Abby Jade... in the shade, sipping her lemonade, with her hair in a braide...

Abby and her cousin Nicole

Abby and her friend Camden

Just Abby...

That's my girl - the master of contortion!

Abby and her cousin Briea

Alright already.... have we heard enough about hockey and Tanton? Well, I think that Abby has, so here is a post of randoms, dedicated just for my little sunshine. This bright little girl claims that her favorite color is "black".. Now is black a color? Her favorite food is rainbow sherbet, but then I had to explain that is a dessert (guess mom doesn't cook, and this is her favorite food!) So, then she picked Tortellini... yumm. She said her favorite vacation was Mexico -- we need to go again soon.. but in the meantime we recreate a Mexican type trip to Lake Powell annually.Ü Hot, swimming, eating, no responsibility.... sounds good to me. She is just a squirt for her 10 years of age; 4 feet 5 inches and 70 pounds soaking wet!! But you cannot believe the talent and power and muscle this little gal can pack! She has a tumbling meet coming up next weekend, so I will post videos of her events, tramp and floor, again... I am still amazed when I watch her.

She is a funny girl, when she was 3 yrs old we were driving in the car and she was acting very cranky, so Brad and I said to each other "someone is T-I-R-E-D." You know, cleverly spelling it out so she wouldn't catch on. Well, she yelled from the backseat... "I am not TRD!" now whenever there is someone who is tired around our house we refer to it as being TRD... I think that will stick forever!

She "loves" tumbling, is a pianist in training (and I don't even have to ask her to practice - she likes it that much), she enjoys babysitting, playing volleyball, skiing and snowboarding, and....SKATEBOARDING! Although she just got a new board for Christmas and hasn't been able to skateboard a ton yet.. and yes, I figured out that she is a girl after my own heart...SUMMER is her favorite season, now we are just waiting for it to arrive.

She is 10 going on 16 ---- but we wouldn't trade her for the world!

Love you Abby Jade!

MVP = Most Valuable Player

Okay, so I said that hockey was almost over and all we had left was the banquet. Hurray! The banquet was last night and we are officially done with hockey season. I love hockey, but man it is long.... it starts right after the kids start school and ended just a few weeks ago. Can you say looong? From the title of my post you might have guessed something is up, well, Tanton got voted MVP of the varsity team by his teammates! That is so cool. Now, I am co-trustee and treasurer of the team and I didn't even see this one coming. In my naivety, I figured that they would probably vote an offense man to MVP or whatever -- but now that I think about it... Yeah, he totally deserves it. Tanton really rocks at playing goalie, he is so quick and he stops most goals from going into the net. Proud mama, huh?

Great job, Tanton -- and hurray for a wonderful season that has finally come to an end! :)

**All-Star**

Kenzie, Coach, Kyle, Tanton, Chris, and Brandon

Well, the hockey season is "almost" over. We have the banquet next Monday. It has been a great season, but the hockey season is so long, I will admit, it will be nice to have a change and Tanton is already going strong into lacrosse! Tanton and 4 of his teammates were nominated onto the All Star team for hockey, this is a great honor. The first all star game was Monday, March 2. It was a Northern division vs. Northern division game. Our Northern division team won! :) From that game they choose one team to play the the Southern division, so essentially half the players and Tanton and all of his teammates were picked to go on to the North vs. South All Star game. That game was played on Wednesday March 4. The Northern division won that game, also! I have posted a few of the pics from the all star games. They were really fun games to watch, the best of the the best. It was really amazing to watch how well these players played together considering they never practiced together or anything. It was a great experience. This is Tanton's second year being picked to go to the all star games... pretty darn good. (glad I have this blog so i can brag, huh? ;) )

Tanton, Kenzie and Chris.

The whole all star team being introduced.

Sweetheart Dance

I don't know if it's harder believe that between all of the hockey that Tanton has been playing that he had time to go to the Sweetheart Dance or simply that he actually "went" to the dance considering it is really only his 2nd or 3rd official date!

He said that he had a great time. The funny thing is, it was girls choice and he couldn't give her a solid yes or no until just a few days before because if they had made it to the final game in hockey it would have been played the same night as the dance. So, Kylee sure was a trooper hanging on and waiting until last minute to see if they would be attending the dance or I guess their other plan was that she would have come to the hockey game and they would have done something fun after the game.

Valentine Social

In 5th grade they do what they call a "Valentine Social", when Tanton was in 5th grade at Providence they called it the Valentines Tea. But, the concept is the same. The children are to wear nice clothes that day, room moms go to their class before the social and talk to them about manners and what is appropriate, what is not etc. Then the boys are to escort the girls to the social, seat them, ask them what kinds of toppings they would like on their ice cream. Then the boys go and get the ice cream for the girls and serve them, before going back to get their own ice cream. It is pretty cute. When Tanton did it I think they had them dance or something, but I think that caused them all too much anxiety. So they took that part out of the event. Before all of the kids arrive for their social - all of the other room moms are busy decorating the tables with balloons, conversation hearts, and this year we scattered several pieces of paper along the table of conversation ideas, questions that they could ask each other etc., so that they did not just sit there awkwardly looking at each other, like "what should we do next?". It went very well. Everyone seemed to have a great time, and part way through their event a magician came and performed for them. I think it was really fun, and although they all claimed they were going to die, no one did!

Abby was "lucky" enough to have two escorts....