Surprise!!!

Have I ever mentioned that I LOVE having daughters??? I know I may not say that when they are teenagers, but right now I LOVE having daughters!!! Yesterday I surprised my two big girls by taking them out for dinner and then to High School Musical 3! It was so much fun!!!!
I have always loved musicals and so I love the High School Musicals that Disney has put out. But it was just so much fun to be sitting in the theatre with my two girlies and dancing in our seats and loving the movie together! I am also a big fan of HSM and Hannah Montana because I know that my girls can watch those things and they are clean! Disney has always done a great job with producing clean programs for the kids to watch and so I have no problems that my girls are huge fans of HSM and Hannah Montana!
I think that Disney definitely did a great job with this movie and I can't wait until I can get it for my girlies on DVD!!!
Thanks for the great surprise Disney!!!

Na na na na. Na na na na. Hey Hey Hey. . . GOODBYE!!!

Yep, I have now bid adieu to 20 of my least favorite pounds. The good news is that I don't miss them one bit. Now I am trying to find a few more pounds who want to get lost. I think that I will look in my butt region. . . I know I have plenty to spare over there!

Music

I have written before about how I believe that there is a very special power in music. I believe that it has the power to influence people for good and even for bad. I believe that music has the ability to help people feel closer to the Saviour and to heal the soul. This was reiterated to me this past Sunday.
This past weekend was really busy for me. I had a lot of things to do on Friday and Saturday and even on Sunday. By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around I was exhausted! After church we had choir, and like I wrote last week I love going to choir now that I have Abby to go with me. In fact, we started a trend and now there are 3 other little girls that come out to choir. It was so much fun to see these little girls getting excited about music. Abby is the only one who is singing the alto part, but now she isn't the only child in choir. We even have almost all of our youth in our choir too. I was very happy to see this because I know that music helped me stay out of trouble when I was a teenager. I remember my cousin Michelle coming over and we would get out all of the music that I could sight read and we would sing church songs on a Friday night. I remember my Grandma Lee would be babysitting my family when my parents were out of town and she would come and stand in the room and start crying because she said that she was so lucky because her friend's grandchildren were out drinking and partying on Friday nights and her grandchildren were singing church songs. I didn't realize it at the time, but music really did save me from doing a lot of things.
Later in the afternoon on Sunday I was able to listen as Abby practised the cello. This is only the second year that she has been taking lessons and she is going to be taking an exam in June. I am so proud of her. As I listened to the beautiful deep sounds coming from her cello I felt calm and relaxed. The incredible music that she was able to produce from her instrument just melted all of the tension right out of my body. If I could convince her to do it I would just have her play the cello all day, every day.
Because I had spent so much time away from my family this past weekend I was hesitant to go to the rehearsal for Handel's Messiah. This is something that I sing in every year and this year I was going to not sing in it. Otto told me that I should just go and do it because I really enjoy it and so I did. The feelings of peace and happiness just flooded over me as I sang about the Saviour's life. I felt rested and loved and happy. I always love a good vocal challenge which is why I sing the soprano part in Messiah, and it was fun getting my voice back into shape in order to be able to sing those runs. I didn't try out for a solo this year and so I am able to just go and enjoy myself and have fun singing the music.
So you see, music is a very powerful force in my life. I have always tried to help my children to love music because I know how much it has helped me get through trials and enjoy the happy moment's. Music can uplift me and it can give me energy like no caffeinated drink can!!! I am truly grateful for the wonderful blessing that I have been given to be able to have music in my life.

Time Management

Okay, remember how a couple of posts ago I posted about how I was getting bored? Well I am definitely not bored any more. Now my schedule has finally picked up and I have tons to do! What changed???? Well, I am now the parent coordinator for both Abby and Anne's classrooms. What is a parent coordinator? Well that is the person who is in charge of getting volunteers to come help the teacher in her classroom when the teacher needs help doing things like cutting out things, decorating, hanging things, etc. I volunteered to be the coordinator because this is a way for me to help out the teachers without having to be at the school all of the time. I am glad that I did it, but boy am I busy right now!! Abby's teacher is planning on having a great big Halloween party in her classroom and I am going to get to help her. I just need to find someone to watch my boys while I am there. . . . I think that this will be the hardest part!! Oh well, we will see what happens. It will all work out, I'm sure!
I love to be busy. I think that I get it from my mother and my grandmother. Those two are the two busiest people I know and they are both busy doing VERY different things. My mother is constantly busy with her businesses and my grandmother is busy helping out others. I seem to be a mix of the two. People constantly ask me how I do it and the answer is simple. 1- I put everything into a schedule according to when it needs to be done and then I work on it. This is something that I do all of the time because it is the same principle that works in cooking. You plan everything out so that all of your dishes end at the same time and you can sit down and eat.
2 - I have a wonderful husband who helps me with the family aspect in the evenings and on the weekends. We have Family Fun Night one evening during the weekend where we all go do something fun as a family as well as Family Home Evening on Monday nights. No one messes with these two nights and we all look forward to them!
3 - School and naps. It`s amazing what I can get done when my kids are either at school or napping or in bed! This is when I do all of the things that need to be done so that when the kids come home from school until they go to bed my time is generally theirs. (Except on Tuesdays when I teach piano until 6:15, but one day out of the week isn`t bad!)
So there you have it! For the next couple of months I will definitely not complain that I am bored, because who knows. . . . maybe someone will think of something else that I should be doing!

Adios Amigos

Spanish you ask? Why yes, indeed. It has been a language that I have been learning for 2 reasons. The first reason is because my husband speaks it all the time and he is teaching my children the language. They go to a Spanish school and they say TONS of things in Spanish when they get home. I seem to be the butt of all of their jokes because even though I can speak 2 languages, the second language is NOT Spanish! They think that it is HILARIOUS that I can't speak Spanish, but I just start talking to them in French and they stop laughing because they have no idea as to what I am saying. The second reason I have been learning Spanish is because for our ten year anniversary we have been planning on going to Chile. I never got a honeymoon and so I have been looking forward to this trip for 10 years.
Well, last night Otto and I sat down to talk about the future. We have been worried about the world economic crisis and we have lost some money in our investments that we currently have. Because of this we came to the consensus that maybe it would be more wise to not go to Chile for another couple of years and we will just take that money that we would have used and save it in case we need it.
Yes, we have decided to do the responsible thing. What a bummer hey? I mean who wouldn't rather go to Chile? I know I would! However, I guess that that's what happens when you become the parents of 5 beautiful children who are completely dependant on you. . . . and who knows. . . for our 20th anniversary I will only be 39 so I may finally be able to see my dream come true!

A Dream Come True

Ever since I was a preteen I had a dream. You see I used to attend the church choir every Sunday by myself. Sometimes I would get a ride home from various members of the choir, and when my cousins moved into the ward I would often get a ride home with them. I used to feel sad that my mother didn't sing in the choir with me. I used to try everything that I could think of to get her to sing with me. But, alas, nothing worked so I decided to dream. I dreamed that one day I would have daughters and they would love to sing and I could sing in the choir with them.
Well, yesterday my dream came true. Now that Abby is 8 years old and can read I feel that she is old enough to sing with me in choir. She is currently singing in the school choir and I am excited to have her join me in the church choir. Abby's voice is quite deep and so I decided that instead of making her sing soprano (which is the easiest for her to hear), I would teach her how to sing the alto part. I had her sit between me and another woman who is also a strong alto and we worked on the alto part together.
Abby did great! She picked up the notes really quickly (and there were some tricky harmonies in there as well!) and she sang beautifully! I was so proud of her. I am really excited that Abby is going to be singing in this choir with me. I think that it will be good for her musically and I am excited to FINALLY not be attending choir by myself. I finally have a reason to enjoy going to choir again!

Fall Pics

Of course it's that time of year again when everyone goes out to the park to play in the leaves and take pictures. I wasn't planning on taking any traditional pictures this fall, but my mother had other ideas. She called my Aunt Judi and we all met at Bowness Park on Thanksgiving morning to take some pictures. Here they are:

Best Buds!!!

Jen Jen!

My baby sister!
My sister's family!

Every child needs an Uncle who will rough them up a bit!

The Comins at work!

Who doesn't love getting down and dirty in a pile of leaves???

My babies!

These three LOVE to do things together!!! They are my computer babies!!

Jay, Suzanne and Maximus!

My little (okay, not so little any more) family

Mom and Dad

My Family

So there you have it! Our fall family pictures! I was plesantly surprised that we were able to get so many good ones considering it was about 3 degrees outside and the kids were all cold! You can't even see our breath in the photos! WAY TO GO AUNT JUDI!!!

I think that the kids favorite part was going back to Nana's house afterwards while the boys all played football and grandpa went and hit some golf balls. And then we all went out (except for Jenna and Kristin who boogied it back to Edmonton) for dinner at Moxies afterwards.

That was a great way to spend Thanksgiving Day!