This is for anyone who needs some Christmas Cheer

P.S. Do you like the tree in her specially chosen background...I especially love how the ornaments only are from the middle on up... this is just how it is with a curious toddler running around. He grabs any ornaments that he can reach. If he can't he has quickly figured out that if he pulls a branch then the tree will tip closer to him and possibly enable him to reach his shiny and sparkly goal. Thus our tree is always like unto the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We all love the tree anyhow.

Lydia's School Christmas Performance

Yesterday, Lydia just had her school Christmas Performance and it was so cute! Can I just say that her music teacher is amazing! The songs were all SO fun and all had great choreography to them. They had accompanying instruments in the background and drums and other instruments for kids to play during selected songs. Some of the songs they actually busted out dancing... it was absolutely hilarious! I loved it. Charlie did as well; he kept dancing to the songs and especially loved the part where everyone clapped heartily after each song. He joined in with gusto. When transitioning between grades or classes on the stage one of the students would play a quick song on the piano or violin, others sang. It was pretty cute. The place was so packed (even with there being two showings that day for parents!) There wasn't even a seat for me, but we just stood near the back. Totally fine.

On another... sadder note, my digital camera stopped working properly and the screen was totally blank! So I resorted to looking through the eye hole (it's been a while for that), but there was no way to tell if the video clip was working so I didn't film very much at all, since I wanted at least pictures of it. I did bring our camcorder... it was not charged. Needless to say I uncharacteristically did not check beforehand since wasn't really planning on using this since it downloads on to the computer if I use the camera. Poor planning on my part for sure. So here I was sitting in this adorable performance thinking there was no way to film just how cute it really was, so I did not try to film much.
When I got home, I found it did work! For a minute I was sad that I didn't get all the fun dancing parts, but at least I have something, no matter how little it is. I am going to have to see about that camera. We seem to have the worst luck with cameras. It still does works, but if zoomed in I can't tell if it is focused or not without the screen.

Here all the 1st graders are on the stage bleachers, Lydia is in the middle row, 4th on in from the left in the red shirt.

In this one the whole school is singing the finally together and if you look farthest Christmas tree by the stage, she is almost directly below it in the red shirt looking strait at me. She said she was smiling, because she could see Charlie roll his arms along with the students. Some songs Ethan was singing along, because he has learned them from Lydia who has sung them so often around the house. Precious.

So this video totally does not capture the fun songs but it will have to do. The other song I have is only filmed for litterally 2 seconds. So I didn't add that one, but I can.

Confessions of a guilty pleasure

#1. I dance around often around my house choreographing moves to music or just freestyle every day. Ok that is not embarrassing, just true... read on.
#2. Maybe you can relate to this... or I may be alone in this one. I get sidetracked while I am cleaning each day and end up dancing and singing to the music instead for a bit... it's way more fun. For the record, I did say I liked to be silly in my profile. I can't say how many years I have been doing this for... as long as I can remember. Perhaps this is the reason why Mike is such a faster cleaner than I am. I'll just chalk it up as exercise cleaning, right.
#3. At night, I would have opened my huge apartment window and used it as a mirror to dance in front of in Seattle, if our front window wasn't smack dab in the middle of everyone like a fish bowl. Okay a few times I did. Maybe there is a reason my kids are such performers around the house, haha.
P.S. Sorry I haven't been posting very much lately... I had to speak in Sacrament Meeting last Sunday and I have been spending most of my free time the past month writing it. More posts should be coming.

Our little talent show performers

Our Primary at church had a talent show and Lydia and Ethan were in it. Lydia (all decked out in Hannah Montana apparel) sang"Stars in the East," which she has been practicing in Music Class at school. The first recording didn't turn out very well though, at first it was zoomed in too much and didn't focus so it was blurry (I didn't add that one). So I stopped recording and started the recording again. She had hand motions and everything. Oh well, what can you do.

Then Ethan sang a song. It is his weather song at preschool. One day I heard him singing it... in the bathroom and I couldn't believe he actually knew all the words to a song. He told me he wanted to sing it for the talent show. Since then he has started singing other songs as well. It is always pretty cute. He didn't ever really have a strong interest in that department before.

Last but not the least, on a split decision just before the show, Lydia wanted to dance for everyone... so she did and it was uhh, interesting. A lot of jumping. She has always been quite the dancer... it wasn't quite showcased here though. She has wanted to dance in front of an audience for some time now. So I figured it was a good place to let her try it out. She thinks it was pretty silly too, but it is fun to watch. Amazingly, some grown-ups complimented me on her dancing. Mike and I just had to chuckle about it. We weren't sure how it would turn out. She had a lot of fun though. She said to me after, "I just kind of criss-cross jumped a lot and couldn't think of what to do. Maybe I should practice more next time, haha."

Ok, the dance was too long or something, because I've been trying to upload it all day. Maybe I'll add it later if I can

Lydia reading to the boys

Lydia is loving school and reads to the us every night for 15 minutes. Ethan is still fascinated that she can read. He is so excited the next year he will be in Kindergarten and will learn how to read as well. Together they (literally) fantasize about next year how they will be together for recess and can play hide and seek together or whatever. One positive thing about our move to Helena, MT is that they have become really close to each other since they don't have any friends around like they did in Seattle. Oh Seattle. I miss everyone so much!!!! I will treasure those memories and friendships of those 4 years for the rest of my life. Truly.

P.S. I have both pictures there because Ethan kept smiling as I was taking the picture all nice but then the last split second he'd make a crazy face and I wouldn't even know about it till after and then we would all laugh. It was funny. Third time was a charm. haha. They looked so cute all siting together on one single couch cushion. Each of them really love stories being read to them... which makes me so happy as I am a reading fanatic. It's crazy I didn't really get into reading and loving it until after I was married. I wish I knew how awesome it was as a teenager.

The results of the contest

So... it has been about a week and amazingly nobody guessed it. I thought someone would being as it was the day after Halloween... anymore guesses now?
It has to do with candy.
Ok it actually wasn't anything amazing. We were all eating some candy and Mike was making exchanges with the kids. He was just eating a mega warhead, very sour. My only regret was that I didn't put it on video camera mode. It was quite the production. The kids were shocked and were wondering, "why is dad acting like that?" And then we laughed at him... along with him, Mike thought it was pretty funny too. His comment was, "whoa, that was sour!"

A Contest

I luckily snapped this picture while Michael was responding to... something. I want to see if anyone can guess what caused his expression.

Family Websites?

I'm looking around for a good website for my Bentley family. Does anybody know a good one? Or which is better than others?

Halloween Fun

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Charlie was a cowboy/sheriff. He has to be the cutest cowboy I've ever seen. Every time I looked at him I just had to smile.

Ethan was Spiderman and Lydia was a Sparkle Witch.

The kids and I went to Lydia's school for her party and went on the little parade around each classroom with her.

After school, the kids played school (very usual) and Lydia read Halloween stories to Ethan. At this time we also all practiced our best and scariest "whooo, whooo, whoooo!" for fun. Then we went to the trunk-or-treat at the church and after Mike took the older kids around a couple of blocks. One of which was Mikes freshman English teacher. At last we dumped out all our candy, traded what we didn't like (and bargained for what we really did) and finally ate our steak dinner quickly.

I was a butterfly... compliments of my 6 year-old daughter. I did however recieve many compliments on my beautiful wings from little girls. I think I'll go grab a candy... compliments of Charlie. : )

The honorary sand pit

This would be the honorary sand pit that the kids seem to have adopted... which is a bunch of dirt by the garage.

The only problem is the amount of dirt that stays on them. whereas sand just brushes off...

As you take a closer look it is even inside Charlie's ear! My thoughts on cleanup at this point was, "where to even begin?"

He sure had fun playing with the big kids and was quite pleased with himself. They loved it. Lydia and Ethan have been going out there daily, making mud pies, cakes, ice cream, towers, and whatnot.

The easy solution and everyone is happy.

Are the Nakey Days for a toddler here already?

Charlie has discovered that he can take his arm out of his clothes. The look on his face was pretty cute. Hopefully that will be the extent of his curiosity at least for now. When Ethan was maybe a few months older or so, he was constantly taking off his pants and of coarse... his diaper. So you can imagine how we usually found him waking up. Sleepers-he would just unzip, pants-take off-- our solution was to snap onsies over his pants when he slept. It was quite the look, but it worked!

Charlie playing

Charlie here was playing in Ethan's room while I filmed him for a minute. Lydia says the blue we painted looks like the sky and his room makes her feel like she is flying. Sorry about the video being sideways! Apparently, you can't rotate video clips. Good to know for the future.