Hales Family Blog

Ode to Fall

2011-10-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

Fall is my FAVORITE time of year. I love leaves turning, all things pumpkin, harvest of yummy fruits and veggies, cool autumn air, getting out the new sweaters, and pretty much every aspect of fall. I have been hard at work on Halloween costumes since early August. Let's just say many of our weekends have been full of felt, feathers, pleather, and spandex! I made them all without patterns and I have to admit that I am impressed with my sewing skills. Now if I just had a better machine.

This is a random picture of Emily before a birthday party this weekend. This is my favorite of her dresses. I guess the 80's are back and I am warming up to them again :-)

Below are some pix of the girls showing off their pumpkins that they made with Grandma. They are wearing skirts that I made for them :-)

These are photos from Emily's class trip to This is the Place. They had a really good time, and I was glad that Chloe got to go too.

See I LOVE sweaters!

Below are some pics from our attempt to see Little Mermaid in St. George a couple of weeks ago. It was raining, but we thought that there may be a CHANCE that the show wouldn't be cancelled, it is supposed to be under the sea after all. But alas, too much rain and the show was cancelled. At least we got to experience all the "fun" parts like parking, walking in the rain, sitting in the rain, and then sitting in traffic in our wet clothes. Oh well we now have tickets to Aladdin next year.
Two very wet cousins.

I Don't Feel Bad

2011-10-07T20:37:00.000-07:00

I really haven't given up on this blog it just seems like it. I am working on finding balance in my life. I have never had very good balance (or rhythm for that matter). Since starting to work full time I think that I may have taken 100 pictures (an all time low for me). Generally, I miss things. I missed Emily's last day of joy school (I was in Vegas for work), I missed swim lessons (I was at work), I missed play group (I was at work), I missed more than one bedtime (I was at work) and I can't even remember what else I missed. Some times it makes me sad, but I also love it when Emily says "that's not the way that daddy does it" or "I like daddy the best." I love that my girls are developing a relationship with their dad. I love that Ryan knows how to do their hair. I love that I better understand Ryan and he better understands me. Would I stop working and move to a warm tropical island if money was not an issue? You bet, but I don't regret my life. I am fulfilled, I am happy, I am intellectually challenged, I am loved by my family! Overall, I don't think that I could ask for much more, except for maybe 3 day weekends to spend with the girlies, more caffeine, less bureaucracy, and more SCUBA diving.

That's ok though Ryan and I have developed a plan. We are going to pay EVERYTHING off by the time Chloe is in 5th grade, then spend the next 10 years saving as much as we can so that we can open a dive shop and Tiki bar/grill on a tropical island. I am totally NOT kidding. I have less than 20 years to pick out my island, so I better get started soon. A girl has gotta have a plan. My plan involved compressed air and grouper!

The Big Event

2011-08-14T12:06:00.000-07:00

Below are pics from the big event. The party was super fun. I can't believe that Em is already 4. Where does the time go?

Princess Emily

2011-07-27T21:16:00.000-07:00

To kick off Emily's birthday we went to see Cinderella with two of Emily's best friends. So far the birthday festivities have been going strong for 2 weeks, we just keep telling her all the fun stuff we are doing is for her birthday (fireworks, cabin trip, Cinderella play, hanging out with Aunt Lisa, and birthday party). Poor Chloe will be so disappointed when she doesn't get two weeks of nightly fireworks and three cakes to celebrate her birthday.

Anyway... Here are some photos from our Mommy daughter day when we went to see Cinderella and a few other random photos from the last couple of weeks.

Who said it was ok for this little bug to grow up? I can't believe she is two and a half. I keep telling her she is still a baby, but even I can't convince myself anymore.

She does LOVE her blankey and her thumb. And I still think they are pretty cute habits.

Such a big girl. Like the skirt? I made it. It was super easy. I think I might make a bunch more.

First attempt at the birthday cake. Ya it was a disaster. Good thing I did a trial run well in advance. Attempt #2 at least came out of the pan, it just tasted like crap. Here's to attempt #3.

Emily's ensemble for her friend Mikell's birthday party. It includes three necklaces, three bracelets, a crown, high heels, a purse, sun glasses and a Snow White dress. She was so excited to go she even sat on the steps outside our house in all her princess glory holding Mikell's present for 10 minutes, asking every minute or so if it was time to go yet.

The king crowning her and trying on the glass slipper before the play started.

The prince dancing with her, she LOVED the prince.

Sitting with Cinderella in her carriage.

Announcing Princess Emily.

Me and my favorite princess.

Hinckley and Tiffany, Mikell and Melinda, Emily and I.

The girls with our adorable princess guide. She was SOOOO nice to the girls.

Princess tea!

Look we have tickets!

Pre-Party Neuroticism

2011-07-12T18:45:00.000-07:00

So it is well documented that when it comes to birthday parties I loose my mind. I always over do. The good news is that I accept this about myself. The better news is that my husband accepts this about me. Emily's birthday is rapidly approaching, so I have been asking her for months what type of party she wanted. After a million different answers I finally settled on a "under the sea" theme. Emily is still informing me of the other ideas she has for the party, the latest of which included a dog party and a "boys only" party. I put the kibosh on the "boys only" party by telling her that if she had a "boys only" party she would not be able to come. I haven't quite been able to talk her out of the dog party yet, but I'm sure her mood will change and she will want some other type of obscure party.

Thanks to Pinterest, the best website in the whole world, I have more ideas than even I can implement. The first phase of the party insanity involved invitations...

The invitation is a message in a bottle with seashells and gummy fish in the bottom. I always get anxious about the party list. Am I leaving anyone out, will anyone be offended? So I have implemented a firm "ask the child for the invitation list and go with it" policy. So if I have offended you, I'm sorry...speak to the child about it :-)

In other news things have been busy and fun around here. We have been to Seven Peaks water park several times (as an act of mercy I have not included photos of me in a swimsuit). The girls LOVE being in the water. Ry and I have enjoyed it too.

A new cousin was born last month, and she is a darling little monkey that ALMOST makes me want another little peanut....Almost but not quite.

Someone sprinkled magic fairy dust on Emily and she the amazing temper tantrums have nearly ceased. Her imagination is AMAZING. She is always making up the funniest stories and alter egos, I love it. Below is a photo of one of her kitchen creations from this weekend. It is a peanut butter and marshmallow sandwich. Where does this kid come up with this stuff.

Another fairy seems to be responsible for the devout friendship that my two girls seemed to have developed lately. There is nothing better than hearing these two girls giggle and play together. Em is becoming a very good big sister. Chloe has such a sweet and funny personality. She is a pretty easy going kid, but definitely likes mom over everyone else in the world.

See what I mean about the pretend and creation phase?

Never Enough Time

2011-06-12T20:29:00.000-07:00

As usual things have been crazy. I have been working, crafting, mommy-ing, planting, and generally enjoying the warm weather. I have NOT been taking photos though. So I have been trying to correct that over the last several weeks. Below are some of my favorite Emily-isms

Emily: " Mom I brought these fries back for my pet seagull."
She then goes into the back yard and yells "Here Shrinky Dinky Boom Ray, come get your fries."
Yep she named her "pet" seagull Shrinky Dinky Boom Ray.

Emily: "Mom I don't want you to go to work"
Me: "I have to go to work or my boss will get mad at me."
Emily: "Mom let's call the police and have him go to jail 'cause he is mean!"

Me: Emily, don't climb on the furniture, only monkeys climb on the furniture. Do you want to go live with the monkey's at the zoo?"
Emily: YES!
Me: You have to sleep outside.
Emily: Ok
Me: Monkey's fling poo (yep I said that).
Emily: I will give them spankins and tell them no.
Me: Ok tomorrow you can move to the zoo.

Text from Ryan at about 10:00 am. "Emily has packed two bags and says she is moving to the zoo."

Lesson: Don't make idle threats.

Oh there are so many more, I wish I could remember them all. She is so smart and stubborn and cute. Half the time I feel like I am negotiating with a terrorist, the other half the time I can't believe how kind and funny she is. She is starting to be so much more helpful.

Chloe is in the not so terrible two stage. Generally she is happy and easy going. She has recently taken to throwing fits, but can usually be dissuaded pretty easily (unlike her sister who has no problem with a two hour screaming and crying jag).

Chloe is so chatty and loves to sing songs from TV (maybe that should be a message to me but whatever). She LOVES to dance and is always grooving when the music is on.

The girls just finished a dance class and had a little recital up the canyon (pics below). I have to say it was clear they are MY girls. Emily was always one step behind and just opposite of everyone else. Chloe would not stand on the stage, instead she stood directly in front of the teacher and did all the little moves. They were so stinkin cute.

We started swimming lessons, the first lesson was a DISASTER, but we have been talking about next week and I hope that things will go better this time.

Chloe is all smiles!
My Darling Girlies. Em really is not trying to choke her.
My nothing bunt cake. MMMMMM it was so good. I can't believe how easy it was to make.
Ry got seeds for the garden and left them on the counter. A few day's later Emily came in from outside and informed us that she had planted the garden (it was February). A few months later we started getting little patches of veggies. Here is a patch of carrots and beans. I thought it was so funny I couldn't even be mad.

One of my favorite things about spring is the giant blooms on my lilac and snowball bush that I get to bring in the house and enjoy.
The dance recital. Yep Em is the blur on the left not doing anything resembling the moves the rest of the class is doing.

Here is Chloe standing 1 foot in front of her teacher.

Little Chlo Buggy.

Emmy pre show.

Me and my girlies. Chloe is not really one for posing for photos.

Em however, loves to pose :-)

Update

2011-04-17T19:13:00.000-07:00

We are so happy it is finally starting to feel like spring. Today was a beautiful day and the girls spent hours running around in the back yard in spring dresses! Hopefully Spring will decide to stick around for a while. We have missed the sunshine. Below are some photos of what we have been up to lately. For my birthday I decided to redo my bedroom. I am pretty happy with the results...well except for the one pillow I am still not finished with. I am a good starter, it is the finishing I struggle with :-) Ry is not sure about the new skirt. He thinks it looks like something that came out of his grandma's house. I am not sure how I feel about it. Most of the time I tell myself it is vintage, other times I wonder what was I thinking at the fabric store. I am pretty proud of the pillows. The curtains.

The girly's painting in the tub, edited so that I don't get in trouble.

A fun afternoon at Hollywood Connection. Chloe LOVED the carousel and wanted to ride every animal.

The last time we had joy school at our house :-( Em has LOVED school and being with her friends.

Chloe is such a sweetie, so far the terrible twos are far from terrible. She is a little whiny, but I prefer whiny to CRAZY fits like her older sister. At 18 months I remember asking the pediatrician if there was something wrong with Emily, after some knock down drag out fights we had. Chloe is much more mild mannered, thank goodness.

The girls started dance. They are ADORABLE!!!! I haven't captured photos of Em in her dance outfit somehow, but these of Chloe on her first day were pretty dang cute.

Chloe playing with Cootie. This brings back fun memories of playing cootie at my grandma Bassett's house when I was a little girl. I hope my girls have good childhood memories, like I do.

I promise more photos soon (likely after Easter). I also will post photos of my new hair bows. What can I say, I am obsessed again. This time with felt. I had no idea how awesome felt could be :-)

Girl Scout Cookies and Other Important Topics

2011-03-09T17:57:00.000-08:00

My Brother-in-law predicted that once I started working full time the blog would fall by the wayside. I assured him this would not be the case...two months later, I think he might be right. I just haven't really had the material, I could enthrall you all with discussions of lane widths and traffic counts but somehow I don't think you care.

The summary of how things are going, for those of you that do care about our amazingly fascinating existence, is that having a house husband is AWESOME. Tonight I reached into the magically refilling silverware drawer to find the forks empty for the first time since....well since I was in charge of doing the house work. Ryan is amazing. He has schedules, goes to playgroup, does the dishes, took Chloe to the doctor, makes me breakfast and dinner, packs me a lunch most days, learned several Julia Child recipes, fixed the smoke detectors that have been broken for a year, put salt in the water softener...in short he is the best wife a girl could ask for. The girls are happy, I am happy, and things are generally pretty great. I miss spending a whole day with the girls doing anything we want, I miss hanging out with my mom and my friends, I miss hanging out in my jammies until noon, I miss craft days, I miss never setting an alarm, I miss doing the girls hair, and lots of times I come home from work and I am just tired, but overall its a pretty small price to pay.

In the spirit of being the awesome house husband that he is, I just noticed that he picked up two packages of the Keebler knockoff girl scout cookies (they are an amazing replication of the real thing and about $1.50 a box cheaper). He clearly bought them for me because he knows that I love girl scout cookies. Part of me is thinking awwww how nice, the other part of me is wondering if I should tell him about the 5 boxes of girl scout cookies that I might have stashed at the office. When I bought them I fully intended to bring them home, one week and two packages of knock off cookies later I am wondering if I should just leave them at the office like I did last year.

I didn't intend to eat all three boxes last year, it's just by the time I got around to bringing them home there was only 1/2 of a box left, and really who wants a 1/2 of a box of girl scout cookies in April? So I just did us all a favor and polished them off. This year however, I bought FIVE boxes plus the two boxes of knock off cookies...not sure I can keep all of them a secret, not sure I will even like girl scout cookies when all is said and done. I guess that would solve the problem for next year.

At Long Last

2011-02-08T17:24:00.000-08:00

I have been busy with lots of projects (I promise photos soon for all of you that have been waiting with bated breath). In the meantime, here are some videos and pics of Chloe's birthday.

Chloe is 2!

2011-01-28T14:40:00.000-08:00

Awesome pics to follow soon!

Thank You Dr. King

2011-01-17T14:53:00.000-08:00

This month I have been reading The Help, and Warriors Don't Cry, both civil rights books. I am AMAZED in how far we have come in such a short period of time. I am so thankful for the brave men and women who sacrificed everything, even their lives, to end segregation. It is incomprehensible to me that people actually would be willing to kill someone because they wanted to attend the same school as a white person. I don't know if I would have been brave enough to stand up and force a change, but I am so glad that my kids will see all people as equal regardless of their color.

Roads are My Life

2011-01-04T17:57:00.000-08:00

So today I was in the elevator at work returning from lunch. The gentleman in the elevator asked my which floor I was going to. I told him and he asked what company I worked for. I told my Jacobs Engineering. He said "oh the people working on I-15." I said yes. Then he said "I am sure you do more than just roads, that would be boring."

Hummm I guess I lead a boring existence, because I work pretty much exclusively on roads, and I LOVE it. Early in my career I did environmental work for some private developments (a whole city block of downtown LA for a developer who looked like Michael Jackson, nose job and all), schools, pipelines, a superfund hazardous material site, a park, BLM (blah), and I even once got a fence approved for a state mental facility, but to tell you the truth none of it has been as fun as working on roads (transit comes in second). I love the political intrigue, the negations with land owners, figuring out accesses and alignments, trying to mitigate for wetlands and tortoises...No project is ever the same. At the end of the day you get to go look at it and say, I helped to decide where they put this road. I may be a dork, but roads are way more interesting than you think.

Sisters

2011-01-04T17:47:00.001-08:00

I remember when I was little, my sister Amy was SOOOO ticklish and everyone had so much fun tickling her. I was not ticklish and it made me sad because I didn't get enough attention at tickle time. I would pretend to be ticklish and beg for everyone to tickle me then I would pretend to laugh.

Jump forward 25ish years and I have two darling little girls. Chloe is much like my little sister Amy, she is super skinny, has long beautiful hair, she's more reserved, and is super ticklish. Emily is much more like me, she is more on the sturdy side, she has crazy hair that doesn't grow (another round with the scissors didn't help), she is verbally advanced (ok she NEVER shuts up), and the poor kid is not ticklish at all.

Last night as I was laying in bed tickling Chloe relentlessly and she was giggling uncontrollably, Emily jumped up on the bed and begged to be tickled too. I looked at my two darling little girls and I realized that the sisterhood would continue again into the future. I can only hope that they can learn to cherish each other's differences and learn about the comfort, love, and solidarity that comes from sisterhood. My sister has been my absolute best friend in the world for most of my life and I have no idea what I would do without her.

Fall Projects

2010-12-20T10:35:00.000-08:00

So earlier this fall before my computer died, I worked on a couple of fun projects. I was super happy with the results, but didn't get to post them...So here they are. This was a plain t-shirt and I sewed on an owl and buttons. I did this to a bunch of shirts. They were fun, fast, and almost free.

This is an old ladder that we found at our cabin. My dad planned to take it to the dump, but I fell in love. I have been planning to make a drying rack because I don't dry most of our clothes in the dryer. My laundry room is long and narrow so a traditional rack really didn't work. This ended up being perfect. Ryan still thinks it is wierd, but I LOVE it.

Big Changes

2010-12-09T17:01:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago our computer died. I was secretly pretty happy, because it meant we got to buy a new computer and the lag of our old computer when scrapbooking was driving me crazy! So tomorrow my shiny fast new Dell will arrive and I will be back in scrapbooking heaven. I'm sure you are all thinking, really that is the "Big Change." That is pretty sad...

But no the big change is that starting sometime in January, Ryan is going to quit his job and come home and be the house husband. I am going to work full time! It is something that we both feel will be better for our girls and we hope will be better for both of us.

All my life I was pretty sure I could have it all. Over the last several months I have come to realize that despite my efforts it is not possible for me. I have always been a sit in the front of the classroom, answer all the questions, get a 4.0 kind of girl. Excelling at my career has come easy to me. I am passionate about what I do and there is no better feeling than looking at a finished road, school, housing development, train...and thinking I was a part of that. I love using my brain to find answers to difficult problems and my relationships with people to turn projects into community assets. After I had kids I put my career on hold and decided that I would be happy working part time and being home with my kids. For the most part I have been very happy. But I didn't anticipate how hard it would be being passed up for promotions and told "this job would be yours if you were full time," finding and keeping babysitters, juggling everything every week. I never have a schedule because I am trying to do it all playgroup, client meetings, sick kids, joy school, deadlines, laundry... Mostly I just feel guilty, not doing enough at home or at the office. My kids are clingy and whiney when I get home and I just want to put them to bed.

I was expressing this frustration to my husband the other night and he said, why don't I just stay home with the kids. We have talked and we are both pretty excited for the change. I can't believe how kind and accommodating my husband is. He ALWAYS believes in me and tries to figure out ways to give me everything I have ever wanted. I love him more now than I think I ever have.

A part of me is a little sad that I will be giving up craft days with my mom and friends, one-on-one time with my girls, warm summer days at the park, mid-week play dates, and flexibility. The other part of me is thrilled to give up dishes, toy pick up, pre-nap tantrums, and primary potty training responsibilities. So starting soon there are going to be some major changes in our house, hopefully for the better.

Halloween

2010-11-07T18:26:00.000-08:00

The girls had such a fun Halloween this year. We spent the whole week running from event to event. Our week included witches night out with some friends, a neighborhood play group party, book club, bunco, trick-or-treating at daddy and mommy's offices, pancakes with friends at IHOP, trick-or-treating at grandma's (she had the best treats), trick-or-treating...again, in the neighborhood, and spending the night with Aunt Lisa and Uncle Whit so mommy and daddy could go to Rocky Horror Picture Show (it was a little intense and out of control). Overall it was a fun, crazy, and memorable week. Below are some of our pictures.

Fall

2010-10-12T13:50:00.000-07:00

As I have extolled, just about every year, I love fall. Last week we got some photos in the pumpkin patch out in Herriman (it is an awesome pumpkin patch, it is just south and west of the District). We had so much fun picking out the perfect pumpkins, getting yummy fruit and jam, and riding in the wagon. Grandma Hales, I promise updated printed photos soon!

Vision

2010-09-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

My mom is a very creative person. I love shopping with her because at least every 10 minutes she finds something that she has a vision for. "Oh look at that {giant ugly vase, big ugly picture frame, funny looking dress...} you could {paint, saw, cut, sew...} that and it would look awesome {in you yard, on your front door, on your child...} Some of her vision has rubbed off on my because I am constantly on the hunt for a fun new project. Some projects turn out better than expected, others are disasters.

Last week I took several of Emily's shirts that I didn't love and I sewed little birds, owls, and the USC logo on them. I am in love with the results. They are now possibly my favorite of her shirts.

This weekend I saw that the re-purposing tradition came well before my time. We did some work at the cabin and saw some of my Grandpa's handiwork (road signs for siding was my favorite). On the side of the cabin was an old hardwood ladder. It probably had been there about as long as the empty 50 gallon drum and the steel bed frame that I drug up the hill to the garbage pile. All weekend I kept walking past this old weathered ladder thinking what could I do with that? Then I saw my dad cutting it into pieces with a chain saw and it hit me... "Um, dad can I have that?" "Really? What are you going to do with that?" "I'm going to take two of the 5 foot pieces, paint them, turn them sideway's and hang them in my laundry room so that I can air dry clothes (I really don't like using the dryer)" Then my sweet dad squared off the ends put it in his truck and brought that nasty old ladder down the mountain. I think I am going to paint it Robbin's egg blue or lime green (what do you think? Those seem to be my default colors), I can't wait.

My husband insists that I am not bringing that "thing" into our house...He also said that when I brought home a nasty 12 paned door that my best friend Kate found on the side of the road. I painted it and made him hang on the wall. After 4 years and countless conversations with friends and neighbors about the door on our wall, I think he has finally caved and may even admit to liking it, or at least being indifferent toward it. I promise photos as soon as it is done!

A Trip to St. George, Chloe Update, and Look A Likes

2010-09-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

We took a quick trip to St. George last weekend for my Grandma George's funeral. It was nice to see so many of my cousins (all but one was there). It was also fun to remember fun times with Grandma and Grandpa. My mom took all the pictures, so I don't have any until I get them from her. Above are photos of Emily and Chloe playing the piano at Grandma Hales' house. It was SO cute. Below is a photo of Emily in a dress that my Grandpa bought me when I was little. It was kind of fun to put it on Emily. It was also a little shocking, sometimes it seems like life is just standing still and before you realize it 25 years have gone by and you have your own little girl!

This page is a tribute to my cute little Chloe bug. She is SOOOO full of personality these days and I can honestly say that I adore her more and more each day!

Fall

2010-09-16T09:37:00.000-07:00

Fall is in the air and I think that I am finally getting excited. The girls have cute new sweaters; school and football have started; there are plans for Halloween costumes, pumpkin carving, and hayrides; the hills are starting to come alive with color, the sunflowers have been glorious this year, and my windows are open every evening welcoming the cool air. Yep I think this is going to be another fabulous fall. Some friends let me and the girls intrude on their sunflower photo shoot, and I am in love with the results!

Scrappin

2010-09-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

It has been a while, so I thought that I would share some new pages. FYI Shabby Princess has a new free kit that is awesome, as usual!

Chloe the Talker

2010-09-07T11:30:00.000-07:00

Chloe has not been a big talker up to this point. She is just now starting to say a lot and put multiple words together. Here is some video from a couple of weeks ago. I think she is so funny! Her favorite things to say are "go away" "don't touch" and "don't bite baby." She is one sassy little kid.

First Day

2010-09-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

Em had her first day of school today. She was so excited and so cute!

As soon as she saw Hinckley she had to run up and give her a hug.

Here she is waving for the camera, she would not just smile, she had to wave. Oh and she decided that she didn't like the shoes or sweater that I picked out and refused to wear them.
Here are her classmates all sitting on their little squares of carpet. Aren't they cute?

Everyone getting there, notice Em waving again.

She is so excited about school and I am so excited that she gets to spend time with all her friends.

Book Club

2010-08-31T09:52:00.000-07:00

I started reading when I was three and a half years old and it has pretty much been a love affair ever since. One of my favorite classes in college was a women's lit class. All we did was read books and then talk and write about them. We read fantastic books like Their Eyes Were Watching God, and some not so good books that I don't remember. We read some horrifying books that I never want to read again, that taught me a lot and I don't regret reading. In class we were free to debate what the author really meant and if she was correct. Every week a new book and a new discussion. Lately I have been reading a lot. I have read some awesome books with characters that I really relate to. I find myself wanting to highlight passages and talk to someone about them. SOOO I was thinking of starting a book club with other like minded readers. Here are the guidelines that I have been thinking of (although I am open to others, or to changing them):

1. The first order of business will be to establish a really great name, because book club sounds lame, but who wouldn't want to be a part of the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society."

2. Members HAVE to read the book.

3. Dialogue should be open and honest.

4. Disagreements and debate are welcome (not the primary focus, just a happy addition).

5. There will be 6-12 members (assuming I have that many friends), we will all take a turn picking a book and hosting at our house. We will set a schedule for a year and then rotate. Meetings will be held in the evening once a month.

6. Books should be less than 300 pages, something you have ALREADY read, something with wide appeal, and something that we can talk about (something with a message, something addressing women's issues, or something that you related to). I would prefer to shy away from political and religious books and focus more on women's issues (although political and religious books would be acceptable, just not my first choice). I was about to write that while Twlight was entertaining there really wasn't a whole lot to discuss besides how dreamy Edward was. But then I remembered that some of my most lively discussions about love and about being a woman have come out of that book, so I guess Twlight would be a good pick...we don't want to be all stuffy and Edward is pretty dreamy!

7. Books don't have to be G rated, shoot for PG-13, and try to avoid R.

8. The classics are welcome, but Dostoevsky is pushing it...I really don't want to read about becoming a bug again, I learned my lesson the first time...Well maybe I didn't because I can't remember the moral just that he was a bug, I think it had something to do with communism.

So let me know if you are brave and ready for some thought provoking discourse and friendship.

Big Girl Bed

2010-08-26T14:19:00.000-07:00

So we decided it was time to get Emily a "Big Girl Bed" since she had been sleeping pretty poorly in her bed. I sold her bed on ksl and got a new one from someone I found on ksl. Found a mattress and then stumbled into some cute bedding on clearance from Target. Fortuitously the table runner I made for the kids table for her birthday that I LOVED was perfect for the bed skirt. Now I just need to work on some cute pillows and possibly rearrange the furniture. For a really low cost project (under $250 total for EVERYTHING) I am in love with the results.

The sad part is that Em is still sleeping poorly in her bed and has told me on several occasions that she wants her old bed back. Hopefully she adapts a little better once she is feeling better.

Situational Last Name User

2010-08-17T16:12:00.001-07:00

Last night on my way home from work I was listening to NPR and they were talking about "situational last name users." I was laughing a little because I didn't realize that they had a name for me. My husband's last name is Hales, my kid's last name is Hales, but my legal last name is Bassett. I didn't keep my last name because I was taking a feminist stand against being considered property of my husband. It wasn't even because I was trying to be different (95% of married women take their husband's last names. Although I joke about it, it wasn't even because I wasn't sure the marriage was going to work and didn't want to change it back later. To be honest it was mostly because it wasn't a big deal to Ry or to me and I liked my name. The biggest factor is that changing your name is a big fat pain in the butt. It involves trips to the social security office and legal paperwork. So we got married and went about our lives with different last names. That is not to say that I won't answer to Jennifer Hales or even introduce myself as Jennifer Hales. Half of my accounts are Jennifer Hales the other half are Jennifer Bassett, the hardest part is remembering which name goes with each account. People regularly ask for ID and see the name on my bank account is Hales, but the name on my ID is Bassett. They often ask "did you just get married?" To which I respond, yeah 10 years ago. They usually just look at me funny. For a long time I intended to change my name, but yesterday I finally realized that I don't want to change my name I am Jennifer Bassett, Jennifer Bassett-Hales, or Jennifer Hales and I am good with that. If you want something more definitive find a more definitive girl. I think it totally fits that I have three names and regularly can't remember which one I am "supposed" to be using. That is just sort of how I roll with everything in my life. More often than not I am riding by the seat of my pants, turning things in 5 minutes after they are due, and forgetting that I left my purse in the cart at Target. I am a proud situational last name user.

The Latest Happs

2010-08-05T15:40:00.001-07:00

Do As I'm Doing

2010-07-30T09:16:00.000-07:00

Poor little Chloe wants to do EVERYTHING her big sister is doing. I hadn't really noticed it (except the fighting over the same toy) until the last few days. Yesterday morning she woke up and Emily was still asleep, she found Emily's princess dress put it on (the best that an 18 month old can) and then pranced around the house. Today we were playing Sleeping Beauty and Emily was "sleeping" in my bed, Chloe climbed up and started "sleeping" just like her sister. She wants to color like Emily, play in Emily's sticker book, and do pretty much anything else she sees her big sister do. It is kind of cute, when it doesn't involve shrieking!

My other discovery when putting Chloe in the tub this morning is that she kind of has a puppy thing going on. She is this tiny little string bean with super skinny legs and then she has a little buddah belly and GIANT feet! Her feet are super long and skinny and I think they have grown about an inch in the last two weeks, finding shoes is quite a challenge. I have a feeling she is going to be TALL.

Happy Birthday Emily

2010-07-26T17:48:00.000-07:00

So last Friday was the BIG day, my little Emily turned three. She was SOOOO excited. She has been "helping" me get ready for the party and could not wait to play with all the fun things we had been working on. I have lots more pictures, but here are a few from before the mayham began! I fully accept that the party decor was out of control, but I had been visiting a couple of cute party websites and couldn't help myself. Now a need a new fun project!

Summer Reading

2010-07-26T09:58:00.000-07:00

Twice a year the library selects "readers choice" books then you have several months to read and vote on your favorites. I have had pretty good luck with them in the past so I picked up 4 last time I was at the library. Two "Bound South" and "Henry's Sisters" were ok. They were a bit painful to read and I wasn't sure I needed that much reality in my life. The other that I read this weekend was "Something's Missing." Let me just say it was the best book I have read in a long time. It was SO funny! It is about an OCD thief that breaks into "clients" homes and steals things, but his clients never notice anything is missing. It was set in Newington CT, where my sister lived, so it made it extra fun. I totally recommend it to anyone looking for a fun summer read.

Em's birthday was this weekend, and I have finally recovered from the party! I promise a full account and pictures by the end of the day. :-)

More Party Stuff and Curly Hair

2010-07-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

Here are some cute new pics of Em sporting her curly do. Her hair is naturally curly and is finally starting to fill in a bit. I love it when it is curly like this. Unfortunately after a nap it is a MESS again.

I have become a bit OBSESSED with Em's birthday party (I guess I needed a project). Anyway below are the invitations and party hats. I am having so much fun!

The best part of my day today was picking two big handfuls of raspberries from the back yard. I LOVE this time of year!

Bed Issues, A Mad Tea Party, and Two Princesses

2010-07-04T20:39:00.000-07:00

When Emily was 17 months she started climbing out of her crib. After she fell on her head the second time we decided it was time to turn it into a toddler bed. It was a rough transition for a week or so, but overall a good decision (it was great that she couldn't open her door). I decided that I would take the same approach with Chloe. Note, Chloe is an EXCELLENT sleeper. Not like Emily who still frequently doesn't make it through the night (in fact last night we woke up to hysterical screaming three times. For a week this month she decided she wanted to sleep on the floor and today she took a nap in her closet.

At around 3 months Chloe started sleeping through the night (12+ hours a night kind of sleep). Since that day she has only woke up a handful of times, typically experiencing some sort of dire circumstances (leg caught in the crib, sick, missing blanket...). She has never in her life "cried it out" because she doesn't cry when you put her to bed. She takes two 2+ hour naps a day and sleeps 12 hours a night. When she is in a bad mood you just put her in her crib and she will play happily until she goes to sleep. To put it mildly she loves her crib. So me being a moron, decided it was time to move her to her toddler bed. We took off the front rail this morning and put on the toddler rail that allows her to get in and out of bed on her out. She was SOOO happy and immediately began jumping on her bed with unabashed glee. Emily wanted to get in on the action and the two girls spent about an hour playing on the new bed (all the while Emily was whining "mom build me a big girl bed"). I was nervous for nap time, but she took two naps with no tears. Then it was bed time, no big deal right? Oh wait, it is the 4th of July and my normally tranquil quiet neighborhood was transformed into a war zone. Not sure if it was the constant explosions or the bed, but Chloe freaked and it took an hour to get her calmed down and asleep. I am hoping tomorrow will go better. Why again did I choose July 4th to convert to a new sleeping situation?

In other news, it is almost Emily's third birthday. I have been inspired by this website (http://www.thecitycradle.com/) and a couple of others, and I am planning a fantastic Alice in Wonderland style mad tea party. I am so excited for some projects. I went on a DI and Tai Pan Trading binge and got so many fun items for the table. I didn't do as well at DI as I had hoped for the tea pots (crazy Mormons don't drink tea :-). I did find two pretty ugly tea pots that I spray painted with pretty good results. I am planning to fill them with bright pink peonies for the table center piece. I also got some amazing Heather Bailey fabric (from the Nicey Jane collection) for the table runner. I ordered some paper lanterns for over the table online and things are shaping up nicely. I am planning food and found a great funky vintage Alice in Wonderland digi kit for the invites and favors. Now I am working on party games. About three weeks ago there were some plastic pink flamingos in the dollar section at Target. I saw them and smiled, but couldn't think of what I would do with them...Now that I have a use for them they are gone, greedy flamingo buyers got them all. Now just to implement the vision!

Also below are some cute photos my mom took of the girls the other day.

There Should Be a Disclosure!

2010-06-22T12:21:00.000-07:00

Thanks to the kindness of Ryan's awesome sisters and my parents, Ryan and I got to spent 5 days of kid-less bliss in Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a pretty amazing place. I used to work with a girl from India. One time I asked her what surprised her the most when she came to America. She told me she was surprised by how normal it was. She expected more sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I can totally see that having spent the last week in Las Vegas. I'm not sure Vegas should really be considered America, at the very least there should be a disclosure for all international flights indicating that Las Vegas is a land of excess; there is too much of everything. Additionally, it should be noted that Las Vegas is in no way representative of the rest of the United States. I am as surprised as anyone when I see someone walking down the street with a 3 foot margarita.

While we were in Las Vegas we did partake of the excess. We stayed at the Paris Hotel and at the Palazzo (good thing we stayed there AFTER Paris or we would have been very disappointed with Paris). We went to Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill (my favorite thing we had was the Wild Mushroom Quesadilla with hummus and white truffle oil). The service was AMAZING and it was very relaxed and fun. Then we went to Tao, amazing atmosphere and good food. Then we went to J&G Prime Steakhouse at the Bellagio before hitting Circ du soleil. Prime was amazing (we had 3 waiters). My favorite thing was the mac and cheese (made with a very sharp cheese) and of course the chili glazed lamb chops (the same ones I had at J&G Grill in Park City last year). Circ was beautiful and breath taking. Then we ate brunch at Tableau at the Winn, we had the best cerviche ever, it was definitely one of the most memorable things I have eaten. Then we ate at two Hubert Keller restaurants Burger Bar (casual dining) and Fleur de Lis. Burger Bar was good but Fleur de Lis was OUT OF THIS WORLD! The service was fantastic and not in a showy way (like Prime), they made us a special little desert for our anniversary and gave me a pink rose. It was definitely a complete meal experience Ryan had 4 courses and I had 3 (plus they gave us a complimentary amuse busch, anniversary desert, and little desert tasting plate from the pastry chef, yep that was three desert courses). I ordered from the Top Chef Masters menu which was awesome since I watched the whole show and LOVED Hubert Keller, he seemed like such a nice man (which was totally reflected in his restaurant). Ry had some kind of creamy onion and truffle soup that they poured at the table. The smell was divine and Ryan assures me it was the best thing he has ever eaten (which is saying a lot considering the week that we had). We also went to Penn and Teller, which was so fun. Ryan LOVES Penn and Teller. Penn seems like such a real person, I couldn't help thinking about his normal life during the show. I pictured him and his crazy mop of hair waking up in the morning grabbing a cup of coffee and taking a shower. I didn't contemplate the vivid details of the showering part, but I did wonder about his pajamas (is he a boxers and a undershirt kind of guy or a silk two-piece jammies kind of guy, I suspect boxers) and does he wash his hair everyday? does that make me wierd? Other than that we spent a lot of time seeing the sights and relaxing at the pool.
Our room at the Palazzo, even Fancy Nancy would agree it was pretty posh. Yes that is a full sized sectional couch. What you cannot feel is the amazing Egyptian cotton sheets on the bed that someone lovingly ironed just for me, and the SOFT velvet of the couch!

Ry and I in the Bellagio gardens, so whimsical and BEAUTIFUL.

Me at a kid-less brunch at Tableau. Look there is no kid goo on my shirt and I didn't have to pick anything up off the floor when we left! The opulence of the Wynn (and all the other new hotels) was pretty astounding.

Me at the entrance to Tao. The concrete tubs behind me were filled with water, flower petals and candles, and that was just the entrance. Inside was breath taking.

Ry and I at the Venetian. We wanted to go on a gondola ride until we realized that everyone stands around and stares at you and the gondoliers sing. Less romantic and more creepy.

The first night we got there we hung out with Ryan's brother Steve and his friend Judy. They were TONS of fun we laughed so much.

Me in our room at the Paris before we left for Mesa Grill.

Ry and I were amazed by the size of the Lions. Their heads and paws are GIANT!

Ry and I outside of MGM (now one of the more ghetto hotels, although it was one of the new nice hotels last time I was in Vegas. Like I said Vegas is a land of excess, even the hotels age prematurely).

Sometimes it's Just Perfect

2010-06-06T09:41:00.000-07:00

I am not especially nostalgic about places, maybe that it because we never lived in the same place more than a few years. I never imagine myself living in the same place for very long. Last night laying in bed I tried to remember my childhood homes. I caught glimpses but really the most vivid memories were of my Grandma Bassett's house in Delta. I can remember almost every detail with photographic likeness. I remember the smell of cookies, I remember the texture of the bed covers on the twin beds upstairs, I remember the exact location of the furniture, I remember watching the occasional glow of headlights from passing vehicles race around the bedroom upstairs as I was falling asleep, I remember the books, the secret cubbies, my aunts barbie dolls from the 60s, the rock houses we made for the wild cats on the cellar outside. The funny thing is that I have not been there since I was a little girl in the early 90s, when my grandma was no longer able to live on her own and the house was sold.

This nostalgia was the result of two perfect moments yesterday. I took the girls to my grandparents cabin this weekend. Most of the elements of the cabin are the same as they were in my childhood, the red carpet, the 1970's Mexican lighting fixtures, the avocado green laminate countertops, the flagstone patio...Sitting on that flagstone patio, watching my girls climb up the big railroad tie stairs (contemplating the 300 ways Chloe could hurt herself) I realized these were the same stairs that my parents watched me climb when I was Chloe's age. I was transported to Childhood, remembering the amazing times we had at the cabin, the same cabin where my kids are now experiencing the wonders of snakes, frogs, fishing, swimming, four-wheeler riding, and snowmobiling. It made me love the place so much more. It was a glimpse into my childhood that I could share with my kids. They could play pooh sticks in the river just like I did. They can ride down the red carpeted stairs on a pillow just like I did...

The second perfect moment was as we were riding down the canyon. I was in the back seat with Chloe and Emily. It had been a long day for the girls and they were starting to get grumpy. Grandpa decided to turn on a CD for the girls. "Our House" by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young came on. Grandma, Grandpa and I were all singing the song loud and probably off key, the girls were happily clapping along and giggling, the warm afternoon light was filtering through the windows and everything for just a moment was perfect. I was filled with contentment, for a moment I was both a child in my parent's car, and a mom of two beautiful happy girls. I wanted to capture the moment, take a mental picture that I would never forget. I sat back, took a deep breath, closed my eyes and savored it...Then Chloe bit Emily, both girls started crying, I yelled at Emily to stop poking her sister, and everything was back to normal. The moment was gone, but not the memory.

May Events

2010-06-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

The Zoo

2010-05-28T10:34:00.001-07:00

Last weekend was beautiful, so we hit the zoo with the kidleys and the cousins. It was so much fun! We got a season pass, so I imagine we will be back soon.

Just Hanging Out

2010-05-13T20:42:00.001-07:00

Lately we have been spending most of our free time around the house. Not too many exciting things are going on, but I have been catching some of the everyday moments that I love.

I am trying to get some catching up done, so I have been doing some old pages and some new ones.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

2010-05-04T09:11:00.000-07:00

I think my kids are super cute, so I thought I would share one of our classic DJ Daddy Dance Parties. The music is pretty loud so I hope I don't blast you. Also below are some photos from the 15 minutes of spring we had a couple of weeks ago. My mom got some awesome photos at Thanksgiving Point that I will post shortly.

Emily with her "poofey head" I can't imagine why there are so many dandelions in the yard?
Does she look devilish or what?

The Happs

2010-05-03T09:51:00.001-07:00

So I have been a very boring blogger lately. All I have done for the past two weeks in my free time is scrapbook. Happily I can report that I have completed and ordered 10 books (6 copies of one of them). I have a coupon for three more free books, so we will see if I can get another 60 pages uploaded in the next 2 weeks.

Today Chloe made me laugh. She is a kid that seriously values her naps. This morning she slept in until 9, so I assumed she would be taking a late nap. Around 11, I found her sitting in front of her crib crying and trying to pull her blanket out of her crib. I put her down and she immediately put her thumb in her mouth and went to sleep. She is such an amazingly good sleeper.

Lately she has been driving me crazy with the whining. I hope she leans to talk soon, I might go crazy. She has learned that when she is hungry she goes and sits in her little chair and we bring her food. This is better than when she used to just whine at our feet while we made her food.

She has such a sweet tooth, she drinks chocolate milk like it is the last beverage on the earth, but turns up her nose at regular milk.

I can't believe that she is already 15 months old, when Emily was 15 months old I was 6 months pregnant with Chloe. I really don't see the day to day changes. It seems like Emily hasn't really changed, that she has always been how she is now, it also seems like Chloe is still a little baby. I am constantly amazed when Chloe wears a bigger shoe size or clothes size, because it seems like Emily was just wearing those shoes or clothes.

Joy School Yearbook Continued

2010-04-25T20:34:00.000-07:00

Here is the rest. If you see anything that needs to be changed let me know.
I have some more pictures, so I am considering adding a couple of extra pages.

Joy School Yearbook

2010-04-16T12:06:00.000-07:00

I thought I would post the joy school year book progress for the other mom's (and for anyone else who cares :-) ) I am through Melinda and Sarah's photos. Starting on Melanie's and Viv's. Let me know if you see anything you want changed.

Easter Part One

2010-04-12T15:24:00.000-07:00

We went to St. George for Easter. It was so much fun. Here are the pages leading up to easter (the last two are using the new Shabby Princess kit, and I am LOVING IT). I have a bunch more to do, but I thought I would at least get a start. I want to hurry and finish so that I can start on Em's joy school yearbook, I know I am a freak!

Also in the last week Chloe has decided that she can talk she can now say poop (that is her favorite and it is really funny), light, night night, duck, tickle and is working on a couple others too. She is starting to really show her personality and LOVES to make us laugh. She giggles all the time and is OH SO dramatic. We pretty much adore her.

Also I make these little phonics flash cards for Em (and the other kids at school). They have 6 end cards (AT, AN, AR, UG, AKE, AIL), and 24 start cards with the beginning of the word and a picture (e.g., pic of cat and C), then you put the cards together to make words. Now I am going to print them at Inkley (they have 6 cent tues and wed) and bind them. Then the kids can change the cards to make words. We will see how it all works out.

The Princess is in!

2010-03-27T18:04:00.000-07:00

Em cracks me up. Lately she has been quite the proper princess. She can often be found wearing her princess atire or waving her magic "lawnd."

Today at the store I was trying on some clothes and asked, "Em how do I look?" She responded with all earnestness "very distinguished." Where does she come up with these things?

I am planning on going private in a couple of weeks, in case you didn't see the previous post, so be sure to leave an e-mail address if you want me to give you permission.

Going Private

2010-03-26T23:37:00.000-07:00

My husband is not a big fan of the public blog thing, so I guess I am going to go private. Leave a comment if you want access. Lame, but I guess we have to keep the kiddos safe. If you want to e-mail me instead of leaving a comment send it to jennifer.hales@jacobs.com.

Dj Daddy Dance Party

2010-03-26T19:44:00.000-07:00

Ryan is a pretty cute daddy. He really loves his girls, all three of us! Lately at night he has been queuing up youtube and dancing with the girls. They LOVE it! Tonight's play list included "Party in the USA" by Miley Cyrus, "Body Language" by Jesse M. and T-Pain, a couple of Alvin and the Chipmunks songs, Who Let the Dogs Out and this really funny Swedish Anime song. The girls danced until they dropped. I love listening to their giggles and seeing the giant smiles on their faces. Such a fun night!

Toilet Obsessed

2010-03-26T12:44:00.000-07:00

I cannot seem to keep Chloe out of the toilet these days. In the past 24 hours I have fished out two necklaces, one pretend thermometer, a finger puppet, an entire roll of toilet paper, a hair bow, and a head band. All of these were at different times. This new phase is driving me batty. We are locked up at home sick and I have to get something turned in for work, the girls are going STIR CRAZY.

Chloe is a little one that needs her beauty rest. When she is tired there is no getting around it. Lately she has been dragging her blanket into her room (up the stairs if necessary) and then sitting by her crib and sucking her thumb when she is ready for bed. There really is no questioning that she is tired, she gives all the signs short of asking for a nap and crawling into her crib :-)

The Good and Not So Good

2010-03-22T14:22:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was a fun day we went to the aquarium and Mikell came over to play while I got my hair cut. However, as I was doing laundry at the end of the day and the girls decided to paint themselves! Here is the documentation of our day.

She Cracks Me Up

2010-03-20T18:35:00.000-07:00

So I know that I have been posting a lot of funny things Em says lately, but there have been a lot. My favorite is, every time she burps she giggles and says "the frog in my tummy says ribbit."

If you know Emily you know she is not shy tonight as we were picking up pizza at Papa Murphys Emily started talking to a total stranger while I was paying for our pizza. When I came over she was laughing and told me that she had just came up to her and said "my mommy is super cute hu?" I think that one may have been influenced by her cute daddy.

The other day we were in the car and she was in her car seat, she was sad and wanted to hold my hand. I told her that my hand wasn't long enough to reach. She told me "let's put some water on your arm and then it will grow big and strong." Guess she was listening when we talked about how plants grow.

I have photographic evidence of some less cute things the girls are responsible for, but my camera is downstairs and I am upstairs and it has been a long day. Chloe has entered the destructive phase and with Emily around my house most often looks like a hurricane just swept through.

Today we went to the dino museum at Thanksgiving Point and to Toys R Us. Both activities were super fun. The girls LOVE LOVE LOVE dinos. Chloe was excited about running around the museum and playing with a dino puzzle. Emily was excited about the erosion table, building a giant dino, and making fossil rubbings. Overall it was nice to get out and spend some time with the fam. The tulips are coming along nicely at Thanksgiving Point and I can't wait for the festival! Spring is finally here and the beautiful evidence is all around. I love when everything starts to turn green. Another few weeks and we should be in full bloom!

St. Patty's Day

2010-03-17T14:30:00.001-07:00

We had some fun friends over for St. Patrick's Day today. It was so much fun and the girls had a BALL! Thanks everyone for coming!

More Emily-isms

2010-03-07T14:58:00.000-08:00

Last night I was putting Emily in her car seat, she was not going for it and wanted to instead sit in a seat belt. I told her that she had to sit in her car seat or the police would get mad at daddy and take him to jail. To which she responded "I will miss daddy at jail." Apparently even the threat of incarceration was not enough to get her to budge!

Bargains

2010-03-06T14:02:00.000-08:00

I come from a long and proud line of "bargain hunters," also referred to as cheap skates (potato-po-tat-o). ANYWAY, following in the proud tradition, I am always on the prowl for a good deal. Sometimes I strike pay dirt and get a darling winter sweater for $0.99, more often however, I find that my drive to save money comes back to bite me. Often this is manifest at this time of year. Last year, I found a darling Easter dress at Gap for $3 for Chloe, pay dirt! Hummm next thing I know I have to buy the matching dress for Em (that was not on sale) for $30, also since they were both sleeveless and it was a bit nippy outside I had to get two white sweaters ($16, and $19, also not on sale), by the time we were done with shoes and tights I was wondering if my $3 buy was really such a good deal. This year the bargain gods got me again. One night I was shopping with my sister. She is in CT, so we were shopping by phone. We would explain the items to each other and with the assistance of the internet decide if we were going to buy them. It was a convoluted process but SO much fun. In the process we were discussing swimsuits for Emily. I found the one I really wanted from Gap for $20, but I found an adequate one at Old Navy for $10. Ultimately, we decided that I would buy a bunch of stuff at the store for her that was not available on-line and send it to her, and she would use her 30% off coupon and free shipping to buy the swimsuit for Em, making it only a few dollars more than the Old Navy swimsuit. The crazy cheap skate in me thought this was a good idea. A few days later the package arrived...with the wrong swimsuit. After waiting two weeks for swimsuits to be available in the store I returned the wrong one and "exchanged" it for the right one...However, when you return something to the store and buy something else, you don't get the original discount. Sooo I ended up paying $20 for the stupid swimsuit anyway and I had to make an extra trip to the store. I think I need to silence the inner cheap skate and instead listen to the logical voice instead. Although that voice is much quieter and harder to hear while in the shopping frenzy.

Finally Finished

2010-03-05T11:45:00.000-08:00

I am finally finished with my ABC book, and while most of you I am sure don't care, I am going to post the remaining pages, because it was a lot of work I want someone to look at them :-) I am going to send it to the printer today. I can't wait to get it back. Maybe this will be the motivation I need to actually get something printed for the girls. FYI if anyone wants to use the templates to make their own ABC book let me know and I would be happy to share. I made them in photoshop elements, so they are psd files. All of the pages use frames, so all you have to do is drag and drop different photos in them.

Drive Thrus

2010-02-26T20:24:00.000-08:00

Tonight we went to Arbys the girl at the window asked Ryan "do you want any sauces with that?" He said "yeah, horsey sauce." As we were driving away Emily said "I want sheepy sauce." I said "they don't have sheepy sauce." Emily said "Ask the lady." I assured her that they didn't have sheepy sauce, and she was kind of sad.

The other day Ryan pulled up to the drive-thru to order at Taco Time and Em rolled down the window and yelled "um...I would like some diet fries please." Both Ryan and the Drive Thru girl had a pretty good chuckle. Where does she come up with these things.

We took the girls to the pool tonight, this was the first time Chloe really seemed to like the pool. Both girls were sad when we left.

Chloe is such a little character these days. She now says uh oh, up, hi, mama, and tonight I think I heard daddy. She is so full of smiles and laughs. She is SOOOOO ticklish. I have not been a good blogger lately, but such is life. Here is a photo of the girls and I the other day.

ABC Project Continued

2010-02-05T14:19:00.001-08:00

I only have 11 pages left. Here is what I have done so far. I can't wait to see the final product!

Little Chloe Bug

2010-02-01T18:40:00.001-08:00

Here are some of Chloe's most recent accomplishments (see next post for even more).

Yeah 20th Percentile!

2010-02-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

In the last three weeks Chloe has been to the Dr. 3 times (ear infection, suspected peanut allergy, and 1 year well child). She has been in the 16th percentile, the 7th percentile, and today the 20th percentile for weight! Last week was a little scary, but it seems she has made up for it, plus some. She is such a skinny little bird, this is the first time since birth that she has been back in the +20th percentile. She is consistently in the 65th percentile for height. She has started walking all over the place and is so stinkin' cute. She also learned this week how to go down the stairs! Yeah mobility. I HATE crawling. Here are a few cute pics from her B-day.

She was pretty excited about the cupcake!

Chloe's favorite activity is jumping on Em's bed, it is so cute to watch and listen to the girls giggle and jump! I love that they are finally starting to play together. Em still has a hard time sharing and being gentle, but I think it will be a bit easier when Chloe is more steady on her feet so that she is not always pulling up on Emily.

Blowing out the candles. Em got a cupcake too since it was her half birthday. The girls are EXACTLY 18 months apart (almost to the minute).Showing off her mad walking skills, promise video soon!
She was pretty excited about her presents! We love aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Thanks for sharing our fun day.
Grandma Bassett with Chloe and her new baby doll.

How cute is that girl!

MMMM lovin' the cupcake!

Em was a fan too.

Uncle Steve came to visit this weekend and Emily was SOOOO excited to see him. She really wanted to ride on the skateboard but was also kind of nervous. Finally before he left we got outside for a ride. Emily didn't want to get off. They went around the block three times before Steve finally had to call it an evening. Thanks for visiting Uncle Steve, come again soon!

New Project

2010-01-25T21:39:00.000-08:00

So I need to post about Christmas, Chloe's Birthday, and a newly discovered peanut allergy. Instead I am going to post the first 4 pages of my ABC book that I am working on for Emily and Chloe. When I am done with the alphabet I am going to have it made into a book. I think it will be a fun way to help them learn their alphabet. I promise photos of Christmas and birthdays SOON.

Christmas

2010-01-13T15:49:00.001-08:00

So I have been waiting to round up all the pics from my mom from Christmas before I scrapped them and posted them. I am now thinking that this may never happen, so I am going to work with what I got from my camera. The video below of Emily telling Grandma what she got for Christmas is pretty hilarious I think.

Best Weekend Ever

2009-12-13T19:29:00.000-08:00

This weekend was just about as perfect as it could be. On Friday we picked Brayden up from school and came home and made a gingerbread house. Em and Brayden had so much fun. Emily piled most of the candy at the base of the house, but I think it turned out pretty well. I am all about buying gingerbread kits, the frosting works, the gingerbread is flat, and you are done when all the candy is gone!

Saturday we went to Lowes and built Christmas tree ornaments (thanks Viv). This time there were no embarrassing bloody noses and the day was incident free. Em was so excited to "bam on it" (also known as hammering nails). Then we went to South Town mall and rode the train. It was AWESOME both Chloe and Emily LOVED it. The conductor was so cute with the kids and it was a long ride all around the whole mall for $3. Then on our way to see Santa we stopped at the piercing pagoda and pierced both girls ears. They are SO cute and I was surprised at how little crying was involved. A stop at the Hello Kitty store next door was enough to take Emily's mind off of her ears and Chloe just needed a sucker. Then we rode the carousel and saw Santa. There was no way we were going to get the girls to wait in line and I am certain Chloe would FREAK if we tried to get her to sit on Santa's lap, so we just waved at him and the girls were thrilled. To top off the mall visit we got to ride the "alligator" (elevator) three or four times, which is very exciting for Emily. I was surprised at how entertaining the mall could be. I even snuck into a couple of stores (Crazy 8 is having some GREAT sales). The only thing that I was sad about was forgetting my camera.

On Sunday both girls woke up with runny noses and I think they are getting the cold I had last week, so we stayed home from church. I watched the Christmas concert on Music and the Spoken Word, and it was EXCELLENT! Around noon Ry decided we needed to go out and build a snowman (probably not the best for a cold, but Em was SO happy). The snow could not have been better for snowman building. We ended up with a 7 foot tall snowman! Then we came inside and Emily dictated her letter to Santa. It was HILARIOUS it said "Dear Santa, Please bring me candy, presents for me and Chlo Bug, and Grandma and Scooter and Kai Lan, and stars on my belly and back." Where does she come up with this stuff and where am I going to find stars for her belly and back? Sorry for the travel log, it was just a very entertaining weekend and now that my shopping is done, decorations are up, and after the weekend's festivities I am now feeling the holiday spirit! I LOVE Christmas.

Happenings

2009-12-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

Again I have been remiss in the posting. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving in St. George with lots of family. I will post photos as soon as I get to them. In the mean time I have some of the girls. We have been able to spend a few days at home together and we have had so much fun. I love to hear the girls giggle and play together (something that is happening more often these days). Emily is so funny. Most days I just watch her and laugh, she is such a little mimic. Last weekend we took her for her first hair cut (an experience her dad still regrets). Chloe is getting so big and will be walking any day now. She has started to stand on her own pretty regularly.

How the Other Half Live

2009-11-24T07:06:00.000-08:00

So I have never really understood why you would pay hundreds of dollars for one meal, until last night. My dad has been working on the St. Regis Hotel in Park City and today it is officially open. The restaurant has been holding trials all week and last night we got to go! It setting is beautiful, the hotel is grand, you get to ride the "funicular" a little private tram up the mountain to get to the restaurant. The service was phenomenal, the General Manager came out and talked to us, our waiter told us about all of our food, a waitress stood ready to refill our water (they don't even serve soda, just signature drinks and cocktails). But it was all about the food! First we started with black truffle pizza. Everyone talks about black truffles on the Food Netword and on Top Chef, but I have never even been somewhere where it was on the menu. It was in fact all it was cracked up to be. It was earthy and delicious. Then I had giant shrimp wrapped in bacon over avocado with a very potent sweet and spicy sauce drizzled around the plate, the flavors were bold and deep and left a warmth in your mouth without feeling hot. Pretty much the best shrimp EVER! Next I had lamb chops over melt in your mouth veggies. The chops were stacked up in the center of my plate and looked like a work of art. I didn't even know I liked lamb, but wow it melted in my mouth and the chili glaze sauce was sweet and spicy and I have been fantasizing about it for the past 12 hours. If I think really hard I think I can still taste it. The meal ended with chocolate cake with fudge sauce in the middle and vanilla bean ice cream over some crumbly pieces of heaven. The cake was very light and the fudge sauce inside was perfect! I am not sure how I can go back to Chili's! Next time you have a few hundred dollars that you don't know what to do with, I HIGHLY recommend the J&S Grill.

Kate and Grandpa saved some balloons for the girls Emily LOVED them. She had to sleep with them last night and the girls have been playing with them since they woke up. Thanks for thinking of us Kate and dad.

Cutest Girls Ever

2009-11-22T19:22:00.000-08:00

So I may be biased, but I think that I have the cutest girls ever. My friend Viv took some photos of the girls the other day. I am so happy with the way they turned out. I plan to print some for grandparents for Christmas. My sister asked if I was going to use the photos for Christmas cards. To which I replied that I haven't done Christmas cards in the last 10 years. To which she disgustedly responded "you don't sent Christmas cards." Her response made it sound like I had just told her that I spit in the soup we were eating for dinner (sort of like the blueberry muffin response I previously discussed). So I am trying to decide if I feel enough shame to actually send Christmas cards this year. If you want one leave me a comment and I will see what I can come up with. I will assume if there are no comments no one really cares and do what I do every year. I was mostly resigned to that course of action anyway. Ok so here are photos, that is what you want to see anyway. You may be able to tell Chloe was more cooperative than Emily, resulting in more pictures of Chloe than Emily.

So Much Fun

2009-11-19T17:08:00.000-08:00

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind! I have been working 35-40 hours a week, Emily got a power wheels tractor from grandma and grandpa, we went to Disney Princesses on Ice, and it has been getting cold and snowy. Here are some of the highlights.

Princess Indoctrination

2009-11-05T16:30:00.000-08:00

Disney Princesses on Ice are coming to town. A bunch of my friends are taking their little girls and asked if I wanted to go. At first I declined remembering the last time that I tried to get Emily to sit through the bird show at the zoo or through church. Ultimately I decided that it would be a fun mother daughter night (I hope) and bought tickets. Once I bought tickets I realized that we also needed the dress, then I realized that I don't think Emily has even seen any of the Disney Princesses. SOOO I bought a couple of princess books on Amazon, have been telling fractured "once upon a time" stories for days, bought a full princess dress from Sam's Club, and have even resorted to games, stories and movies from Disney.com. Hopefully she will be as excited as I am. I still am a little hesitant about buying into the whole commercial princess deal, but hey it's all in the name of fun, right?

Fall Fun!

2009-11-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

Here are the latest activities that we have been up to! Halloween was fantastic. The girls are totally wiped out from all the parties!

Meet Arthur

2009-10-25T19:04:00.000-07:00

The other night Emily brought me this big ball of string and said “look mom, my Arthur.” Since that evening Arthur has become part of our lives. Arthur gets ready for bed with us, Arthur plays games with us, Arthur is sometimes “sorta silly” when he comes unwound. My mom thinks she was trying to say “look mom, my art work,” but now it seems that the ball of string has become a friend.

I love, love, love fall. I love the weather, I love the leaves, I love the look taste and smell of pumpkins, I love the decorations, I love the holidays, but most of all I LOVE FOOTBALL!!! This year has been madness and I have not devoted the time that I would like to hay rides, pumpkin patches, fruit picking, apple dipping, and other fantastic fall activities. This weekend we tried to remedy that with a trip to the Mayan (a theme restaurant set in the jungle), a trip to the pumpkin patch, a trunk-or-treat party, and a heart-stopping football game. Overall it was a fantastic weekend. These photos are from the Mayan. Em and Chloe were a little scared at first, but after meeting one of the cliff divers Emily was much more excited. Chloe was just happy I let her have some of my dinner.

Can you believe how big she is getting? I think she gets cuter every day. She is so happy and smiley all the time. She finds so much wonder in the world.

More to come soon! We took some new photos for Grandma Hales.

Done!!!!!!!!!

2009-10-19T08:54:00.000-07:00

Many of you know that for the past couple of months I have been working on a document at work. It has been pretty all consuming, in the last 8 days I have worked 80 hours. This morning the document was submitted to the client!!!!! I can't tell you how nice it was to spend the day laughing with my girls and catching up on house work that DESPERATELY needed to be done. The laundry far exceeded piles and was more like MOUNDS. The washer has been running non stop for the past 8 hours and I have lots more to go. The dishwasher was empty, not because someone had emptied it but because we had used all the clean dishes out of it. Yeah it was gross. The good news is that things are going to get less crazy from here. I had big fall plans for the week, we are talking hay rides, neighborhood parties, Carmel apples, the works; however, Em seems to have a runny nose and a cough :-( To be safe we spent the day indoors, hopefully she will be up for some fall adventures later in the week. Fall is my favorite time of year and I have been so sad to miss many of my favorite activities. It has been quite an adrenaline rush at work, but I am ready for a few quiet weeks.

Here are some new photos of the girls. Chloe is pulling herself up on EVERYTHING and is never content to be on the floor. She is such a happy little bird!

The Problem with a Plan

2009-10-06T09:29:00.000-07:00

So I am always coming up with crafty little projects, the problem is that once I conceive them they are often more difficult to implement because finding the perfect materials is nearly impossible. I think I went to every fabric store in the valley to find Chloe's bedding material (thank you Hobby Lobby and mom for finally making my vision a reality). Anyway I have a new project and I need your help...I am making a easel for Emily for Christmas, but I want to make it with an old mirror or picture frame something that would hold a 17x21 inch photo. The more ornate the better. I want to paint it and make it the frame for the easel. I am looking for something for less than $25. If you see anything please let me know!

Dear Grandma and Grandpa Hales, and Anyone Else Who Reads This Blog

2009-10-04T17:10:00.000-07:00

Sorry I have been so bad about uploading photos and videos. The days have turned into weeks and some how the summer is over and I fear with the recent change in the weather I may have missed the fall too. The girls are growing like weeds and become more adorable every day. Our recent days have been filled with LOTS and LOTS of work; LOTS and LOTS of canning (peaches, pears, plum jam, salsa and italian tomatoes) I have been doing lots of "squirrel stuff" and am mostly saved up for the long winter, a few fall crafts, a saturday project a Lowes building a drum (that resulted in a massive bloody nose when Emily tripped and an even bigger scene), a Saturday trip to Lehi Aquatic Center where both girls spent the afternoon "fwimmin," dinner at Harvest (one of my most favorite resturants), a Friday night date to see Jim Gaffagan (yes he is actually more funny in person), a trip to the zoo to see the baby animals (a new elephant that is ADORABLE, a giraffe, some monkeys, a snow lepord, and two baby tigers), a day at Hollywood Connection with daddy (it is pretty ghetto, but Emily loved the rides), a day with Brayden at the Classic Skating bounce house, a trip with Brayden to Boondocks, lots of sewing (I actually finished 3 dresses and have plans for 2 more), the stomach flu (Yuck), a gas leak that resulted in us being evacuated from our house (good thing we were not home, if it were not for my neighbor I'm not sure I even would have known), 2 teeth for Chloe, and lots of routine stuff that I can't think of. Now you are all caught up. Too bad I have taken almost no photos the last few months. Promise I will get better.

Below is video of Chloe crawling. I can't believe how big she is getting!

Here are some photos from last week, the weather has been so yucky since this morning.

Here is Em's new do. She cut her bangs herself and was quite pleased with the results...it will grow back, at least I keep telling myself that.

Fall Already?

2009-09-22T07:07:00.000-07:00

So last night was the first real fall evening and this morning we woke up to a real chill in the air. I love love love fall. Love the weather, love the holidays, love the change in the scenery, love the sunflowers that are growing everywhere, love that I get to dress the girls in a whole new wardrobe. I can't believe how quickly this year is flying by.

Chloe is getting so big and so cute! She has started crawling I have had a hard time capturing the exact moment she started crawling because it has sort of evolved over the last month or so. Emily didn't crawl and then one day she saw Ryan's dinner across the room and she crawled to it, that was it, she was a crawler. For Chloe crawling has been more of a evolution, each day becoming a little stronger and more coordinated until she has become a crawling fool. She is pretty fast now and is starting to be into everything. I don't remember Emily putting EVERYTHING in her mouth, I'm sure she did, I just have blocked the memory. Chloe now trolls the floor looking for things left behind that she can devour. As of Sunday she also has her first tooth, and it looks like 2,3, and 4 are not far behind. She is still skinny (16 lbs last time I weighed her), but LOVES to eat solid food, hopefully she will be bulking up now that she can sit and put Cheerios in her mouth for an hour at a time. She is starting to pull up on things, part of me wants to put her back on the floor and tell her "you're too little for that" (I may have once or twice) but I guess I have to let her grow up. She is seriously soooooo happy these days, she has become quite angelic now that she can roam around and play with what ever strikes her fancy. Although she still has many very dramatic moments every day, whenever something is not as it should be in the world. Emily has a hard time with the concept of sharing and usually can be found taking away Chloe's new found treasure. Chloe doesn't mind too much usually and is just happy Emily is paying attention to her. Chloe will give anyone who pays attention a giant smile and a big open mouth slobbery kiss, that feels more like you are being attacked. Chloe is getting more verbal all the time, she used to growl all the time, I really wish I would have caught it on video because it was hilarious. Currently she is more of a squealer, and is starting to babble a little. I have video, but it is at my mom's house so I will have to post more later. Just didn't want the memories to slip away as life passes us by.

Wish I Would Have Know that 20 Years Ago

2009-09-01T09:37:00.000-07:00

Those of you that have seen my childhood photos know that I have fought a long hard fight with my hair. I have done everything it has ever asked of me including providing it with expensive shampoos, gels, sprays, conditioners...yet the last few weeks we have still been fighting. I really have given it everything, once I spent $50 for a 9 oz bottle of shampoo that was imported from Europe, I have had cuts by stylists that have been published in about every beauty magazine published (they felt that I should pay the same price as Brittney Spears, and grudgingly I obliged), and this came in the Ramen eating days when my hair care costs roughly equalled my rent (well maybe that is an exaggeration). Typically I stock pile shampoo never wanting to deprive my hair of the product it craves. However, this week I ran totally out of shampoo for the first time in memory. I was forced to use Ryan's shampoo that we pick up at Walmart by the cartload for $1.99 a bottle. I was sure my hair would revolt and maybe even fall out. Imagine my shock when in fact the last two days have been the best hair days in weeks...humm I feel kind of foolish. Watch out hair Suave it is for you!

Sledding in August

2009-08-29T11:35:00.000-07:00

So I don't want to even discuss the amount of time I have been spending at work lately or that when I get home all I want to do is lay on the couch and pass out. Yesterday I didn't have to go into the office, so I was determined to spend some quality mommy time with my poor abandoned peanuts (thankfully my mom is watching them and not some random stranger). After checking the mail Em and I discovered that my most recent Ebay purchase had arrived. We opened it up and found Emily's snowsuit. She got very excited and wanted to put it on and go "fwimmin." I explained it was a snowsuit not a swimsuit, but did manage to avoid tears by asking her if she wanted to go sledding. She was pretty excited about the idea, so we spent the next hour or so "sledding" in the house, which consists of me pulling her around the kitchen on a blanket and her telling Aunt Bicky to "hold on tight." Aunt Bicky is the elephant. Aunt Vicky gave it to her for her birthday and she instantly was in LOVE with it. We asked her what she wanted to name it and she said "Aunt Bicky" so we went with it. She decided that it was "kinda warm" to be wearing a coat in the house so let Aunt Bicky wear it for the ride.

Already?

2009-08-29T11:30:00.000-07:00

Somehow my baby is old enough to be eating Cheerios, sitting by herself, and crawling. Wasn't I pregnant with her like 5 minutes ago? She is such a cute little bug though. She loves playing with anything new. Yesterday she started attacking Emily's raisins that she left on the floor, so I decided to give her some captain crunch in her Bumbo chair. She loved it and sat there in heaven for about 20 minutes. This morning she got Cheerios. I was not aware that dry cereal could be that messy.

Can I Please Get Off the Boat, Mr. Wonka?

2009-08-25T15:26:00.000-07:00

Last night was reminiscent of the scene from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (the Gene Wilder version), where they are in the magical chocolate paradise and get on a boat to tour the chocolate river, everything seems like a wonderful dream until they go into the cave. Suddenly it becomes dark and terrible images start flashing before them. The dream is transformed into a nightmare and everyone wishes they had never gotten on the boat. So last night Emily went to bed with no complaint and no crying (magical chocolate paradise), then we entered the cave about 11:00 pm the FIRST time she woke up. I sat with her until she fell asleep. Then the bad images started to flash before my eyes at about 1:00 am when she woke up screaming AGAIN. I decided not to fight it and just put her in bed with me. After laying in bed with her for 3 hours while neither of us slept I decided to put her in her own bed. That is when things got really bad. She screamed at the top of her lungs for 2 hours! About 15 minutes into it I wondered why I didn't just let her sleep with me, but then it was too late, I was on the boat and just had to see it through to the conclusion...2 hours later she finally fell asleep! With Emily I have learned the hard way that you can never give in when it comes to sleep stuff, if you do, it will just be that much worse next time. I am so not good at picking my battles!

I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends

2009-08-23T15:01:00.000-07:00

This summer while my sister was here I was in the mood for blueberry muffins. I asked her to stop at the store and grab some muffin mix on her way to my house. She responded like I had just asked her to eat a booger. Then she informed that mix is not necessary to make muffins, imagine my surprise. She then referred me to the muffin mix recipe that she had given me about five years ago for Christmas. Since then I have made muffins several times without a mix and surprisingly they are pretty good (this morning I made Cherry muffins, yum). Typically my culinary inspiration comes less from The Barefoot Contessa and more from Betty Crocker, Sarah Lee, and Marie Callendar. If it comes from a box, bag, tray, or can count me in!

Along these lines, I am embarrassed to admit that I have never actually sewn an item of clothing entirely by myself. Typically I buy the stuff, cut it out, and wait for my mom to get frustrated enough to finish it for me. Today I saw a tutorial on how to make a girls dress out of a shirt. I scoured my closet, found an old shirt and here are the results.

Emily was not in the mood to model, so this is the best photo I got. I used the cuffs of the shirt to make the bodice (that was my own little invention). I pretty much love the results. Emily is not so sure, but maybe she will be in a better mood later. I am thinking of making a little flower clip to put on the front.

On a Happier Note

2009-08-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

Sorry I left my grumpy rant as the last post for so long. Things have been crazy. It was Ry's birthday and Chloe is working on getting mobile. Here are some pages to document the fun.

What Was I Thinking?

2009-08-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

I have been working more than usual lately and I have a bunch of deadlines coming up (thankfully Tiff is coming back part time next week!) Yesterday Rick (my boss) asked if I was coming in tomorrow (meaning today), I told him I would, but I didn't have a babysitter. Then he said too bad we can't just pay someone to come to the office and babysit the kids here. Then I said, wait aren't your girls out of school, maybe Marli could come in and watch the girls while I work. It all seemed like a good plan...Holy #@!# (fill in your own expletive here) was I wrong. It was Chloe's nap time so she was having a fit because it seems she can only fall asleep in the car or in her crib. Emily was also having a major melt down, after two hours of massive embarrassment and several phone calls with my kids screaming as background noise I decided that we needed to go home and that we will not be coming into the office again for quite some time. I hate feeling like I am never where I should be; when I am at work I feel like I should be with my kids, when I am home I feel like I should be at work. The lesson of the day, deal with the guilt and DON'T combine the two activities! It was cute that Emily kept calling Marli "Curly" (Marli has very straight hair so it was pretty amusing). She also was also holding her phone up to her ear with her shoulder and multi tasking with her hands just like mommy, I was amused.

I have discovered Chloe's favorite thing in the whole world, she LOVES Otter Pops. She had a fever the other day and I gave her one to cool her down, now every time she sees them she gets so excited, she can hardly wait for me to cut the top off. She also loves playing in the sink/tub after she is done. She LOVES water. She is growing up so fast I am often surprised by the things she knows/recognizes and by the things she can do, I just don't expect her to grow up this fast.

Branching Out

2009-08-10T19:38:00.000-07:00

So I am an avid reader of Cheesy Mormon Romance novels. They are very formulaic: girl and boy meet, girl is beautiful (usually blonde and skinny); oy is handsome, smart, and sensitive; girl and boy face some sort of challenge (don't like each other, some one is trying to kill them, they have had some sort of spiritual or financial or medical or family crisis); this challenge is keeping them apart; they pray; they overcome said challenge, and everyone lives happily ever after. One day they can't stand the sight of each other and the next day they are discussing their future children's eye color. Typically this satisfies me. But after consuming hundreds of these novels I feel like I have eaten a whole bag of Cheetos before bed and I am up all night with a grumbly tummy wondering why I ate the whole bag (not that I have done that, but um I can imagine what it would feel like...). Anyway, I am looking to branch out. So far I have not had resounding success with my typical method of finding books. Usually I just go to the library and randomly pick books off the shelves. When looking for Cheesy Mormon Romance novels just look for anything published by Covenant and be sure not to read the summary on the back cover or it will spoil the first half of the book. I have read so many of these using this method that sometimes I check the same book out a second time only realizing I have read it before about 10 pages in. Typically I check out 5 or 6 of these and consume them before the due date.

While attempting to branch out into new genres I HAVE discovered that you SHOULD NOT read anything on the NY Times Best Seller's list, typically this just means the book is trashy. So I am looking for some advice on what I should read next. Hopefully something that will provoke thought, something that can be read in more than one sitting, and something that will not bore me to tears. Remember this is my first real foray into the literary world since college and War and Peace seems a little daunting, but I would be up for some Zora Neal Hurston.

I have a little eye candy as well. Here are a couple of pages I have been working on. I have kicked poor Ry off the computer and have been scrapping away.

Blessed Silence?

2009-08-08T13:04:00.000-07:00

So this morning I decided that the time had come to get some scrapbooking done. I pretty much have to catch up on the whole summer. Usually when I get on the computer Emily decides it is time for my undivided attention. This morning she went downstairs and the house was silent for about 20 minutes. At that point I called down to Ry, who was taking a nap on the couch, to ask what Emily was doing. Ry didn't answer, but Emily said "I'm colorling." I asked "what are you colorling on?" She answered "Mommy wipe it off, use a wipey." humm, time to investigate. I started walking down the stairs and saw the yellow highlighter in her chubby little hands, my mind started flashing through the many recent highlighter disasters, the blinds, the window sill, clothes...I am happy to report that after a thorough investigation it seems she really only colored on paper! Maybe she is learning, oh wait there was that incident with the pen and her shoes yesterday, oh well she is only 2 for a little while.

Below are some pages from the 4th of July.

The Countdown Begins

2009-07-28T14:29:00.000-07:00

Those of you that know me well know that there are few things in the world I love more than Trojan football. No my husband didn't get me into football, in fact it was the other way around. Really I don't know how you can avoid becoming a die hard fan after attending games on the 50 yard line for 5 years. I still vividly recall amazing Carson Palmer passes. When Carson was the QB it felt like anything could happen. Today when I realized that there are only 39 days until we pound San Jose State, my palms got a little sweaty and I started to shake with anticipation! How I miss those long Saturdays at the Coliseum. I can pretty much guarantee you that, as in years past, there will be an upcoming nostalgic post about the joys of college football. I cannot guarantee that I will be well behaved when it comes to Utah, BYU, the BCS, or other topics that Mountain West fans hold dear. Oh I cannot wait for Saturdays in September! I love you Taylor Mays, ok maybe that was over the top.

In other news, today I saw that the bottlenose dolphin that has spent the last 8 months in dolphin rehab recovering from pneumonia was euthanized two hours after its release after being attacked by sharks, that's irony Alanis.

Promises, Promises

2009-07-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

Grandma Hales I have been promising you photos for a month now. Here are some of Chloe from the 4th of July.

Almost 2

2009-07-23T09:07:00.000-07:00

For months if you ask Emily how old she is she would tell you "almost 2." Well the day has come that she is actually 2 (although if you ask her she will still tell you she is almost 2. Yesterday was her 2nd birthday extravaganza! It was the best day ever.
So this video that I made is 4 minutes long. That is a really long time to watch someone else's kid, so I totally understand if you skip it, but I thought that the grandma's and grandpa's would appreciate it.

Ryan took the day off work and blew up all the balloons for her before she woke up. We heard her stirring and went to wait for her to come out. You can see how the gifts were recieved. Yes the balloons were totally her favorite, but she has spent a considerable amount of time since then with the kitchen.

We spent most of the day getting ready for her birthday bash

Her party was barnyard themed (what can I say the girl loves animals) and it was a joint party with her friend Mikell who's birthday is one day before hers. We had about 14 little kids and about 30 people total. We fished for ducks in the pond (swimming pool), we herded pigs (balloons) into the pig pen (child's playpen), we ran through sprinklers to get plastic eggs with prizes (the water was cold so that was not one of the highlights for most of the kids), and we dug through straw to get candy and plastic horses (note if you choose to try this, DON'T use a whole bale of straw it is WAY too much). The kids had a blast, and I enjoyed it too. Emily got many wonderful gifts that she LOVES from her thoughtful friends (thank you all so much). After she opened one or two gifts I had a hard time getting her to focus on opening the rest, and ended up mostly opening them for her. Melinda made two adorable cakes (a pig for Mikell and a cow for Emily). At the end of the day I realized I took 0 photos, thankfully my neighbor took over 300. I will post some as soon as I get them. At the end of the day we were pretty pooped. It was SOOO much fun thanks to all our friends and family that shared the day with us.

It is also Chloe's half birthday! She is getting so big and so cute. She loves eating baby food (it has taken a while). She is rolling all over the place and has started to scoot around a bit. She is still a fantastic sleeper at night. She loves toys and grabs anything she can get her little hands on. She prefers to be on her tummy and I constantly have to flip her over when she sleeps (although I'm not sure how much good it does, since she flips back over again). She is such a joy in my life and I adore her.

They Called us Salt and Pepper

2009-07-17T14:29:00.000-07:00

As I was braiding Emily's hair this morning I was transported back to childhood.

I have one sister. When we were little we were about as different as two people could be. She had long thick blond hair, I had fine short brown hair. She had clear blue eyes, I had boring brown eyes (my brothers liked to say that they were brown because I was full of s*#t). She was shy and quiet, I was LOUD and outgoing. She was ticklish, I was not. Everyone told us I was a mini Annette (my mom) and she was a mini John (my dad). I was jealous of my beautiful little sister. Somehow as big sister and protector I assumed the role of taking the less desirable of the nearly identical items that were always purchased for us. I got the broken one, I got the ugly one. I think I felt compassion for my little sister and let her pick first to protect her fragile feelings (at least that is how I would like to remember it).

My mom would always buy us dolls that looked like us, I would get the ugly brown haired babies and she would get the beautiful blond babies (why is it impossible to make a cute brown haired doll?) One year for Easter when I was about 5 I clearly remember finding the most beautiful blond haired knock off beanbag cabbage patch doll. It had a blue and white striped terry cloth body. Instantly I was in love...then my mom informed me that the doll was actually for my sister "because it had blond hair like Amy's hair." Devastated, I continued to look until I found my ugly brown haired doll with a mustard yellow body! We had those dolls for YEARS and I always remember wishing mine was the blond baby. I am certain that I stole it more than once.

Secretly, I was a little nervous when I had my kids that they would not be cute because there was pretty much no way they were going to have blond hair. I prayed that they would get their daddy's big beautiful blue eyes. I am happy to report that I do think that babies with brown hair are cute. While Emily did get her daddy's blue eyes, Chloe seems to have gotten some funky grey combination of the two of us. Both are beautiful. Both are unique. I think in many ways my girls will be like "salt and pepper." I can only hope that when they grow up they will love each other the way that I love my little sister.

I think Emily's hair-do this morning was some attempt at compensating for a childhood filled with some pretty horrible hair-dos (that's what happens when your mom let's you pick ANY cut out of the magazine).

Camel Obsessed

2009-07-16T14:33:00.000-07:00

So I have a big post with lots of photos planned, but it just hasn't happened yet. I will share one funny Emily-ism though. Emily has become obsessed with camels...That is right I said camels. I don't remember ever really paying them much attention at the zoo (I usually try to skip the sad, matted, molting animals) and I have seen them casually mentioned in a couple of her books, but I am not sure where the new found devotion to the animal is coming from. The other day we were in the car and singing Old MacDonald Had A Farm and I asked which animals she wanted to do we started with dog, cow, pig, duck, then got to the fun ones. She insisted in singing about giraffes, camels, and fish. You try coming up with a sound for a giraffe, camel, and fish while driving, so in the improv spirit I decided that camels make a spitting sound, giraffes stick out their tongue, and fish do the fish lips thing. She LOVED it and now every time we are in the car have to "do camel song."

Emily also likes to "write" words, today she brought me a piece of paper and a pencil and said "draw words" "draw camel." Not sure where the new found love for the mostly yucky looking animal came from, but I guess we will go with it.

In other good news Chloe is now tipping the scales at 14.5 lbs. Not really impressive for a 6 month old, but I am just happy she has gained a pound and a half since our last appointment. She is rolling all over the place and I anticipate that sitting and crawling are not too far off.

Love Affair with Amazon.com

2009-06-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

Dear Amazon.com,

I think that we have to stop seeing each other. I have a real problem with impulse control and when I see all your pretty things at rock bottom prices my palms get sweaty and I start to shake a little. So far I have only given into the "Pink Retro Kitchen," but today after I realized that my camera has pretty much bitten the dust I started scrolling through your wares only to discover this little gem for such a good price.

Again I could feel my resolve weakening...I mean I DO NEED a new camera and it would work with all of my old Pentax lenses that I originally started shooting with way back in the "good old days." Quickly I had to retreat. After watering the garden and sitting on the back porch with Emily eating a whole cup full of delicious raspberries (they are actually even better that chocolate and I don't say that lightly) and watching my tomatoes grow (I hate tomatoes, but I planted them for salsa, so far they are looking pretty excellent) I decided that our relationship has to end. My resolve is just not strong enough and I feel my credit card calling my name. So long for now.

Longingly,

Jennifer

Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid

2009-06-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

So growing up I always wanted to be a writer. I have more than one journal full of some pretty terrible "creative" writing. As it turns out I make my living writing, just not the glamorous and witty prose that I had imagined, my writing tends to focus on how widening a road will impact tortoises, or how much noise can be reduced by building a concrete wall. Riveting topics I know. Overall what I write has not changed the world the way I once imagined that my writing would, instead my writings get placed on bookshelves and only a select few unlucky souls "get" to read them. That is not to say that I don't love my job, I really do love what I do, it is far more exciting than it sounds.

In keeping with my original dream I have started writing a novel set on a remote island in the Caribbean, I think I have completed 2 pages in as many years...currently my prospects for becoming a best selling novelist are dim. So many nights before I fall asleep I sit in bed thinking of clever blog posts. I compose them word by word, "writing" and "re-writing" them many times in my head...They are hysterical posts full of wisdom, then I wake up in the morning and realize that there is no way I really want the world to know my crazy innermost thoughts. Recently I composed a long post in my head about my house cleaning habits. It is not a secret that I am not the tidiest housekeeper in the world, but what I realized by the light of day is that everyone is better off not knowing the details. If I were to disclose how many days/weeks it has been since I last cleaned my toilets, or how long that pile of clean laundry has been sitting on the chair next to my bed you would have one of two responses; either you would laugh, look around your house and feel a little better about yourself, or you would wonder if you really can be friends with me after all and if you should make a call to DCFS. You see putting yourself out there has risks! The key is to just put enough of yourself out there so that you can express yourself without providing the incriminating details that could result in harsh judgement....Hummm I'm not sure anybody actually reads this so maybe it is not a problem, my little counter on the side of the page goes up each day, but I'm not sure how many of those are actually a result of my checking to see if anyone has left comments on my last post...Really this is what my life has come to. I once had such grand visions for my literary future.

Father's Day

2009-06-21T23:47:00.001-07:00

So after Ryan did AWESOME for Mother's Day I did terrible for Father's Day (sorry babe). As previously mentioned I have been super sick since Wednesday night. Since my new calling is as a nursery leader I decided that parents probably didn't want me infecting their kids...so we pretty much spent the day at home hanging out and watching some Handy Manny, Tigger and Pooh, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. We did make it over to my mom and dad's since Em was pretty much hanging from the light fixtures after three days of home confinement. My mom gave Em her first swim lesson in the hot tub and I have to say I saw some serious improvement. She now happily puts her whole head under the water with no choking, she also was floating on her back, and kicking. I think by the end of the summer we may have a swimmer.

Anyway I just wanted to take a minute to tell the fathers in my life how much I appreciate them.

Dad, thanks for all the time you spend with us, thanks for being patient with me and with my kids, thanks for loving us so much, and thanks for all the projects you help us with. We LOVE you more than you could possibly know.

Sam, thanks for being so kind and happy, thanks for always having stuff in your pocket for Em to play with, thanks for being so gentle, thanks for your fun stories, thanks for letting us use your middle name (even if it was for a girl). We love you so much and wish we could spend more time with you.

Ry, thanks for being such a great dad. Thanks for playing hide and go seek with Em, thanks for never complaining when the house is messy, thanks for never complaining when you see how much I spend on kids clothes, thanks for loving us, thanks for helping me put the girls to bed, thanks for figuring out how to get Emily to brush her teeth without screaming, thanks for protecting our girls, and thank you for a million other things. I adore you!

Happy Father's Day!

Little Bug

2009-06-20T12:20:00.000-07:00

Poor Chloe gets forgotten more than she should on this blog. Emily is doing so many cute and funny things that sometimes I forget the more subtle and sweet things Chloe does. Yesterday we went to her 4 month appointment (yes I realize that she is almost 5 months, it has been a crazy month and we missed the first two appointments that I made). She is tipping the scales at a whopping 12 lbs 10 oz, putting her in the 6th percentile for weight. She is 26 inches long putting her in the 86th percentile for height, and for height to weight she is way off the charts. She is skinny and long. The doctor suggested trying to pump her up with as many extra calories as I can. She has started baby food (sweet potatoes, rice cereal, and pears so far). She is ok with baby food but doesn't LOVE it so far the way Emily did. The two girls are SOOOO different. Emily was not a giggler, Chloe loves to giggle. Emily did great with naps but we struggled with sleeping though the night. Chloe NEVER wakes up at night but we struggle with naps, she could stay up for 12 hours during the day and not even be fussy. Emily was NOT cuddly, Chloe is pretty cuddly (although she is constantly moving so it exhausting to hold her). Emily loved bottles and would eat ANYTHING you put in it. Chloe only likes to be breastfeed and when necessity requires her to eat out of a bottle she will ONLY eat breast milk or the really expensive liquid formula (how does she even know the difference!). Emily was a binky sucker, Chloe a thumb sucker. Both girls were strong. Chloe is rolling from front to back and back to front and can hold her self up when she is on her tummy. Both girls are adorable and we love them SOOO much.

Not Worth The Fight

2009-06-18T15:20:00.000-07:00

So today I am just one step above "feel like I'm going to die." It seems that I have got some kind of super fun cold. Emily has spent the day inventing ways to entertain herself. I have been spending the day deciding which battles I want to fight. I should have fought the battle over the almond extract (FYI almond extract on black chairs leaves little white spots). I did fight the battle over wearing a diaper (for some reason I don't feel like cleaning pee off the carpet). I choose not to fight the battle of the swimsuit....She decided she wants to go "fwimmin' with cousins." I don't want to inform her that the cousins have all gone home, maybe I can talk Ryan into taking her swimming tonight.

When I got out the camera she said "mommy I give you cheese" then started running toward the camera with a big smile on her face. Where does she get this stuff, I never say "say cheese."

This is her attempt to put on the swimsuit.

This is her hiding under our rickety tv cabinet in the loft...I hope it doesn't fall over.
The good news is that she has been super cute with Chloe. The two have been sitting together giggling, one of the best mommy moments ever. The bad news is that shortly there after she decided it would be a good idea to poke Chloe with a stick....AAHHH!

This is the first pile of cute baby clothes I have given away....I'm just a little sad to be giving them up, no more little babies in our house. I had to take a photo so I could remember all the fun memories in these little clothes.

Ok I hear Emily downstairs I better check to see if there is a fight brewing that needs to be fought.

I Love You This Much!

2009-06-16T10:44:00.000-07:00

The other night as I was laying in bed I realized that Ryan and I have been together for 10 years! Ten adventurous, fun, exciting, frustrating, glorious years. I never thought I would laugh, cry, and love quite as much as I have over the past 10 years. I had grand plans to make a photo book commemorating the journey, but alas, my grand plans have been thwarted by time and this post is as good as it gets. In fact, if it were not for the call this morning asking “do you know what tomorrow is…” I’m not sure I would have even handled this, sorry babe. The past 10 years have been the best of my life. I look forward to many more decades and hopefully eternity with you. This post is mostly intended for Ry and is pretty long, I won’t feel bad if you skip all or most of it.

1999 Significant Events:
· I went to live on a small Caribbean Island (South Caicos), just days after realizing I was in love with Ryan. It was the loneliest 4 months of my life…Thanks Dad for not yelling at me for some pretty obscene phone bills.
· Ryan went to school at Dixie College and worked nights at the Texaco, I spent more than one evening hanging out in the back room of the Texaco...The things you will do when you are young and in love.
· We fell in love, well I fell in love first then convinced Ryan it was love. I love that he pretty much always goes along with my hair brained schemes!
· Y2K didn’t end the world, as predicted by Ryan. This was the first of many fights I fought just to fight.

2000Significant Events:
· Early on Valentine’s Day Ryan sent me tulips, I suspected that there may be more to it since I had previously told him that I would marry the man that sent me tulips. Ya I was big into SUBTLE hints.
· After a candle lit dinner at Pizza Factory and a carriage ride around the Temple, Ryan asked me to marry him. I happily said yes.
· I took out my endowments in the San Diego Temple, it was a beautiful day.
· We got married on June 17th. It was a perfect day (except for that incident with my mom and the flowers and the pool).
· We went on a cruise for our honeymoon. We stopped in San Diego where we went to the temple, Catalina where we went scuba diving, and Ensenada (which I could have skipped).
· We moved into our first apartment. It was a one bedroom apartment that was last updated in the 70’s. Despite my best efforts I could never get the floors or bathtub clean. Only two burners on the oven worked and it was a glorious $350 a month, about the only thing we could afford considering our generous salaries working at Valley Title and Texaco. We did have a nice view of the cemetery from the front window though! I made a serious effort to be the happy homemaker, I made dinner every night (there were some disastrous meals) and I even ironed his clothes…those were the good old days. I am now lucky to make dinner more than a couple of times a week and forget ironing I found Red Hanger (sorry babe). 2001Significant Events:
· In January we packed up our meager belongings and moved to LA. Our apartment there was a step up, it had been remodeled sometime in the last decade (that may be generous), despite its ancient metal cupboards, lack of dishwasher, lack of air conditioning, rolling slat windows, and stained tub. It was a glorious $550 a month and we were in a rent controlled area so the rent could only increase like 5% a year. Living in that apartment in the Rampart District was one of the happiest times I can remember, even if our car did get broken into regularly. It was the only place we have lived were you could get corn on a stick covered in Mayonnaise for $1 from a street vendor who cooked the corn in a garbage can in a shopping cart. It sounds gross, but really you can’t knock it till you try it.
· I started working part time at United Title, my miracle job that I found while walking the streets looking for our miracle apartment. Ryan started working for American Research Bureau, his miracle job that the Elder’s Quorum President helped him find. Ryan worked full time while I went to school at USC full time.
· Ryan went to his first Dodger’s game. We weren’t giant baseball fans but our friend’s Uncle Gary had season tickets right behind first base that were AMAZING!!!
· We went SCUBA diving in the Channel Islands for our anniversary and dove with sea lions.

2002Significant Events:
· I graduated from USC with my degree in Public Policy, Management and Planning.
· Ryan went to the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics courtesy of ARB (his employer), Ryan felt bad that I couldn’t come because I had finals, so he surprised me with tickets to Stars on Ice. Our seats were literally on the ice, and Scott Hamilton sat next to us (he was not a big talker).
· We got season passes to Magic Mountain and season tickets to USC football. We spent most weekends on roller coasters or football games.
· Ryan got pneumonia and ended up in the hospital overnight. It was a pretty traumatic event and he will tell you all about how I left him to die on his birthday while I went to San Diego with my family. Believe me Ry I still feel bad about it.

2003Significant Events:
· We went to the Rose Parade, we spent the night along the parade course. It was beautiful, but we vowed never to do it again.
· We bought our first house in Valencia. It was BEAUTIFUL. I loved the space (3 bedrooms), the garage (no more parking on the street), the neighborhood, and just about everything else about it. I was not fond of our mortgage payment or the 1.5 hour commute, each way. The best part of the commute was that I got to go with Ryan. We spent hours every day talking about everything imaginable; we didn’t even have a radio in the car (see previous notation about the car break-ins).
· One weekend we decided to go to Santa Monica for the Red Bull Flutag (you’ve seen the commercials where they build crazy contraptions and “fly” them off the pier). It was hysterical and tons of fun. Our friend Kate even designed the “flug-Shack-Shoe” (A giant Laker shoe) and made the plunge.
· We made many weekend trips to Santa Barbara including one trip with Pat and Sam.
· We got our first pet, Zoey Bunny. She was sick when we got her and we spent SOOOO much money trying to nurse her back to health, it worked, for awhile.
· Ryan started school at College of the Canyons. He decided he wanted to be an accountant. Those were some long days for him. He was working, going to school, and commuting 3 hours a day! We spent a lot of time in the car studying.

2004Significant Events:
· We went to the Rose Parade—AGAIN. Yes we had previously vowed not to go, but couldn’t say no when my sister and her husband begged to go.
· We sold our first house (goodbye giant mortgage, hello freedom). The bad news was that we didn’t have anywhere to live for the next three months…so we might have camped out in Ryan’s office apartment while everything we owned was in storage, but I won’t admit to anything.
· We bought a new house in Utah. It was beautiful, gigantic, far less expensive than our house in CA, and best of all we got to pick everything out ourselves. Ryan and I spent months looking at model homes in California getting ideas. I still love just about everything about it.
· We went to Hawaii with our friend Jeff. Ry and I spent A LOT of time SCUBA diving. We saw just about every fish on our list. Those that we missed in the wild we saw at the aquarium.

2005Significant Events:
· We finally moved into our new house in Utah.
· Ryan started school full time at the University of Utah.
· We adopted Beatrix, Bear, and Babe bunnies (don’t ask what I was thinking, I still don’t know, yet another time my husband went along with my hare brained ideas…he he he at least I think I’m funny).
· We spent most of the summer working on putting in our yard. It seemed like a good idea when we started but was SOOOO much work.
· We went back to LA to visit Jeff, go to the Long Beach Aquarium, and to watch USC POUND Arkansas.

2006Significant Events:
· Ryan finished at the University of Utah
· Ryan started work at Extra Space
· Ryan’s Grandma and my Grandpa both pass away the same week.
· We went to visit Amy and Dave in Connecticut, we also enjoyed several very fun days in New York City.

2007Significant Events:
· Emily was born. This was definitely one of the most significant events of our marriage. Suddenly life became about making her happy instead of about making ourselves happy.
· I started working part time. I am so happy that I can spend most of my time with our cute girls. It is so nice that my job is a fun escape rather than a constant drudgery.

2008Significant Events:
· So many family first’s; first trick-or-treating, first steps, first words…Ryan could not be a cuter dad and he adores Emily.

· Jen starts work at Jacobs.

2009Significant Events:
· Chloe was born. It has been 5 months and the world is still a blur with two energetic girls.
Ry I adore you more now than the day I married you. Thanks for an amazing decade! We have been some pretty cool places and done some pretty cool stuff, but I think my favorite part of the journey was being with you. You have a knack for making things fun.

Raspberries Anyone?

2009-06-12T10:16:00.000-07:00

My raspberries that I planted 3 years ago are going NUTS. There are about 8 starts that have sprung up in my grass I am going to pull them up and throw them away, unless anyone wants raspberry starts. It takes a couple of years for them to get going, but then they go crazy. You need a pretty good sized spot for them and then every year you just have to keep pulling up what you don't want. They are a bit of a pain, but totally worth it when you get the fruit. Looks like I am going to have a ton of berries this year!

Not Really Dead, Just Feeling Like It

2009-06-07T22:06:00.001-07:00

So I have not really died, I have just been REALLY busy the last few weeks. To summarize the last few weeks:

55 hours of work
1 trip to St. George
70 people at a dinner catered by my mom, my sister and I (4 courses, 12 chocolate cakes, 6 enormous pork roasts, more dishes than I could count)
8 cousins all staying at my mom's house
Many missed naps and sleepless nights
1 trip to the cabin
1 trip to see the animals at Thanksgiving Point
8 kids and 3 adults at Discovery Gateway, Clark Planetarium (thank you Air Force), and Temple Square
1 child we thought we lost on the train
8 sick kids (they all took a day)
2 new teeth
1 hour sliding down the inflatable slides at Classic Skating
More hot tubing and "fwimming" (how Emily says swimming) than I can count

So needless to say it has been madness. I can't believe how much 8 kids eat, it is AMAZING. This morning Emily slept in until 11:00 and took a 3 hour nap. We missed church, but there was NO WAY I was going to wake her up, she seriously needed to catch up on some sleep and so did I. I wish I had lots of photos of all of our adventures, but my mom and sister have been the photographers. I have been taking a photo hiatus. Below are some of my favorite photos from our family photo shoot last month. Also some cute ones to get you caught up on Miss Chloe's new accomplishments.

Rolley Polley Chloe. Watch out world Chloe is now rolling over.
Here she is sleeping on her tummy after rolling over, and screaming until she fell asleep, she is not a fan of her tummy.

Yeah, she found her thumb!!!!! It's not a binky, but it does make her happy, which makes me happy.

Charity, Abby, and Emily in St. George Memorial Day weekend.

Thank You

2009-05-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

So it looks like we are going to have enough pans, thanks Tiff, Viv, and Alicia.

Emily has been very into saying Thank You lately. It is so cute. Every time she hands me something she says "Thank You Mama." She doesn't quite get the difference between please and thank you, but it is always cute. She also is very into her daddy and often laughs at him and says "silly daddy." My other favorite thing is that she LOVES music. Every morning she asks me to turn on the ipod so she can rock out. Pretty much any time she makes any type of noise she gets really happy and says "making nusic (music)." Right now she is sitting in my lap as a type trying to grab my fingers and saying "no mommy don't push the buttons." Guess I need to give her a little more attention since I have been working all day. Better run.

I'll be sure to post a Chloe update soon. Next week she will be 4 months, she is getting cuter and happier by the minute!

Help!

2009-05-13T11:47:00.000-07:00

So my mom is catering a wedding and we have to make 24- 8 to 9 inch round cakes on May 31st, if anyone has any pans that we could borrow I would super appreciate it. I may even have a yummy treat as a thank you.

Family Photos

2009-05-11T15:04:00.000-07:00

We got new family photos last week. I am really happy with what I have seen so far and can't wait to see the rest. Kit and Ron (http://www.norrismediagroup.com/) took over 800 photos of us, so I am pretty confident that we will get a few winners in there:-) They are still working on editing the best ones and I am so excited to see them. We went to Gardner Village and it was awesome. Emily was a little obsessed with the ducks, so we had a hard time getting any happy shots that didn't involve chasing the ducks.

This weekend was mother's day and I have to say Ryan really raised the bar. Not only did he bring me dinner after a long Friday, he also got my favorite cake from Nothing Bunt Cakes, and he got me a new external hard drive so I no longer have to be afraid of loosing all my photos. I now have a lot of backing up to do. Perhaps the best part of the weekend though was spending time together. Pretty much all day Saturday we worked on the yard together (my garden is all planted with tomatoes, rosemary, cilantro, onions, raspberries, strawberries, squash, and cucumbers, which is pretty impressive if you have seen my tiny garden!). At church on Sunday Elder's quorum was canceled so that all the women could go to Relief Society and the men could go to primary. Ryan made me a little flower pot with flowers that promised completion of chores (cleaning all the bathrooms, dishes, and putting the kids to bed). It was pretty dang adorable. We spent the afternoon at my mom's. Then today Ry stayed home 1/2 day to watch the girls. As if that were not enough he even did the dishes while I was gone! I seriously love him so much and appreciate him more than he can possibly know. Good riddance WOW, I love having my husband back!

Spring!

2009-05-03T17:38:00.000-07:00

There have been several false alarms over the past month, but I think that spring is FINALLY here. I previously mentioned that our yard had a rough fall. Here are some photos of the bright spots this spring. We still have a lot of work to do to make the whole thing beautiful again, but Ryan is pretty determined. Ry is a recovering WOW (World of Warcraft) addict. Since he stopped playing we have been spending lots of fun time with daddy. Actually, I can't tell you how much I adore him for quitting. It is a super fun game and he is really good, but it was sort of taking over our lives. He decided when Chloe was born that he didn't want to play anymore so he could spend more time with us. It has been months since he has played and I think the shakes have pretty much stopped :-)
I love my lilac bush and snowball bush. I can't wait for them to bloom.

I love tulips and daffodils. They are so beautiful and every year they seem to get brighter and bigger. My tulips should be blooming any day and I am very excited. Then our Trojan planter will be complete. Everything in the planter is cardinal and gold!

This weekend Chloe has been feeling kind of yucky so we have mostly stuck around home. Em started to go stir crazy so we took her up to a park that Ryan and I found before she was born in Fruit Heights. It is the coolest park ever and Emily LOVED LOVED LOVED it. We stayed until she was exhausted. Here are some photos.

Isn't this park the coolest?

So Much Fun

2009-04-27T12:30:00.000-07:00

We have been having so much fun lately that I haven't had much time to post. I plan to scrapbook a million photos, but I will post the highlights...

Holy cow I actually got Emily to smile AND look at the camera! Here are some photos from the other day at Discovery Gateway. I seriously love that place.

Here are the girls on Easter morning. When Emily found her eggs she picked each of them up started shaking them and said "1, 2, 3 shake it" Then she would put them down and pick up the next egg. It was super cute.

My cute little Chloe bunny!
Emily thanking Grandma for her Easter haul!

On Arbor Day we went to Red Butte Gardens, since admission was free. My neighbor invited me and a few of her other friends that I didn't know. The gardens were amazing, but parking was a nightmare. Let's just say I got a major workout pushing two girls in the stroller. Emily was thrilled to run with the other kids. Chloe spent the afternoon snoozing in the stroller, so I don't have any photos of her frolicking in the flowers :-) Emily was pretty impressed with the flowers, we had a hard time with the concept of smelling them and not picking them. Over all it was a fun day in a beautiful place with new friends. I wish I had more photos of Emily looking at the camera, but she generally is not into looking at the camera these days. Around 2:00 she got SUPER tired and threw the MONSTER of all tantrums. She screamed for about an hour as I was pushing her and Chloe in the stroller trying to get to the car that was parked VERY far away. People were staring at me with mostly sympathetic looks. One person seemed particularly concerned about our welfare. I looked at her and said, "yeah we are going home...and we may never leave the house again." She started laughing, I have a feeling she was a mom too. I almost got to the car when I realized Emily was missing her shoe. I seriously contemplated leaving it, but decided to go back since I just spent the week looking for the dumb shoes (I finally recovered them from under the couch cushions where Emily had last hid them). Fortunately they were not too far back.

This photo pretty much sums up my Mondays. On Monday I try to get my house back in some semblance of order, catch up on work, laundry, bills, and other mundane tasks this leaves poor Emily to her own devices. In this photo you can see that she has found a black permanent marker and drawn on her face (thankfully sparing the clothes, but violating the "we only draw on paper rule," which gets violated more frequently than I would like to admit). She has thread wrapped around her foot since she has gotten into my thread box and strung about 12 spools of thread from one end of the house to the other. She has also discovered daddy's socks and has spent the last hour pulling them on and off and saying "Daddy's socks yeah!" They go up to her thigh and she usually has on one black one and one white one. It is pretty dang cute.

These photos are from a Monday a few weeks ago. Emily was positively giddy about jumping in my clean laundry. With a face like that who could be mad. Apparently I really like this outfit, since I see some variation of it in just about every photo I have posted today. I swear my kids really do have lots of clothes, just ask my husband he will tell you that I have some kind of kids clothing sickness.

This is Emily's birdhouse that Emily built at Lowes (with some help from daddy). It was a fun and FREE Saturday morning project.

Yesterday we dressed Chloe in this adorable dress from our friends Jeff and Ginny (thanks). I thought she was so cute and who couldn't love these big cheesy grins she was giving us. She has started to giggle a little too. I love being a mom!

Here is Emily at bedtime. I tried to get a cute photo of her holding her favorite book, but she was really not in the mood. She LOVES LOVES LOVES Go Dog Go every morning and every night she brings it to us and says Go Dog Go. The only other book she requests by name is Clifford. What can I say, this kid LOVES dogs (and her mommy, see it is even written on her shirt :-) ).

Emily's best friend in the whole world is Scooter, my mom's dog. This weekend Emily and Scooter decided to go on an adventure when the door accidentally got left open. We found them both cold and wet (it was raining) at my mom's neighbor's house. It was terrifying. I am so glad that she has good neighbors!

The weather is finally nice and we have been hard at work trying to get our yard back in shape after some serious neglect last fall. I will post photos when everything is green and pretty again. The one thing that I can depend on every year is my beautiful daffodils and tulips. I think this is by far the best year yet. The daffodils are so big and beautiful, they make me so happy.

In other news I found something that removes chocolate milk stains (for those of you that have heard my chocolate milk rants). I found this yellow bar of soap (thanks Jodi) called Felz Naptha. It is $1.50 at the grocery store on the laundry aisle. You rub it on, wait for a minute, scrub a bit, and it takes everything out. It is way better than oxy clean or anything else...and did I mention it is $1.50 and lasts forever.

Ok all caught up, sorry for the long post.

Little Chlo Bug

2009-04-20T16:56:00.000-07:00

I can't believe how fast time has flown by since Chloe was born. This week she will be three months old. She is a sweet heart and we adore her. She is not a very patient baby and I have a feeling she will have a flare for the dramatic when she grows up. Any time ANYTHING is not quite right in the world she is sure to let you know all about it. She is an amazing sleeper. She goes to bed at about 8:00 I wake her up for a quick snack before I go to bed then she sleeps until I come and get her around 7:30. She absolutely will NOT take a binky, despite my desperate attempts. Most of the day she is pretty happy. She loves her swing and sits and goos at herself in the mirror. She seems to really like music and is soothed by it. She is starting to really love her play mat and will sit and kick at the toys for long periods of time. She hates laying on her tummy. She gets very fussy at night from about 4:00 to 8:00 (which unfortunately is when Ryan is home). She loves faces and will give you big smiles if you sit and make faces at her and rub her tummy. Every day she is more fun and we love having her in our family. I am trying to get some cute pics of both girls, it didn't happen today. We will shoot for tomorrow.

Easter and Other Events

2009-04-20T16:29:00.000-07:00

Life has been fun and crazy lately. I will do a longer post after the girls are sleeping, but in the meantime here are some pages from Easter. Don't you love the girls dresses (the last page)? My friend Kate helped me pick them out (thank you Kate). Now I just have to get some family photos where we are all at least looking at the camera!

Doggy Take a Baf

2009-04-04T20:41:00.000-07:00

Emily’s dog was filthy so I tried to be sneaky and wash it while she was not paying attention. She caught me and sat in front of the washer crying and mourning for the loss of the dog. She repeated over and over “Doggy out.” I explained that the doggy was dirty and needed a bath. To which she responded by saying “no baf, want dog.” Finally when the washer was finished we got it out. Emily smiled, and repeatedly hugged the dog while saying “Sady (sorry) doggy.” It was so tragic.