A month....

It's been a month. Yup, a month...well..actually longer than a month by now. I know that life is busy and things happen but the truth is that I just didn't want to sit here and write. I had homework and housework...and work... I'd look at the computer and say..."I should blog" BUT... I wouldn't actually do it. I'm just tired.
I don't know about you...but life tends to get exhausting.

So to recap a whole month...*whew* here we go...you might want to get comfy...grab a cup of coffee or tea...or PEPSI! and start reading!

Hailey did great in her Oral Language Festival. She didn't win the district competition and was disappointed but we were so extremely proud of her.

She asked to have a Christmas Cookie Party on the last day of school and so I made dozens of sugar cookies. I was at Albertson's and I saw that they had pre-made cut out sugar cookies...I was excited because I figured that if I bought those it would save me hours in the kitchen! But...just to my luck...they sold out and I had to slave in the kitchen anyway. I was happy to do it for Hailey but man! It was not as easy as me just buying them! The girls had fun though. I took some pictures which I'll post later. (along with my not wanting to Blog...I also haven't loaded any pictures on the computer and my camera is quickly loosing memory space!).
Of course, Steve had to go on a business trip the last week of school so he missed the 8 screaming girls! but I'm sure he wasn't too bummed about that!

He was bummed though because he missed Jeremiah's program at school as well as Will and Annabelle's. It was so extremely adorable to watch Bella sing in the program. She kept getting up and down off the risers! William was an old pro since he had already been in Christmas programs. Jeremiah the same...still adorable and still making me proud to watch them.

So...Family Feud...
ready for this one?!?!?


We went to the studio on a Sunday. Traffic to LA wasn't so bad...it only took me about 1 1/2 hours. Anyway, we got there early. Rachel did my make up because apparently I'm not too good at it! We were excited to get in the studio. There were 7 other teams and then us. We had a light breakfast (provided by Family Feud). We went through the briefing and we headed over to the actual stage for the rehearsal. It is smaller in person than it looks on TV. Actually, really small. Anyway, we KILLED it in rehearsal! Killed it! We were the only team to actually sweep the board! It was So EXCITING!!!! My dad was the captain, then me, then my sister, then my brother and lastly my mom. After rehearsal we were seated in the audience. (We'll be in the audience for 5 shows starting March 27th holding signs for the other teams and clapping until our hands hurt!)

So...as luck would have it... they changed up our order. They made ME the CAPTAIN! Seriously! I thought I was going to have a panic attack. I didn't want to be the captain because I didn't want to have to talk or have the pressure of making decisions! The casting director said to me... "You shouldn't have been so perky then!!!" lol! They were really fun people and we joked around alot. Ok..so... they changed our line up. No biggie.
We weren't chosen for the first game ... or the second... or the third... We figured that since they came over to tell us that our order was changed that we were definitely getting on the show. I mean, seriously there was another team there that froze up in rehearsal and we all thought for sure they wouldn't get on....but they did. To make a LONG day shorter.... we didn't get on that day. They asked us to come back and gave us a confirmation of when we'd be on. After much talking about schedules and such...we agreed and went back the following Saturday night.

The great thing about going on Saturday was that they offered the green room for our kids! (we were really debating about if we should go back because Steve was gone and we didn't have anyone to watch my kids). SO.... we had the large green room for my 4 kids, Rachel's 2 kids and my Jessica with the baby. Jessica and Michael (my bro-in-law) came to the taping so that they could sit with the kids. Hailey and Jeremiah were SO EXCITED to be there. They were thrilled to see the set and even more thrilled that they got to watch the taping from the green room! They watched the live feed.

Ok so... this is how it went... We went up against a team that had already won 3 times BUT hadn't won the Fast Money for $20,000. We were stoked so we were ready to play and beat them!!!! We did great. I was captain and I think because I had a week to prepare myself...I was fine... =) Not too nervous so that was good. We stole some points and we got our own points....and we WON!!!!!!! YES!!!!!! So, Rachel and my Dad played the fast money. My dad did great! Rachel went next and had fabulous answers! We did it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WE WON!!!!!!!!!!!! ...

Ok so we air on May 7th and May 8th. We got to go back to play again because we won but the team we played was really good and we had weird questions.... we were doing great until the last question...then we lost. But that is ok! We won't the $20k so we were happy! It was even better since the kids all got to watch us win! Awesome!
John O'Hurley was quite the gentleman and we had a great time laughing with him.

Here's some fun pics




Hailey was excited to see a dressing trailer from Hannah Montana's show. I'll post that picture later too. I drove the kids down Hollywood drive so they could see the Walk of Fame. Hollywood isn't as glamorous as they thought...Jeremiah said it was boring! Hailey wanted to know where the famous people live and Will and Bella could care less! We also saw Nickelodeon Studios on Sunset. She was stoked!

After the taping my family and I went to this great place on Hollywood and Highland and it was fabulous! If you ever go down there you have to check out UWink. The guy who created Chuck E Cheese and Atari created this concept restaurant. Click HERE it's a fun restaurant that has you order your food on a monitor...it's a touch screen and you are able to see what your food will look like, all the ingredients, the nutrition info, you can request refills without trying to flag down your waitress, and you can play games with everyone at your table. They had the Steelers football game projected HUGE on the wall along with a bunch of other games. It is an awesome place!

Ok...so all in all... that is our update. We had a great Christmas...I was blessed enough to get a laptop (much to my surprise and I almost made Steve take it back but I didn't and I'm typing on it now!). I love it! It will come in handy for my school. It's almost funny that I have to fight the kids for computer time....but not anymore!

So, that's it. Our month in review. I'll put some pictures up as soon as I get them off my camera...

So Cheers to you. May you have a wonderful New Year's and May you be blessed as we go into this new year. I promise to keep up on my blogging ... especially now that that I don't have to fight the kids. =)

xoxox