11-years-old

Hallee wanted me to take new pictures of her for the wall since she got her braces off.  She was excited to wear her new clothes that we bought on her birthday.  This is both of our favorite picture.  She is so beautiful and looking so grown up!

I can't believe my baby girl is 11-years-old.  These eleven years have gone by so fast! Hallee has been so much fun from day one.  She can be so feisty, but she is so sweet too!  If she is hot that feisty personality comes out in full force! She is like her mama, she hates to be hot! Don't mess with her when she's hungry either!

Hallee seems more like a teenager every day.  She loves to take selfies, put on make up, do her nails and go to the mall! She loves all things girly and always wants to look her best.

Hallee is very organized and reliable.  She loves to organize her room and is good at putting things away.  I know if I ask Hallee to do something, she will do it. She likes to be on time and always makes sure she has things ready to go for the next day. She likes to write things down on her calendar for the month so she knows what is going on. 

Hallee is very compassionate.  She was very concerned about me after my surgery and always checked on me to see if I needed anything.  She always asks about our day and gets excited about things with us or sympathizes with us about hard things. 

Hallee is willing to work hard for things.  She loves to make birthday cards for people and she spends a lot of time on them and makes sure they look great. She has great handwriting and everything she writes always looks beautiful.  

Hallee appreciates beauty.  She will comment on nature and how pretty things are.  We both love this pond at BYU.  This is where we took her baptism pictures.  It's so pretty.  She also loved to see the ducks.  Hallee loves animals.  She would love to have lots of pets.

Hallee is a deep thinker and very spiritual.  She always has good insights during scripture reading.  She likes to ask me questions about what I think and why.  She really thinks about things before she forms an opinion and wants to hear both sides of it.  She is wise beyond her years.

Hallee loves to dance.  She loves to go to class each week and she loves to perform. She comes alive on stage.  She has been working on her flexibility this summer. She has different stretches and things she is working on. 

Hallee has a beautiful voice and loves to sing. I love listening to her sing.  She isn't sure if she is going to take voice class again this year.  She enjoys singing, but she got burned out with all of the performances.  She performed a lot and she had a lot of anxiety before each performance, so I think she is ready for a break from that.  When you watch her on stage you would never guess that she was so anxious before stepping on stage. 

Hallee is very social and loves to spend time with friends, but she is also shy.  She gets nervous and talks quietly when she is nervous to talk to someone. She doesn't like the attention on her, unless she is on stage!

Hallee likes to play games.  She is the only one that is always willing to play a game with me or Keith.

Hallee is amazing and we are so lucky to have her in our family.

Birthday Girl

Hallee was so excited for her birthday.  She had her party the day before because she had dance on her birthday.  She loves dance and was happy she had it on her birthday.

When she got home from dance we dropped Wyatt off at break dancing and we went shopping.  Hallee needed some new shoes and some clothes for school.  It made it more fun to go on her birthday and let her pick out her new things. She found some cute shirts, a pair of shorts and new shoes.

She wanted McDonalds for lunch so we grabbed that on the way to pick up Wyatt.

Keith brought home Cafe Rio for dinner. 

She was excited to open her presents after dinner.

She was surprised and happy with her presents.

She loves to make bracelets so she was excited to get more clay beads.  She said she wanted some Legos so I got her some Lego Dot sets. 

Hallee was happy that Caitlyn worked a day shift that day so she was home in the evening.  Caitlyn gave her a Lego set and some little squish mallows. 

After presents we sang to her and ate cake.

After that Caitlyn and Hallee put her Lego set together.

When Jonah got home he gave Hallee more bracelet supplies!

When Wyatt got home he gave her a package of Lego Dots.

Hallee stayed up late that night and we built her new Lego drawer.  We had a great day celebrating Hallee!

From Hang Time to a Spa Day

Hallee had her birthday party this week.  I remember my mom making cupcakes in ice cream cones for my birthday parties so I asked Hallee if she wanted me to do that and she loved the idea.  They turned out so good.  I was pretty proud of myself.

I used the extra batter to make Hallee a birthday cake.  Since I already had the pipping bag out, I decided to decorate that too.  It turned out cute.  I'm pretty proud of myself when I do things like this and it looks good!

Hallee decided she just wanted to have a small party with Trinity and Tessa. She thought a day with her two best friends sounded perfect!

She wanted to go to Hang Time.  They had a blast playing there for two hours.

After Hang Time she wanted to come back to our house for lunch and a spa day.  Hallee and I went to the dollar store and picked out things to put in a make up bag for a little party bag for each of them.

Hallee wanted me to get cucumbers so they could have cucumber water because it's fancy, ha!

Hallee wanted Macaroni and Cheese for lunch. 

They enjoyed ice cream cones and cupcake cones for dessert.

Hallee loved her presents.  They both knew just what she wanted!

After that they put on face masks.  Hallee told me she also needed cucumbers for their eyes.  They turned on meditation music and relaxed like this for a few minutes.  It was so cute.

Hallee thought it was pretty funny to put her cucumbers above her eyes.

After that they painted nails and listened to their favorite music. Hallee said it was the best party ever!

Survivor Battle

 

Last Saturday, Wyatt had a battle in Salt Lake. They do it every summer, but we haven't been able to go before so we weren't sure what to expect.  We decided to just send Wyatt and Keith because I wasn't sure I was feeling up to going.  Keith said it was really good that Hallee and I didn't go because it was outside and it was so hot! It was $15 a person, so it was a good one for just one of us to go to.

I didn't realize it was outside so I didn't even send a chair with Keith.  They set up a floor out in a parking lot.  Keith said it was so hot!  It was in the evening so at least it wasn't the heat of the day.  It has been so hot, almost 100 degrees for weeks now.

One of the moms takes pictures of all of the kids at the battles. I'm so grateful, they are always so good.

Wyatt did great! Keith said it was one of his best.  Tarzan told him that he did so good and he would for sure make the top 16.

They were all surprised when Wyatt and another boy from their studio didn't move onto the next round.  

Tarzan came over and talked to Keith and Wyatt and said Wyatt deserved to move on and he's not sure what the judges were thinking.  He told Wyatt not to let it get him down because he did awesome.  That made Wyatt feel good and he was fine with it.  He stayed for the rest of the battle and cheered on his friends. 

Here is Tarzan with the Breakin Circles Crew.  Wyatt is always happy to have a night with his crew.

Youth Conference

 

Jonah got to go to Youth Conference last week.  It was just our ward and they went to Zion's National Park.  They did lots of physical activities that Jonah loved.  He said he was nervous about repelling and it was hard to sit back and trust that the rope was going to hold you, but he really enjoyed it. 

Jonah loved Zions and wants to go back.

He loved the rock climbing and the hikes.

He said they got a lot of time to fish and he liked that.  He also had fun on paddle boards.

Jonah caught a fish and it got away, he reached down in the water and caught it with his bare hands.  He was pretty proud of that.  He said he cooked it up and ate it that night. He loves this picture because it shows off his big muscles, he has been working hard on those! It is weird that my boy looks like a muscular man!

Jonah is hidden in the back, but here is the group.  Jonah said he had a great time and he is glad he went. I'm so grateful for the leaders who sacrificed so much to make this happen.  Bishop Blevins told Keith that he was so glad Jonah came and how much he loves his company.  Jonah definitely makes everything more fun!