Hike to Waterfall Canyon

Since Chance's basketball tournament was over, we did not have any other Memorial Day plans.  So today, we took a hike to Waterfall Canyon.  We had not ever hiked as a family before, so we weren't sure how it was going to work out.  It was actually pretty fun!  Hannah wanted to quit on the way up, but she made it!  And once she got to the top, she had the time of her life!!  Shawn carried West all of the way up in a backpack carrier.  And Chance only fell in the river twice!  ha!  Shawn told Chance he would pay him $10 bucks if he held his head under the waterfall water for 5 seconds.  Obviously Shawn didn't think he would do it, but Chance surprised us all and did it!  Pretty funny.  A good family activity, I thought.  Then later on, we spent time with Grammy - which is always a pleasure.

Hannah's Baptism!

I feel like I just barely posted about Chance getting baptized - and now it's Hannah's turn!  Hannah's birthday is March 14 - meaning she could be baptized the first week of April.  But since the first week of April was General Conference, baptisms were scheduled for the second Saturday of April.  That day happened to be Hannah's first dance competition of the year, and I did not want to rush from competition over to baptism.  I wanted it to be a special, relaxing day for her.  So we moved the baptism to the first week of May - May 4.  I told her she will always remember her baptism day because it is "May the Fourth be with you."  LAME haha!!  

I took Hannah to "Just Girls Stuff" to pick out a dress to wear after she was baptized.  They had the store all set up just like a bridal store, where the girls could try on dresses in front of giant mirrors and twirl around on the pedestals.  She was in heaven!  I think she tried on every, single white dress in sizes 6, 7,  and 8 dress in the store!  There was one dress that looked really similar to my wedding dress...so I told her that.  I didn't want to sway her opinion at all, but I think I did.  After lots of trying on, she narrowed the dresses down to the one that looked like my wedding dress, and this other one with little flowerettes all over.  She tried both of them on two or three times and couldn't decide!  I told her she needed to pick the dress that SHE loved, not what I thought.  So she picked the one with all of the flowerettes on it.  It was perfect - it was so "her"!!  We picked out some sparkly high-heel shoes, a little jewelry, and her baptism outfit was compete.  She looked beautiful.  

I was lucky enough to take Hannah's and Esi's baptism pictures together at the Brigham City temple.  I told Hannah she could choose anywhere she wanted to have her pictures done, and that is where she chose.  I am thinking she might have chosen the Ogden temple had it not been under major reconstruction.  So fun to have two best buddies at the temple together in their baptism dresses.  They looked like little angels.  

We decided to have the baptism dinner at the church, similar to what we did for Chance's.  It was so nice to not have to clean the house and stress out if there was going to be enough room.  Hannah wanted to choose all of the tablecloths and decorations herself.  She wanted "spring colors", so she had purple, pink, green, blue, yellow, and orange tablecloths.  We made number "8" donuts buy putting two little mini donuts on top of each other on to a colorful stick so they looked like the number '8'.  Then we put them in little colored buckets in the centers of the tables.  I was not thinking, so I have zero pictures of the final product, but we thought they were cute!  We had meatball sandwiches (same as Chance's) and Grammy's famous chocolate cake.  

On the big day, Hannah got into her baptism jumpsuit and took some darling pictures with her brothers.  She was all smiles.  Then, she walked into the water and Shawn baptized her.  When she came out of the water, I expected this magical, fresh-and-clean smile.  Instead, Hannah squinted up her eyes, scrunched up her nose, and stuck out her tongue in the worst face I have ever seen!!  I about died!!  I didn't prepare her and tell her to smile when she came out!  I didn't think I had to??  She said it was because she got water in her mouth and it tasted gross.  Oh well, it gave everyone a good laugh.  Then Shawn confirmed her with a beautiful blessing.  I asked Hannah how she felt after the confirmation and she replied, "Safe.  I felt really safe with all of those people around me."  I completely agree - one of the best feelings in the world is to simply feel "safe."  All-in-all, I think it was a great day.  

dance * dance * dance

Hannah has been taking dance lessons from Utah Dance Academy for the past two years.  This year, she decided she wanted to do a dance solo for competition.  She begged me and begged me to do one, and I finally gave in.  So in February, she started working with her dance teacher, Ashley Hess, on her solo to a song Hannah chose, "Do You Believe in Magic".  Ashley worked with Hannah once per week on Saturdays to get the solo learned.  The only problem was that Hannah refused to practice outside of these private lessons!!  I was getting so frustrated - it was expensive and time consuming to get Hannah to do this solo, yet she was not willing to put forth any effort into it.  I was getting really mean about it, telling her that she was going to make a fool out of herself out there, etc.  Nothing sunk in.  I finally decided that this would have to be a lesson to her - Hannah was going to have to learn the hard way about what happens when you don't practice.  Competition came, and I looked at Hannah in the middle of the basketball court at Weber State University.  A little dot in the center of a huge stage.  And I don't know what happened, but that little stinker came out and gave it her BEST!!  She was AWESOME!!  I about died.  She pulled it out of nowhere and turned on her charm.  I was so proud of her!!  There were only two girls in her division - she and another little girl who was in an entire different level of dancing than Hannah.  So that girl took Queen and Hannah took 1st Attendant.  But as far as most improved or most surprising, Hannah should have been Queen!!  She was thrilled with herself and I was so, so proud of her.  At this same competition, I entered Hannah into the "Cover Girl" contest - the winner got to have their picture on the cover of the program for the competition.  She won 1st Attendant for that contest (but in my book, she was the winner for sure!)

Hannah performed her solo in two more competitions - one at Roy High school where she won 1st Attendant, and one at Weber High school where she won 1st attendant.  The poor thing just could not win Queen.  At the competition at Roy High, she competed against the girl who beat her at Weber State, so I knew she would not win that one.  At the competition at Weber High, every single girl in her division (except Dylan, her friend who won Queen) forgot their dance out on stage!  Hannah included.  By the time the competition at Weber High rolled around, Hannah could have done that dance in her sleep.  But she got out on stage and forgot a chunk of it.  That was really hard for her because she really wanted Queen.  But all in all, it was a great learning experience and confidence booster for the Babes.  She is such a darling little dancer, I can't wait to see how she progresses!!