LOVE DAY involving secret menus and Lip Syncing

Grammy did a Valentines secret menu for Sunday dinner!
They filled out a menu with code names and waited blindly for what they

got to eat at each course!

Even the men waited in anticipation for if they got dessert for an appetizer:) 

The kids always think its fun!

The invitations went out and we were set for our annual Lip Sync Battle!!

We had a few newbies come, so that is always great watching them wait,

sometimes in a ball of nerves, for the big anticipated night.
Nothing says "welcome to the ward" like dressing up and fake singing to the class!

It really isn't that stressful!

Just lots of fun with some amazing friends.

And when everyone calls it the party of the year, that makes you feel good

that we can help in the building of relationships and memories with 

people who we spend the majority of our time with!

We catered Carolinas' Mexican food once again.
I'm telling ya, its the BEST and such a crowd pleaser if you are ever
needing food for lot's of people and you don't want to make it on your own!

Everyone else brings the entertainment and a treat to share.
The "treats" are sure getting fancier each year!
This was before I needed a second table to hold all the good stuff!
I hung around the dessert table all night:)

Courtney killing it with her mini creme brulees!!!!

Can you tell her sister owns Sassy's and she used to work there?

We take volunteers for who wants to go first.

After that we draw names to see the order.

Yamamotos called shot gun first, so they were up!

And to preface, some years I make a theme with the songs.

I did this year.

SO, the rule was that your song had to have LOVE in the title or lyrics. 

"I Just Called to Say I Love You"

Stevie Wonder, was smooth that night!

Rieses- "Ohio Is for Lovers".
Not going to lie, when she first submitted their song to me beforehand

I wondered how it would turn out.

Oh my word, they NAILED it!
Down to the spot on emo costumes and 

Sumerea memorized every. single. lyric.

James stood there all grumpy until it was his turn to scream his part out.

LOL, it was GOOD!

Sarah and Dan 

"Total Eclipse of the Heart"

Even with a sweet lift at the end!

Amber and Ryan 

"Summer Nights"
Of course she made cute hand puppets as the chorus people!

Jenny and Thomas

"My Little Buttercup"

They had tossed their sombreros, but had the whole get-up!

They looked awesome and had us rolling in laughter. 

I say this every year but I am telling you, even when you think it can't 

get any better or creative, it does!!

Courtney and Cory

"Love is in the Air"...or hair!

Marc and Jeanette
" Addicted to Love"

Ethan and Morgan.

They were one of the new couples.

THEY KILLED IT!

"Love Is an Open Door"

Not only did they look just like the characters, they performed it like it was straight 

from the movie. Their mannerisms were spot on. SO GOOD!

They have 2 young daughters at home so go figure they knew it so well, haha!

Bon Jovi... I mean Darl and Miche

"You Give Love a Bad Name"

Rock, on!!!

Mark and Kim

"Sugar, Sugar"

We all wanted Kim's outfit!

She said she had gotten it all at Target that day.

Glad we are dressing retro these days:)

Ours was kind of comical.

I bounced around so many ideas to Casey and he was silent on all of them.

Which meant he was having none of it, ha!

I thought about Night at the Roxbury, What is Love.

He didn't grow up watching SNL, which meant no head bopping.

Then I thought about Friday I'm in Love.

I even ordered days of the week underwear.

Nope.

I was out of ideas and energy so I said fine, 

we will dress up like lions and do,Can You Feel the Love Tonight.

We practiced about an hour before the party for the first time.

I said just follow my lead.

It ended up being a hit!
Who woulda thunk, but we'll take it!

Our head nuzzle at the end... it was pretty funny. 

Aaron and Lola

"Crazy Little Thing Called Love"

I die at the butt grab!

Maybe it's because he is in our Stake Presidency.
Black mail!!

Daddy I LOVE you I LOVE you, I LOOOOOVE YOU!!

Bethany and Tait. 

It was neck and neck for first place!

The Hogles won by 2 votes with My Little Buttercup.

The Ericksons got a close second with Love Is an Open Door.

Honestly, they were ALL winners!!

We played more games, ate more sugar and talked by the fire the rest of the night.

I love our friends!

Another Daddy Daughter dance at the stake center rounded out our Valentines month.

I can't even remember what we did on actual Valentines DAY!

Probably because we didn't do anything.

The way we like it!
It is nice knowing we love each without blowing money on silly

things. Sometimes we do. But sometimes its nice not stressing over it.

 

All the things

Our second half of the year is already ramped up and going strong!

Lane brought home one of his stained glass masterpieces.

Only, I had to dig it out of the trash!

How dare he just throw it away!

He must be my child, lol. 

Any time I see him with band-aids on his fingers I ask, stained glass? 

He nods, yep.

I guess those little pieces are sharp suckers!

The girls got back some single shots from their RED dance photoshoot. 

They are basically teenagers all dolled up like that. 

And dance makes them be very serious for some of the pictures, which is so opposite

of everything they drill in them during practice,

BIG SMILES!

Some of us gathered at the cemetery for Grandpa Jess' birthday!

Grandma doesn't make it out of the house very often anymore, so I bet she enjoyed 

the field trip. I hadn't been in many years, so it was good for me as well. 

Grape juice was his favorite thing.

Stephanie brought some for us to toast him a happy birthday!

The cutest lil old Grannies!

And funny enough, the quilt Charlotte has wrapped around her is

the one my great Grandma Evans made me when I was a baby!

We survived our very first dance competition!!

I repeat, WE SURVIVED OUR VERY FIRST DANCE COMPETITION!

These things are no joke.

We were there for 11 bloody hours.

Not to mention the hours it took beforehand to get them both ready.
In fact, I had to defer from running the half marathon because I didn't

have time to do both.

Little did I know I would be running a different kind of marathon that day. 

The makeup, OH the makeup saga.

It was $200 after buying it all, woof.

And the video tutorial was 20 minutes long!

Lindi was freaking out that she looked funny.
(I was silently agreeing with her).

Well, what did you think you were going to look like after

the 4th shade of eyeshadow? 
I was seriously starting to wonder how all this makeup was going

to fit on their tiny face. 
I can only layer, contour, and blend so much!

Her tears made long drip lines all the way down her face. 
The base layer was so heavily caked on it was extremely noticeable, like Moses had parted

the sea with her face!

I tried my best to fill it in because there was no way I was starting over.

Then one cheek full of dewy blush in Chilly was higher than the other...

AGHH!

I think at one point I was so over it I yelled I DID'NT SIGN UP FOR THIS!

Which, I felt bad, but ultimately made her chill out, ha. 

Lindi's time slot was first.

She had 2 dances, then luckily awards were pretty much right afterwards.

And honestly, if it wasn't in their dance contract we would have never stayed for them.

They made sure to warn us to stay for everything. Boo. 

You could hardly hear the lady, everything sounded jumbled.

And they went on for eternity!! 

How many flipping awards could there be?

Then it was Della's turn.

Their tap number Dancing Trollies is ADORABLE.

It's a mad dash to quickly change them.

The actual dancing part goes by quick.

It's the waiting around that is annoying.

We had 2 hours to kill before Della's awards.

We were way out in Queen Creek so not enough time to go home and back.

We found some dinner and hit up the Dollar store for random things for my nursey lesson.

Then back for some more boring awards.
Can't they just let ya know in an email??

I couldn't even tell you what they got or what the coveted award is.

That is a whole different language for me. 

Pretty sure I swung through Dairy Queen on the
 way home because we all earned a blizzard!

With a new church time of 11:30 nursery is a hit or miss on extra hungry or tired kids.

This particular day was quite comical. 

It started out with this boy, who was a visitor, being a little sad.

I picked him up to hold him and within  1 minute he was out!

Tractor in hand and all. 

I was kind of loving it, and took this picture to send to his grandma as a neener-neener.

Anna was holding down the fort pretty good until
the kid she was holding fell asleep as well!

 

We also had 2 new kids that day (twins) and we both were incapacitated 

with snoozers.

I called for reinforcements.

Ashley had Isaac who is 1, so he got to play while mom held another baby.

It was a party that day!

It has been an extra cold winter.

I thought I might literally freeze to death at Rusty's baseball game. 

Rusty got to go snowboarding with Travis, Weston and Collin... again!

If it weren't for them and their invitations each year he would still be on the bunny hills. 
Scratch that, no hills at all!

Casey and I aren't fond of the snow:/

Girls pedi day, woot woot!!

We started out as a group 10+ years ago that got together to watch the Bachelorette.

However, not much watching happens, it's mainly talking. 
That little group with a silly show has really flourished into strong relationships, thanks Chris

Harrison!

Now that we have older kids, we can squeeze in some fun day outings like
 paddleboard down the river, going to the temple, or lunch. 

A few of us had some really hard things going on in life,
so we felt that warranted some pampering. 

This thang came prancing in from running errands with the Whitmers like she

was a trendy teenager. 

Soda in the crook of her elbow, lanyard and a hot to trot walk, wooowee!

Marcie deserves a medal.

Slumber party of the year right there!

She found left over sticker faces from a craft.
I think she is our most creative child.

Or just a Kindergartner, hehe.