Last Monday was President's Day so the kids didn't have to go to school!  I took Sarah and Megan over to the indoor tennis courts in the morning.  Cheyenne, Beth, and Ben came, too just to run around.  It was pretty fun.  Although, I didn't find the heater button until just before we were leaving so I was froze while Meg and Sarah worked up a sweat!  When we got back, all the girls (except Bethany who stayed with Ben and I) went to see a movie, Rise of the Guardians.  Savannah drove!  I didn't even have to venture forth.  I love that!  They all had a really good time together.

On Tuesday, Megan and Dad had a basketball game.  They won!  Later that evening, all four of my young women went to the church activity which was ballroom dancing with the young men!  They had a great time.  Megan said that her hands were cold when she started but the guy's hands were really warm so they started sweating.  She then told me that because of that, she figured out that the purpose of dancing was to exchange hand sweat.  LOL.  That sounds decidedly unromantic.

On Wednesday, Cali and Cheyenne had a special part in their school program.  The third grade decided to honor the couple that wrote their school song.  That couple lives in our ward, so Cali and Cheyenne were asked to interview them and introduce them to the rest of the third grade.  They did a great job!  We practiced with them at home telling them LOUDER!  or SLOW DOWN!  They didn't really love having us yell at them, but I think it helped them feel more confident.  It was a neat experience for them.

On Thursday, Megan and Dad had another basketball game.  They won again!  Thursday was also Cali and Cheyenne's LAST basketball game!  They are sad.  They thought they wouldn't get to play basketball again for a whole year!  Dad was quick to correct them.  Now that they've played a season of basketball they have to practice!  They sure are the cutest basketball players on the 3rd grade court!

Friday we went to watch Kevin's men's game at the church.  It was very intense.  Two men got ejected.  Kevin got knocked to the ground.  I think maybe I won't go again!  Our team lost but they will still get to play in the regional tournament in a couple of weekends.  Go team!  Don't die!

Saturday we went to the BYU Women's basketball game at the Marriott Center.  It was their last home game!  Savannah couldn't come because she had to work.  We brought everyone else, though!  Beth and Ben were pretty miserable but they were pretty good sports.  Cali and Cheyenne watched more than usual!  Sarah's junior high team met there to watch the game, too, so she sat on the other side of the arena and we waved at each other.  All our kids went down to the floor to do the chicken dance, though!  That was their favorite part!

The game was pretty awesome to watch, too.  BYU lost but Gonzaga was a good team and all the playing was really good!  Afterwards, we took everyone to Brick Oven.  Love, love, love the pizza there!!!!

It was a fun week!

This week was Savannah's birthday!!  Since Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik work at the temple on Wednesday, they had us over for Savannah's birthday dinner on Sunday night.  It was such fun with balloons and presents and even Thor cupcakes!  Grandma and Grandpa sure know how to throw a party!

Seventeen candles this year!  None of us can even believe it!  What a beautiful girl, though.

On Monday Mariah had a basketball game where I coached her and she did great, as usual!  Then, about an hour and a half later, she had another game where Kevin was the coach.  It was their first game of the end-of-season tournament for club basketball.  These games are much faster, but Mariah still does great.  Their team did super well.  At the end of the game, two of their best players had fouled out and they were down by two points when Mariah got fouled on her shot and got to go to the free-throw line.  Guess what?  She sunk both of them!  She tied up the game for her team and sent them into one minute of overtime.  What a star, right??  Unfortunately, the other team managed to score during overtime, and we did not.  Still.  It was an exciting game.  Kevin coached great and Mariah played great.  Their team is done now until . . . March season. Lol!  You knew it couldn't be over for too long, right?

On Tuesday Megan had a basketball game.  She did great!  They've lost to this team before, but beat them by four on Tuesday.  Megan had two outside shots in a row when they were down by five and pulled them into reach.  It was pretty triumphant.  (Ha!  Word from the 80s!)

Mariah got this t-shirt that kind of sums up our lives:

But this week, we did actually have events other than basketball with which to decorate our lives!  Wednesday was Savannah's actual birthday and as an extra-special treat, Grandma Elton arrived for a visit!  Yay, Grandma!  She helped me make water dumplings for Savannah's birthday dinner.  Then she got to come see my last game coaching Mariah's team.  We won.  In fact, this year, we never lost!  Crazy!  My team won t-shirts that say "Jr. Jazz Champions."  There was much rejoicing.  It was a lot of fun.

They were fun girls and a great team.  I hope they learned something.  They sure had a good time.  That I know!

When we got back to the house, Megan had finished making special cupcakes for Savannah's birthday!

Ben had great fun finishing up the extra chocolate hearts!

The next day, Thursday, was Valentine's day!  Calianne and Cheyenne had their basketball game still and they were tons of fun to watch.  However, Savannah was the star on this day, too, because it was the day of her big choir concert.  This year they performed with Dalynn Bayless who is a Broadway star but now lives in Springville.  The choir sang songs from Broadway interspersed with solos from Broadway sung by Dalynn.  Boy can that man SING!  Savannah was in the last big showstopper which was a medley of songs from Newsies.  Boy can those kids SING!  They did great and Savannah, as always, was so fun to watch because she is so happy and animated.  It was a wonderful night.  Grandma Elton loved it and so did Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik and so did Sarah and Kevin and I!  It was incredible.

On Friday night Kevin and my mom and I went out to eat Mexican food.  Yum!  We came back and all watched a movie (the kids, too!)  It was tons of fun.  Also, Mariah came home with that medal that she earned last week:

We had to say goodbye to Grandma Saturday morning after Kevin made us all a big, yummy breakfast.  Benjamin has already asked me about a hundred times, "Where Grandma go?"  We all miss her, but it was so fun to have her for those four days!  And so fun that she could be here for Savannah's birthday and for her choir concert.  It was a good week.  :)

The streets have finally cleared of snow and wet, and Megan has been able to take her longboard (the one she got for Christmas) out for some cruising!  She's already pretty good at it since she has practiced on her friends' boards.  She looks pretty stylin' with it, don't you think?

Sarah had her last junior high basketball game this week.  They almost won it, even!  They came back from a big deficit at the half to within two points in the third quarter!  They were playing great!  It is always such fun to watch her.  She's had a great time making close friends with everyone on the team.  They will always have great memories to share!  Now Sarah has no idea what to do with her time after school!  She misses all her friends!

Here's some great pictures of her at her game, too!

So, in other basketball news, Mariah had two games on Monday and won both by a LOT.  Megan had games on Tuesday and Thursday and won both.  The twins also had a game on Thursday and they don't keep score so we just all laughed and cheered them on!  They are learning a lot!  Kevin also played Friday night.  The other team didn't have enough players, so they split up and played two twenty minutes half, with no subs for anybody.  That's hard work!  K.B. was worn out!  I played with some women Thursday morning, too.  I loved it.  Basketball is so fun.

Mariah also had the science fair this week in which to participate.  She measured the number of chirps a desert locust (grasshopper of Utah) makes in a minute on different nights to see if it was affected by the temperature.  (Which it is by the way!)  It was nice, because she gathered most of her data in the summer when things were still pretty laid back around here.  The conclusion and poster were easy to put together when science fair time came.  Love that!  So did Mariah!  And apparently, so did the judge.  She got first place.  Poor child!  She really did not want to move on to the next round where she'll have to present in front of even more judges!  Ah well.  If she gets a medal she thinks it might be worth it.  In anycase, we are proud of her.

Calianne and Cheyenne left us this weekend to go live at Grandma and Grandpa's house for a little while.  They left Friday afternoon and didn't come back until Saturday evening!  They sure had fun.  I think Grandma and Grandpa had fun, too!

Savannah had a crazy busy week.  Her store's owner went out of town which always means that he takes his own two teen daughters off the schedule.  The result was that instead of working three days, she worked five.  That's awfully hard when you need to get homework done and maybe you'd like a little downtime of your own!  Saturday was especially bad since she had her ACT prep class from 9 to noon, then she had a choir rehearsal for their upcoming concert from noon to 2:30, and then she had to be at work from 3 to 7:20.  Yah.  She was wiped out when she got home.  My poor daughter who needs to recharge with some time alone could not buy an hour of daylight this week!  :(  We are hoping next week will be better!

Megan had an orchestra concert this week!  She did great!  It was so fun to hear her play.

We sat in the front row.  That meant that I could see Megan really great -- and the cellos, but none of the rest of the orchestra.  Ha!  Oh well.  It was worth it to see Megan.  Grandma and Grandpa Gazdik came and me and Kevin and Cheyenne and Bethany.  Meg is really progressing on the violin and sounding great.  She is even starting to enjoy it.  It's a lovely thing.

Other than that, we had a lot of basketball games, of course.  It was Sarah's last week of regular league play for her team so I tried to make it to both of her games.  I made it for at least 3 quarters of each game.  It was great fun to watch her play.  She is very tough and can stand strong even when there is a LOT of pushing going on under the basket.  She usually is the one with the ball when the dust clears, too.  It's been a lot of fun watching her play this season.  Her team has a tournament next week and then that's the end!

That is actually her in the blue in this very blurry picture!

Mariah had games on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.  She won all of them.  Because of her?  Uh . . . yah, actually.  Probably!  Actually, they probably wouldn't have won without their Dad's awesome coaching on Saturday.  He's really rising to the challenge of coaching this private team and learning a lot on the internet.

Here he is even managing to fit in a quick Sodoku game after he made dinner and set the table last Sunday.  Isn't he great?

Cali and Cheyenne had games on Monday and Thursday.  They are sure giving it their all!  The people they guard can't even see the court, let alone if the ball is coming their way!  They are persistent.

Megan had a game just on Thursday and no reffing this week!  It was a lot easier of a week for her than last week.  Although, their basketball game was not easy.  They encountered a new defense, according to Kevin (I was at C&C's game) and couldn't figure out how to get around it.  Kevin is on it, though, and by the time they play this team again, he is going to have a plan. . .

Bethany had preschool two days this week and ballet on one day.  I went to the gym one day to practice shooting and brought Beth and Ben with me.  They played with some extra balls.  Bethany named her ball, "Orangie," and she cheered for it to win in races against Ben's ball.  Everything is something she can nurture -- even inanimate objects.

Ben is even more obsessed with Umizoomi than he was last time we talked.  He watches it at least five times a day and can't be talked into watching or doing anything else.  When he does play on his own, he can be heard singing, "Super shapes!"  Or saying, "We're gonna save the day!"  He has very definite opinions about what clothes he'll wear.  For instance, I bought him some new fuzzy, footed pajamas -- you know the kind that are so soft when you first buy them, but after several children, they're just kind of thin and unimpressive.  Do you think he would wear them?  Crazy kid!  I love him, though.  After dinner the other night, he climbed up on the back of my chair and then twisted around to give me a kiss -- snotty nose and all!  "I love you, Mommy," he said.  Is that awesome or what?

He does occasionally also play on the ipad.  He's getting really good at the puzzles!

Savannah started an ACT prep class this Saturday at BYU.  It will last eight weeks and be every Saturday morning.  She is not at all looking forward to it.  Poor girl.  She is tough, though, and is doing it because she knows it will help.  Hopefully it won't be too miserable!