Christmas Dance Concerts

The girls had their benefit concert for the end of 2009. Studio One always chooses a benefit to dance for and this year it was sub for santa. We enjoyed all the dances and it was great to see Sidney up there dancing away with the Senior team. She really holds her own up their with them. We were all very impressed. Nikki is just so fun to watch she has quit the attitude up their on stage. Jess choreographed a few of the concert dances. Her other studio put on a concert a few nights later where she choreographed 10 dances. Her little girls really love her. It is fun to see the great example she is to those little ones.

Turkey Day

We had a great Thanksgiving Day! Our family ran in the Turkey run. Sid, Austin, Scott and I ran the 4 mile run. Nikki ran a mile run and Conner ran a half mile. I'm so Thankful to my kids for putting up with my ideas, I'm sure they think are lame, and being such great sports. The kids then went off to play football while Sid and I cleaned house. Sid made all our food we had to take to Grandmas this year. It was great for me. Grandma Stalkers was a blast. Everyone was in a great spirit and we had so much fun just eating, laughing, playing games and watching football. We got home around 9:30 and all went to bed exhausted!

Our Mornings

1. Try to wake Conner up
2. Get a Diet Coke and Fiber One Bar out and eat to wake Mom up
3. The girls do their hair together in my bathroom
4. Try to wake Conner up
5. Austin goes out the backdoor and walks through the gate to High School
6. Sid's Jr High carpool picks her up
7. Make Conner get up, he then gets dressed in my room next to the fire
8. Take Nik and Conner to school by 8:00
9. Mom goes back to bed! (just kidding)

Wedding Dress Shopping!

This is not "THE" dress but we had a blast today wedding dress shopping! We found the perfect dress at the perfect price after only 2 stores and 2 hours of trying on dresses. Jess looked beautiful in everything she put on. It was so fun to see her so Happy :).. It looks like we are shooting for a March wedding so we need to kick everything into gear! Here is a pic they took on the day they got engaged. Chase proposed to Jess on the top of the tram. It sounds like it was very romantic. We need Jess to post a comment here and tell us all about it...haha! I only got bits and pieces of the story. Anyways we are going to be busy busy busy for the next 3 months to make this happen. It should make the January, Febuary blues stay away!

Our Bucket List!

For the past few months I have been making a List of 50 things I want to do by 50. It has been really great thinking of all the things I want to accomplish. While we were on our road trip I finished it up and helped Scott start a list. I think I'm going to start a blog about it so I can document the things I do as I finish them. Here is a sample of a few of the things on my list.

Run a half marathon

Take kids to New York

Go to Mexico on a service mission

Prepare Austin for a full time mission

Learn to cook bread well

Read the Book of Mormon two times a year

Grow a great garden

Hike Angels Landing!!!...Check that one off

Our 21st anniversary adventure!

Scott came home from work on Saturday early and we headed to the BYU game. On the way to the game I reminded him it was our ammiversary the next day. We have been very tight on money so no presents but I told him we should go on a cheap road trip. So we called Aunt Cam to come stay with our kids and we took off. We drove to Cedar City and bargained a room for 50 bucks! The next morning we woke up and drove to Zion's National Park. I have been wanting to hike Angel's Landing. Scott agreed and we headed up. Wow I didn't realize it was so scary and high. It was only a 5 mile round trip but the whole last mile is straight up with chains. Very cool. After our hike we took highway 89 to Bryce Canyon. We got there really late, so no hiking, but very beautiful. Our kids would have died of boredom on our road trip but for us it was great!

$$$$$

So money has been very tight these past 6 months. The construction world has come almost to a dead stop. We have at least been lucky enough to find some work in the past month but still are just scraping by. I've always been an avid coupon and sale shopper but lately I've been finding it a challenge. I have been trying to send in at least 50.00 in rebates or free items. The checks are coming in now and it is really fun. Now if we just didn't need the cash I could save it up for some great purse or pair of shoes.

Our biggest expenses right now: Dance, College tuition, the 5 Iphones we pay for, and who could forget the two teenagers and a Mom, that has been in three accidents, insurance bill! Good thing I can keep our food bill down!

Dance Date Asking and Answering

Austin was asked to Sadies this past week. I think this is at least 15 times now I have had to help come up with an original way to ask or answer a dance ( and it's only child #2). It is getting difficult. Luckily we have the internet.

This time Austin actually came up with his own answer. After his cute date asked him with a bowl of Goldfish and they had died by the next morning :(. He wanted to answer her back by giving her the fish bowl and dead fish back and saying "I'd have to be belly-up not to go to the dance with you!"

We opted on crushing graham crackers like sand and putting swedish fish on the sand belly-up with the same saying!

Our Thespian

Conner starred in his first play yesterday. He was so excited to be play the old man in their class stone soup play. I had to be there early and sit on the front row and take pics and video. He did such a great job. They had only practiced once and he had to follow along with the play and had many many speaking (reading) parts. He has really become a great reader these past few months! You were awesome!

Sidney recieves her YW award

Sidney earned her YW award at the ripe old age of 14. Most girls are struggling to get this by the time they graduate. I'm so proud of her for working so hard at all her goals and getting it done so early. She has really grown in the past year. She is a great girl and we love her so much. We rented the racquetball room at Noah's to celebrate with Sid. We had Terriyaki Bowl (her favorite) and played all night while we watched Monday Night Football. Sidney also performed for the first time with Senior Company this past weekend. I was so impressed with her. She fit right in with those girls and looked great! :)

My little brother Mike

My brother Mike and I were always best friends growing up. We took care of each other and played together everyday! Now we are all grown up and have our own families. He has 4 kids under 6 and I have 5 over 6. He got started a lot later than me on his family but it is really fun to see all his cute kids. Sophie, Gracie, Max and Olivia!

Tori's Funeral

This Friday we all attended the funeral of one of Jessi's great friends Tori. her story is below. Jess and other dance friends cried, smiled, laughted and sang as they said goodbye to Tori. She was such a strong example of sacrifice and strength. We are glad she is in a better place "dancing with angels"

Tori's Story

Submitted by Tim Schmanski on Sat, 2009-11-07 00:00.

Tori Schmanski is our beautiful, brilliant, talented and vibrant 16 year old daughter who sustained a ABI (Anoxic Brain Injury) in an automobile accident on Fathers Day, June 19th, 2005. The accident involved Tori, her sister Whitney and two of their cousins. The vehicle they were all in rolled 1.5 times and landed upside down in a canal and everyone except Tori was able to swim out of the vehicle.

Whitney and her cousin were in the back seat of the two door vehicle and both of them distinctly remember being pushed out of the driver's side window and we truly believe it was Tori who saved their lives. This heroic action exemplifies the type of person Tori is. Tori has always focused her attention on helping and supporting others and her life revolved around her friends and family.

Tori was originally in the front passenger seat with her seat belt on and she was eventually removed from the back seat of the submerged vehicle by members of the EMT team after 15-20 minutes. She was then resuscitated and brought back to us during the 10 minute ambulance ride to the local hospital. At the hospital she was immediately stabilized and then Life Flighted to the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) at the PCMC (Primary Childrens Medical Center) in Salt Lake City, Utah. Tori also had to be resuscitated again during her hour long flight to the PCMC.

Tori has been fighting for her life ever since and has overcome the incredible odds against her survival. The PICU medical staff originally had little faith in Tori surviving from the severe lung damage sustained in the accident but she fought through it and her lungs are fully recovered at this point. They also believed Tori's brain was without oxygen for an estimated 25 minutes and the resulting anoxic brain damage would leave her at best, in a completely vegetative state. But we have personally witnessed incredible and miraculous activity from Tori including fully awake and aware states, responsiveness to sound and sight, body motion, smiling, laughing and crying among other things. Tori seems to demonstrate new improvement and behavior with each passing day.

Brothers......

When we decided to have another kid the main reason was we wanted a brother for Austin. Conner is a great little brother. He gives Austin just enough trouble to keep him on his toes, and visa versa Austin is a fun ig brother and keeps conner in line. They have a lot of fun messing around and beating each other. They are both great to me and tell me they love me everyday. They even got all dressed up in their football clothes just so I could do a photo shoot with them on a Saturday afternoon!

Halloween

WHAT A FUN HALLOWEEN! We thought it was going to be sooo cold and then it turned out to be a perfect night. We started our holiday out with a piano recital starring Austin, Conner and Nikki. They all played perfectly. Austin was such a great sport to dress up and play at the recital with all the little kids. He was a hit. We always have fun dressing up and this year was no different. We headed to the Wilkeys and had chili and treats for dinner before the kids headed out for some trick or treating fun. Every year the Wilkey's set a big fire up in there yard and all the adults sit around and talk to all the parents of the trick or treaters. Lisa makes hot coco for everyone that comes by. Conner and Nikki got a lot of candy this year. Too much!! Austin and Sidney both went to parties and we didn't see them all night. Around 9:00 pm we headed around to see the grandmas and grandpas. Now on to Thanksgiving!

Big and Little Sisters

This Sunday I told the kids they had to deep clean their rooms. Sidney's room was a mess ( especially her closet) Nikki and Austin quickly cleaned up. Sidney was a little slower with the process. She finally somehow convinced Nikki to "help" her. I found out Sid told Nikki if she cleaned her closet she would give Nikki all her change that was in a shoe box. Nikki worked hard not knowing how much she was working for but wanting to help her big sister out. When all the work was done Nikki happily counted out 14.00 of change while Sidney protested saying she had no idea there was that much money in the box! Too bad for Sidney, she had a very happy little sister. ( actually Nikki ended up only taking about 7.00 because she didn't want to be too unfair)

All the Pretty Girls!

• Jessi was a brides maid for the first
• 
  
• time this past August. Shauna got
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• married to one of Chase's friends
• 
  
• Derek. They got married in the Salt
• 
  
• Lake temple and had a nice
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• reception at Thanksgiving Point.
• 
  
• They all had a really great day
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• together and everyone looked
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• great. We are all so excited for
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• Shauna and wish them nothing but
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• happiness.

Nikki's eleventh birthday never ends!

My beautiful, sweet, kind, helpful, smart Nikki turned 11 this past week and what a celebration we had! We started out her birthday eve with a showing of Thriller with all the girls. The next day was her actual birthday and I checked her out for a birthday lunch at Red Robin and some clothes shopping. Friday was a friend of hers birthday and they went to cornbelly's and played all night. Saturday was her friend party at Color-Me-Mine. Monday night we celebrated as a family at Brick Oven. Then last but not least today Wed. her best friend Kirsty and her mom took her to build-a-bear because she had missed her color-me-mine party! No one is better than getting more out of a birthday than Nikki. She is already talking about next years celebration!

Fall trips to Park City

Every fall since the kids were tiny and we could afford it, we have gone to Park City on a fall trip. We play at the Alpine Slide and enjoy the fall colors. We always end up on Main Street in Park City eating at the Pizza and Noodle Company. Yummy Yummy! They have the best cheesy garlic bread you will ever taste! We also always have to end the day with a little outlet shopping and of course.....a carmel apple from the "Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory"