[prom] a formal dance, especially one held by a high school or college class at the end of an academic year.

 The waiting.

The daddy/daughter pose.

The pinning.

The awkward photo moments required by the parents.

The "real" photos.

The whole group.

The superhero moment.

The dinner.

The dance.

The end.

sadie hawkins

 

I helped plan the one and only Sadie Hawkins dance of my high school career.

The theme: Western

The attire: matching flannel shirts and western wear (I wore birks 'cause I didn't have any boots.)

The event status: big flop 

Not like Sadie Hawkins 2015. The theme. The costumes. The planning. All so much better now!

The theme this year was Movies.

At the dance, Molly and her date won first prize for Best Animated Movie Couple!

Olive Oyl's costume was pretty fun and simple to put together: red t-shirt. white collar cut from felt and attached in back with ribbon. black skirt with yellow ribbon ironed on. black boots. Popeye was in charge of his own costume and it turned out to be perfectly paired with Olive's. 

Popeye + Olive Oyl, Carl + Ellie Fredricksen ("Up"), 
Wesley + Princess Buttercup

After the photos, everyone came to our house for make-your-own-grilled-pizzas and italian sodas. This was a fun group! 

All photos by Wesley's mom, Sarah Goodman photography.

a temple trip

Mark and I were able to walk through the new Gilbert temple a few weeks ago, on a lovely slow tour with a group of mostly visitors to our church. We relaxed under sparkling chandeliers while our guide explained art and architecture, procedures and purposes.  It was peaceful and awe-inspiring and it ranks up there as a favorite day, for sure.

Last Friday, we were able to take our whole family to see the temple. Although it was not a slow-paced tour by any means, it was still so great! 

Just a few hiccups: George refused to wear the little carpet-protecting shoe covers. Refused. So our guide said he could just go barefoot. No, he didn't even have socks. Just sandals. I have to say, his bare feet were probably dirtier than the sandals he was wearing. And halfway through, Hank looked at George's feet and realized the injustice he was enduring in the form of little white plastic bags on his feet. Hank's a good sport though, and kept his on.

That same child (George) started to melt down just as we began the tour. So while we started out eagerly at the very front of the group, we quickly found ourselves at the very back, with the follow-up usher, ushering us along. She very sweetly told us we might need to carry George up the stairs if he wasn't cooperative. She was very sweet. But George immediately insisted (loudly) "NO! I can walk." From that moment on, he had a focus - STAIRS! And there were a lot of them. Forget the Swarovski crystal chandeliers: We are talking four flights of stairs! That is four year old heaven.

Upon exiting the temple, every single child thought they might collapse from starvation, so we drove our famished-from-all-those-stairs selves across the street to the Waffle Crush truck. We were thinking it could count as dinner. We thought wrong. Even our sugar-loving kids can't handle ice cream AND chocolate AND Nutella AND fresh cream AND marshmallows on a waffle - for dinner! Sugar overload is an understatement. The waffles are super delish so we all agreed that next time we will order perfectly plain waffles. Maybe a few berries too. But that's it.

The temple is a must! If you haven't been, GO! 
Saturday, February 15th is the last day.

so far so good

2014 has been busy. I do not pretend that busy-ness is a badge of honor. It's not. The "stuff" that fills our busy days is often meaningless and forgettable. So it's nice when that "stuff" is worthwhile and memorable. In looking back on the short few weeks of 2014, at least some of our busy-filled-days fall under the latter category. That's a nice feeling. 'Cause certainly, we have our share of fluff around here. Examples of both below.

The Gilbert Temple open house is in full swing.  It is my favorite place and it is stunning. If you are in Arizona, take the free public tour, which ends this week. 

Mark and I were ushers at the temple one day last week. It was so great! Our job was to stand at the front doors and open them for each new group. It wasn't a very busy day, so the tour guides had time to stand at the doors and give a little instruction to each group before they went in. That was nice to listen to. We also got to count everyone that came through. (See those little clickers on our wrists.) On that slow day, there were about 1000 people every hour. (FYI, yesterday a new world record was set with 21,000 people visiting the temple in one day.)

No more braces for this 12 year old! Man, he was so happy.

The missionaries indulged our kids with a game Telestrations while I finished up making dinner. I don't think they know how much it helped me. I think they all enjoyed themselves. My sister gave us the game for Christmas - it's a good one!

First place (in social & behavioral science) at the high school science fair? What? She was shocked and thrilled.

Nana and Papa came out to watch the kids play tennis and then we ate at Joe's Farm Grill. That was a good day.

Grace is a champ on her new unicycle! It's so fun to watch her. I think ten years ago, I would have attempted to learn, but now I'm just too old to risk injury to wrist/ankle/skull/pride.

This is definitely fluff: I captured my Sunday outfit, and a peak into our soon-to-be-changing bedroom. That's our new blue bed in the background, and our giveaway junk pile most everywhere else. Talk about injuring my pride.

Hank made a rainbow out of wooden men and told me it was a monster disguise, not a rainbow.

Mark helped me put up these acrylic shelves in Hank and George's room. I love them. (The books on the bottoms two shelves are some of their faves. The Rabbit Problem has been recently rediscovered and it's now in the daily rotation too.)

Busy doesn't mean better. But so far, my "busy" has been pretty good.