Free Range Family

Well I finally did it! I cut and donated my hair! As of this Sunday, I had been growing my hair out for donation for two years and nine months. I donated a total of sixteen inches to Pantene's Beautiful Lengths Program. I chose to donate through Pantene this year (I donated through Locks for Love after I had Alan) for a few different reasons. Around the time I had originally planned on donating, I had heard some negative comments about Locks for Love. I spoke with my boss, who also runs the Livestrong Program at the Y, about other options and she introduced me to Beautiful Lengths. Pantene joined with The American Cancer Society to develop this program in 2006. They have since donated more then 500,000 ponytails! That is 24,000 wigs! :D They also are a bit more lenient on their donation requirements, which is more realistic to these days with how many women dye their hair. This was the program for me. If you have never heard of Beautiful Lengths: (Taken directly from th...

BIG things going on for me in 2015, big and exciting things! :D I had a wonderful weekend with some friends who were town, who are very well known choreographers in the dance world. And I had two super cool things happen to me at work as well. Yes! I am so happy and cannot wait for this year! After all the hard work and the rough year we had in 2013 and 2014, I know that wonderful things were bound to happen this year! I just hope that a new house for our family is ALSO in the cards this year. I will keep praying and keep spreading that good karma! So we will begin with the work news: I was offered to join the YMCA's annual campaign this year. Our annual campaign raises money to provide more memberships, scholarships and healthy lifestyle programs for our community. All of our annual campaign donations help with either our preschool or afterschool programs, our scholarships to families and senior members, our Livestrong program, our Get Started program, our aquatics...

Happy New Year's Eve everyone! I hope that everyone is safe in their New Year celebrations tonight! Lon and I will be staying in and spending some family time with the kids, before turning in early for the night. Make sure that if you are planning on drinking, that you have a designated driver to get you home safely. With that being said, have a wonderful time tonight! We had a decent year this past year. Unfortunately, a new home for us was not in the cards but we did get a new car. Alan and Anna participated in many different activities, from basketball to gymnastics to soccer to dance to t-ball. They are very active kiddos! Lon and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary, as well as Anna's second birthday and Alan's fifth birthday. Even though we are still living apart, we managed to have a good year with our amazing children. I cannot wait to see what 2015 has in store for us! I hope that a new home is one of those things! Keep your fingers crossed! Here is ...

Happy Holidays!  I am so excited that I can finally say that! I love December and the holiday season! I have been waiting for this all year! We have been applying for houses like crazy too, in hopes that we will have a place by Christmas. Wouldn't that be perfect? Its honestly all that I want for Christmas this year.   Pray for us to get lucky! :) I hope that everyone is having a great Christmas season, I know that we are! We went to the Festival of Trees last night with Grandma Melanie and Grandpa Kevin. Aunt April was performing with her dance studio. She did so awesome, as usual! They even did their new dances, like their Spice Girl song choreographed by Ade! Oh my goodness, it was all so awesome! Great job April! I could go on and on about how wonderful their performance was! Seriously! She even inspired one of my own dance students who was their with family! :D Aunt April and her crew after their performance <via>   After Diversity was done with the...

We had a pretty mellow Thanksgiving this year, it was surprisingly wonderful! My parents and siblings all went to Townsend to see family for Thanksgiving, so we spent it with Lon's family and my father's relatives in the Heights. We were hoping to go up to Townsend to see my mother's relatives this year but as that sounded good in the summer, we just didn't have the funds to actually be able to make it happen. With my car breaking down in August, we spent more money then we had originally planned and couldn't afford to save up for a trip. I am sad about it, but hopeful. Lon reminded me that it only meant that we would have to postpone the trip, not cancel it entirely. We can probably save up for it again after Christmas is over and go in the spring, maybe for our anniversary. That would be cool because we would be able to see everyone AND it would kind of be like a "surprise" or "spontaneous" trip for my family. We usually only try to go up to T...

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my wonderful readers! <Via> I am very thankful for all of you! You are all so wonderful! I hope that your Thanksgiving is full of happiness, love, laughter and family. No matter who you are, where you live, or what your situation is, everyone has something to be thankful for. My family has a list so long, it keeps growing the more I think about it! We have had a rough year and some months, but we are getting back on our feet again. That is one thing to be thankful for right there! All of the support we have received from family and friends is another thing. There are many, many more! We are about to head out for our Thanksgiving festivities, so I will have to drop back in tomorrow and share my "Thankful List" with all of you. But I do hope that everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving and that everyone is able to spend it with someone they love and care about. That is all Thanksgiving is really about… Being thankful and being with tho...

This weekend was a weekend for my sisters lol. Saturday was the annual Griz and Cat game (an important Montana rivalry, if you haven't ever heard of it). Since both my sister and her hubby go to University of Montana, we are totally supportive of the Griz! So we had to wear our maroon AND totally harassed anyone that I saw in Navy Blue lol! I mean, I had to! Its a Montana tradition! And of course, the wonderful Grizzlies won!  That same night, was Aunt April's first formal dance of the year, Twirp. I remember when they called it Sadie Hawkins, but apparently they think that "Twirp" is a much more attractive name for a semi-formal where the girls ask the boys. In that case, we should rename Prom "Dork" in my opinion. But I digress… Aunt April had asked me to come take pictures for her, since Aunt Natalie (the only other person in our family with any photography skills) was still in Missoula. So Anna and I made a little trip to the Yellowstone Country ...

I hope that everyone had a wonderful and safe Halloween night! I know that we did! It was the perfect way to end one crazy week for me, I wouldn't have had it any other way! We never ended up going to the pumpkin patch or corn maze, we just didn't have the time. But Grandpa Kevin picked out two good pumpkins for Alan and Anna to carve up! Thanks Grandpa! Alan carved a "half Ninjago, half Captain America" pumpkin and Anna carved a silly pumpkin face. They both turned out pretty cute, even though we messed up on the top part of Anna's pumpkin lol! Tuesday morning, Anna had her Halloween party for her dance class. She wore her costume but was the only kid in her class that did for some reason. They still got a chance to dress up at the end of class, which Anna always loves. They also played with pompoms and did the obstacle course. Miss Rachel loves how good Anna is already at her gymnastics skills. I always have to remind her its only because I also teach dance a...

Oh boy, did I have a busy week! I had a total of five showcase performances, plus a Thriller performance for my Saturday hip hop class! How crazy! I cannot believe that next week is Halloween and everything that comes with it: Alan's preschool Halloween party, Healthy Halloween at my work and trick or treating! It is just insane! We need to finish up the last few things on the kiddos costumes! And get pumpkins! Gah, its all coming up so fast! Tumble 1 5:30 class My younger Tumble 1 class did wonderful! They performed two floor routines (a boys routine and a girls routine) and a beam routine for their friends and family. I also passed four out of eight of my kids to Tumble 2, literally half of the class! Even the ones who are staying in Tumble 1 still progressed so much in the 7 weeks of class. Good job kids, you all worked so hard! I am very proud of all of you. Hope to see you next class. Above is a photo of Miss Ariel and I doing a skills pose with the kids. Tumble 1 ...