Locks of Love

My friend Holly and I take turns running the car pool for pre-school. It is fabulous not to drive both ways. Plus, it makes Emma so excited watching out the window for them to come. Here she is off to hop in their car.

Lydia is the sweetest little love bug. She absolutely adores "Jethus." She can spot Him anywhere and LOVES to look at His pictures. Her most favorite thing ever is to watch the most beautiful video of him called Come See the Light. It's on every day in our house, and she likes to watch it over and over again.

All men have strengths, but I must say that I wouldn't trade my husbands for anything. Bundy is a fixer. He can and does fix anything and everything. My chi had finally given up the ghost, but not to worry, Bundy was on it. The cords had actually come detached from the plug, I don't even know how one would go about mending those, but Ry did it, and now I'm back in business.

For Christmas Ryan got me this hair crimper that I adore. I use it all the time on myself (when I actually get ready) and about every day on Emma. We call it mermaid hair.
Family Night we went and saw Narnia and then followed it with a game of Jenga. Emma is actually pretty good at it, especially considering how clumsy she can be sometimes.


My sister Sara surprised us all and flew my sister Stacey in for our girls night weekend. Me and my mom and sisters are RARELY together, just the five of us. I can't remember the last time we were. There are usually kids or husbands lurking in the background. It was so nice to spend time together and we really made sure it was quality and made up for lost time. I have two sisters that look alike, Stacey and Sara, we call them the twins. They are the same size, sound the same, dress the same, everything. Then my oldest sister Jamie and I are much more alike, personality, hair, etc. It's fun that way :) P.S. Stacey has a huge salad with every meal, and loads of salt. I think it's so funny, hence the photo.
We haven't been going to my parents every Sunday like we used to, but I sure love it when we do. This was just a typical Sunday evening....Lydia loving up on Papa and Annie (my parents who do not go by grandma and grandpa) playing cards, and wall ball and four square in the gym.
My sweetest little Emma has a heart of gold. One day when I was getting the tangles out of her hair and she was crying I told her how some little girls don't have any hair. She said she could cut hers off and give it to them. So we let her hair grow out until it was long enough to donate. VOILA! The time had come. A little bit of me died inside when the first chunk was cut off. But I have to say how VERY sick I am of tangles, hair washing, curling, clips, pony tails, etc. It will be nice to have a break. Definitely I will grow it back out again, but for now I am happy that some other little girl can enjoy Emma's thick hair.

Young Love

We spent the weekend at my parents in Cache Valley. I took the opportunity to have an angel photo shoot with Emma. We found an old pioneer house that had stray cats as it's current tenants. The temperature was 6 degrees out and Emma was barefoot and coatless. All worth it if you ask me. She is such a champ to go along with all of my crazy ideas and schemes.

Monday I whipped up a fancy little camera strap. I must give credit to my friend Carrie for providing the inspiration.

As part of our new year we have all set goals for ourselves and our family. One of Emma's is to only watch one show a day. I thought it would be hard on the whole family, but she plays so well and is actually much happier and content throughout the day.

Wednesday we met the Foofs at McDonalds for a lunch date. Something we need to do much more often.

Lydia has a love of her life...Taggy. It is the tag on her beloved blanket. She can't go anywhere without it. She holds the tag in one hand and sucks her thumb with her other. Awww, young love.

Friday we actually had a date night. I didn't manage to take one photo even though I dragged my camera along. So this is a photo of our friends Cody and Holly Stowers who we went out with. They used to frequent my blog and journal much more often, something I hope they'll do again this year.

I worked all day on Saturday and so Ryan had the girls. But lets face it, a lot of sleeping goes on in this house, so really, it's like he only had them for a half day ;)

Sunday we had a nice time getting out of church at noon and just staying home all day. We had a fun family night with pizza, orange julius, popcorn, and a family movie. THIS is just one way that makes us a happy family and is the thing Ryan and I will miss the most when the girls are grown.

Photo a day challenge

My friend Carrie inspired me last year by completing the "Photo a Day Challenge." I decided this year to have this be one of my goals. I know it will take some getting used to, and will be a time commitment, but I think it is a worthy project. So here we go. This isn't a great way to start off, but at least it's something :)

We had a fabulous New Year's Eve, filled with a sealing, brunch, reception, clean up, and then headed on over to a fabulous New Year' party at my parent's house. The little girls have been hauled around town and thrown off their schedules with all the Holiday events that by the time New Year's Day came around Lydia couldn't fight it any longer and spent most of the day sleeping.

Sunday my parents came out and joined us for dinner. Afterwards I showed them the video I made Ryan for Christmas. I tried to upload it, but our Internet is lame and after thirty minutes I gave up. So this day, sadly, has no photo.

January 2nd- No photo (I'm still new at this concept of a photo a day)

It is definitely winter outside!

I volunteered in Emma's pre-school class. Goodness me, I learned two things. One, it takes a special person to purposefully choose to teach little children all day. Two, the difference between boys and girls is almost frightening.
Emma, Lydia and I drove all the way to Lehi for me to buy various KSL items, one of which includes me new camera. Along the way we stopped at IKEA for the girls to play and us to have lunch with the Johnson girls. IKEA has got it going on!! Wish I had one close to us.

Spent a large portion of the day editing my cousins wedding photos.

For FHE we set goals for all of us, weekly and in the next year. Emma did a great job meeting all her goals so we had a mommy/daughter date night. These photos don't show it, but she was more excited than if it were her birthday. We ran errands and went to Olive Garden. I truly had a great time with her and just can't get over what a friendly, loving little girl she is.

I'm still new at this photo a day thing so it will take me a while to actually getting my camera out. Saturday night we went to my parents for a yummy, yummy dinner and then the Caspersons came up for a game of Zarahemla and hot tubbing. Great week to start the year!

Totally Tasteless

My parents hosted a Totally Tasteless New Year's Eve party, and everyone really went all out.

That's Ryan sporting his chest hair, I accompanied him in a see through shirt with a colored bra, classy. Sara had her hair ratted and her jeans couldn't buckle up. Cody sported a Coors Light t-shirt and Brody made sure not to wear deodorant or socks, so he was ripe to say the least.


Each couple gave a 5 minute tasteless presentation: ~bragging about children's sports achievements~ reading a story for kindergarten children and telling what the teacher is REALLY thinking about the children~bragging about sports prowess (84 year old grandma)~ guest etiquette~buying a pension plan~doing a slow dance with your spouse and needing to "get a room"~weighing everyone and spotlighting their problem areas~passing a jar around for donations for a college couple~leading the group in a nursery song complete with body actions~~and my personal favorite....a video about tonsil stones. You should check that out on u-tube. Sick beyond words to express, that was our contribution :)


Fabulous, and unforgettable New Year's Party!


Before Julie headed back to Oregon we all went to Gateway and ate at Thaiphoon, our favorite restaurant. Everything about it was divine!!

Ryan and I went to Logan for a couple of days to go through the temple with my cousin. It was my first time I attended the endowment session for someone else and I was so happy to be there. Then we spent the next morning helping the Jensens decorate for the reception.


Jessica and Brad were married on New Year's Eve and even on her wedding day Jessica (the baby whisperer) still took time for the kids.

Christmas Celebrations

My parents are notorious for hosting great parties. This Christmas they got us all a hotel room at the Ogden Marriott and we saw the Christmas villages, went out to eat, and then played games in their suit. Instead of an ugly sweater contest we had a crazy hat contest, and the competition was fierce as you can tell.
Emma has a good amount of girl cousins, unfortunately 8 of them live in the Portland area and only two live here, one of which is 17. However, if I could only pick one Emma's age to live here, it would be Milly anyways. They are like peas in a pod and get along great. In fact it's easier for the two of them to be together then have them one on one. Poor Lydia has no cousins her age, nor will she ever. But all the big kids dote on her and love to have her tag along.


For Emma's Christmas Program Santa came by for a visit. Good thing, because although I had the best of intentions, this was Emma's only visit with Santa this year. I am so thrilled with the pre-school I enrolled Emma in and really lucked out that the teacher ad curriculum are better than I expected.
Ryan's sister Julie came and stayed with us for just shy of two weeks over the Holiday. Sadly, we had a lot of family parties and other commitments, but she was good to stay with the girls and I got her hooked on LOST to keep her busy while we were gone.
This year for Christmas Eve we put luminaries in our cul-de-sac so Santa would know where to land his sleigh. We didn't leave my parents house when we planned so we didn't get the luminaries lit until midnight, and I used tea lights instead of votive candles. So next year we will use votives and get them lit sooner. Great learning experience though and looking forward to perfecting it next year.


I love this photo of the three cousins. The above photo was last year on Christmas Eve. They haven't changed too much. This was our first year NOT spending the night at my parents house for Christmas Eve. It was very "different." Not good or bad, just different. Might take some getting used to, but it was fun to be on our own schedule.


Emma woke us up at 9 and we were happy to have that little bit of sleep. Lydia was NOT amused to be up. We put her back to bed at 9:45 and she slept until 4 in the afternoon when we had her open up the rest of her gifts.




I went to bed at 6 am. I took a photo of the clock before I went off to bed. I like to have everything "just so." Julie gave us Jenga and we enjoyed playing the multiple times during the day. We had a yummy breakfast, napped for four hours, dinner, and then Ju and I saw a movie at 10. Fabulous, relaxing day filled with reflections of family.

We watched "come see the light," a six minute tear jerker video of Christ and all cried as we bore our testimonies to each other. That might be my favorite part of our day. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is enjoying their New Year.

...something blue

My dear cousin Jessica ( the baby whisperer) just recently got married and that is one of many reasons for me lack of recent blog posts. So I am trying to catch up with events in order that they took place. I threw Jessica a shower at my mom's house and had a great time catching up with family. I invited Brad (the fiancee) so that everyone could have a chance to get to know him as well. We played a game in which we saw who of the guests was most like Brad, and some interesting tid bits about him came out ;) Also, we had the couple sit together as we all went around the room and gave them our marriage advice. Jessica was a great sport to wear the wig I bought for her to go along with the theme. Even with blue hair it is obvious she's a beautiful girl.