S. O. T. Dub-yah

Eric got to come to the show last night and I think he enjoyed himself. He told me he cried several times, so I'll take that as a good sign. I felt like last night was one of our better shows and they fixed my costume so it's a lot more secure and comfortable so I can just focus on performing rather than keeping my clothes on! (my wrap fell off on stage on opening night!) So we took this picture of me and Eric on the mountains that I painted.

This is my friend Jolie who plays Mary in my cast. She's pretty much THE coolest girl ever. She's super talented and super gorgeous. I just LOVE her!Oh, and her hair doesn't always look like that! This was after ACT II so she had to be aged. Luckily she took off her wrinkles before this pic. She shudders every time she looks in the mirror after aging herself! hahaha

We're kindred spirits. 'Nuf said.

Christmas! (and oh yeah, thanksgiving too...)

That's pretty much how I've felt all this year. I'm ALL about Christmas this year. Thanksgiving, not so much. Normally I would make myself wait until after Thanksgiving for the Christmas music and decor but I couldn't wait this year! Maybe because the show is so focused on Christ's birth and we've been doing it since October? I don't know. But I love it and nobody else is in my house 24/7 to judge me so I'm enjoying every minute of our fun Christmas Decorations! Anyway, so some elves in our ward found out we didn't have a Tree this year and they brought one over Sunday Night after the kids were asleep. We told them that Santa's elves dropped it off in the night and they were SO excited to see it! We decorated it for family home evening last night and we also made gingerBear cookies decorated like our family. We watched Polar Express together and had a Christmas sing-along! I felt like I had to get all of our fun family time in last night because I've got a show every night this week and also 2 shows on Saturday so I'm trying hard not to be a total slacker mom. It's really draining but also very fulfilling so I feel like it's worth the sacrifice for another week but I'm very much looking forward to having my family back! So here's the pics from Thanksgiving and then some of our Christmas family home evening last night.

Our festive thanksgiving decor

The Thankful Box
Everyone wrote something they were thankful for and put it in the box

Our cute place Settings
Cortney made the cute little Pilgrim Hats!

Best Thanksgiving EVER!
Eric has been waiting his whole life to have a reason to have a Chick- fil- A platter
I absolutely despise Turkey so we got a platter with assorted sauces for our Thanksgiving Dinner!

This is our beautiful live Christmas Tree! We couldn't have picked a better tree for ourselves and it smells delicious!

I decided to hang all of my glass ornaments since half of them have already been shattered this year.
I LOVE how it turned out!

Kensie liked helping roll out the dough

This is Mommy and Daddy GingerBear.
The kids also wanted to make the grandparents. So we also have a Grandpa and Nana Bear in the favorite colors and a Grandpa and Grandma Bear. Note the scar on Grandpa Holden Bear's knee from his bear Knee Surgery! his dough leg fell off and we had to piece it back together so it was fitting for him! haha
Also I tried to make Brown for our hair but mostly it looks like baby poop yellow?...i don't know

Kensie Bear

I just love his fat little hand holding that paint brush!

Bryce's Master piece

Probably the cutest Boy EVER!

Good thing it's edible paint!

Funny Story: While we were eating our creations, Bryce said he wanted Grandpa Bishop and Kensie wanted Grandma Holden. So then they started playing with them and making them talk to each other. The conversation between the bears turned to dancing. Grandma Holden GingerBear started dancing and twirling. Grandpa Bishop Bear then said " NO, NO let me show you how to do it Grandma" Then shaking his little Bear tail, "I like to move it move it!" Then the 2 bears danced happily long into the night.

BLAH-g!

I have been SO busy with Savior of the World stuff and pre-school, people getting sick, watching other people's kids, and all of the other fun mom stuff I get to do, blog's taken a back seat. you're over it. i guess I say that a lot...you're over that too! ha...anyway Eric is coming to the show on Wed, at which point I will get some pictures in costume and maybe even one with me AND Eric! we'll see. on a random side note, who has tried the dark chocolate covered altoids?? Best. thing. ever.

Happiest place on Earth! Part II

OK so as Cortney stated in her comments, I did leave out several big chunks of our Disneyland trip. Firstly, as we were coming out of the Pinocchio ride in fantasy land 2 guys came up to us and told us we were winners in the year of a million dreams and our whole family got "Dream fast passes". We didn't think it was that big of a deal but as we later found out they were pretty special. Usually when you get a fast pass you can only have one at a time. These dream passes gave us like 8 rides per park (Disneyland and California Adventure) and we could use them all whenever we wanted to! And apparently not a lot of people get these so we were pretty excited. So around 3 the kids were tired and ready to go so My sister Cortney was awesome enough to take the kids while Eric and I booked it back to Disneyland to make good use of our Dream passes! Since our Tickets were good for hopping, we went into California Adventure to hit some rides before they closed at 6 and then we went back to Disneyland to finish up before they closed at 8. We had so much fun running around like little kids getting on the rides! I was running a lot faster than Eric and I told him I would drag him around the park if I had to, to get to all the rides we wanted to! I actually did end up dragging him around most of the night but it was totally worth it to go on all the big, fun rides without the kids! Don't get me wrong, I loved the teacups but they don't hold a candle to California Screamin'! Anyway, we did stop for a couple pictures with our Disney photo pass but as it turns out you have to pay like 15 bucks just to download them so you can just imagine how cute we look standing in front of the lit up Christmas tree at California Adventure! And here's some more pics!

On the Fire Truck in ANOTHER family picture without Eric

Kensie just Had to have a pink tea cup

As soon as Bryce walked up to him, Goofy grabbed Bryce's leash and tried to make him do doggy tricks like sit and stay or taking him for a walk and then he would pat his head. We thought it was pretty funny! Bryce didn't.

We waited like a half hour just to meet Mickey.
It's like he's a celebrity around there or something, geez!

And we did figure out after the fact, that our camera lens had a finger print smudge or something on it which is why ALL of our pictures have like a blur in the upper left hand corner. BOO!

I'm a total copycat...

Thanks Becca for helping me steal some cuteness...

Happiest place on Earth!

Our family was able to go to Disneyland this last Tuesday and we had SO much fun! My good friend got us in for free so she's basically the shiz and I love her. The kids were in heaven. As soon as we got out of the car, Bryce saw the picture on the parking garage of chip and Dale and he was FREAKING out! then I was like, "Oh honey, it get's so much better than a picture in the parking lot!" Then as we were walking down main street he said, "Mom where is Spider man?" hahaha he's so funny. Anyway here's some pictures of our fun day. I can't get these in the right order. You're already over it but my inner O.C.D. is N.O.T.

"The barf cups" Bryce insisted on spinning them the WHOLE time!

We made Bryce and Kensie wear "harnesses" aka Leashes. I cringe inside at the thought of it but it saved our lives because they couldn't get lost!

Bryce pulling the sword from the stone.

This bird came so close to us! We thought it was really funny.

This is what Charlie looked like by mid-day.

Stroller friends

It was all decked out for Christmas. Gorgeous!

Kensie and I waiting for the boys.

The big boat ride that we waited a HUNDRED years for! LAME!

This is what Charlie's hair looked like after we took his cute mickey ears off.

This was Kensie's Fav part of the day!

Charlie fell in love with Ariel. She was the only one who could get him to smile. What man can resist a beautiful red head calling him "Stud".

Bryce thought the tram from the parking structure was the funnest ride ever!

After a hard day of play. These mouseketeers didn't make it out of the parking garage!

ch-ch-ch-check it out!

Buy Your Tickets Here!

Our show opens in just a few short weeks! It is going to be a gorgeous set and a beautiful way to get into the spirit of the upcoming holiday season! I will only be performing as Mary Magdalene on select nights because the show is double cast. My nights will be December 6th, 10th, 12th and a matinee performance at 2:00 on the 13th. Be there or Be Square...

That's Better

That other template was giving me the shingles.

Too Soon?

It's not too early to be putting Christmas colors on my blog and blasting christmas music through the house, is it? Because if it is, you're all over the fact that I'm already doing it! tee-hee!
(Also, it seems that this "Red" translates as "Burnt Orange" in which case, you'll get over that too.)

4 reals

I was TAGGED! Go to the 4th file and pick the 4th picture then tag 4 people.
This picture was taken when Bryce was 2 months old. It was the only time he got to meet his Papa John in person. I Love it.

I tag Stephanie, Jessica, Sunny and CORTNEY! (just because I know how much you LOVE to be tagged!)

Because it's FUN that's WHY

We are asking ourselves WHY we did this with three crazy toddlers but it's done and they will be better next year, right? We did our annual Bishop Family Pumpkin Carving home Evening and they all turned out SO good! We decided to make it a competition but then we realized that we don't have an unbiased judge on the premises so I decided to let YOU GUYS be the judge!

( I thought you could see them better with all the lights out :)

HERE THEY ARE! (In no particular order):

Bryce's with an ORIGINAL pattern

Charlie's
(We couldn't carve it because it has a ROT SPOT on the back of it's head AND Charlie can't actually hold a pen yet so it was really ME who drew the face but don't let that sway your decision!)
Kensie's
Also an original piece
She calls it her "Spooky"

Eric's
Kensie chose the pattern (naughty dinosaur?!) but it was Eric who executed it quite beautifully I might add.

Mine

Saved the best for last! (Wait I thought these were in no particular order? Oh well!)

What do you think?
I LOVE HaLLoWeeN!

This is SO much fun! They have so much cute stuff to give away! Check them out!

It's Official!

I am now Mary Magdalene! Our Stake is in it's second year of putting on Savior of the world and they began rehearsals back in August I believe. They called Eric and me last week because our stake president heard us sing in church a few weeks ago and called the producer, who then called us because they wanted us to fill some roles that they had that were still empty. So we auditioned last week and got the call that I will be playing Mary Magdalene and Eric will be an apostle. I know I can speak for both of us when I say that it has been way TOO long since we performed on stage! We are really excited to be a part of this show and can't wait to get into rehearsals on Thursday! Hopefully we'll be able to catch up with everyone else who has been rehearsing for months now. But it shouldn't be a problem. I mean, we are professionals after all. :) The show will run the 2nd week of December, running Every night of the week and then a matinee and evening show on Saturday the 13th. So if you can make it, we'd love to see you! It should be an awesome experience.

It's OBVIOUS.

What you can't tell what Eric and I dressed up as for halloween?


Clearly, He was a Crocodile in a mud puddle and I was the Crocodile Hunter in a great pair of boots!
Cortney and Steven invited us to crash their ward's halloween party and we had a lot of fun. Who can resist a good hot dog and some trunk or treating?
Charlie in true puppy fashion kept trying to run away.


Kensie was a ballerina Elephant and after many painstaking hours spent, last year's spider was turned into this year's bat for Bryce who has been asking to be a bat since march!
We're excited to dress up and do it again in a week or so! ( mostly so I can take charlie trick or treating and then snitch all his candy when he's not looking! tee-hee!)