My Bethanie

Ten years ago tonight, I unexpectedly went into labor.  I was terrified!  From the moment I unexpectedly found out I was 8 weeks pregnant, to the time she was born, I had a hard time believing that this was actually something happening to our family.  Bethanie took 10 years for us to create.  I suppose it was because it takes time to create perfection.  I always sort of kid around when I say that God gave us Bethanie because He gave us Matthew and Madison.  Its sort of true.  Bethanie is such a sweet and loving young lady.  She has great morals and standards.  She is curious at the world, yet very shy.  She loves to perform and loves to help, create and entertain.  I just am so proud of this young being that I helped come into this world!  She is AMAZING!  I love you so much, Bethanie!  HAPPY 10th BIRTHDAY!!!!!!

 Beautiful dancer.  She is quite talented with ballet, jazz and tap dancing!

 This is a glimpse of Bethanie's TRUE personality.  It is reserved for those closest to her.  She quite a jokester and loves to be amusing!

 Bethanie and I were dancing to "Better" by the Celtic Tenors

our mutually favorite group.  I love cuddling with her!

 Raggedy Ann for The Nut Cracker

 These were all her Spring Dance Recital "Alice In Wonderland".

I really loved this one, three generations of McCall's.  :P

Tomorrow is her big day!  More pictures are sure to follow! 

LOVE YOU, B!

Preschool Graduate! Miss Madison, Kindergarten, HERE YOU COME!!!

My sweet little Bella!  She finished successfully a two year Preschool program tonight!  I am so proud of her!  She is a very smart young woman.  She is our only left handed child, and it has been a little different in teaching her how to write.  But like everything, she studies and studies and then goes to work and does it right each time.  This is her teacher Mrs. M. 

 You cant have a wonderful experience like this without Grand Parents!!! Like my moms cast?  Yep, broken leg and surgery. 

Proud Mom and Dad.  This is our last child going through Preschool!  I cant believe all of my kids are going to school now.  Well, technically Matthew still will be home schooled and in 8th grade.  But still, they grow so fast!!!!

Madison at the reception.  The cake was awesome, and she LOVED getting the graduation head band!  She feels like such a big kid.  I just LOVE HER TO PIECES!!!!

Congratulations, my sweet Madison!  I LOVE YOU!

On December 28th 2011, I had foot surgery done on both of my feet.  The right foot had a terrible arthritis filled bunion on it and I had it shaved off and fixed.  It is still healing but all together much better. 

Spring Recital 2012!

Oh WOW!  I am BLOGGING again!  So, since I last blogged, the whole blogspot format has changed.  So I am not used to it yet.  That said, it lets me put a whole ton of pictures on it at a time!  So I will take advantage and work on catching up some things...

This past weekend was the Spring Dance Recital.  Both Bethanie and Madison do dance.  This year, Bethanie took a jazz class and a ballet class.  So she had two performances in this years recital.  Really it was like having another daughter in it because of costume, hair changes.  But it was a SUPER CUTE recital.  The theme was Alice In Wonderland.  I took all of the pictures myself because I don't like to RELY on the photographer that does the photography because while the pictures are good, they only have a couple of the girls, and they are my focus.  :P

I really love and admire the relationship my daughters have with one another.  BEST FRIENDS ARE WE, MY SISTER AND ME. 

 This picture is so fun because Madison is just grandiose! She has such a big personality, and she is just a force to be reckoned with!  She is 5 years old now, and he will be graduating from preschool just next week!  For the recital, she did a sweet tap dance as a lady bug!

 This is actually two preschool groups.  It was too big to have them all in one class.  Madison's class is the lady bugs and the other class is bumble bees.  ARENT THEY SO CUTE?!?!

 This is Bethanie's ballet costume.  Her dance group was Pink Rose Princesses.  I LOVE LOVE LOVED this routine.  It was just beautiful and graceful.  Bethanie has really come a long way with her dancing.  I am in awe of her.  She is so shy, but as a performer, she is very open.  I LOVE that in her!

 This was Bethanie's Jazz group.  Not all the same girls as the ballet.  This one was a flamingo dance where they danced and used pink flamingo's as golf clubs and hit beach balls out into the audience.  It was really cool!

Looks like I got these pictures out of order, but this is her in performance mode of her ballet.


OK, I might get some video clips up later of the recital.  But for now, I will play catch up.  :P

Earlier this month, we took my dad and the kids to Kansas City to the new LDS Temple that was having its open house.  We were really excited to get them into the temple so they could stop imagining what it was like inside it, and could see for themselves.  Madison was the one that was the most impressed.  She has talked a lot about it, and especially on the way home.  She drew her fingers into a heart and said, "The Temple is Beautiful".  That really warmed my heart!  Funny how I expected Bethanie to have more of a reaction, but it was Madison.  I STILL love thinking about it!

 This is Sunny, my older brother and my dad.  Out for a motorcycle ride.

 Sunny and my mom (before she fell and broke her leg.  Never thought she would have made it onto the motorcycle, but she REALLY enjoyed the ride...

I miss you, dear friend!!!  CoriAnn and I have been friends for a number of years.  I love her to pieces.  In February I flew out to Utah to stay a few days with her and her sweet family.  I had such a good time.  While I was there, I met some of my cousins that I have not met before, but have communicated with through the wonder-ment of technology.  :P

This sweet girl is one of my cousins.  Her name is Katherine Nichole.  She is my first cousin, though a great deal younger than me.  She just turned 19.  I love her to death!  I was so happy to meet her.  Her mom and my mom are sisters.  Recently her mom passed away.  I was so thankful to have been able to meet Katherine and see Aunt Teresa again. 


So, slowly I will catch things up.  I am just amazed I got this much in.  :) 

These tulips are from over by the community garden. We planted a family garden and enjoy walking around the area where the flowers are...
Things are still really busy, with the promise of it getting busier in the next couple of months. The end of this school year is coming, and next weekend, the girls have their dance recital. That takes quite a bit of preparation! I am excited but at the same time, looking forward to dance practices ending for a few months. Bethanie is so ready to be done with this school year. 4th grade has been a hard working year for her. I am super excited because she has made huge progress toward reading and math. She even made exemplary on her reading state assessments. She is even pleasure reading. That always does a moms heart good! Madison had her Kindergarten Round-Up last week, and she is BEYOND ready. I can see her sailing through just fine. Matthew is having a hard time getting motivated to do his school work. It is a strain getting him through each and every day. We are looking for alternatives for his next school year which I am looking forward to. I will share details as I am able too. Jeff's work life has become really hectic. I feel bad for him because I know how hard it can be dealing with a lot of other peoples attitudes and junk.

My washing machine is dead. So, for this weekend, I will be using my in-laws machine. Next week I will get another one. I just hope they deliver it quickly. Laundry for 5 people can get out of hand quickly.

Monday this week, we drove to Kansas City, the kids, us and my dad, to see the new Temple there. We toured the inside. It was LOVELY!!!! Madison really loved it especially and commented on how beautiful it was inside. I really thought Bethanie would be impacted the most, but it was Madison who was. I knew it would be really important to get them inside the temple so they don't have to wonder anymore about how it really looks inside. Next time we tell they we are doing temple work, they will have a visual of what it all looks like! So, off to make lunch. :)

HI STRANGERS!!!

I am back and ready to blog again. I cant promise it will be often, but things have been SO crazy since school started. I will try to update how things have been going over the next FEW posts. They may or may not be in order of events. :)

Some things keeping me busy are:

Kids. Yep. Its all I can say. Currently, my kids are as follows:

Matthew turned 13 in February. YES! I am a mom of a TEENAGER! I have to say, he is by far our easiest child...MOST of the time. I am still schooling him at home with the virtual school. We wont be over the next year though. We will be using the LIFE curriculum. LOL! In other worlds, he is going to be learning a lot of independent living skills training. So far, he has learned how to cook a spaghetti dinner on his own, and shop for all ingredients, and also clean up afterward. This is all because we have a WONDERFUL Case Manager, who also has a child with autism, and is trained in working with people to learn how to live independently. I am SO excited! We set him up with a budget and he has to stick by it.

Bethanie is almost ready to turn 10 years old in May. WHERE HAS TIME GONE? She is almost ready to finish up 4th grade. I cant believe how wonderful this girl is. She is so athletic, so artistic and so social! Today we found out that with her state assessment in reading, she scored exemplary status! So next fall, she will be awarded from the State! She had a 97/100%! She has been in two different dance classes this year. She is doing Jazz and Ballet. This is like her 6th year doing it. She is quite a beautiful and confident dancer/performer. It is really funny too, because she is SUPER shy. I love that quality about her. I hope she keeps it forever, but just wish it wasn't so painful for her on a daily basis!

Madison is now FIVE!!!! Oh My Gosh. She is for sure growing up. She is a sassy, sweet, bold young lady! I am so proud of her! She is really getting into the FRIEND thing at school. It is so funny because her favorite music is Michael Jackson. Don't ask me how or why, it just happened! She can hardly wait to start Kindergarten! She can easily count to 100, she recognizes her letters wonderfully, and most of the sounds. She just needs to connect the dots and start reading! She is left handed mostly. It is really interesting because sometimes when she writes, it is like mirror writing. She will start from the right, and write toward the left, with her letters all backward, so if you hold it up in the mirror, you can read it. :P I hope that wont be a problem!

Jeff has been working a TON. His job is really great, but it is complex. He has more than one hat he wears at work, and he is just very busy.

Me, well....see the above. This is what I do all day. I am truly the GLUE that holds everyone together. It gets very exhausting. I took a forced (by me) vacation to Utah in February. I flew out to Salt Lake and spent time with dear friends. My BFF hosted me and (CoriAnn) her wonderful family treated me like a queen! I didn't get to see everyone I wanted to, but just to get away and be with people I have missed so much, and even to see my twin sisters headstone was awesome. I even met two of my cousins for the first time ever!

Anyway, that's enough for right now. I promise I will do better and blog more!