Cinderella's off to the ball....

Valorie and Jessie came over at 3 to fix her hair and help her get ready. For some reason the "do" took longer to do tonight and we were all getting nervous as bobby pins were still being tucked at 4:15 and she wasn't dressed yet. He was due to arrive at 4:30 and this morning he was 10 minutes early. She grabbed her make-up bag and worked on her face as Valorie continued to curl, pin & spray

(p.s. this face paint is not a normal Valorie look. She just really enjoyed being "spirited" for the homecoming game last night and kept it up today. They are Timberwolves, hence the pawprint)

The finished product

I made her go pose outside and she was terrified that they would drive up while I was making her pose and she'd "look stupid"

So Rachel was enlisted to stand guard in the driveway to let us know if anyone was coming.

Check out the ring...

and the bracelet...

and a girl who's sick of pictures!

Then came a phone call

They're running late because the other half of their double date can't find his date's house. The poor kid was given an address that turned out to be an empty lot and now he's knocking on doors in the neighborhood asking "does Alana live here?"

So time to spare....

MORE PICTURES!!!!!

He arrives!

Pinning on the button.... bouton.....bouten....

flowers

proves to be a difficult task.

I had to take over so he didn't get stabbed.

This wise boy bought a wrist corsage.

Easy as can be!

No pinning, no awkward chest touching...

Uncle Matt was there for the BYU game and was able to give support to his brother in the "make the date incredibly anxious" department

After the flowers were on I told them I wanted a picture of them standing together. Body language was screaming "anxiety" so I had to do a little maneuvering to get a decent picture..

I said "come on, you like each other. you're friends! put your arm through his Carly!" She did and he loosened up a bit and all was well. I work with his mom and she told me it took them 6 hours to shop for his clothes. She asked him "How is it that Carly and her Mom did this in 4 hours and it's taking us 6" He replied "It was easy for her, she could pick out whatever she wanted. I have to MATCH!"

It's true, the purple is hard to match. When we bought the dress we went into a tie store in the mall and couldn't find a tie to match the hue of purple on the dress. There are a lOT of purples out there.

We gave them a piece of fabric from the piece we bought for her hair flower. His mom made that little pocket handkerchief out of it and I think he looks sharp. They did a great job of purple matching! I like the light purple shirt and darker tie.

Together they just ooze adorable.

*sigh*

And they're off.....

To the brick oven for dinner and to the canyon for pictures and then off to dance the night away....

She turns into a purple pumpkin at midnight.

He better have her home!

The Day date

So the Homecoming festivities have begun.

For my out of state readers....

Around here, there is a tradition on dance days that the kids have a daytime date and then go home to get ready for the dance. I think it's a fun thing. Carly's group is going to one of those indoor trampoline type places and then to get ice cream at Coldstone. Mark was so excited to do the "where are you taking my daughter talk". Craig presented him with a permission slip he had to sign. He hadn't explained what it was yet and Mark was laughing "I have to sign a permission slip for you to take out my daughter?"

Poor Craig had to explain it was a requirement of the trampoline place they were going to. Carly was caught a little early. He said he was coming between 8:30-8:45 and showed up at 8:20 this morning. She was out last night at the homecoming carnival, football game and movie at a friends house til 12:30 so she was tired and not moving fast. She didn't have her make-up on yet and was planning on pulling her bangs back but she laughed and said "oh well. I'll look beautiful tonight"

I'm a little biased but I think she looked beautiful this morning.

We like this homecoming "do"... do you?

Carly wanted a fancy "updo" for Homecoming but with her short hair we thought that might not be possible. (expecially for me...) Lucky for her she has an amazing friend, Valorie, who has been doing fancy hair since she was 3 months old.... (not really, but ALMOST!) Valorie is extremely creative. She makes jewelry and alters clothes and just always looks incredibly put together and adorable. She's funny and nice and a very good friend. She is the year between Carly and Rachel in school. This year I have been hearing from Rachel how she misses seeing Valorie at school every day and from Carly about how happy she is to have Valorie at her school now.

She came over Tuesday to see what she could do with Carly's hair. A couple hours later she gave us this........

Notice the flower Jena...

Carly's so proud of herself for making this all by herself. She says it's her only claim to being "crafty"

She loves it.

What do you think?

Clothespin Tag with Grandma

Our 3rd visitors in August were Grandma Donna & Grandpa Mike

They came on Mark's birthday to help us celebrate.

After Mark got home from work we were able to go celebrate with an adults only dinner with Mom, Dad, Mark, his brother Matt, Sis-in-law Abby and myself. We went to Carabbas. Mark and I had never been there before. Mom had Lasagna, Dad had clams, Matt a steak, Abby some chicken spinach canneloni, Mark got some lobster ravioli and I got their grilled chicken, mashed potatoes and broccoli. We all liked our dinners so it was a success. After dinner we came home and our niece Kei had bought some ice cream and come over to the house so the celebrations continued.

Grandma always seems to come armed with a new game to share with us. This time was no different. She brought a USA states puzzle and we raced against each other's times putting the puzzle together. Carly won with the best time. Another game she brought was "clothespin tag"

Each kid started out with one clothespin clipped onto their shirt.

The object of the game was to try to grab each other's clothespins.

If you grabbed someone's clothespin you would clip it next to your own clothespin and they would have to sit down and freeze until grandma came and clipped another clothespin on their sleeve.

At the end of the game, obviously, the one with the most clothespins would win.

It was fun for everyone.

well........

almost everyone......

There was one person who felt the sting of being the littlest.

Friday night we had kids going several different directions and it was just grandma, grandpa, Mark, Mason, Samantha and I after 8pm. Grandma, Mason, Samantha and I had been swimming at Kei's new apartment, Mark had gotten home from work and we were all hungry. We went to Ridleys' and bought a strange assortment of food for dinner. We had chips and nacho cheese sauce, salsa, pork chops. baked beams and cantaloupe. Strangely it tasted really good together.

Saturday we had a get together with the entire Heber Bocanegra family, our family and grandma and Grandpa. We played in the sprinkler, ate hot dogs and little Debbies, chip and dip and melon and talked and just had a good time together. Kei brought us some Hawaiian hot dogs called Redondo's. They're bright red which is a little disturbing. Grandma Donna was so excited because she only gets them once a year on her annual trip to Hawaii and LOVES them. Carly really liked them and I kind of liked them... as someone who does not generally like hot dogs. It was fun to try something new.

I was reminded again how nice it is to enjoy being with your family.

Rachel had a talk in Sacrament meeting so Grandma and Grandpa stayed over especially to hear it, delaying their departure.

It was a nice visit. Thanks for coming. We can't wait til next time!

FHE idea: Search the Holy Scriptrues

Now that our kids are getting older we thought it was time we put together a FHE lesson schedule to give everyone a regular opportunity to give the FHE lesson. Here's what Jacob and I came up with last night. Most of it came from his ideas but I helped focus them a bit. He wanted to do a treaure hunt and he wanted the focus of his lesson to be about the importance of reading the scriptures. This will be the outline of our lesson tonight:

Song: As I search the Holy Scriptures

prayer:

Lesson: Jacob is going to read a story from the June 2010 Friend called "Scriptures and firewood" He will discuss a little of his thoughts about this story.

I will read "The search" from the July 1994 New Era

Some questions we might ask:

Why did Elder Packer have a hard time chopping the wood?

What was the lesson he learned about when things seem hard?

What does Elder Packer say this had to do with reading the scriptures?

How hard was this father searching for his son? Do you think he looked behind every tree, bush?

How can we liken this to searching the scriptures?

Why do you think the mom didn't sleep for 6 days?

Have you ever felt this kind of desire to search for an answer from your Heavenly Father?

What kind of situation do you think would cause you to search so diligently?

What other things can you do to help your search? (fast, pray)

ACTIVITY: Jacob will then talk to the family about how we can find treasures in the scriptures if we will read and ponder the words of the prophets and Christ that are there for us. He will give them a clue w/a scripture reference and they will have to look up the scriptures and ponder about what the clue might be therein and follow the clues until they find their treasure which in our case will be a chocolate cake.

Clue #1:

ST LUKE

CHAPTER 15:4

(this will lead them to a little sheep statue we have in our house where they will find....)

Clue #2:

ST MATTHEW

CHAPTER 7:7

(they will find this on the front door where people "knock" where they will find.....)

Clue #3:

ST JOHN

CHAPTER 6:33-4

(which will lead them to the bread basket where they will find.....)

Clue #4:

ST JOHN

CHAPTER 15:1

(which will be hiding on our longest philodendron vine which will lead them to....)

Clue #5:

JACOB

CHAPTER 5:6

(which will lead them to our tree branches outside in our front yard which will lead them to.....)

Clue #6:

ST LUKE

CHAPTER 12:34

(which will lead them to a big paper heart taped to a cupboard behind which is the chocolate cake)

Closing song: Search, Ponder & Pray

Prayer:

Cake

The End

Mason and the BIG sucker

Back in August, the first night Christy was here, we were sitting around the table finishing dinner; Chicken, Broccoli, pasta with pesto sauce....

When Mason turns his big lashed eyes on Christy and says, to my mortification,

"Do you promise that you will take me to the dollar store while you are here?"

She laughed and said "I think I could do that, how about right now!?"

His eyes lit up and he said "GREAT! I'll just go get my money!"

As he ran off to get his bank I felt a little better knowing he was just asking for a ride and time with her and was not begging for money too.

It was the night before Jacob's birthday party and I said "can I have you pick up some balloons for me while you're there?" Mason heard me say this and thought I was coming too. We were sitting next to each other and he came up between us and threw an arm around each of our necks and proclaimed, "I would LOVE to go to the dollar store with my two loverbirds!!!!"

We laughed and laughed and then we laughed some more and thankfully he didn't take it wrong. He just grinned and waited for us to get ready to go.

Christy told him to put his dollar away and said she would buy him 2 things. You can't imagine his delight thinking he could get 2 things, 2 whole things at once.....

Once we were there and the decision making began he was torn between so many things that Christy decided he could have 3 things. No greater joy has this boy known. Imagine, picking out 3 things to buy at the dollar store.

I don't know what the 2 other items were anymore but the this sucker was unforgettable. It lasted and lasted and lasted. Notice the different shirts in the pictures as we tried to document how many days it would last...

He would wrap it up in a plastic bag and put it in the fridge when he was finished with it for the day.

I think he worked on it for over a week.

He declared it the best sucker ever. He shared licks with his brother and sisters. He offered licks to his loverbirds....

I tried it. Cherryish. I believe Christy declined his kind offer....

In the 5 days that she was here-

Christy managed to take each of the kids on their own adventure.

The adventures seemed to escalate according to age...

Samantha got to go to the Dollar store and pick out THREE things and then go to Jamba juice for a smoothie. Jacob got to go see Toy Story 3. Carly and Rachel went shopping for a new outfit and to see the movie Inception. Carly & Rachel went on their adventure together but they've always seemed to go together. They're kind of a matched set....

Salt 'n Pepper, Ketchup 'n Mustard, hot dogs 'n saurkraut (that ones for you papa)

As all good things must....

Christy's visit and the sucker

came to an end but we'll never forget them

til next time....

We love you Aunt T!