Change of Plans

We had it all planned out. We were going to bike the causeway out to antelope island and then back with Adam and Mindy. We were so excited and had everything ready. We had to cancel because a storm was brewing in. We didn't want to have to bike 7 miles back to the car in the rain. Instead we settled on just biking the 1 1/2 miles over to the park and having a picnic. So simple but so fun. I must note its a good thing we opted for the shorter bike ride, I just looked out the window and its snowing like crazy.

Enjoying the Sunshine

This week has been beautiful!!! The weather has been so sunny and warm. We have gone to the park every day, some days we even went twice. When not at the park we were outside playing in the front yard. Emma thinks it is torture to be inside on a nice day. Well I have to admit I neglected housework because of all the time we spent outside this week. So, I took advantage of Dave being home and sent him out with the girls so I could get some good scrubbing in. I went out to check on them and this is what I found. Adorable huh. What great little helpers.

Stubborn

Dave is a pretty easy going guy. He does, however, have a few things he feels very strongly about in life. If you come up against him on these few things you have no hope of winning. Lately I have noticed the same trait emerging in little Emma. On Sunday we showed up a good 20 minutes before sacrament meeting hoping to get a soft seat. Most of the pews were already "saved" but we did find one near the front. As we went to sit down we noticed Emma was missing. She had found her own pew in the back and sat down. She would not move. Luckily it ended up being our neighbors bench they had saved. She sat with them the whole sacrament meeting. Little independent nut.

Side note-Ali is going through a huge growth spurt. Last week she was waking up ravenously hungry every 2 hrs at night. It was killing me. I got really used to having a good nights sleep. All that eating plumped up her little cheeks and brought back her double chin. This week she is sleeping like crazy. She went to bed at 6:30 last night and slept clear to 7:30 this morning when Dave went in to give her a kiss goodbye. She is starting to lose the cheekies and chinny again.

Also, Emma told me she was going to make me a big, blue cake for my birthday. Mmmmm I can hardly wait hehe.

3 things that made me happy today

1. Taking my girls to the park. It was a beautiful day! We had so much fun playing in the sunshine together. I am a firm believer that kids need a lot of sunshine, fresh air and somewhere they can run, jump and scream all they want to. I know little Em looks like she is glaring but it was just a bad pic. She was sooooo excited to be at the "tunnel park." I have noticed that she is much happier kid when we get to play outside.



2. Grapes! Mmmm cold, sweet, plump, juicy grapes. I had to run to the store today to pick up milk to get us through Sunday. I saw the most delicious grapes at a fairly decent price and had to get them.



3. High School Musical #2. I have been trying to talk Dave into watching this with me forever. If you know Dave at all you understand why that has never happened. The boy hates anything musical. Its a sore point in our marriage hehe. Well Dave is working the 10-10 shift today so after I put my little ones to bed I decided to treat myself and watch it while I wait up for him. It was insanely corny, uplifting, and had a happy ending. Dave would have hated it. Hehe, I laughed so hard all the way through it, oh the drama. It brought a smile to my face.

Something to Treasure

Yesterday I got such a great surprise. One of my dearesest friends stopped by to say hello before heading back to Washington DC. I met Emily when I was four years old. We moved into our house in Hyrum and her family lived across the street. We became fast friends and had many, many adventures together. We would pretend we were Ariel and flounce around on a tarp in her backyard. We saved up and bought roller skates and would pretend we were roller skating princess' who married twin brothers. We would ride our bikes down to the store and buy penny candies and then snack on them as we talked about life on my front porch. I have a million memories with Emily. She is an amazing friend. She brought me the absolute sweetest gift, a quilt she has been working on for ten years, she started it when we were in miamiads together.
It is absolutley beautiful. It is something I will always treasure. Although little Emma thinks its hers hehe. She loves it. After Emily left yesterday I told Em it was time for naptime and to go pick out a few books for me to read to her and hop in bed, this is how I found her. Anyway, I just cherish the quilt. It touches my heart. I think the absolute best gifts are the ones that involve time and talent. On that note here is another gift Emily gave me once. Its a painting she did of me and her as little girls. It now hangs in my girls' room. I hope my girls find a friend in their lives like Emily.

Note-sorry if the pictures are blurry, I think there is still a problem with Dave's cam :(

Doing what they love

Weekend Getaway!

Do you recognize those chubby toes? How about the red sand? Thats right its little Ali playing in Moab!! We headed to Moab for a quick, sunny, getaway! We left at 5:45 Friday morning and got home late Saturday evening. It was a short trip but oh, SO MUCH FUN!!!! The sunshine was simply delicious!

Emma's favorite part was simply playing in the sand. It is amazing how much happier she is when she can play outside. She kept laughing and squealing in excitement. Ali had her first taste of sand, yum (another thing for you to add to your list mindy hehe), she ate it when I wasn't looking.

We were able to do a lot of hiking. I loved it. Emma did so well. She loved the arches. I couldn't believe how far her little legs carried her! It makes me really, really excited for this summer. One of the hikes we did, Landscape arch, we hiked quite a bit of the way in snow. It wasn't bad though. Still pretty warm.

Last but not least we got some biking in!!!! Dave headed out by himself Sat. morning and did a good portion of slickrock. Check out his blog for more details of his ride. After he was done he came back to pick up me and the girls. Did I ever mention what a great guy he is? We accidently left the tires to our bike trailer/stroller at home, so Dave carried Ali on the front and

when Emma got tired of walking, he carried her on his back. They hiked while I got to bike. Oh man I loved it. I was nervous to bike again. When I met Dave he was big into mountain biking but I had never really gone before. We went a couple time together and took a mountain biking class at the U together. I was just starting to feel somewhat comfortable on a bike and feel like I could bike most of the trails instead of walking when I got prego with Em. Afterwards it was like starting over again. Then I got prego with Ali. You get the idea. So that is why I was nervous starting out. I have to admit it took me like 20 tries to get up the guts to go down the first scary hill. It wasn't until another group of bikers came and the two guys rode down and the two girls walked down that I was able to do it. I HAD to show the girls up hehe. It was a good ride. I felt like I wasn't clear back at square 1 like last time. I'm really excited to bike more this summer. Me and Dave decided thats what we will do for our dates.

This last pic is one of my favorites. It was taken Friday night. Emma and Ali were just chillin at the end of a long day. We usually camp, if it had just been me and Dave we would have braved the cold nights. For the sake of the girls we got a cheap motel room. Howie was even able to stay. It was surprising how cheap rooms are in the off season. The girls were sooooo tired and slept all the way home. When we got home Emma started to cry, "NOOOOOO, don't want to go home, go that way" while pointing back the way we had come. I felt the same way. I didn't want our mini vacation to end. I consoled myself with the fact that summer is coming, slowly, but surely.

Why I Love Holidays

I know I have said it a dozen times but I LOVE HOLIDAYS. Luckily I married a man who loves them as much as I do. I was trying to figure out why I love holidays so much. I came up with a couple of reasons. First of all my parents always made them special and fun. For example for Valentines day my mom and dad would give us a card that told us how much they loved us and a little treat. Second of all, I think holidays let the preschool teacher in me thrive. I love having a theme. I had so much fun with Emma this month. Almost every day we worked on valentine projects from homemade valentines for daddy to a valentine bag to decorating cookies for Dave's work. Em also made cookies and valentines for some of her friends in the neighborhood. We had a fun valentines play date with the cousins. I just love all the activities. Today we took the girls out to breakfast and gave them little valentine bags. We also took the girls to the store so Em could spend her valentine money she got from grandparents. So much fun. Then of course tonight after we put them to bed (after reading them valentine stories) I made Dave dinner. I always let him pick, this year he chose a grilled chicken salad. Crazy huh! In the past he has always chosen lasagna. I'll post the recipes they all turned out yummy. Anyway I hope everyone else had a GREAT valentines day! I'm off to finish celebrating, I still have dessert awaiting!

Weekend Sledding

This weekend we went Sledding with B, Jess and Josh. They have a little hill by their house that we tried out. It was fun. It was perfect for kids. It was small enough that it wasn't too scary for Em and Josh and they could go down it a million times. It was a great day for sledding. The sun was out and it was nice and warm. By the way, the only crashes were little Josh and then me and Ali (don't ask), shown in the picture above. She was ready for a nap so she is pretty much sleeping and oblivious hehe.

Isn't this just a cute picture?

There goes Emma....all by herself! What a big girl!

Making the "hike" back up.

Last but not least, there goes Ali, all by herself. I promise it was a small hill with no danger of crashing. Ok, let me rephrase, no danger of Ali crashing. Ali liked it, she just layed on her back, watched the sky fly and sucked her thumb.

Mr. Moms

There are two things in life that Dave just cannot handle. One, hairy legs, serious the tiniest prickle freaks him out. He once left a patients room gagging, you think it would be because of the blood and guts. Nope, it was because of the leg hair. Number two is screaming kids. He just has never done well with them. There have been many times both girls were tired and wailing and Dave would retreat to the basement until it was safe again and all was calm. Well, last night the boy, with the help of Adam, conquered #2!! Last night we went to Hungry Bear Pizza with Adam and Mindy. Emma let us all know she was tired and ready for bed (another little girl tried to give her a hug and a kiss, Emma thought the girl was trying to attack her and started screaming bloody murder). Me and Mindy sent the boys home with the girls while we went to grab a movie and yummies. When we got back to my house Dave was playing with Ali on the floor in the girls' bedroom while Adam was reading to Emma. Both girls were happy, clean and snuggled in Jammies. I figured all had gone well. Dave then reaccounted his last hour for me. Pretty much both girls were beyond tired and both were crying and screaming. You have to understand that my little angels turn into something not so angelic if you keep them up past bedtime. Dave and Adam juggled them both and got them calm and ready for bed. Way to go boys! Really, its a huge achievement for Dave! I just hope Adam still wants kids after the bedtime fiasco.

Bad Day

Poor Dave. Last night he was working for the ambulance. He got a call about 1:00 in the morning from the shift supervisors telling him
his truck had been broken into. Some of the ambulance stations are in some pretty scary neighborhoods so they have the EMTs leave their cars at ops, in a locked yard. Dave and his partner headed down to ops to see the damage. They broke a window and TRASHED his truck. They of course stole everything inside, the stereo, his tools, ski boots, etc. I'm so mad. I just don't understand how people can do that ya know. Whatever happened to actually working and making an honest living. Good grief! The sad part is that Dave's stereo went out about a year ago but we never had the money to replace it. Finally, about two weeks ago, we were able to get him a new one. Grrrrrr!

Charlie and Itchy

Emma has been calling herself "Charlie" and Ali "Itchy" the last few days. Can ya tell she watched All Dogs go to Heaven at Mindys. Hehe. Anyway this post is all about my little Charlie and Itchy. Why? We just got their pictures back and I figured I could just show them to you, but wouldn't you like to know lots of cute little things about my kids? Too bad cuz here goes.

Ali just had her 4 month dr. apt. I know I'm a little behind considering she is fast approaching 5 months. She weighed in at 14 lbs 3 oz (60th percentile) and was 24 1/4 inches long (50th percentile). Which means my suspicions have been right on and the little monkey is losing the chunk that I adore. It seems I should start letting Mindy and Dave feed her the ice cream and pudding I have caught both of them trying to sneak her. Anyway a few random tidbits about our little Al

• Nicknames-Snuggle button, Ali-gator and Allers
• Loves, Loves, Loves bathtime. She kicks and splashes and has a merry ol time.
• Loves mirrors, if you put her in front of one she instantly starts beaming
• Can roll from tummy to back
• She goes to bed at 7:30 and gets up at 6:00, sleeps through the night
• Laughs when you play Peek-A-Boo with her
• Grasps and plays with hanging toys and stuffed animals
• She is a thumb sucker, I think its adorable.
• Als is such a good baby. We get a lot of people asking us, "is she always this good?"

We sure love Ali, she is so sweet and squishy and has such a tender personality. In other words, very lovable.

Ah yes, now on to our sweet little Emma. FYI Emma does not like getting pictures done. She fought us almost the whole time on it. I was happily surprised when we got lots of cute ones back. Little monkey. Alright about Emma,

• Nickname-Squeakheart
• Loves animals. I can't even stress it enough. She especially loves horses. Oh how she loves horses. She has a bed full to prove it.
• Favorite color-Blue, everything has to be blue!
• Favorite foods-pancakes (I had to limit her to pancakes for only one meal a day), mandarin oranges, bananas, beans (as in pinto, kidney and black).
• Loves art projects and creating star snowmen with playdough
• Loves books, she always asks, "please mama, just one more book"
• Loves Disney Movies
• Looooves chocolate and bubble baths, she informed me of this one day while sitting on the potty.
• Loves to sing, at the top of her lungs!

Emma loves to tell us stories about things in her life. I'll share her three favorites which we hear a gazillion times a day.

"Mama I missssssed you when my adam and mindy came and you went on a date." In reference to when I left her to go on a date clear back in January

"I fell off my big tiger and got egg on my head and flour on my toes. I said, WAAAA. Daddy put me in the bath." She calls her stool her tiger. This is of course about the time she was helping me make bread.

"Remember when lightening Mcqueen went Bamm and Daddy and Grandpa fixed it." This is in reference to the time our car broke. They must have all been significant or traumatizing events in her life because we sure hear about them alot. Hehe. I love her chattering. We sure love and adore Emma. She is such an amazing little girl. She surprises me everyday. Usually in a good way.

What sweet little Daddy's girls huh! I have to say Emma is not liking Dave working days. She sure misses going in and giving him hugs and kisses and presents she made him. No wonder he never slept that great hehe.

Side note-spell check is not working so just ignore my bad spelling :)