Talent Show

This past weekend our ward had its 3rd annual talent show.  Although NOTHING can ever compare to Alan's Napoleon Dynamite dance last year (watch the video here), we did participate a little bit this year.  Alan had quite a few people tell him how funny his dance was last year, and wonder if he was going to do it again.  Yeah, right.  

This is a video of a men's quartet singing "Stouthearted Men." No, Alan did not organize this, but the 80-year-old tenor standing to the left of Alan did.  He had a lot of fun learning this.  (By the way, I'm the accompanist for this song.  I have to give myself credit, too.)  :)

This is a video of a bunch of our Relief Society sisters lip-syncing to Weird Al's "Eat It." I was dragged into participating in it since I'm in our Relief Society Presidency. I think it turned out quite funny.  It was fun to learn some dance moves again; I haven't done that in a while.

Jared has been diligently learning to play the piano (from me) these past couple of months.  I am really proud of the progress he has made so far.  He really wanted to play in the talent show, so he and I played "Old MacDonald" as a duet.

And here is a cute video of Evelyn giggling. This was obviously at home, not the ward talent show.  :)

Halloween 2013

Several days before Halloween we had our annual Curtis Pumpkin Carving party, which we always love. We eat yummy food, carve our pumpkins, and sing pumpkin carols.  Maggie decorated her pumpkin with stickers, and Alan carved Jared's Angry Birds Pumpkin (Jared had decided he would rather play with cousins than help Daddy carve his pumpkin.)

Grandma and Evelyn

Alan's pumpkin is the one 2nd from the right.  I wish I had gotten a better picture of it.

 These next few pictures were taken on Halloween.  I helped with Jared's classroom party during the day (which he LOVED!!!!!), and then Alan took Jared and Maggie out trick-or-treating.

Spiderman, Pumpkin, and Sleeping Beauty

All three of my kids have now worn this pumpkin costume.  

Happy Halloween!  (Now on to bigger and better holiday festivities, like Christmas....)

First Taste

Here are a few pictures from early October:

 Evelyn started solid foods just before she turned 6 months old (I really hate starting my babies on solid foods, so I wait until closer to the 6-month mark instead of trying at 4 months, as some moms do.)  Below is the (in my opinion) hilarious video of her first taste.  Ha ha!

 Aren't my girls adorable?

Evelyn is super easy-going.  She just lights up when I walk into a room.

Family Pictures 2013

One of my friends took our family pictures a few weeks ago, and I finally got them from her computer.  I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.  I still need to work on cropping and some coloring issues, but I'm excited to get them printed and on my picture wall!

Maggie has turned into such a princess

This was the one and only picture we got of Evy by herself where she is sort of smiling

Jared is looking so grown up to me!  When did he get so big?

Maggie looks so adorable in this picture!  I think it was the only genuine smile we got out of her the whole photo shoot

I think this picture above is my favorite family picture (despite Jared's cocked head), but I need to tweak the coloring so we don't look so washed out.

Cute Kids

Random pictures from September:

I love the toe-sucking phase!

I wanted to have a picture of Maggie and Evelyn in their sailor dresses.  Maggie didn't want to wear hers, though:  "Mommy, that's a boy dress."

This is a picture from when I hosted Princess Preschool at my house.  It was really fun, but I would not enjoy being a preschool teacher full-time!

Milestones for Jared

 Jared just finished up the fall season for soccer.  I am really proud of how hard he worked this season.  He was supposed to be on a team of 1st and 2nd graders, but for some reason, his team was mostly 2nd graders and even a couple 3rd graders (not sure how that snuck through).  So, he was playing with bigger kids on his team and it was hard for him to get up close to the ball.  However, he had a great attitude and loved playing goalie!  He also scored a goal during his very first game.

 Jared somehow heard about the school "Reflections" contest and decided he wanted to enter a picture.  He stayed indoors at recess and painted this picture:

 

It's not anything spectacular, and I honestly don't think he'll win any kind of award, but I was proud of him for wanting to enter in the contest.  This is what he wanted me to write about his picture on the order form:

This is a picture of a field of cows in Idaho, right across from Bear Lake.  I named it "Beauty" because it looks so beautiful.  This picture makes me think of people having beautiful dreams.  I also drew this picture because I hope people have dreams as beautiful as a picture.

Jared finally learned how to ride a two-wheeler a few weeks ago!  It was like pulling teeth to get him motivated to practice this summer, but he finally learned and has finally seen the vision of how fun riding a bike is!  Now that is all he wants to do!  (Just in time for chilly weather...)

Bear Lake

Over Labor Day weekend we took a quick trip up to Bear Lake with the Curtis cousins.  (Evelyn did NOT enjoy the car rides and screamed for about an hour each way.  Ha ha.  I'm glad we didn't go on any other long road trips this summer.)  My sister-in-law has some amazing hookups to some accommodations up on the Idaho side, so there was room for all of my siblings and their families.  We had a really fun time.  

Bear Lake is the closest thing to an ocean my kids have seen, and they had lots of fun.  Jared, of course, was not so good at smiling for the camera.  

The water was such a pretty blue!  This picture doesn't do it justice.

 We rented a wave runner for four hours and had a blast!  Jared loved it, too, but Maggie didn't want to ride.

Enjoying some shade

We also went to some natural springs and an ice cave in Idaho, but I didn't take any pictures because it was kind of drizzly that day.  We had a blast and look forward to our next trip there!

Seattle (Part I)

Maggie's first time on an airplane and Jared's first time that he can remember.  They LOVED flying! 

 Early in the summer our whole little family flew out to Washington to visit Alan's other father, Kent, and his wife Janice.  We had such a wonderful time visiting with them, and they were so hospitable and generous with us!  We are really looking forward to the next time we see them again!

Me with little Evelyn.  She was an angel while we traveled. 

 Our first day there, we ventured out on our own to do some sightseeing.  We went to the aquarium and on a little harbor cruise to see some of the sights.  Our kids LOVED the aquarium.

 They had a very neat touch pool (much neater than our local aquarium's touch pool).

This was an underwater view of the fish that live in Puget Sound.

 Jared is obsessed with octopuses (remember my post about his birthday and his octopus cake!), so he was thrilled that the aquarium had a Giant Pacific Octopus.  They had an adult one and a baby one--about as big as my hand!

 The picture above and the next few below were taken on our harbor cruise.

Space Needle.  We made some last-minute plans with Kent and Janice to go inside the space needle and eat in the restaurant, but it didn't work out because the reservations were all full.  Maybe next time!

It was kind of windy and drizzly during our harbor cruise, so Evy stayed indoors.

 Kent and Janice took us on a little tour of the town where they live.  We visited the famous waterfall there (not pictured in this post), the train museum, and a cute candy factory.  Their licorice was super yummy.  We also ate at a yummy local Mexican restaurant.

 I loved these old trains!

The whole clan.  I forgot to mention that Alan's sister Mimi flew from New York and met up with us (this trip was actually her idea!)  We loved seeing her.

Somehow I forgot to take pictures of the locks we visited.  It was really interesting, and I loved to see the fish swimming upstream!

Nice job showing Maggie's belly, sweet husband of mine

 This picture above and the ones below were taken at Pike's Market.  We unfortunately got there a few minutes after most things had closed (so Jared didn't get to see the guys throwing fish), but we still had a good time.

It was such a beautiful, clear day!

Jared loved these big crabs for sale!

Kent has sent us more pictures from our trip, but I need Alan's help to look at them, and he hasn't had time yet to help me with that.  So stay tuned for a few more pictures!!!