!

Thanks for your hospitality, Grandma and Russel.

We told the girls they could tell their friends we went to Utah over the weekend because this little dinosaur museum is actually in Big Water, UT, near the AZ/UT border. Quite a few universities and conservation groups have done digs in the Staircase Escalante Nat'l Park. They've found lots of different dinosaur fossils, and some of them are on display at this little museum.

I had never been in Lake Powell prior to this trip. I've driven by it many times, but we never stopped to play. The water was a little chilly, but bearable and there were TONS of tourists around. We went an hour without hearing anyone else speak English. And even then, it was with a British accent!

We visited a few days with Grandma and Grandpa Moore. We did a "movie at the park", the dinosaur museum, lots of card games, and a BBQ with Uncle Darrell and Aunt Lena.

Good times, good memories!