Tucson Tidings

This year, we spent a wonderful Christmas in Tuscon with Grandma Waldron, the Vandettas, Casey, and the Fergies. It was incredibly special to all be together for this holiday since Dad had just recently passed away.

My favorite moment of our whole time spent there was when Susan gave each family a wrapped box... they were all the same size and we all opened them at the same time. We each received a beautiful gold helicopter ornament in memory of Dad. Tears flowed and it was moments like those that I'm so glad we were all together.

Santa somehow knew where to find the Waldron kids and boy did he leave some fun things!

Dallin got a Heat basketball jersey, a huge Toy Story Lego set, and an Ultimate LeBron James basketball card

Claire was thrilled with her Barbie Dream House and new pink Nintendo DS

Spencer received a Toy Story train set and a red plasma car

We had fun family dinners, went Christmas shopping, played in the backyard and enjoyed being together. Unfortunately, most of our photos from the holidays were accidentally erased and the only ones that could be recovered (thanks to Todd Crump) were a few photos of the kids and some cousins:

SO sad that there aren't any more photos. We'll just have to remember that it was a really fun Christmas, Santa most definitely knew where to find us and we are so grateful to have been in Tucson for Christmas!

Chantilly Christmas

One of my favorite traditions during the Christmas season is Claire's Christmas dance recital. It is low-key, in her dance teacher's backyard and is always incredibly darling.

This year, the little girls danced to Chantilly Lace (Not having much luck trying to get the video on here... hopefully soon). I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love little girls in tights and tutus (not "Toddlers and Tiaras" style).

After their dance, they sat in a circle and had a gift exchange. The girls all giggled and giggled as they passed the gifts along. Claire ended up with a fancy new Zhu Zhu pet named "Mint"... her first gift this season.

We then had cookies and hot chocolate to finish this fun tradition up. Spencer slept in his stroller the entire time which made it easier for me to enjoy... thank you 3rd child who will sleep anywhere.

It was a fun afternoon with good friends and lots of tulle and feathers.

Until next year...

BYU Birthday

Saturday was a great day. Dallin had his birthday party at the Honda Center in Anaheim, cheering on the BYU Cougars basketball team.

He chose to take one of his best buddies, Wilson (who also loves basketball) and they were accompanied by their dads (Pete and Jeremy). They grabbed some lunch at Chick-fil-A then headed to the game. BYU vs. UCLA... we felt like this would be an easy win since BYU basketball is on fire, but no such luck. They lost 86-79... BYU's first loss of the season. Darn that it had to be at Dallin's birthday party.

Everyone apparently had a great time regardless... great seats, met up with the Crump and Lowe boys, fun atmosphere, and great basketball played. Happy Birthday Dallin!

Christmas Clothes

Some things in life don't go the way you plan them... I get this and here is one of those moments. I got the kids each a new Christmas outfit to wear to church yesterday. I wanted to take a cute photo of them before church, but our 2:30 pm to 9:00 am switch has been a little brutal.

I took these photos after church, we were all a little disheveled, my camera was being fuzzy, Spencer was ready for his nap, and this is what we ended up with. Not the greatest of photo shoots, but it's reality.:)

I love this picture below. It portrays each of my kids perfectly. Dallin being a ham,Claire ready with her fabulous pose, and Spencer in his own little world totally ignoring the fact that I want to take a picture. The Waldron kids in a nutshell...

I finally got Spence to look up so we could see his cute bow tie.

Photo shoot: failure

Cute kids: success :)

Frosty Friend

My mom and I have had many conversations about how as kids, we would watch the same movie over and over and over again... no variation in the day, week, or month. I specifically remember one time being obsessed with "Swiss Family Robinson". That being said, my mom never sat down and watched those movies (she's a mom after all), but would hear them playing... again, and again and again. So basically, she would have a whole movie memorized without actually seeing it. I can now totally relate.

Spencer is obsessed with "Frosty the Snowman". He knows the dances, the keywords, the actions. Yes, he has it memorized... and so do I. We watch it in the car, at home, and we sing the song wherever we go. My friend Julie is aware of his love for Frosty (she has seen it in action), so when she saw a dancing/singing Frosty at Hallmark she had to let me know. A few days later, I drove with Spencer to Hallmark to check out what I thought would be a Spencer hit... Julie and I were correct. He is in LOVE with this toy.

p.s. I sing parts of the song and have Spencer finish them. The best is when I sing "Frosty the ......" and he replies "Mommy". Yep, Frosty the Mommy. Apparently I need to go tanning and lose a little weight. :)

Yuletide Youngsters

Another 1-2-3 Learn Preschool Christmas program has come and gone. I have now attended 6 of them in my career as a mother, but this time was a little different. In previous years, we have all congregated in the backyard of the preschool (ie: Ms. Carol's house) in the evening to witness this preschool holiday spectacular. Last year, the weather was awful, so it was changed to the afternoon, inside the house. It was mostly moms with babies in their arms watching and photographing.

This year, it was brought inside again, but someone must have mentioned that there was food involved because it was JAM PACKED!!! Thank heaven I arrived early (for the first time in my 6 year run). I am also grateful that my bum isn't ginormous, cause it definitely wouldn't have fit in the little red preschool chair I sat on. There were moms, dads, grandparents, siblings, infant carriers and friends everywhere... behind the couch, along the wall, in the preschool chairs, in regular chairs, on stools, standing in the hallways, poking their heads out from the kitchen, sitting on the floor, sitting on laps... it was amazing how many people witnessed this little Christmas program from that little living room. It was a little nuts. How grateful I am to Natalie Sermon for watching Spencer for me. He would have been nothing short of a nightmare in that little space :).

Pushing all claustrophobia aside, the program was really cute and Claire did a great job. She had 2 parts: they spelled out "Christmas" and Claire was the letter 'I'. She said "I is for icicles, drip dripping down"... very well, mind you. She was also an angel and said "Baby Jesus is the son of God". The songs were sweet, the kids all were so cute and did a great job.

At the conclusion of the program we all sat waiting patiently for Santa Claus. He comes every year, but I guess he forgot to check his GPS cause he was pretty late. All of the kids were squirmy as were the sardine packed adults. The man in red finally arrived and all of the kids were SO excited to see him... except for Claire. She gets terrified every year, gets a pep talk from me and Ms. Melissa every year, and then sits on his lap... every year.

She rattled off her Christmas wish list of a Barbie Dream House, headphones, and a pink Nintendo DS. Santa gave her a gift (a cute 2011 calendar), we had some food, took photos with some of our favorite friends and headed home.

It was a darling program and Claire did a fabulous job. I am curious to see what next year's preschool Christmas program has in store. Should be fun... Spencer will be involved :).

Gingerbread Gang

We are so blessed to be in a ward with such great friends. The problem is, however, that life gets so crazy and jam-packed, we sometimes don't make time to be with these great people and families. Last Wednesday night, we made time and had the Warren family over for dinner (they had us over for dinner last Wednesday night while both of our husbands were at mutual).

We had dinner, played a little bit and then busted out some awesome gingerbread people! My Dallin and his buddy Wilson were on a "team",

Claire and sweet Hope were on another team,

and Dallin Warren took on the challenge all by himself (with a little help from cute Kate).

Meet the gingerbread creations...

CLAIRE & HOPE'S gingerbread girl "HOLLY"

DALLIN'S cute monster

DALLIN & WILSON'S gingerbread basketball player "JIMMER FREDETTE"

We had a great time with great friends!

Percussion Project

Last week, Dallin came home from school with a note in his backpack... instructions for a 2nd grade project. They have been discussing sounds in science (tone, pitch, volume, etc) and were asked to make their own instrument that showcased some of these scientific terms.

Being an ex-percussionist, I was immediately thinking how fun it would be to make a "timpani" of sorts (I only had a opinion knowing that this was going to be partially my project as well ;)). Before I could share this thought, Dallin chimed in with his brilliant idea... a drum that makes different pitches! Oh Dallin, you're so smart and have such great ideas :)!

Of course we had a week to complete this project and began work on it Sunday afternoon (hours before it was due). It was actually a really great Sabbath day activity. I ran through the kitchen finding cans, pots, canisters, boxes, bottles... anything that would make a great sound. Dallin had a mallet and would hit everything I put in front of him. He would then decide if he liked the sound. He ended up with 11 "drums".

We wrapped them each in silver paper, hot glued them to a wrapped cutting board and labeled them 1-11, 1 being the highest pitch and 11 being the lowest. Dallin was thrilled (so was I). It really turned out great.

He took it to school the next day and it was a hit. His teacher was impressed and asked him to use it when they went caroling yesterday as a class. Nicely done Dallin!!

Muddy Madness

Last Saturday (12/04), Pete and I transformed into 10 year old kids again. We went running around with some friends, jumped over things, slid down a huge tarp slide, crawled and jumped in the mud and laughed a lot. We participated in the first annual Gladiator Run in Orange County, and I can honestly say that I haven't had that much fun in a long time.

Peter and I decided to make a day out of it, so we asked one of our favorite babysitters (Cassidy) to stay the night with the kids while we drove down to OC Friday night. We stayed in a hotel right next to the Gladiator run location, woke up early, met up with Sheina, Hillary and Kat to register Saturday morning. It was quite cold outside as we waited for our heat to begin (okay, it was California wussy cold), but the anticipation of what was to come kept us excited and warm. People around us were ridiculously dressed like elves, gladiators, bees, spandex-lovers, 80's crazies, etc. It got my creative juices flowing for next year.

The countdown began and the 9:00 heat took off in a pack. We ran for 1 1/2 miles on dirt roads, up and down stadium stairs, and had so much fun chatting it up while enjoying the crazy people around us. After the first mile and a half, the obstacles began... tire climbs, tire jumps, wall climbing, hurdles, lugging bags of rice to the budda statue, getting whacked by punching bags, etc. Once we got through those obstacles, we kept running and finally saw what was ahead of us... a large hill with a huge tarp slide. We ran up that hill, slid down that slide and landed right in a huge puddle of mud. It was everywhere... in my ears, eyes, mouth. Peter came down after me and took me down again. Mud wrestling.

This muddy part was most fun, yet the hardest part of the run for me. We trudged through the mud, had to climb up really slippery, muddy hills, crawled through the mud under ropes... it was A LOT of mud. I'm so glad we all stuck together through this cause it was SO much fun. It really felt like we were 10 again... maybe 5.

We kept running and running (now super-muddy) while spitting to the side trying rid mud from the interior of my mouth. It was everywhere. The last corner spit us out into the field we started near. We were cheered on by many as we ran the last bit of the race, feeling super-free as the wind blew through our muddy hair and dried the mud on our body. We ran through "fire" (two long fire pits on either side of us) as our dirty little group grabbed hands and conquered the finish line together. It took us around 36 minutes to complete the run (not a bad time for 3.15 miles and lots of zany obstacles). I felt free, elated, giddy, and really really muddy. It was how I remember feeling as a kid playing on the playground with friends. Such a great morning!

Our bodies were drenched with mud and we were a little tired, so naturally we decided to try out the tug-o-war mud pit!

It was a great activity sitting there and no one was taking advantage of it! Pete and I lost against the 2 other girls, but I had no problem falling in the mud again. We took muddy photos and then decided clean up. Huge problem, there were only 4 showers and hundreds of people... the line was insane. We walked around the vendors and listened to the band in hopes that the line might decrease, but it did the opposite as more and more people completed the race. We took off some layers, sucked it up and drove away muddy. I felt like a kid AGAIN... dirty, and really okay with it. Luckily, Pete and I only had a short drive back to the hotel and showered off there. I think the hotel employees thought we were funny as we arrived looking the way we did, but also wanted to kill us understanding the mess we were about to make. Holy moly, we were muddy. I have never enjoyed a shower more.

After getting ready and packing up, we grabbed some lunch and felt more like adults again. We drove back home to our kids and jumped on the trampoline together... okay, so maybe we are never quite really adults. Incredibly memorable day.

Thanksgiving Trip

Something that I am learning as life plugs on (and as my husband continues to be the bishop) is the need to be flexible. We had it set in stone that we were going to Utah for Thanksgiving, but when we were going to leave, well, that I needed to be flexible with. Peter had LOTS of things going on with work and church and I, with all of my planning psychoness, needed to know when we were going to leave and how long we were going to stay (I have to pack 4 of us after all). Unfortunately, he didn't have an answer.

Since I am learning to be flexible, I decided to head to Utah by myself with the kids. I've done it before and I knew that I could do it again (thanks to my kids who are wonderful travellers). So with all of my type A personality, I packed us up and left the very next morning. I knew that it would be good for me and the kids to get out during their week off of school, and it would be even better for Peter to not have to worry about us as he took care of the crazy world around him.

We drove out on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and made it to Las Vegas. We stayed the night in the Trump hotel (or the "gold hotel" as my kids called it) and it was quite the experience.

Lugging luggage, 3 tired kids, forgetting cash for tips, trying to get everyone to bed in the same room, sleeping next to a sick little girl, and not getting much sleep left me a little exhausted in the morning. But in the spirit of flexibility, we carried on! We arrived at Uncle Dave's house on Monday around 3 pm with enough time to say hi to him and Aunt Erin, visit Aunt Jen at work, have dinner with her in the mall food court and get cupcakes for dessert. It was in our fun visiting that reassured me that I made the right move in coming to Utah early.

We stayed at Dave and Erin's house for the next 3 nights and had a great time getting food ready for Thanksgiving, grocery shopping, visiting Grandma Lolo in her new place, playing basketball (Dave & Dallin), waiting for the "craziest storm of the century" that never actually came, etc.

On Wednesday, we picked Peter up at the airport and drove back to Provo just in time for Erin's surprise baby shower! It was a great group of family, old friends and new friends in a really yummy Italian restaurant with lots of cute baby girl presents opened. Fun evening for everyone! We can't wait for this little love-bug to arrive!

On Thanksgiving day, we watched a part of the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade, cooked in Dave and Erin's kitchen and headed over to the Taylors (Erin's family) later that afternoon for the feast. We had a wonderful time with super-delicious food! Grandma Brown and Grandma Hinckley joined us as well making it all the more memorable.

Dallin and Peter had fun watching football in the basement, Claire was in heaven playing Polly Pockets with Erin's sisters, Spencer ran up and down the stairs and jumped on the couch while the rest of us enjoyed visiting.

After we stuffed ourselves with Thanksgiving deliciousness (thank you Taylor family!), we drove to Salt Lake City and checked into the super-fun Hotel Monaco. I searched for many hotels in SLC, but ended up choosing this one because it was beautiful and because they give you a pet goldfish to take care of during your stay. My kids couldn't contain their goldfish excitement. Meet Swedish (get it?)...

My parents also joined us at the hotel (just a few doors down the hall)! We played late into the evening on Thanksgiving, slept in on Friday and had lunch for breakfast in the hotel restaurant :).

Have I ever mentioned that Spencer is really funny and super-quirky? His latest creation (and yes, he drank from it)...

Friday was a GREAT day! We lounged around in the hotel lobby.

We met up with Dave and Erin after "breakfast" and we walked around the city.

We walked through Temple Square and spent most of the afternoon in the Church History Museum (amazing!).

Here's my favorite photo of the day :)...

Darn that we lost the game the next day!!! Hit it harder next time Dad :)!

For dinner, someone (Dave or Mom?) had a brilliant idea. We grabbed a corner table by the window in the Joseph Smith Memorial Building restaurant, ate really slowly and finally witnessed the Temple Square initial Christmas lighting from our front row (and warm) indoor seats. It was perfect!

After dinner, we walked through Temple Square again and took in all the beautiful lights and sights.

During dinner, we had the kids draw on a piece of paper what they wish they could do that evening to cap off a fabulous day.

Claire drew a picture of the girls watching a movie together and Dallin drew a picture of him and Papa playing with his basketball cards. When he was finished, Peter told him to turn his paper around and on the back, he saw tickets. Tickets to the Jazz vs. Lakers game that started an hour later just 3 blocks away!!! He couldn't even believe it. The boys walked to the game (Papa, Dave, Peter and Dallin) and the girls walked back to the hotel to fulfill Claire's wish of watching a movie (it was Mom, Jen, Erin, me, Claire and the token male Spencer). Everyone had a great evening and I think Dallin was in utter heaven.

We had another late night and another late start the next morning. We lounged around, enjoying our beautiful room.

We said our goodbyes to Papa, Nana and Jen (they left early to go be with the Grandmas), packed up our stuff, made one last stop at the Deseret Bookstore and then ate lunch at a darling little restaurant called the Blue Lemon. It had a beautiful view of the Temple, and an even better view of the BYU vs. Utah game on TV.

We ate slowly, enjoying the 1st half of the game and then had to take off. We drove the whole way home that Saturday and finally made it into our garage at 2:00 a.m., Sunday morning. Bishop Waldron woke up a few hours later for church meetings and life resumed as normal... but we are so grateful for the wonderful break we had in Utah for Thanksgiving! We have SO much to be thankful for.