Thanksgiving Fun and........ Shopping!!

We had Moore Thanksgiving at my aunt Patty and uncle Mikes house in queen creek. It was wonderful! All of our favorite yummy thanksgiving foods! We stuffed ourseleves and then got started on the pies. Yumm!! I made pumpkin pie (first time all by myself!!) and helped my mom make the most rolls we have ever made!! (almost 20 dozen ~ some for the Moores, some for the Durfees, and some for us - planned overs!) It was such nice weather! We could actually wear "winter" clothes on Thanksgiving! I was so excited to wear my scarf and jacket!

Here is cute Colby and Lainey!

Greg, Colby, and Trevin playing a new game.

James and Trevin Hope, Dad, and Holli playing Bocci ball

Heather holding baby Ava, of course!!


Poor Heidi hurt her foot at dance on Tuesday. So she was stuck inside!

Uncle Marc looked at it later on that day and thinks she broke it! Poor girl!

She did make it outside once to see uncle Randys horses. All the kids were able to have a turn riding them. They had so much fun! (but I forgot to get pics) Tiffany and Brooke named the horses Cherry cola and Twilight! I love the names of course! Madison, Shaelyn, and Hope waiting for a turn!

Everyones waiting!

Holli, Heidi, Madison, Cindi, Jacey, and Missy

We were of course checking out all the adds!

Tiffany and Mom

Shopping Adventures:

As we were planning our shopping adventures, we found out that Arizona Mills was going to open at Midnight! And being the late nighters that we are, we thought it would be really nice to just go shopping all night and then around 10:00 in the morning be all done shopping and then catch a few hours of sleep! For some reason we thought this was a great idea, but we were very WRONG!!

Well, things started out great! We were excited! I went home to get some shopping shoes on and even though it was 11:30 at night I was really excited!

....well up until we tried to exit the freeway by Arizona Mills things were going great! But we started wondering why traffic was stopping on the freeway about 2 miles from our exit!?! What is going on? This couldn't be because of AZ Mills? Right? Well it was. So here we are in the long line of traffic. ~ see we are still smiling here!

It took us an entire hour to get to the parking lot and then another hour trying to find a parking spot. We weren't the happiest bunch! So we had tried to get to the mall by 12:00 and we didn't get into it until 1:30! We were frustrated, but we were committed. We would find something to buy in this chaotic mess!

We came home from AZ Mills around 3:30 and were completely exausted. The experience at AZ Mills kind of ruined our shopping excitement, but we continued on! Might as well right?

So we continued on to Khols at 4:00. Stood in a nice long line there for an hour! (But we wasted enough time to make it to Target a little after 6:00. We were there a couple hours and got most everything on our list! :) Hooray!! Khols and Target were fantastic!!

But we needed a little pick me up, so I wanted Doritos and my mom wanted chocolate milk! I know crazy, but remember we are without sleep!
Our yummy snack! ;)

After Target we went to Michaels, and then my mom was completely exausted so she wanted to take a little 2-3 hour nap and then continue. I just wanted to finish! So we went home, she went to bed, and I took Heather out to finish my shopping. I went to Walmart, Ulta, and another Target. I'm done!! Hooray!! As you can see I am not doing well. It was 10:30 in the morning and I am exausted, to say the least!!

Oh, and my wonderful husband did some shopping at Home Depot for my grandma Moore, my mom, and my aunt Tiffany! We gave him a good sized list!! Thanks James!!

(So our black friday shopping was a little different, but we learned our lesson!! ~ never go to AZ Mills at midnight with the rest of AZ

next year will be different!!)

Well after 4-5 hours of sleep. I got ready for Thanksgiving Round 2! (sleep and shower did wonders)

Here I am with my chocolate cream pie ready to go to Durfee Thanksgiving!!

My dad eating the famous desert for Durfee Thanksgiving: Cherry Cheesecake!

Heidi eating more pie! YUM!!

Heather, mom, aunt Karen, and aunt Kari.

To end our Thanksgiving fun. James and I went to see Twilight!!!

I loved it even more! Can't wait to see it again. Oh, and James liked it too!! Yes!!

...Now it is time to decorate for Christmas. Hooray!!!

James is smiling

This picture doesn't do it justice, but this is the prettiest cornucopia I have ever seen!
I just got it 2 weekends ago and I am in love with this new decor to my house! It is my first cornucopia.
I came home that night, and because all my new Christmas things are piling up, and I am all ready listening to Christmas music, and I just can't wait to decorate and wrap presents,


I teasingly said to James, Lets decorate the house early for Christmas.

I was totally just teasing because I thought he would freak out.
And what does he do, he says, "Okay, put on a movie and I'll get everything out of the shed."

WHAT??

I, of course was just kidding and told him my new cornucopia had to have some decore time.

and
he
just kept on smiling!!

Twilight Movie = Fabulous!!

Connie, Me, Shelby, and Leticia

Twilight was amazing!

That is all I should say, but I will defend it to the end. They did a fabulous job with what they had. Whenever you see a movie that was taken from a book ~ it will NEVER be exactly perfect for every individual. Everyones imaginations are different! There will always be missing parts. I was very pleased with how it turned out, and can't wait to see it again. The person I was most worried about was Edward and he definitely grew on me. By the end, maybe even the middle I loved Movie Edward. He was fabulous!! He of course will always be movie Edward, and not my Edward. But Movie Edward did an amazing job!

Yes, there were cheasy parts (especially the running Edward), but it was still great and brought back all the same feelings when you are reading twilight. So it succeeded with me!

All the new parts I thought were great! I especially enjoyed Alice and Jasper, they were so cute together! I loved when the Cullens were making dinner for Bella ~ LOL. Emmetts line was so funny! I looovveedd when Edward drove Bella to school the first time. Jessica was hilarous. She cracked me up! Baseball scene was another favorite! I enjoyed all the Bella and Edward awkwardness at the beginning. I do wish it would have lasted longer; Bella and Edward just fell in love sooo fast. And I missed a lot of the dialogue that happens during that time in the book. I know there were other favorites, but I am forgetting most, so I will definitely have to see it again!!

Overall a great movie and I can't wait to go again and maybe again!! :)

Leticia and Movie Edward

Shelby and I with Movie Edward!!
silly, I know!

Twilight is almost here...

Well it has finally come. I can't believe Twilight the movie comes out tomorrow!
(hence the great background)!!
And if you are one of the lucky few, you are seeing it at 12:01!
I unfortunatly just couldn't do another midnight showing, especially when I have to be at work at 6:30 am. I have done it before and it didn't turn out well.
So I am going to see Twilight Saturday afternoon with a group of ladies from my ward! We are going to have so much fun. I can't wait!

Hope you all enjoy the movie! (if you go and see it ~ which I think you should)
Let me know what you think!

Happy Twilighting!!! :)

Music Marathon 2008

Every year my students participate in DVMTA's (Desert Valley Music Teachers Association)Music Marathon! We get a scheduled time at the mall to hold a concert. It is lots of fun and gives the students a different recital experience! I enjoy this event. It is one of my favorites!!This year almost all my students participated. I was so proud of each and every one of them. They worked really hard. I had them do 2 songs this year and many of them memorized both! Great job everyone!!

State Fair

Last weekend James and I went to the state fair. James had never been and I hadn't been since junior high when Iwent for Orchestra concerts.

So we spent a lot of money, ate too much, walked too much, but had a lot of fun. The fair was definatly a lot more expensive then I remembered. So we only went on 3 rides: My favorite ride called quicksilver. It goes really fast and spins you forwards and then backwards. But it is not scary! Which is really important to James and I as we do not like scary rides!

On the Ferris Wheel

Eating cotton candy (a must at the fair) on the Ferris Wheel.

Here is James in the last ride: The Flipper. Why we thought this ride would agree with us I do not know. (It was the only ride that perfectly used the rest of our tickets without us having to buy more or not use what we allready bought so we thought we could survive) HA!

This ride put you in a cage like box and then flipped you around while you were also moving up and down (like a ferris wheel).

We both didn't feel good after this ride and immediantly left the fair.

Goodbye State Fair. Not sure when we will return!