A WICKED day followed by a new calling

I have several pictures of us before and after the musical Wicked in Louisville, but I can't find my camera cord to post them on the computer! I'm sure it will turn up, but for now, no great pictures. Anyway, if you haven't heard of Wicked I don't know what planet you have been living on for the past several years!!! This is the first national tour of the musical and we have had tickets since last summer (thanks again Rosie!!). We went to Nathan's brother's house in Elizabethtown and left our kids with his two kids and two sitters. Once in Louisville we met up with Nathan's parents and our friends Debbie and Amanda. We saw the matinee and I must say that I am still totally freaking out! I knew it would be good, but I had no idea that it would be extraordinary. If you are familiar with it, my favorite song was definitely "Defying Gravity" AHHHHH it was AMAZING!! After the show we went around the corner and ate the Hard Rock Cafe. It was a wonderful, unforgettable day!!
Today, I got released from Relief Socitey because I was called to be the first counselor in the Young Women's Presidency. I will miss my friends in Relief Society, but I am thrilled to be with the girls. They are small in numbers, but strong in spirit. I am sure it will be a great experience. Today I couldn't help but reflect on the great experience I had in Springville when I was part of the Young Women's presidency there. I think you learn and grow from not only each calling, but the wonderful people that you get to meet as a result of the calling. I feel so blessed to have met so many amazing people over the years.

Christmas memories

The last few weeks have been such a whirlwind and I haven't had much time to post on my blog. Instead of attempting to do a play by play of the last few weeks I wanted to post a bunch of pictures to summarize our first Christmas in Kentucky. It was wonderful, but, phew--it sure felt great to take down the tree!

The girls all dressed up for church the Sunday before Christmas. That's our new artificial tree in the background. I had no idea it would be quite this big (it's nearly 10 feet!). I guess it is a good thing we have high ceilings!

The Craig Christmas party on the 23rd. Here's some of the cousins. Fun times!! That's Nathan's brother Mark and Mamaw Craig in the background.

Christmas Eve on our way out to a party with some friends. It was a beautiful sunset, so we decided to take a picture.

Christmas morning! I love how Alison is eating a chocolate Santa from her stocking at 6:00 am. Who needs breakfast! Notice the cute new jammies from Debbie and Amanda. Thanks guys!

Hailey with her Shrek baby

Is all of this for me??

Alison and Rachel with their new American Girl dolls. We let them open this gift last and they squealed with delight. It was the only thing they asked for this Christmas.

Hailey with her new kitchen set "I cook", she says.

Nathan with some Polo Blue cologne.

This was taken later on Christmas when Nathan's parents came over. This is Hailey's new shopping cart and food to accompany her kitchen set.

Grandma and Grandad also gave the girls clothes for the new dolls

Grandpa sent three boxes from Utah. Thanks Dad! These are pillow pets he sent for each of the girls. They LOVE them!

Anyway, I have more pictures of various parties, etc, but I think this is enough to sum it up. It was a lot of fun. My mom flew here the day after Christmas and will be flying home tomorrow. It has been great to have her here too.

Christmas Cards

OK, so I am going to be sending out christmas cards in the next few days and I can't find my address book. Anyone that reads this that wants to receive a card please email me your address. Thanks!
amycraig93@gmail.com

Remind me to hide the scissors!!

OK, so I need to preface this post by saying that Friday was already a busy day. We were finishing up some landscaping and getting ready for a wedding. That said, Alison had been chewing on her hair all day. I told her that if she didn't stop chewing on her hair we would have to cut it all off. The next thing I know, she came out of the kitchen looking like this:

Notice the chunk of hair missing on the right. Naturally I started hyperventilating! Her explanation was that she was just cutting off the "spit part".

Luckily, we were able to get her into a salon within the hour. She had about 6 inches cut off to make it even.

The finished product. Like she really needed a haircut to accentuate her round face!

We still think she is pretty cute. I just need to hide the scissors! We have made her promise to never EVER cut her own hair again!

Time Out For Women

I haven't posted in a few weeks because things have been crazy around here, but I wanted to do a quick post about a great event that I attended last weekend. Deseret Book does of tour of LDS artists and authors that do a two day seminar all over the nation. Well, Nashville was the last stop of the fall tour. Last Saturday I went down with 5 others from my ward (we met up with 6 others there) and I have to say that it was AMAZING! There were probably about 1500 women in attendance from all over Kentucky, Indiana, and Tennessee. Some came as far as Texas and Florida. Anyway, it was so great to be spiritually uplifted by both music and spoken word. My favorite speaker was probably Emily Watts. She talked a lot about motherhood, so I could obviously relate. I also loved hearing singer/songwriter Hillary Weeks (see photo below). I was really touched by the entire experience. If you ever get a chance to attend I would highly recommend it!!

This is me with my cute mother in law Rosemary. She was actually kind enough to save us seats. Thanks Rosie. I have no idea why this picture is so blurry.

Me with singer Hillary Weeks. A really sweet person on top of being a great singer!

more progress on the house

In the last week Rachel's new furniture arrived and Nathan painted her room green. We think it turned out pretty cute. Today the furniture FINALLY arrived for my bedroom. It is still a work in progress, but let me know what you think!

Trick or Treat!

Most of you know that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. I love the costumes, the candy, even the scary movies. However, this year I must say that I am pretty glad to have it all over with. Halloween should be a crazy, fun, ONE day event. This year for some reason it was celebrated all week long. By the time Halloween was here my girls had already dressed up three times. Alison and Rachel were bored of being the same thing, so they manged to dig out new costumes from our dress up box. Whatever makes them happy I guess. So, you will notice that the costumes change by the end of the festivities.

We kicked off Halloween week with our annual pumpkin carving. Here is Rachel showing off the "pumpkin guts--eew gross".

The masterpieces

Wednesday we went to the trunk or treat at the church. There was a huge turnout and as always, lots of food. This is the first time I have ever had BBQ pork, baked beans, and potato salad on Halloween. You've got to love the south!

This picture was taken after the trunk or treat. The girls ended up filling two bowls with candy. Most were giving Hailey extra candy because she was trying to say "trick or treat" and she was just too cute.

Alison at her pre-school party on Thursday

Halloween night. As I already mentioned, Alison was tired of being a princess. She decided that she wanted to be a cheerleader this time. Rachel switched from Cinderella to Sleeping Beauty. We went trick or treating and then went to a party at our friends' house (Chris and Amy Hughes). We had more great food and then sat around chatting and letting the kids run around outside. It was a beautiful evening with great company.
At the end of all of the parties we managed to fill three large bowls of candy. I am going to slowly start throwing it away!

Saturday we were invited out to the Waldroup's house to have one last BBQ this year. I had to take a picture because notice the kids in their short sleeves. 72 degrees on November 1st. This is my kind of fall weather. We had a blast and then were able to go to the church for a baptism. It has been an honor to witness 5 convert baptisms since we moved here. Each time it strengthens my testimony.

Anyway, things are always so busy, but I hope that you all had a fun and safe Halloween!!!