So You Think You Can Dance Tour

I have been wanting to post pictures of this for a long time, but it just kept getting pushed back. Well no more! Back in October I was able to go to the SYTYCD tour with my cousin, Miquelle. She goes with her mom every year but this year after buying tickets, her mom had to go out of town that week. I willingly stepped in to take her. We had such a blast! I love Miquelle! She's so fun! My mom is the oldest child in her family, and Miquelle'a mom is the youngest. So though she feels more like a niece to me, she is my cousin. My sweet husband took the night off early to take the girls so I could go. Miquelle and I grabbed dinner first, then it was off to the show! I was so stoked!! It wasn't until I discovered Hulu that I was ever able to watch the show. I always wanted to, just never had TV. Then this last year I didn't miss an episode! From the first audition on I was hooked! Totally fell in love with the dancers ( I so would have been a dancer if I was at all coordinated) and it was amazing to see them live!

So cute...right?

If you didn't follow the show, then the names will mean nothing to you, but you can still appreciate the awesome shots I got. Mitchell was out with an injury. Sadness. And for some random reason Nick and Missy were there. They never explained why the two of them were on tour with the top ten, but they gave a solo performance and everything. I didn't mind though. They were both amazing! They performed a lot of favorite numbers from the show, as well as each did a solo number. Then they also combined a few of the numbers together into mash-up dances, which was awesome! Tadd was a huge showoff and, of course, got the most applause, being in his hometown. He was really funny on stage. They were all incredible to watch! Miquelle and I were both happy to see Nick again. He is such a good dancer! We both thought he probably would have gone much farther if he had had a better partner to begin with. Kind of how Alexander and Ryan both probably would have been gone sooner if they weren't with such incredible partners, keeping them afloat.

The award for most impressive of the night, however, goes to Ricky. Holy smokes that boy can move!! I so wish he would have been paired with Sasha from the beginning. He danced with her a couple times and the two of them together took my breath away! I don't think he got enough credit on the show for how good he is! Honestly I never paid too much attention to him, he wasn't one of my favorites either. But after seeing the tour, I am totally a Ricky fan! On tour he took the place of the all-star who danced with Melanie. She threw herself into his arms with equal force and Ricky didn't budge. He also took the place of the all-star who danced the wall number with Sasha AND he did the Twitch number with Sasha at the breakfast table. Three huge numbers from the season and Ricky was chosen to perform them all. That's saying something! I so wish I had recorded his solo too. My battery started dying though and I wanted to save it for the end of the night.

Here's my boy. Yup. He's upside down!

Biggest disappointment of the evening was they didn't do the Marko and Melanie wedding routine where they kissed. That was my favorite routine of the entire season and they didn't do it! So sad! It was a super fun night though and I had a great time! It made me look forward to nights like this with my own girls someday. Thank you Bonnie for going out of town! =)
I took some videos, but they aren't loading right now. I'll try again later. I got pictures of everyone's solos and most of the numbers. These are just the ones that turned out best:

Jess & Clarice

Melanie and Jess. Jess did the choreographer routine with her, and he did awesome!

Caitlyn and Tadd doing a ballroom routine

Nick and Jess doing a tap number

The circus routine

Caitlyn's solo. Love this shot!

Sasha and Marko doing the soldier returning home routine. Marko was so much better than Alexander!

Tadd's solo. Another awesome shot.

Nick's solo. I didn't think it was possible for feet to move this fast!

Clarice and Jess performed the jail routine. I thought they were better than the original with Chris and Ashley.

Ricky and Sasha doing the Twitch routine.

Ricky and Sasha doing the wall routine. So good!

Marko's solo. Still think he should have come in second!

The incredible champion of the season: Melanie

Everyone in the red door number

Sasha and Melanie doing their warrior routine

SYTYCD Videos

I decided just to post the videos separately, if anyone wanted to see them. =) Here is a clip from Melanie and Marko's statue routine:

Here is my favorite Jess and Clarice routine of the season:

Melanie and Ricky dancing "Total Eclipse of the Heart". Listen when they go to either side of the stage in preparation for Melanie's jump. The crowd gets really loud because we all know what's coming next!

Jess' solo. He was a favorite of ours this season. I specifically recorded this for my mom. She loved Jess so much, she stopped watching after he was kicked off.

Magdalyn 7 months

Magdalyn is 7 months old today. That means she is now closer to turning one than to being a new baby. It also made me realize Kalianna is now closer to 3 than to 2. My beautiful little girls are getting so big! Maggie has become quite mobile. She isn't crawling yet, she hasn't even tried to get up on her knees, but she is scooting, rolling, and wiggling until she gets to her desired destination. We've had to stop putting her in her bouncy chair, as she started to try and climb out of it. She continues to love her saucer though, because she can stand and play the whole time. She is such a funny little goof and always makes us laugh! She has been squealing a lot lately, and tries to talk a lot. I think she may turn out to be just as vocal has her big sister.

Maggie seems to be a very sweet and tender-hearted little girl. I think she is going to be very sensitive. She doesn't like loud noises and gets very upset when anyone is angry. Not with her, but in general. If Kalianna is throwing a tantrum, she cries. Or if Kalianna gets sent to her room for timeout, she cries too. She much prefers everyone to always be happy around her! If people start laughing, especially Kalianna, she will giggle right along. Magdalyn doesn't like loud noises, but she does love to be surprised. Peek-a-boo is one of her favorite games. She loves to pull things over her face and then giggles when we pull it off. Maggie has recently discovered her tongue and she often sticks it out and plays with it, making some pretty awesome faces!

Magdalyn is getting pretty good at sitting up, but she still doesn't seem to like doing it. She can sit up fine on her own, but she will always roll over onto her back or stomach within a couple minutes. Her favorite thing is standing though. Most of the time our arms get tired before her legs do! She doesn't show any interest in moving her legs forward and walking yet though. She just likes to stand. Maggie also loves food! She will eat just about anything I give her to taste. She is loving baby food! Applesauce is one of her favorite foods right now and the only thing she seems to really not like is green beans. It's always fun seeing how Magdalyn differs from her sister at this same age. They have a lot of the same tendencies, but Magdalyn is definitely her own little person.  

This is such a Maggie face, I had to add it.

Here she is sitting up on her own.

Helping Grandpa

Staying at my parent's house last weekend, Kalianna was thrilled to help Grandpa with the leaves. Seriously, this girl LOVES to help anyone with anything! She is such a sweetie! Then Grandpa showed her how to jump in and throw the leaves. She had a ball and we got some great pictures!

Six Month Pictures

We couldn't afford to pay for someone to do Maggie's six month pictures, so Matt did them this time. He borrowed my parent's nice camera and I think he got some pretty cute shots! Grant it, the subject is super cute! Here are some of our favorites:

Happy Halloween!

Talk about kodak moments. So glad I caught this! I just love Halloween! It has always been one of my favorite holidays. If I had lots of money, or any sort of sewing skills at all, I would dress up every year. I did dress up every year until Kalianna was born. Then any funds and creativity went into creating her costume. And now with Magdalyn too, I spend my time dressing up the two of them instead. I'm totally okay with it though. They look far cuter than I would! Thursday started out our Halloween festivities with trick-or-treating at Matt's work. Kalianna was super excited to wear her pretty Tinkerbell dress and she was very excited that her little sister was a fairy too. She wanted Mommy to put on a fairy costume too. Maybe next time. She also loved that I put a little bit of sparkly makeup on her eyes and cheeks and she got to wear some lip gloss. She was thrilled to get to wear Mommy's makeup! I love that Kalianna really understood Halloween this year and she was really excited about it. Last year she was excited about the candy, but this year she loved everything about Halloween! And I loved watching her get excited.

This morning I made some jack-o-lantern pancakes for breakfast. We put in orange food coloring and I was out of chocolate chips so we opened a couple bags of M&Ms from her treat bowl to make their faces. Kalianna thought they were the coolest thing ever, and she ate every bite. We had a lot of fun making them together. I did the same thing last year, but this year Kalianna was far more excited because she actually knew what a jack-o-lantern was.

Then in the afternoon, while Magdalyn was napping, we carved her pumpkin. I was afraid she would be totally grossed out by the pumpkin guts, but not my girl! She thought it was pretty cool to pull out all the goo and throw it away. I love my brave girl! Then I asked her if she wanted a happy pumpkin or a scary pumpkin. She immediately replied with "Scary!" then she growled. So I googled Jack Skelington and improvised from a picture online. I think he turned out pretty cute! I mean scary. Kalianna was super excited about carving her pumpkin. She loved every minute of it!

Tonight was my ward's annual trunk-or-treat. We've never actually made it before, but this year we were going to be home. And this year Kalianna was actually excited to go. So I got both girls in their costumes and braved it on my own. We had a ball! But my arm was completely dead after holding Maggie for 2 hours! Kalianna loved seeing all the kids in their costumes, and saying trick-or-treat, and of course getting candy. Magdalyn did fantastic! She was happy as could be while we walked around and visited all the cars. This was a super fun Halloween! I love that Kalianna is starting to really get holidays and I look forward to Magdalyn joining in next year.

Time

This is something I felt like I never had enough of. As I'm sure many of you can relate to. With Matt doing both school and work to take care of our family, we rarely see him. He usually gets home in time to see his girls for maybe an hour a day. Then once they are in bed, he disappears to the basement for homework. He works super hard so that I can stay home with our girls, which I am super grateful for! That being said, most of the other responsibilities fall to me. I take care of the girls from the time they get up around 8:00am until they are both asleep at 9:30pm. I got rid of Kalianna's naptime (she rarely slept anyway) and now she sleeps better at night and no longer has accidents. Between her no longer napping and Matt's work schedule, I have no time to myself until after 10:00pm. It gets exhausting sometimes! On top of taking care of the girls, I take care of all the household chores and any shopping and other errands that need to be done. I also try and write whenever I can. Trying to keep up with everything by myself was really wearing me out! Then I had the opportunity to watch General Conference.

The General Relief Society meeting had a big impact on me. I loved President Uchtdorf's talk! His 5 forget-me-nots really made me stop and think. I was trying to do way too much and this left me feeling stressed instead of happy. I needed to be more patient with myself and realize I didn't have to be super woman. I didn't need to be doing so much. Some of the ways I was spending my time weren't as important as I thought they were. I needed to prioritize. President Uchtdorf got me thinking and then when Elder Andersen spoke in the Saturday afternoon session, he reiterated everything I needed to hear. My absolute favorite part was when he said, "Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling. You do not collect children because you find them cuter than stamps . It is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in. It is what God gave you time for." That last line really hit home for me. Motherhood is what God gave you time for.

Now I don't want you to think that I was neglecting my kids in any way. But I was trying to be a mother and a writer at the same time. After conference I decided as much as I love writing, and as much as I want to work on my next book, and especially as much as my fans want me to finish my next book, it is nowhere near as important as my two beautiful little girls. I have always put my girls before my writing physically, but sometimes I wasn't with them mentally. Waiting for my next opportunity to sit at my desk, or working through a scene in my mind while playing with them. I am definitely not going to stop writing, but I realized I have my whole life to write. My daughter's lives, on the other hand, are zooming by and how much would I regret it if I missed even a second? So I stopped getting on my computer during the day. I took away that distraction and put 100% of my focus back where it needed to be. And you know what? A huge weight was lifted from my shoulders. The stress of trying to be everything was gone. And instead I can just be the one thing that is most important: A mom. I will continue to write when I find the time, but I don't need to be a successful author right now. The characters in my books will wait. Kalianna and Magdalyn won't. The characters won't age while I am away. My daughters will.