Marissa without braces!!

That's right! After having braces on for only 11 months, Marissa got her braces off yesterday! And her teeth look gorgeous. I can't believe that I still have mine on! Ugh! Congratulations Marissa!

Festival of Trees

This is our second year of making a tree for the Festival of Trees. It's so much fun! And it feels good knowing that every dime goes to little children who need medical care. We all just love the Festival of Trees! And the kids have already talked about what theme to do for a tree next year. :) This year Janica and Marissa helped with decorating and came up to the decorating day on Monday. Here is our tree! We called it "Warm Winter Wishes" and decorated it with snowmen and have hot chocolate with it. If anyone goes to the Festival, our tree is on row D with the smaller trees on the tables. :)

Janica in the spotlight

I can't leave Janica out and post videos only of Marissa. :) Unfortunately all of Janica's good dance videos are too big for blogger, so this is the only one I could get to fit. Look at how she has to compete against kids a lot bigger and older than she is! But, I'm proud of her because she made it to the finals in all of her events despite being one of the smallest kids out there. Way to go Janica!

Congratulations Marissa!

Last Friday and Saturday was a large Dancesport competition at BYU, the largest of the fall season. And I'm so proud of Marissa. She placed 1st in Junior Samba, 2nd in Youth Rumba (that's an age category older than she needs to compete in), and 4th in Junior Smooth. She was bummed because she didn't make it to the final in her Rhythm event, but they still danced well and I was proud of them. There were over 40-50 kids in some of these events, so you can see how well she did. Here's a little video of her Rumba (because her other videos are just a bit too big to upload to the blog!)

Dancing Janica

We do a lot of ballroom in the Fall. Ballroom competitions every other weekend! But it's fun. There is a new rule in ballroom that changes the age category that Janica can dance it so now she has to compete against Marissa and kids twice as tall as her! But I'm so proud of her and she holds her own against those big kids. She's fabulous! Here's a few pictures of her and her partner Tyler.

Let's Lindy

Marissa and her dance partner Tanner, made up a routine for a dance called the Lindy. They made it up in about 10 minutes and then competed it at a competition 2 days later. Talk about gutsy! And they took 3rd! The video was too long to post here, but here's a cut picture.

Happy Halloween!

Braden (AKA "Crypt-keeper-skeleton-scary-dude") told me that Halloween is tied with Christmas as his favorite holiday! Wow! That's big! :) Why is it so good? All the candy of course! Though Braden and Janica (AKA our little ladybug with the awesome eyelashes) are so good about sharing that they will give tons of it away. Marissa (AKA busy bumblebee with the "best leg warmers ever. Can I wear them all the time?") graduated from the whole trick-or-treating deal, but had plenty of fun dressing up anyway and partying with her friends.