Vincent made the NAUGHTY LIST!!!!

For those of you who don't know... we have connections and talk to Santa!

I have an Uncle (Uncle Doug) who has an awesome job; he works with radio's. He has this really cool "radio" room with walkie-talkies and a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't know the names of.

Anyway, he as a radio tower in his back yard that is taller than his house. This special antenna is aimed right at the North Pole and can talk to anyone, anywhere in the whole world. Well, because of this, when I was growing up, we got to talk to Santa, in person, every year! We even know the elves and have special connections with them too.

When I was growing up, the elves would visit us all during the month of December and leave presents. Sometimes we could open them and sometimes we would have to put them under the tree. They would hide them in many sneaky places. For example: in a tree, at the door, in the bathtub, by the T.V. One elf even left a present on the roof of my house (this is when I lived in an underground house). This made Christmas very exciting and made it last the whole month of December. Now, the elves even visit my own kids and sometimes the neighbor kids (it is a good thing they know Vincent because they reap the benefits).

Anyway, to get to the point of this post...

Yesterday, Vincent was ROTTEN!!!!! He was mean and nasty from the moment he woke up in the morning until the minute he went to bed. That morning, I asked him to get dressed for school. Well, at that same moment in time, Lily happened to be innocently passing by and just to lash out at me, Vincent stuck his leg out and tripped her. She face planted it onto the hard wood floor and started to cry. He sassed me, interrupted Josh a few times while he was working, and the list goes on.

Well little did he know that SANTA WAS WATCHING and Elf Jingle too. This is what Vincent received this morning when he woke up. It was folded and had a bow on it and was placed on the piano where he would be SURE to see it...

Vincent,

Santa has been watching you and he asked for me to say,

That he wasn’t very happy with your actions yesterday.

You hurt your little sister and to your mom you spoke so badly.

You bothered dad while he was working so now I tell you sadly,

That you are on the NAUGHTY LIST dear Santa is upset!

If you don’t change your actions, then no presents you will get.

But this can all be fixed you see if you can change your ways,

Like being nice and listening for many, many days.

Santa really loves you and he knows you can be good.

So be loving to your family, like you know you should.

Santa will check up you. I suggest that you be nice.

And if you’re wise, then you will think about taking my advice.

Elf Jingle

Vincent saw the letter on the piano, and then saw Lily's present sitting next to it. He said, "Lily got a present and all I got was a stupid letter." I told him to just read it and see what it said. He started to read it and then I felt it would be better if I read it because I would be able to read it with the right emotion.

When I was done reading the letter, I looked at him, and his eyes welled up with tears and I noticed he was trying to fight crying. I didn't want him to be totally devastated, so, to break some tension, I smirked and said, "you're buuusssted!" He laughed and then I asked him what the letter said to him. He said "I am on the naughty list" and then proceeded to ask me, "Mommy, what does it mean to change my ways?"

The letter worked like a charm and let's just say... He was perfect the rest of the day:)

Let it snow!!

We finally had our first really awesome snowstorm. It snowed for three days and I loved every minute of it. We just had to get out and play. This was Lily's first time playing in the snow.

She had so much fun. Her snow suit is a little small so when she fell over, she couldn't get up:-)
I can't believe she sat there long enough to let me bury her in the snow.
This is Vincent and Jacob. They were trying to see how far they could keep sliding on the snow once they got to the bottom of the slide.

We attempted to build a snowman but the snow was too soft :( I guess frosty will have to wait.

YAY for snow!!!!

Mommy's Little UNWANTED Helper

Let me start by talking a little bit about Lily...

She is BUSY, BUSY, BUSY! It is a wonderful quality and also a pain-in-my-butt quality. Lily loves to help me clean, do laundry, load the dish washer, etc. I love this about her but... IT IS KILLING ME! It is killing me because, as you may have guessed... She ISN'T helping AT ALL! Sometimes she even likes to help without being asked. This is where my story begins.

All you moms out there probably know my pain... The list is as follows

You wake up

Make Breakfast

Clean Breakfast

Take kids to school

Try to tidy the house

Pick up kids from school

Make lunch

Clean lunch

Do homework

Tidy the house again

Make dinner

Clean dinner

Get kids to bed

Start all over the next morning!

AND THAT'S THE SHORT LIST:)

OK... so my day is like any other. I am downstairs folding laundry TRYING to get some things done. I am especially frustrated because I am behind in my chores and I can't catch up but I am trying desperately. Lily is downstairs with me and seemed to be occupying her time nicely. Little did I know, she had taken it upon herself to...

Unload her dresser drawers and throw clothes everywhere...

And, find anything she could to stuff in the dryer.

As you can see, she is very proud of her work.

Contents: Paper towels, dance tights and a sweater:)

She also got into Josh's closet and pulled out all his under garments and threw them everywhere (actually, her new thing is to take out his garments and stuff them in every garbage can that she can find in the basement). This was extremely frustrating because I had just washed and folded all the under garments. It took me FOREVER and I had to do it all over again!

Another cute example of Lily pitching in and helping out is this:

She LOVED to put the candy canes on the tree!

The only problem is, she loved to put them all in one place!

We love our little helper!

Opening Night!

Vincent had is on-stage debut as Tiny Tim on November 27th 2009. It was our opening night and it went very well. I must say Vincent was "spot on!" I, however, got incredibly sick right in the middle of the show. Yes folks... I muddled through but was down with the flu the rest of our Thanksgiving weekend. Poor Josh:(

Here are some highlights of the show:

Vincent with our director "Mr. Jerry." He is a jolly old man who we have really enjoyed working with. He has nothing to say but wonderful things about Vincent.

Here is a glimpse of the "Ladies Dressing Room." Everyone in the cast is wonderful and very helpful. To the left is Heather. She helps me during my fast costume changes. To the right of me is Janalee. She graciously volunteered to help Vincent with his very fast costume change because I am on stage when he is getting ready. Let me tell you, this is not an easy task! The two ladies on the right are Blue and Tracy, her mother who also plays Mrs. Catchet. Love you ladies!
This is me hanging out in the "green room" during the performance and despite my demeanor, I am miserable in this dress. My double and I share our costumes. She is 110 pounds with NO boobs and I am exactly the opposite. Let's just say that what the costume ladies do with these costumes are amazing!
There is a period of time that Vincent and I get to hang out together and play games with other cast members. I don't know whether he has more fun backstage or on stage. Either way, I'm happy he is having fun and that we share it together! We play a lot of "Guess Who."


This is one of Vincent's sister's in the show. She is a doll and her name is Kamryn. They are great buds and she is very helpful with Vincent.

This is Vincent's favorite "big kid buddy," Mont, and he is a terrible influence! They love to play fight and call each other silly names like: chicken butt or fuzzy face etc. Just when I get Vincent calm and collected, Mont walks in and it's all down hill from there:) We love you Mont!
This is me as the Charwoman--the other character that I play--and these are the other people in a song called "Hey Old Joe." It is a very fun number and as you can see, I get really into it! The other lady in the picture is Diane Dabczysnki. She is my voice teacher who encouraged me to audition for the show. Thanks Diane!


More cast members...
This is a fun photo of Vincent playing his leapster in costume. I'm sure Tiny Tin would have loved a leapster:)
This other boy in the picture is Hyrum who also plays the role of Tim.
This is my partner Glade who plays Fred. He is very fun to work with and has a lot of energy. It is always fun when you have a partner who you can play off. I have had a great time working with him.
Vincent and I at the end of the show.

Josh and I are so proud of Vincent. He has learned a lot and gained tons of self confidence. To be honest, I don't think having audience phased him in the least. He just did his thing. It is fun to hear the audience sigh after he says his lines. His English accent is adorable if I might say so myself.

Preview

Here is a fun little clip of Vincent in costume doing his famous scene. This is our rehearsal just before our preview performace.

Vincent in Rehearsal

Here is a little clip of Vincent in rehearsal. He is doing such a great job and each time he gets better and better. I have to say that this rehearsal wasn't one of his better ones however, it is fun to see him anyway.

This rehearsal is in the theatre that we will be performing in, but this isn't what it will look like. They still have Little Shop of Horrors going on right now so the theater looks dark and bleak. We are excited to go to the theater on Monday because it will be our first technical and full dress rehearsal and the theater will be ready with the set from our show. We can't wait to see what it will look like.

Opening night is just around the corner! Our preview this Wed. and then we open on Friday.

Wish us luck:)

Vincent's Press Picture

This is one of the "press pictures" for the show. I am supposed to receive more and I will post them as soon as she sends them. This is Vincent with Eric who plays the role of "Bob Cratchet".

Vincent is doing great. We are a week away from opening night. We had our first dress rehearsal last night. The costume and makeup crew were there and also the owners of the company. They had never seen us in rehearsal before. They were all dying over how cute Vincent was and what a good job he was doing.

The owners pulled me aside and had nothing but compliments. Linda Hale said "He is just PERFECT! PERFECT! I don't want him to change a thing. He is loud and clear. I understand everything he is saying and he is just cute as a button!" That made me feel so proud and it was good to hear from someone else that he was doing a good job. Sometimes I wonder if I am just biased:)

Anyway, I plan on video taping some rehearsal so keep on checkin' the blog for more updates. I will also try to post pictures of us together in costume.

Lily's First Halloween!

Well, I have done it again... I have waited too long to post and now I am completely uninspired to write anything. However, I will do my best and try not to bore any of you. I will make up for it with lots of pictures.

Halloween...


We love our neighborhood as all of you know, but when it comes to Halloween, it is a big fat dud! So, this year, we decided to go to our good friends in Pleasant Grove--the Knapton Family. They are wonderful people who have adopted us into their family. They also live in a VERY well off neighborhood and as far as the candy is concerned...we knew that area would not disappoint!

Lily was a "Lady Bug Fairy." I didn't plan it on purpose but, a nick name we have for her is "Lily Bug." So it's kinda cute that last year she was a flower and this year she is a bug. She loved her costume, more particularly her shoes; they clicked every time her feet hit the floor. The Knapton's have beautiful hard wood floors and Lily spent most of her time walking back and forth hearing herself make noise.

I don't know where she got it, but the picture above is her new "pose" that she insists on doing every time I want to take her picture.
This is my favorite picture of Lily:)

Vincent was Bumblebee from Transformers.

Lily was completely oblivious to what was going on but Vincent on the other hand was rearing to go! So...we were off to our first house.

This was the very first house we went to and Lily followed Vincent up the stairs and was very excited although she didn't know why. Vincent knocked on the door and then they waited for about a min. Right as we were about to leave this is what happened...


Lily was a little traumatized. However, this was nothing compared to the next house.

This house had a fog machine and lots of animated figures. Lily was freaked out and so was Vincent. We thought the fog would be the worst thing but when we got to the door, there was this man in a really scary mask who was convulsing and wouldn't talk. He was practically hovering over the candy bowl. He was in character the whole time which kinda made me mad because we were the only ones there, and he wouldn't break character for a 1-year old. Lily refused to get the candy out of the barrel and Vincent grabbed as fast as he could. After we left, the man decided to chase Vincent to the side walk. Vincent was freaked and Lily wanted on Dad's shoulders ASAP.

When we got to the next house, Lily leg-locked Josh around the neck and wouldn't let him put her down for about two houses. After that, she was thrilled and really enjoyed the mechanics of putting the candy in her bucket. She wouldn't let go of the bucket the whole night even though it was getting heavy. Josh would try to help her carry it and every time he went to take it, she would scream and pull the bucket behind her which would then throw her off balance because it was just too heavy:)

This was my favorite house of the evening... I wish we could see it better but it just wasn't dark enough yet.


We had a fun filled evening. The thing that amazed me was that we didn't even get around the entire circle of the gated community before Vincent said to me, "I'm done Mom." I was shocked and replied, "Don't you want anymore candy?" with which Vincent responded, "I'm good." Man, back in the day, I would trick-or-treat till my bag was totally full. Halloween just doesn't seem to be like it used to.

I had to post this picture of my neighbors, Rodd and Ashley. They are too fun! This is what they wore to their Ward Halloween party. My favorite touch was the sticker on her blouse that said "I Voted," the fiber bars and the Worther's Original candies in her basket. And Rodd, well, he just fit the part. We love you guys!

More fun Fall and Halloween activities...

This is Vincent's classroom. I volunteered to help in their Halloween Party. Each Mom was supposed to bring an activity for the party. My idea was musical chairs. The teacher LOVED it! I guess no one had ever done it before and it was a hit with the kids. I used Halloween music like: Monster Mash, Ghost Busters, Purple People Eater and Addam's Family. It also made for good background music while the other kids were at their stations.
We had a whole lot of fun!

Earlier that month, we went to the pumpkin patch we go to every year. It is at a local farm and they have a lot of activities for the kids including a very easy corn maze.





Lily loves animals. She was most happy here with the goats. She will pick up anything off the ground and try to feed the animals. I love this picture because she is waving to the goat.

Lily had no fear playing in the bounce house with 20 other kids. She was getting knocked by everyone. Especially her brother:)
Lily's second love is climbing and she WILL climb what ever is physically possible. She wanted to do this playground equipment herself.
She loved the slide. She has figured out how to use her feet on the side of the slide to slow her down. Smart!

Vincent loves the monkey bars and is very good at them.

Fall is a wonderful time and we take advantage as much as we can of all the fun activities. Just one more thing we love about Utah! Now, we look forward to the snow!

Vincen't's Publicity Shoot

So... I never thought I would say this but... Vincent had his first publicity photo shoot yesterday. It went very well. Vincent got to take pictures by himself and also with Bob Cratchet. They looked amazing. In fact, all the costumes in this show are AMAZING! Everyone who had their photo's taken looked great. I snapped a few pictures with my cell phone but as soon as I get the professional pictures, I will post those as well.


Vincent looked even more adorable in person! I almost started crying he looked so cute. He thought he looked pretty cool too. However, he didn't much like wearing the leg brace. I told him to think of how Tiny Tim feels because he has to wear it everyday!
We got to the shoot at 5 pm and then had to stay for rehearsal from 7 to 10 pm. Ahhh, the life of a professional actor:) He was pretty pooped. At the end of rehearsal, the company passed out our personal Hale Theater water bottles that we can fill as much as we want with free drinks from the concession stand. Vincent thought that was pretty exciting. This company is wonderful to work for. They really give you the royal treatment AND it is a professional and clean environment to work in. We really love it!

Vincent's First Play!

Vincent just landed the part of Tiny Tim in A Christmas Carol at the Hale Theater. We get to be in a play together. How great is that?!?!?!

I was in rehearsal one Saturday and the director announced that they were looking for another boy to play Tiny Tim. I told him that I had a five-year old son and he asked that I bring him the following Monday for an audition.

I ran home as fast as I could and asked Vincent if he wanted to be in a play with mommy. He said "Yes!" I made sure not to push the issue because I only wanted him to do it if HE really wanted to. I know he didn't really understand the gravity of what it was he would be doing but I thought it would be a wonderful learning experience for him in so many ways. So, I encouraged him but didn't force him.

We went to the audition and there were only 2 other boys there. We didn't get to see them audition but they looked adorable so we just had no idea what we were up against.

The director asked Vincent to repeat a couple of lines back to him. They were:

"God bless us everyone" and "Oh father, look at the house, it's Christmas." Vincent did a good job saying the lines but was far from animated with his face and body. He was actually quite fidgety with his hands but did as well to be expected from a five-year old auditioning for the first time. I didn't even really prepare him for the audition. He went in there very "raw."

After the reading, the director then asked him to sing a song that he would teach him. So, the director sang this (called I Saw Three Ships):

And all the bells on Earth did ring
On Christmas day, on Christmas day.
And all the bells on Earth did ring
On Christmas day in the morning.
After the director sang through it once, he said "Alright Vincent. Why don't you give it a try?"

Well how overwhelming is that to a kid? Vincent pulled down on the bottom of his sweater, got a silly face and said "I can't remember all of that!" The director laughed and told him that his mom would help him out. So, I sang the song with him a few times and he picked up on it real quick. He was adorable!

And that was it... we were done. I had no idea what the outcome would be especially because we didn't know what we were comparing him to. I just know that I was really proud of him and thought it took a lot of guts to go and do what he just did.

The next day, Vincent was asking and asking me if he got the part and I had to keep telling him that I just didn't know. 11:30 rolled around and I had pretty much lost hope. Whom ever got the part would have to be at rehearsal that night so I thought for sure they would have made a call by then if he got the part. Then Vincent asked me if I would just call. Well, calling to see if you got a roll is a BIG HUGE NO NO. However, I was in the show and thought I would just text the stage manager because he was there and I knew he would know. So, I text him this:

Hi Robert. I was wondering if they already cast the role of Tiny Tim? My son is driving me nuts and I want to put him at rest either way. I hope I am not bugging you! Thanks, Sabrina.

To my surprise, he text back right away and said that I wasn't bugging him, that he was going to call on his lunch break and that Jere really wanted him as the part of Tiny Tim.

I was beside myself! I was going to be in a show with my little boy. I almost started crying but held it back and told Vincent that he got the part. We were so excited and I just couldn't have been happier. Josh was excited too! He thought it was great and he felt as proud as I did.

He started rehearsal and is doing a fantastic job. Everyone thinks he is so cute and just perfect for the role. The cast has really made him feel welcome.

Vincent had all his songs and lines memorized within two days and really loves the song, Oh Come All Ye Faithful. He is having a lot of fun and I can't wait to see how he does on stage.

We went in for a costume fitting the other day. He got out of his too fast so I couldn't get a picture. However, I was able to get a shot of mine. This is just a fitting so it will look even better than this. I will have period style boots, corset, gloves, wig, head pieces etc. So here they are...



This is only the beginning of a great time. I can't think of a better way to celebrate the Christmas season than to be in this awesome show...with my adorable little boy:)