A good portion of my life has been spent playing the piano for everyone else's diva moments. Now it's my turn. I invite you to accompany ME through my life's diva and, well, not so diva-like moments. It'll be entertaining. Promise.



Monday, January 23, 2012

Baby Girl turned ONE!!

Sweet baby girl had her first birthday on January 3rd.

She got a new toy and some shoes.

Rebekah is such a joy in our lives.  She has a sweet personality.  She know how to say "num" for food, but her favorite word is "mama".  She prefers mama to all others, much to mama's joy and distress.  She can do a bad cough, sing a pretty song, wave hi and bye, do so big, say "ba-ba", give nice kissies, and almost walk by herself.  She has taken 4 steps by herself with many more to come!  We love you baby girl!

Links to her birthday celebration videos:


Sunday, January 8, 2012

Christmas 2011

We had such a fun Christmas this year.  We spent the few days before making gingerbread houses...

and tree ornaments.

The kiddos on Christmas Sunday.  Actually, it may have been the Sunday before.  I can't remember.  Anyway, they're cute.  :)

 We had many visits with Santa this year.  This is number one.  We went to the Lighting of the Park and Santa was there!

Number two.  Santa gave us a personal house visit this year.  How lucky are we??!!  Well, Bekah's less than thrilled.

Aaron thought it was pretty cool.

Kaylee was dressed up for the occasion.  :)

Unless we travel home to Boise, Christmas Eve Eve finds us at the Villa's annual Christmas party.  Always a good time.  Lots of friends, food, music, and laughter.

The shirt says it all.  :)

I don't know what sort of magical powers these hispanic women have, but they can ALWAYS get Bekah to sleep in their arms.  Unfortunately, Shawn and I are not blessed with those powers.  :(  On the up side, it's probably because we make them sleep in their crib.  :)

Making the rounds delivering Christmas goodies.  The kids loved it!

This was the first year we acted out the nativity scene as a family.  We loved it and the Spirit it brought to the home on Christmas Eve. 

Santa number 3 was the ward Christmas party.  Was really fun with a nice musical program and good food.

And finally, Santa visit number 4, again to our home AND on Christmas morning!  He even brought along an elf!

As you can see, we were in the middle of getting ready for church during this Santa visit, so baby girl's hair leaves a little to be desired...  It's all good though - just keepin' it real.  :)

I've been having a hard time uploading my videos to blogger, so I've started posting them on youtube.  Here are a couple of links for Christmas videos:

http://youtu.be/heB8TmNGLK0 - Santa visit to the house.
 http://youtu.be/KVfSxM3N5yg - Aaron singing "Santa Claus is coming to town"

Yay for Christmas!  I love that time of year, and am always a little sad when it's all over.  But then there's New Years, and I love that too.  Then we start all over again!


Thursday, January 5, 2012

Thanksgiving

Grandma and Grandpa Wadley came to visit over Thanksgiving.  We were way excited because no one has come to visit us in Corpus for Thanksgiving yet, and the weather is usually fabulous during that time of year.  So, as is the case whenever Grandma and Grandpa come to visit, we packed in activities like crazy and had tons of fun.

We went down to Kingsville for their annual King Ranch breakfast.  It was HOT that morning!  Kaylee was the only one dressed appropriately for a breakfast on the ranch.  :)
 Kaylee and Aaron on the wagon.  Kaylee is singing her version of "I'm a Tex".

 Here's one in color so you can see Kay's pink cowboy hat.  :)
 Grandma and Grandpa took off with the kids for a few mornings and spoiled them like crazy!

Making napkins for Thanksgiving dinner.  The only picture I got of Thanksgiving!!  :(

We went down to South Padre Island on Thanksgiving (we did the dinner the day before).  My parents had never been down there and are big fans of any coastline. 

And even bigger fans of these cute kids.  :)


The beautiful gulf coast at sunset.

Stopped by a lighthouse on the way home.


We had so much fun you guys!  Let's do it again next Thanksgiving!  :)



Quick trip to Boise

Baby girl and I got to travel to Boise during October to see family and my old piano teachers' recital.  Thanks mom and dad!
 
Baby girl and grandma were so happy to be reunited!

We took a drive over to Idaho Falls and surprised my sister Jen.  It was so fun - got to go shopping and Olive Garden and spend time with her sweet family.  This is my nephew Jason at his bus stop.  He's a man.  :)

We went for a walk and Jill and Jason loved taking turns pushing baby girl.

Back in Boise we saw more nieces and nephews when we went to Brett and Brad's soccer games.  This is my niece Lilia.

And the two soccer champs - Brett and Brad.

Here we are after the recital with Marcellus Brown - Shawn and I's old band director at BSU.  Poor dad had just had some skin cancer procedure down and was all patched up.

THE WHOLE STUUUUDDIIOOOOOO!!  :)

The lady herself - Madeleine Hsu.  Teacher and pianist extraordinaire!

This picture (sorry Dad) represents the fun we have when we get together as a family.  We play cards, eat, laugh, play cards, eat, laugh, and repeat it till we can't see straight anymore.  It is so much fun and I can't wait for the next round this summer!

LSU Trip

Shawn and I got to take off for a rare weekend without the kids in October to see an LSU game.  His parents were here visiting and were kind enough to watch the kiddos.  I had been planning it as a late birthday surprise for Shawn, but with his job and being Bishop, I just had to break the news cause he kept scheduling things!  So he got to look forward to it for a few weeks.
The march with the band down to the stadium is always thrilling.  Love to see that big LSU sign come into view.

Mike the Tiger.

Us on the 50 yard line at half time with Roy King - the athletic band director there. 

We got to squeeze in a visit to the temple right before the game.  Lovin' the white tie schweets.  ;)

The new 300,000 dollar band tower. 

A visit to Baton Rouge would not be complete without stopping by Chimes.

To eat this.  Yum.

We had such a great time!