Allison's first vocal recital.

Allison has been taking vocal training from a young man in Syracuse. She had her first recital on Saturday. She sang three songs (all memorized) My Favorite things, Unexpected Song and Castle on a Cloud. Her voice has really blossomed this year and she sounded so good. I was so proud of her. She was really nervous but she still did a great job. The recital was really fun and at the end the vocal teacher got up and said that his vocal teacher always told his students and you should never make your students get up and performer if your not willing to do it yourself! So he sat at the piano and put on his harmonica head gear and sang "The Piano Man". WOW he had an amazing voice besides the fact that he was playing the piano and harmonica as well. He later told me that when he was 12 years old he had a horrible voice and didn't have any desire to play the piano. One day he watched someone perform "The Piano Man" and the rest is history! I thought that was a really great example of following our dream!
Sorry that these video's are turned the wrong way I can't figure out how to turn them. If anyone knows how to do that please let me know.

Sunday school

I wanted to share a pretty cool lesson we had in sunday school today.
My teacher started off by asking us what we didn't like. We names off pet peeves, foods, even football teams;) Finally He told us to list people we didn't like. This may sound harsh but you know, us being a bunch of teenagers, we had a couple people who we didn't exactly...admire. We all made our personal lists. Then he pulled out a dart board and handed us some darts. He told us to pretend the white paper on the board was a picture of the person. I, personally, thought it was harsh to "throw darts" at the people we didn't like but all the other kids thought it was a great plan. We were all given three tries to hit the board. I missed two of the three and the third was barely on the board. Then after everyone had had a turn he'd asked us if we felt better now. If we had all our frustration out. Mostly everyone said yes. Then he read the scripture Matthew 5:25. if ye have done it not unto the least of these my bretheren, ye have done it not unto me. Then it started clicking in everyones heads. He asked a girl named Rashell to take the paper off the dart board. Under the paper was a picture of Christ.
I thought this was pretty powerful. If we are rude to others we are being rude to the Savior. I think this is the season to try our hardest to see the good in others and to see past their faults.

Kevin's 40th Birthday Party!

The kids and I had so much fun putting this surprise party together for Kevin. We decided to invite lots of people and to just have Ice cream and cake. After I sent out all the invitation via evite we had so many people asking what they could bring or what they could do to help with the preparations. We decided that with the help of so many friends and family we could do a funeral dinner with funeral potatoes, Jello salad, ham etc. We had so much help that all that was left to supply was the ham.

I asked Lynette Zaugg in our ward to make a cake for the party. Well she went all out and made the most amazing cake. I love that it had the kids names listed on the back!

Bishop Michael Packham made me laugh so hard I cried. He came to the party dressed as an undertaker. As everyone was waiting for Kevin to come he instructed everyone on what to do when he arrived. He played Happy Birthday on the piano in a minor key and everyone sang along. Then he started measuring Kevin and talking about the different options for Kev's grave and coffin. It was really funny. He also played Taps on his Bugle. So funny! Before he sat down he said "At Packham's Mortuary our slogan is You sack 'em we Packham"!

We also had a special visitor the Grim Reaper (Josh King) come and give Kevin his 'YOUTH' in a box.

Bishop Brad Johnson conducted the funeral services. He did a great job!

Sister Julie Jewell played "Amazing Grace" on the piano and we watched a video that Krystal put together for us. There were about 100 plus people there. I think that Kevin was pretty surprised at how many people were there! On Friday night I told Kevin that the kids and I wanted to take him out for his birthday. I told him that I wasn't quite ready to go and that the kids and I had a few things we needed to do to get ready before we could go so could he please go pick up Bridgette from McKenna Watt's house while we finished getting ready. Than after he left the house we hurried and got in the car and went to the church. After a few minutes I called Kevin on his cell and told him that Bridgette just called me and said that they were at Sarah's (Bridgette's friend) ward holiday party and asked him if he could go pick her up there. So he turned around and headed for the church that Sarah go's to which was where we all were waiting for him to arrive. So when Kevin pulled up to the church and saw all the cars he just thought it was for the holiday party, until he pulled up right next to his bosses car and wondered why he was here. So when he walked in he knew right away what was going on but he was still really surprised I think.

The kids started off singing "I'm so glad when daddy comes home" and then they stopped after a few lines and made this circle to talk about what to do. After a few seconds they started singing the same song but in a minor key. Than they stopped after a few lines and conferenced again
and started singing again the same song but with different words.

It's so sad to watch our dad get older everyday.

He used to run but now he's done, his hair is turning grey.

I put my arm around his waist and help him up the stairs.

Don't worry dad it's not so bad......(than Regan said)

Just look at Bishop J!

Brett talked about Kevin and how he was the "perfect child" who never got into any trouble. He told a few funny stories about Kevin's early years of driving and how he hit a parked car. It was really fun!