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!

Great Shopping!

James and I have been working on our 3 month supply. And it was so nice of Frys to have such great deals to help us out! Frys was having their crate sale and sold lots of different items by the crate. And this is what we came up with after 5 different trips to Frys!
Why 5 trips do you ask?

Well Frys started accepting Fresh and Easy coupons! So every $20 you spend you can use a coupon and save $5! So every time we went to Frys we only spent around $20 and then took off $5. It worked out great!
Lots of yummy things to add to are food storage:
Green beans, peas, black beans, pinto beans, evaporated milk, spaghettios, peanutbutter, sugar, jiffy corn bread mix, vegetable oil, stew, tomato sauce, spaghetti sauce, and cup a noodle instant soups. There was so much more we wanted too! I had to completly reorganize the food cupboard, but I did get it all to fit and now I can manage what I need better! Hooray!

Penelope Party!

My mom and sisters had the cutest party a couple weekends ago! It was a Penelope Pig Party!
They did many piggy things and of course watched the movie Penelope! A definate favorite!

Funny picture of Holli. Heidi and Holli helped all the girls make pig noses!

Carlie, Hope, Megan, and Brooke

Holli helping Megan

Shaelyn eating pigs in a blanket

Sleeping pigs (didn't last the whole movie) Shelby and Ellie

Posing Piggies: Carlie and Brooke

The girls had a lot of fun! I was glad I came at the end to watch the movie and take pics!

Best Guy Ever!!

This last weekend was my wards super saturday! It was definatly one of the busiest and most exausting weekends of my life! My house is extremely glad it is over since it can breathe again, now that all the stuff is out of it. I for one will actually miss some of it. I do love crafting so much!



After setting up on friday night (which only took us around 3 hours!!-Thanks everyone!) I was so excited! I just wanted everyone to come and start right then. Of course we had to wait until morning. I couldn't sleep. I know it is silly, but it is true. It felt like Christmas; I was just so excited for such a fun day. I had been preparing for this day for a while now, and around 5:30 in the morning I woke up and from then on would wake up every 30-45 minutes. I was just too excited!



It finally started and I am glad everyone had so much fun! It was a very busy day, and the enrichment committee helped out so much! They took care of all the areas I just couldn't and I was so thankful! I thought the day went really well. James only had to go to the store once for me because I ran out of only one thing , which was amazing! The day went so fast! All the sudden the priesthood was their and they were taking down tables and helping everywhere they could! It was so NICE having their help! Well I had 2 baskets and 2 boxes that I was telling people to throw all my stuff into. So going home was starting to look pretty depressing! (All good things do come to an end- a very sad end) So a little after 3:00 we had all my stuff loaded in my car by some miracle and James, my mom, and myself were still able to fit inside it! We made a couple trips upstairs and got everything into our condo, by the way my very dirty condo! With all the super saturday stuff stacked all around my small condo I just couldn't do much cleaning for the last week. So now it hit me, and hard, we have to put all this stuff away and clean everything. AHHHHH!



So I did the smartest thing I could think of and that was I left. I needed to take my mom home anyway of course. And since she was on this side of town she wanted to go to Seagull and I was dreading going back to my house so I was all for it. We went there and then we went to my moms house and then we decided to do some grocery shopping at frys! (Only shopping could make me ignore the aching feet) :)

I hope everyone got to Frys this week~WOW some great deals! Especially for food storage!!



Anyway I took my time going back home! Finally I knew I needed to get back. Now I even had more stuff to put away (groceries!) So we decided first we would go pick up dinner and eat and then I would go home to clean. My dad was finishing seeding the front yard so my mom and I decided to come and pick up James (drop off groceries too), and then go pick up Tia Rosas! YUM!



And now onto the point of the tile of this post:



We brought up the groceries and the best husband ever had completely cleaned my entire house for me! I couldn't believe it. He had picked up everything, scrubbed and put away every dish, floors were vacuumed, swept, and mopped, bathrooms were scrubbed and cleaned (even the rugs were washed, laundry was done and put away, and all my super saturday stuff was neatly piled in the office (and it didin't even look that bad)! I couldn't beleive it! He is definatly the best husband ever and I love him so much! He helped me so much all through super saturday and before and especially after! I couldn't have done super saturday without him.



I had so much help with this super saturday and I want to thank them all! Especially James, my mom, and my dad! James and my dad (who is also another one of the best men in this world) helped me with the cutting and routing of the temple pictures. I love these two men in my life so much! Thanks Dad! You still save the day when I get in over my head! My mom helped me so much with planning and how much to buy of everything! I couldn't do anything without her help! Love ya!



James, you are the best guy ever!! You help me so much and I was able to enjoy the rest of the weekend. He even rubbed my feet that night while we were watching a movie after dinner. He is so good to me! I love you James!

I won!!

We are big high school football fans where I work.
We play a game every Friday. We pick who we think will win at azcentral.com. They pick 12 games every week and we choose who will win. Marc gives a prize each week to the winner.
It is a lot of fun! Right now I am in 3rd place!

Well, we also go on the tribune website and they have a game called tackle the trib and we pick who will win for 30 high school football games.
And amazingly and for the second time in my life I won for the week!!!
And so my name was in the paper!

My camera wouldn't zoom in on the highlighted part. Here is what it said:

Hillary Bitter of Mesa was the only entrant to correctly pick 29 of 30 games!

Woo hoo!!

What an amazing week. And for winning the tribune gave me 2 Harkins movie passes!

The funny thing is the girls are definitely beating the boys here at the office. The week before Tami had also won tackle the trib!

Go girls!!!