Christmas!!





Our new house all decked out for our first Christmas here. Kiara and I were so excited to be able to spend Christmas in our own house again!

Wow, I can't believe how fast time flies. Seems like we just moved in and now it's three days until Christmas! We decorated our house with lights early in the season, put our trees up early and have been ready for a while, yet I still can't get enough of the Holiday Season, makes me sad to think that it's almost over.

How very blessed we are..........

It was just a wonderful Christmas filled with love and happiness for us...our favorite season of all...Christmas, the time to celebrate our Beloved Savior's Birth....Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

Halloween!!

So this year we finally got to be in our own home for Halloween...something we hadn't been able to do for 2 yrs since the divorce. As you can imagine, Kiara and I were very excited about that! We have some awesome neighbors in our new neighborhood and we were so excited to do our trick-or-treating here this year, with them!

My niece, "Big Lani" (is what we call her, although she isn't big at all!) is a flight attendant for Skywest and she called to say she would be here the night before Halloween to sleep over and to be with us all day for all the fun! We were sooooo excited...it had been months since we had seen her.

Halloween eve was an exciting day already for Kiara because she had been in her very first Primary program at church and she did a great job! Last year our very first sunday at a new ward and they were doing the program...she wasn't feeling it, so she didn't get to participate in that. So Big's plane flew in and our partying began....so much fun!

Halloween morning was soon here with a very excited Kiara...this being her very first time to wear her costume to her kindergarten class and parade around the school with all her friends! Kiara was happy to be a princess and to wear the costume she had worn last year (which made me happy, since I spent a small fortune on it!).

 Lani had a harder time deciding what she wanted to do about a costume. She loves to dress up really scary, but her Dad refused...he wanted her to be a princess this year. A week before halloween we found this costume online for ten bucks! She was the girl from the "Prince of Persia" movie. I thought she looked adorable!

We had so much fun at the girls' school...watching them parade around the halls in their Halloween costumes with all their little friends! I only got one picture of Lani during her parade because we waited for so long for it to start, my battery died...but I am so thankful I got what I did!

It was such a fun day and we are so glad we got to spend it with Big Lani...thankful for the time she chose to spend with us...we love you Lani!

Lani waving as she and the pilots board their flight out of Cedar City.

A Much-Needed Girl's Night Out!

So last month Kiara and I bumped into Gene at Lin's (where he works as a bagger) and he hands me his credit card and tells me to go purchase tickets for the girls and I to see "The Little Mermaid" at Tuacahn. I asked him if I should buy my own ticket and that way he could go too, but he said he wasn't really interested in seeing it. There weren't many seats left, but we managed to find some pretty decent ones and we were so excited!!

It was a very long, drawn-out wait for the day to come, but Oct 3 finally arrived...the girls went to school...this entire week is early out (not sure what the point is for kindergartners to even go) so we got an earlier start in heading down to St.George. Of course, we had to dress up, especially since we don't get to go anywhere dressed all up other than church!

We stopped in Washington to visit my wonderful friends, Lillian and Doug Hunt. I've known Lillian for over 20 years now. She's the kind of friend that you can lose touch with for years, but upon meeting, it's like no time has even gone by. We had a wonderful time visiting with them...in fact, we spent way too much time there...almost didn't have time to eat dinner! lol

My girls are so funny...they love to eat at Chuck A Rama...so that's where we went...we barely had time to get there, eat and still make it out to Tuacahn in time for the show...but they had a great time. You gotta love kids, they manage to have fun wherever they are and no matter what the circumstances may be...they don't let stress and schedules get to them...I need to be more like my girls...just love em!

With dinner done, we were heading out to Tuacahn, excited, but I was worried because all I could see were dark looming rain clouds and I found myself praying silently that we would be able to see the entire show! Upon arriving, we quickly noticed that it was packed!! We hurried in to find our seats...as we felt the sprinkles of rain here and there.

I had taken Noelani to Tuacahn when she was three, to see "Beauty and the Beast", but she didn't remember it at all...and Kiara didn't remember ever going to Tuacahn even to see Santa and the live Nativity...So of course, they were both very excited when they saw the enormous stage and the beautiful back-drop of the red rocks. Having been involved in "Through The Eyes of Mary" for years, they were both so aware of the many spot-lights and the amazing sound systems even before the show started.

But before we knew it, the actual show began and the real magic started to happen...Wow, what a show!! I have seen many Tuacahn shows, but this one by far was my favorite! The cast was amazing..from the Sea Witch to Sebastian, who both had the most amazing voices... Prince Eric, Flounder and Skuttle...it was amazing! The effects they used...making you forget they were even on a stage...literally it was like they were underwater! The costumes were amazing...it was so much fun to see my kids' eyes light up like that...they were on the edge of their seats from start to finish! It did rain on us a couple of times and the show had to stop for a few minutes, but we were fortunate that we got to see the whole show! As we left the theater, we saw Skuttle the Seagull and the girls were lucky enough to get a picture with him. We tried to get one with Ariel and Eric, but the line was entirely too long, so we had to leave. But we had a wonderful night!

I am so thankful that we were able to go and see this show...we look forward to seeing Alladin next season.  

~Kiara's First Day of Kindergarten~

We'd been waiting and waiting and the big day was finally here...Kiara woke up bright and early, ate her special breakfast in bed (Mom's bed...lol) and before you knew it, we were tying her new, much anticipated....and long-coveted Sporty Shorty's and were out the door, heading for the bus-stop around the corner. Kiara had been apprehensive about riding the bus, but I had encouraged her to try it just once...not aware of what we would face later on in the day...

Kiara's favorite, scrambled eggs with cheese melted on top, sausage, toast and fresh peaches...Yum!!

My little diva is so funny when it comes to clothes...she has to look "just so"...she always wants to look like a "ROCK STAR"! lol

Waiting for the bus to arrive.

k Mom, here I go....

Her first bus-ride ever!!



She got to the school all in one piece, yay!!

Now safely headed for her classroom, I could head out on my morning walk... Have fun Kiara!

So upon getting home from my walk I realized it was about time to head to the bus-stop around the corner from our house to pick up Kiara. I called the bus garage and they told me the bus would arrive at about 11:50..I headed there and was there at 11:45 just in case. There was one other lady there, waiting for her granddaughter. We waited...and waited...and waited...and then I started to worry a little bit. So, we called the bus garage...at this point, it was 12:30...they informed us that the bus had left, it was bus #72 and our girls were both on it and it would be there in 15 mins. Immediately after that, bus #72 flew past and there were no kids on it!! Well, 30 mins later, no bus...we finally got our girls, but by the time they arrived, they had been on the bus for 1 and a half hours!! It was sure an exhausting day for Kiara...and she isn't so sure she wants to ride the bus anymore. Hopefully, the bus drivers get used to their routes and I can get Kiara to ride again! All in all, Kiara had a great day and LOVES kindergarten!!

New House=Lots of Landscaping!

So we love our new home, but when we moved in, the backyard, enclosed by a wall, had 5 feet of tumbleweeds stacked  throughout just about the entire yard. In fact, when we would open the backdoor, we couldn't even get outside....the weeds were actually taller than me and I'm almost 6 feet tall!

I should have taken a picture, but I was so irritated by the sight of it, I could never bring myself to do it. I decided to have a "weed burning day"...so I literally burned weeds for almost 6 hours one day and took care of all the tumbleweeds at one time...What a huge job!! But as you can imagine, underneath the tumbleweeds was just about 100million weeds just waiting for the sunlight to hit them so that they could have their turn of taking over my yard!

So, for the rest of the 3 months that we've lived here, I have dug and dug and pulled and pulled weeds until I was about to go crazy! I had been trying to decide if I should put in a sprinkler system, but quickly decided that I could just wait until next year to do that...thanks to some wonderful friends, Kiko and Kelli Arvizu for letting me use their trailor, and Jason and Caitlin Robison for letting me use their tiller, I was able to prepare my ground for some much needed lawn.....So I bought over 500sq feet of sod and took a morning to lay it. It turned out pretty good...not perfect, but way better than the dirt and weeds that had been such an eyesore...what a difference a little bit of lawn can make!

We are enjoying our lawn...makes the yard feel so much larger...YIPEE!!

A New School Year....Lani 3rd Grade, Kiara Kindergarten...Where has the time gone?

So here we are starting the 2011-2012 school year and it's hard to believe my Lani is already in the 3rd grade!! Seems like just yesterday that she was getting on the school bus for the first time. I was lucky to be able to be with her this year for the first school day, because now we live in Cedar City again and I was able to buy a home literally down the road from where Gene and Lani live! So, I was lucky enough to be able to help her get her hair just right before driving both Lani and Kiara to their school...loved every minute of it! This is the reason I moved back here...to be with my little Lani more...

Kiara is also starting Kindergarten this year, so she went to school for her Kindergarten Welcome Day. I cannot believe my baby is starting school!! She has been ready for school since she was 2yrs old...she could say the Pledge of Allegiance and knew all her numbers and letters then, but I didn't realize just how fast the time would fly and I would be getting her ready to catch the bus for school! I'm so thankful we were able to move back to Cedar and find our home so that the girls could be closer to one another and attend the same school...

I am so thankful for my girls...I am truly the luckies Mom in the world to have the two best kids ever....I LOVE YOU LANI AND KIARA!

Seriously Huge Update

Wow, it's hard to believe that it's been more than a year since I've