Tiny Dancer

Gracie had her first dance performance at the South Towne Expo Center. I was nervous about her performing because in some other "performance" type settings she has really had a hard time. Boy was I surprised! She absolutely LOVED dancing in front of the audience and was happy as a little Gracie could be the entire time! I was so proud of her and my heart was so full of mommy pride as she was up on the stage. It was darling. She was awesome!


These girls are in our ward.

Beautiful Gracie.

She was so excited!!

song of the day, the snowman's music box dance, george winston

Canning!!

I completely forgot to blog about canning! What was I thinking?

Earlier in September, Joe's mom found a family who have two mature and very productive apple trees in their yard. They told her that we could come and pick all the fruit we wanted for free. So we loaded up the kiddos in the van and headed over to their house. We picked TONS of apples! Gracie thought it was some kind of amazing miracle (which is totally is, if you think about it) that food as yummy as apples just grows on trees. Janie just loved to pick up an apple on the ground and gnaw on it for a few minutes before moving on to the next one. It was pretty cute.

Anyway, the point of all the picking, was to make some applesauce for our food storage. I'd never canned anything before, so Sue taught me how! Dave did all the peeling, we did the cooking and canning, and Ta Da!!! Lots of delicious, chunky, cinnamon applesauce to eat through the winter. Delish!! Thanks for helping us do such an awesome project GrandpaSue! (That's what Janie calls Grandma Sue and Papa Dave, collectively.)

Quote of the Day:
"Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I'm halfway through my fishburger and I realize, Oh my God. I could be eating a slow learner." ~Lynda Montgomery

song of the day, super trooper, abba - my favorite abba song :)

Halloween Week!

We had a fun Halloween week. Janie and Gracie wanted their toenails painted...

We had our first snowy day of the season...

We carved and painted pumpkins with Grandma and Grandpa Alexander...

And Gracie got to dress up and trick-or-treat!!! On Friday, for preschool and trunk-or-treat at the church, she dressed up as Cinderella. But on Saturday, for the real holiday, she was a dragon. Janie was Belle, from Beauty and the Beast but somehow I didn't get ANY pictures of her in her costume! Can you believe that?? I can't.

Quote of the Day:

"A box of new crayons! Now they're all pointy, lined up in order, bright and perfect. Soon they'll be a bunch of ground down, rounded, indistinguishable stumps, missing their wrappers and smudged with other colors. Sometimes life seems unbearably tragic." ~Bill Watterson