Jessica's 12th Birthday

Jessica is 12!  She's a beehive! I just called called to YW and now I have 2 young women!

12 is our ear-piercing age, and Jess was super excited about that.  She wanted to get her ears pierced on her birthday, but her birthday was also the day of the final Seussical dress rehearsal allllll afternoon and evening.  Luckily her birthday was on late-start Wednesday, so we went and got them done before school!

She chose these cute little butterflies that came with a matching necklace.

Here she is with her presents at about 10:00 that night, exhausted and still in her stage make-up!

We did her other birthday stuff (choosing all the meals, being exempt from chores, and cake) a week later, after all the performances were done.

She decided she wanted a winners podium for her cake (I love her randomness) so....we tried.

Also it was a pink and purple camouflage cake!

Jess is such a great girl!  I love having her around.  She's such a caring, kind, helpful presence in our home.  She still loves horses and art and is always up for anything.  No fear, tons of confidence.  I love it.   

Seussical!

This is our third year participating in Cedar City Children's Musical Theater!  Natalie and Jess were in Annie 2 years ago, Nat, Jess and Missy were in Beauty and the Beast last year, and all four girls were in Seussical this year!  They were all "Whos" in the chorus and they had so much fun.  They had rehearsals all summer and did 4 evening performances and 2 matinees for the local schools during the first week of school.

I loved helping backstage on the night of the first performance last year so I did the same thing again this year.  I love being able to be right there with them participating in the excitement of waiting to go on stage that first time!  The kids are all so good and cute.  There were 173 of them in the play!

These are all pics of the girls hanging out in the holding room during downtimes of the performance:

My amazing parents drove up to see the Friday night performance and they were super impressed.

I had to go to Salt Lake for school that same weekend, so Jason and I didn't get to see it until the last performance!  This pic is at the end when the whos are yelling "we are here!"  They came down into the aisles and the 3 younger girls were right by us.  Missy's the one with her arms up, Mandie's the short one in orange, and Jess is just to the right of her. 

 They did such a great job and had so much fun!

First Day of School 2014

Wow these kids are getting big!

Mandie is in 2nd grade this year. She's still such a smartie and loves school to death.

Missy's in 5th grade!  The biggest in the school!  She's in the 4th/5th combined class again with the same teacher.  

Jessie is very much the middle child this year.  2 in elementary, 2 in high school, and she's in the middle grade of middle school. 7th!  

And I have TWO high schoolers!  These two still get along great and they're having fun being at the same school.  Josh is a freshman and Nat is a junior!