Grey Photography

Friday morning we had one of my good friends, Kelli, take our pictures at Farmington Pond. The Girl is AMAZING. I can't even stress it enough. I will just have to let the pictures speak for themselves. Kelli was so professional and so thoughtful. She even brought treats to bribe my little ones. Anyway, if you are interested in learning more (as you should be) visit her site, Grey Photography. You won't regret it, I promise. Thanks Kelli, you are the best!

Ah Saturday!

I love Saturdays! Highlights of our day

• Family bike ride. I love biking with my family, it is one of my absolute favorite things to do. We just hit some back roads around our house. Dave let me ride his road bike while he pulled the trailer behind his mountain bike. I am head over heels in love with Dave's road bike. It is amazing! I told him we need to start saving up money to get him another one so I can have his. Oh and on a positive note I am starting to feel comfortable in the clip in pedals. No embarrassing mishaps this time hehe. Dave got a phone call in the middle of our ride and because of a change of plans we had to head back home. I cried, literally. I blamed my sniffles on allergies though, hehe. I was just loving being out biking on a beautiful morning with just Dave and the girls. It was hard to see it end. Another quick note on biking....Dave has been training a lot lately and it is really paying off. We really pushed it today. You have to keep in mind that with the Mt. bike and the trailer Dave had a good 55 lbs on me but still kept ahead of me.


• Naptime. After our bike ride Dave went on a ride with some friends. While he was gone there were about 45 minutes where both girls were napping. Even though my bed was piled high with laundry that needed to be folded I grabbed a good book and headed for the couch. It was so nice to get lost in a good book for awhile.


• Cherry Hill!!! We broke down and bought season passes. We had a blast. I am definitely looking forward to sunny summer days spent floating down the lazy river.

Alligator Pie

I am constantly looking for new and fun activities to do with Emma. Today at story time the topic was crazy food. They did the cutest activity that I thought I would share with you all. It was so simple but the kids went crazy over it. I'm sharing in hopes that you will return the favor and share any fun activities, songs, books etc. you have come across with me. My bored, almost 3 year old, will thank you.

Cut a circle out of construction paper and fold it over and staple it leaving the top open. Cut a triangle shape slit in it. This is the "Pie". Let your child color and decorate it. Then give your child some magazine pages or food ads and let them cut out different objects they find appealing, for example, Emma cut out pictures of pizza, pickles, crackers, a sun, etc. The pictures then fit inside the pie. Here comes the best part, you sing

Alligator pie, alligator pie,
If I don't get some I think I'm going to die.
Give away the green grass, give away the sky,
But don't give away my alligator pie.

Then repeat the song over but instead of using Alligator substitute the word with one of the pictures in your child's pie., example, Emma picked out the sun so we would sing,

sunshine pie, sunshine pie,
If I don't get some I think I'm going to die.
Give away the green grass, give away the sky,
But don't give away my sunshine pie.

I hope that makes sense. Its really cute and all the kids at story time really got into it and were laughing and having a good old time. Please leave any ideas for me in the comments. Thanks :)

Plan B (not to be mistaken with Plan Bee, hehe)

The original plan for this weekend was to head up to Strawberry like last year. Catch some crawdads, get in a good bike ride and just have a good ol time camping with Adam and Mindy and Brock and Kelli. I think Dave and I are getting soft. This is the first camping trip either of us could recall where we canceled for a bad weather forecast. It was supposed to be very cold and wet. We stayed home. We decided instead to go on a long bike ride with the girls and then go up Farmington canyon for dinner. The bike ride never happened because poor Dave was BEAT after a crazy busy 24 hr. shift with the ambulance. We did end up going up Farmington Canyon though and it was a blast. We went with Adam and Mindy and some of our good neighbors/friends, Jeremy and Valery. We had smores for appetizers, tin-foil dinners and then campin cobbler for dessert. It was such a perfect evening. Emma had a blast running around picking grass, running from imaginary bears and just bein' a kid. The rest of us chilled by the fire and talked. Did you know gun powder is edible. Well, according to Jeremy Brown it is. I'm not sure if I'm ready to try it. I learned a lot about gun powder actually. Did you know if thrown into a fire it doesn't explode? I was sure it did but Jeremy insisted it didn't. To prove his point he dug a bullet out of his pocket, opened it up and tossed the powder into the fire. I screamed like crazy. No explosion though. Seriously, it was a lovely time with my sweet family and good friends.

So just a quick side note while we are on the subject of campfires....Dave makes the absolute BEST smores ever! Now, I know what you are thinking, a smores a smore. There is where you are wrong. Dave softens the chocolate by warming the stick first, then somehow places the chocolate inside the marshmallow. He then roasts the mallow a perfect golden brown color and slides them both onto a graham cracker. It is heavenly. The marshmallow and chocolate are all ooey gooey and melted together. Mmmmm. I had a good half a dozen. Dave, the sweet boy, never complained, he just kept making me more.

Another highlight of the weekend was getting to meet sweet little Rebecca. Congrats B and Jess, she is absolutly beautiful!

I Love....

• Oatmeal for breakfast. This is a new obsession. About a week ago I decided to try gagging some down because its low cal, full of fiber and very filling. I ended up loving it. Every night when I go to bed I get really excited for my 1/2 cup of oatmeal with a little sprinkle of brown sugar and a diced strawberry. Mmmmm.
• Babies learning how to move. Ali is so funny to watch these days. She is really figuring out how to get where she wants. She rolls and does a very fast army crawl. Emma and Howie are not loving her new sense of mobility. If she spies either of them she will wiggle on over and grab hold. She just loves them both so much. Em and Howie will both cry and scream until I come release them. She will also get up on her hands and knees and rock back and forth before she face plants because she can't figure out how to move her hands.
• The conference addition of the Ensign. I learn best by reading. When I would luck out and get a professor who taught straight out of the book I always got an easy A. I love to study the conference talks with a pen and highlighter in hand. They inspire me to do better and do more. Like President Eyring said, "We must do better. We can. And we will." The talks fill me with hope.
• Emma's freckles. They scatter across her nose and highlight her pretty green eyes. I especially love how she crinkles her nose and freckles when she giggles. It melts my heart every time. I think she knows because she is starting to use it to get out of trouble.
• Listening to Norah Jones in the dark. So soothing.
• When Dave calls me from work. His co-workers make fun of him because he calls so often. He knows it makes my day though. I hate when he has busy, busy days and isn't able to sneak in his quick phone calls home.

107.45 Miles

Yup, thats how far Dave biked today. Go ahead, just call him superman! Today was the Salt Lake Century. Dave's first century. The boy did awesome. He finished in just over 7 hrs which is really good for his first time! I'll let you check out his blog for more details including the story on how he got lost.

Me and the girls pretty much spent the day driving to different places and waiting to cheer on Dave. Emma really got into it. Whenever she saw ANY bikers she would cat call and holler out, "GOOOOO DADDY AND NICK." BTW, Nick is Dave's friend from work whom Emma has an enormous crush on. She even made me roll down the windows so she could yell at the bikers as we passed. We received a lot of smiles. Als was content to nibble on grass and animal crackers.

So after going to the bike bonanza last night and the race today I all of the sudden have a strong urge to really get out and bike. I was a bit jealous of the bikers who were heaving and close to puking and so sore they about fell over when they got off of their bikes at the end of the finish line. I so wanted to be them, to have that feeling of accomplishment.

Anyway way to go Dave, as always, you amaze me with your determination and positive attitude. You are simply awesome.

Oh and the picture....don't you hate it when you run in front of someone taking a picture. The woman's face says it all. Hehe. The other two of course are Dave and Nick.

Add another one to the list of my most awesome adventures!

1. A three day canoe trip in Yellowstone National Park
2. Backpacking in Glacier National Park
3. Mountain biking in Moab
4. Wading the narrows in Zion National Park
5. Cross country skiing in Teton National Park

and.....the latest

6. Hiking slot canyons in the San Rafael Swell.

Holy Cow what an AMAZING weekend. Ever since I have been married I have spent Mothers Day weekend camping. This is actually the first year we haven't spent it in Moab. I must be honest...there was a moment as we were getting everything packed up and ready to go where I thought, wouldn't it be nice to sleep in on Mothers Day and wake up to happy kids all dressed and ready for church and a delicious crepe breakfast Dave had made. I'm so glad we went camping instead. We bought a guide book a few weeks ago on the San Rafael Swell (SRS). The pictures were amazing. We decided we had to see the canyons first hand. Well, we only made it to two of the four canyons we had planned. You have to understand the hikes are all on BLM land. Most of the hikes aren't even marked. We used our guide book to help us find our way, we ended up lost in the middle of nowhere several times. The directions were pretty much drive on this unmarked dirt road for so many miles head northwest at a certain big rock, park in a grove of trees and my favorite, head down the steep slope. Yeah, the steep slope was a cliff. Needless to say that wasn't one of the hikes we ended up doing. The other one we didn't do was one similar to the narrows in Zion. You hike up a river bed. The river bed was brimming full, we would have had to swim. Side note, that is why in some pics I am hiking in swimwear, we were planning on doing muddy creek.

Anyway, Wild Horse canyon is now my absolute favorite hike ever. It was amazing! It was so much fun and just stunning.

We were in the area of Goblin Valley so we also spent a morning hanging out there. I loved how it was just a giant play area.

What an amazing weekend with my family....does it get any better than that? I think not.

To Mothers Everywhere

Before I was a Mom -I slept as late as I wanted and never worried about how late I got into bed. I brushed my hair and my teeth everyday.

Before I was a Mom -I cleaned my house each day. I never tripped over toys or forgot words to a lullaby. I didn't worry whether or not my plants were poisonous. I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Mom -I had never been puked on - Pooped on - Spit on - Chewed on, or Peed on. I had complete control of my mind and My thoughts. I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom -I never held down a screaming child so that doctors could do tests...or give shots. I never looked into teary eyes and cried. I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin. I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom -I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn't want to put it down. I never felt my heart break into a million pieces when I couldn't stop the hurt. I never knew that something so small could affect my life so much. I never knew that I could love someone so much. I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom -I didn't know the feeling of having my heart outside my body. I didn't know how special it could feel to feed a hungry baby. I didn't know that bond between a mother and her child. I didn't know that something so small could make me feel so important.

Before I was a Mom -I had never gotten up in the middle of the night every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay. I had never known The warmth, The joy, The love, The heartache, The wonderment or the satisfaction of being a Mom. I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much before I was a Mom.

Remember that behind every successful woman......is a basket of dirty laundry.

- Author Unknown

I just love this....it really says it all. Also, wanted to give every mom out there a shout out and a pat on the back. I have discovered that being a mother is hard work, but so gloriously worth it. To my mom-thanks for all the time and love you have invested in me. I don't think I ever fully appreciated all you do for me until I had kids of my own. I love you mom!

Made with Love

Dave finished the toy boxes he has been making for the girls. I decided the girls' room needed some order to it, it was getting crazy out of control. So, Dave made them each a place to put their toys. If the toys don't fit....then its time to get rid of some. Dave did an amazing job. For the two boxes it only cost 30 bucks in supplies, but it took many, many hours on Dave's part. I wish you could have seen him. He spent a lot of time on the details to make them extra cute and girly. He sure loves his girls.

I had to add some pictures of the monkeys just playing around. Em and Al are really starting to play together more. Its so cute to watch. I'm sorry the pics are kind of dark. The toy boxes are still in the basement where there isn't the greatest lighting.

Bridal Shower

Saturday was Makinley's (Makinley is marrying my little brother Tyler) bridal shower. It started off kind of rough, I must say. First of all I left my house 20 minutes late. Being late stresses me out. Also, I ended up taking Emma and Ali so Dave could go biking. Right as we pulled into the parking lot Emma barfed all over. I went to call Dave or Mindy to see if one of them could come pick up poor little Memma Bear, yeah, my cell phone was dead. I found my grandma in the parking lot and sent her in to grab my mom to help me out. We got Emma cleaned up as best we could and all went in. We got Emma settled and she was surprisingly happy as can be. Next thing I know Crystal is informing me that Ali is poopy. Poopy she was!!! She had a major blowout. Yeah, I forgot a spare outfit. So sweet Crystal went and cleaned up Als for me and then Ali just hung out in her diaper and bow until Brittney found an outfit in her diaper bag that Ashtyn had outgrown. Oh and then instead of putting us in the back where they usually do for parties we were crammed in the main dining area. It ticked me a bit because I made the reservations almost a month in advance. We made the best of it though.

After that things went well. We had the shower at the Greenery restaurant. I love it. I went to a baby shower there a few years ago and fell in love with the place. Its so sunny and quaint, perfect for a girlfriends luncheon. I made some scrapbook pages of Ty and Makinley we passed around and had everyone write congrats and advice on. We gave out some prizes, we ate, and chatted. Makinley opened presents. Then we all dined on an absolutely fabulous chocolate cake that Crystal made. It was a ton fun. Oh and just wanted to thank Jen for all of the ideas, from the cute, cute party favors to every other detail. Oh and of course, thank my mom for helping me put it all together.

We had a great turnout. Shown here is Makinley with her mom, and grandma.

Poor, poor little Ali with her super spacey mom. The spaciness has been worse lately with everything I've had going on. I'm glad I have family that always bails me out.

They had these cute little butterflies outside the restaurant. Emma loved them. She thought she was the prettiest, blue butterfly ever. I had to agree.

So don't get me wrong, I adore Makinley but I'm kind of dreading being related to her. Seriously, with these two as sisters I am going to be know as the old, frumpy, ugly duckling for sure!

Last but not least, whats a bridal shower without lingerie. Hehe, I'm not sure if Makinley is scared or excited.

Graduation!!!

He did it!!!! Thursday night Dave graduated from the Universtiy of Utah! He got his bachelors degree in Health Education and Promotions with an emphasis in Emergency Medicine. It was interesting for me as I sat there juggling two crazy little kids. I was thinking about how this was not at all how me and Dave planned things. As newlyweds we planned on school, house and then kids. We pretty much did it backwards for many, many reasons and twist and turns in life that I won't go into. I think that is one reason I am so stinkin proud of the boy. It has been a long, hard road to get to this point. Dave has been amazing though. He has worked 2-3 jobs and gone to school full time for years. He has stayed up for days on end, studied on lunch breaks and still made time for his family in between. He has COMPLETELY supported our family on his own since we had our little Emma. Not once has he complained about it. So to Dave, the rest of you can stop reading it might get a little mushy here, I love you so much, you are amazing. And to our family and friends who have helped us along the way....thanks!

Here we are.....The Millers.

Dave with his Grandpa and Grandma Miller....Emma was so proud of her Daddy she insisted on being in every picture.

Dave with his Dad and Paula

I just love that boy.

I would consider these Dave's three greatest accomplishments.

Tonight we held a big ol fashioned BBQ to celebrate. It was a blast. It was so fun! Family, friends and dear neighbors all showed up. I love being surrounded by so many people we just love and that have touched our lives. It was simply perfect.

Look at Ali going at that bun....hehe. Ah kills me. The girl has discovered she LOVES food.
Anyway thank you all for bearing through an extremely cheesy blog. The cheesiness just seeps from me when I'm happy. I can't control it.