Should I even bother with the awesome?

It's Box of Awesome time again. Blog traffic has slowed down to a near trickle and I don't know if I should hold the contest? Would anyone even care to enter? I don't know. What do you think....anyone?

Daddy Daughter Dance

Jeff was gone this Valentine's Day. He was taken over to Seattle to do training for BOA. This was particularly sad for the girls.

Valentine's Day has been a family holiday for years. The dinning room is decked in hearts and roses. We have a fancy dinner by candle light and Jeff gives the girls flowers and cards. Some years we even get an impromptu performance of interpretive dance from Lindsay. Having been uprooted from anything familiar the girls hold tight to these traditions. Not doing it our way and not having their Daddy there was a problem and stressful.

Luckily, I got a call from my aunt Janice. Apparently, my uncle Craig and my cousin Miranda go to a Daddy Daughter Dance every year and she was thoughtful enough to see if Jeff and the girls would want in on it. Of course I said yes! What's even better? It was the weekend before Valentine's Day so it was a way for the girls to spend some special time with their Daddy.

{Just for a point of reference, Miranda and Abbey are 2 days apart, Abbey being older. They are also the best of friends. Janice isn't much older than me is why we have children closer in age than most aunts and nieces. What do you expect from a family that had eight children?}

So the girls got dressed in their favorite dresses, I did their hair super fancy like, we did some light makeup, and I even got corsages to match each dress.

They were so excited to say the least. Jeff met Craig and Miranda at a diner for dinner before heading to the dance. It is of honorable mention that Jeff loved his dinner. He got a full prime rib dinner and dessert for 12 bucks. The reason it's of honorable mention is because he mentioned it on more than one occasion when recounting the nights events. I don't have much detail past this other than there was much dancing and merry making.

What did I do? I stayed home, got in some comfy pj's and watched two great movies. The first was An Affair To Remember, swoon! I love this one, LOVE! I love most anything with Cary Grant though. Then I made it through about half of GONE WITH THE WIND. It has to be all caps, it's just too epic. LOVE that movie too, parts of it are just soooo wrong. Halfway through, Jeff and the girls made it home and were filling me in on how much fun they had. Jeff did the Hokey Pokey and jumped up and down and sang many a Taylor Swift song with them. I'm sure they'll go back next year. A few pictures are from my phone, so not the best, but better than nothing.

Christmas 2010

A Christmas post in March? Better late than never I suppose. I'm looking at the pictures that were taken on Christmas and they are very few in number. I only took some after Santa came. I think I was having a battery crisis. My camera eats batteries like M&M's.

So, you can see our tree and the load of presents that was underneath. They didn't all belong to us remember, we live with my parents and my two brothers. We were represented well enough though.

The big gift this year for all four of us? We all got iPhones! The best part about that? They were FREEEEEEE!!!! Oh ya! We needed to update our phone plan, but we were waiting for a good deal to come around. Jeff caught wind that one day only, Best Buy would be giving away free iPhones 3's with new accounts or resigning contracts. This wasn't advertised by Best Buy though, it was just circulating as a rumor. They only had a limited amount so we had to get there early, you never know who else reads obscure tech blogs in the 3C. I made Jeff call in the morning to confirm the rumor and that we could indeed get 4. The answer was yes to both questions, so we threw some clothes on and were in the car on our way.

Jeff and I used ours as soon as we got them and the girls were quite jealous. The main things they wanted for Christmas were cell phones. We were asked, "If they were free, then why didn't you get us one too?" We had reasons and they reluctantly accepted them, some more bitterly than others...(cough, Lindsay, cough)

When I wrapped them they were each put into different shaped and sized boxes. I was going to do my best to keep them surprised. Christmas morning came and they picked other presents to open first. I wondered who would get to their phone first. Lindsay was the lucky winner.

I was relieved because I wasn't sure how well she'd take it to see Abbey get an iPhone and her box was a different shape, so surely hers couldn't be one too, and that's not fair Abbey gets everything, nobody loves me, everyone loves Abbey, I hate Christmas, and crying up to her room. I don't really think that would happen, but I was preparing for the worst. Lindsay does have a hard time being the youngest and second born you see, bless her heart. She's really a sweet girl I promise.

However when she opened it there was some excitement, but not enough to satisfy my need for the dramatics. Just to clarify, Lindsay was excited and very grateful, she just doesn't get all crazy excited. It's more subdued, a little too subdues for my tastes. They get that from Jeff, they really do come by it honestly.

Abbey saw Lindsay get a phone and her demeanor changed to soooo laid back. She knew she was getting one too and directly picked up the one that was hers. Despite my attempts at trickery she saw right through them, dang. She opened it to even less fan fair and I was annoyed. Again, it's Jeff's fault. I told them that was simply not acceptable and I better see some jumping up and down, yelling, praising, running around, hyperventilating, and just plain revelry going on or I'm taking them back! They performed a most righteous hootenanny. Christmas could carry on.

There ya go, the rest was typical. We ate holiday food. We saw Jeff's family. We had Christmas Eve at my aunt Janice's house, at which we had the traditional tacos and ice cream sundaes. We hung out longer than other guests and watched the Grinch.

It was also the last time I saw my Grandma. She died a couple weeks later. I got to see her smile. I got to hug her and rub her back. I could hear her voice when she spoke with me and other people at the party. She laughed and got excited during the white elephant, she won a sweater fuzz getter thingy. She hugged and kissed my girls and gave them each a Christmas present. They each got a 5$ McDonald's card, a total Grandma Brinkerhoff classic gift. A big sacrifice too, she didn't have much money to spend. We knew she was getting near the end, but it just came so fast. I'm glad I have those last detailed memories of her.

Alright, here's the few pictures that I do have. I just can't do a post without pictures. Even if there are only two.

Palace Fairy

Lindsay was able to participate in the Nutcracker last year. After her audition for a part, we found out she was assigned to be a Palace Fairy. I say assigned because I believe everybody gets a part in the ballet. With the younger girls, they're mostly placed by what costumes they would fit into. Lindsay loved the Spanish Dancers and said she would like to have that part when she gets older.

If you're familiar with the Nutcracker, then you'd have a pretty good guess as to when she appears. If you're not familiar, shame on you, just kidding, mostly. Towards the end of the ballet before the Sugar Plum Fairy dances, Clara and the Nutcracker go to his palace to be entertained and have a big party. Lindsay and the other Palace Fairies were in that opening scene and did a welcome dance to the Sugar Plum Fairy. Of course, every Nutcracker story will vary from company to company.

Fun fact! Did you know that sugared plums are really just prunes? Oh yes. Not as pretty sounding huh? The dance of the Prune Fairy, nope, doesn't quite work.

Oh, and Lindsay was wonderful. Jeff, Abbey, and I were able to catch one of her performances. She was beautiful and her costume was personally one of my favorites.

Crazy Hair Day

This past week has been spirit week at the ol' Canyon View Elementary, and our very own Lindsay Lou has participated whole heatedly.

Yesterday was, I'm sure you've already guessed, Crazy Hair Day Day Day day day..... Thanks echo announcer guy.

My inspiration you ask? It's no surprise that I am having Spring fever pretty darn bad. I'm about to drive up the street to Home Depot and walk through their flower isle whilst I play bird songs or Vivaldi on my iPod. I would sport a pair of my longed for capri pants and sip on a fast food cup of lemonade. Ahhh.... Anyways, Lindsay's hair was turned into a little flower patch. The buns, of course are the flowers. The parts of the buns that fell out and refused to stay under their bobby pins? Leaves. (just go with it) The stems or vines of the flowers were the twists of hair connecting to the little knobby buns. Throw in some butterfly clips and a purple flower headband, voila!

She was very happy with the results and had quite a few complements, which I had her repeat to me a few times. I'm a sucker for praise, I'm not gonna lie! I was amazed that it stayed all day honestly.

A quick update on Jeff's job, he LOVES it. I haven't seen him be this happy to go to work in years. He loves it and it will do great things for this family. :)