John celebrated his 34th birthday last week. No offense John, but that sounds kind of old. I have a feeling we'll both be celebrating our 40th birthdays before we know it. Unfortunately John didn't have a fabulous birthday this year...but hopefully it was okay. He had a long day at work and even had to decline a lunch invitation because he was in court all day. He came home to a wife still had a thrown out back (although I gave in and went to the chiropractor that day...best decision ever....I'm now a HUGE fan of massage) and I was trying to get ready to head out of town the next morning. But we still managed a yummyy family dinner at Red Robin and I made awesome cupcakes. Emmie even said, "Wow!" and clapped when we were making them. But then again, how could any food item that contains chocolate cake, chocolate mousse, chocolate frosting, snickers, and chocolate ganache not be awesome? I don't know how either.

And my favorite pictures of the night were of Emmie and John blowing out the candles. Emmie is under the impression that every time a birthday is celebrated it's her birthday, which somehow makes these pictures even better.

And the very next morning I left on a girls trip to Portland to see Wicked. I have an awesome husband who is always supportive of me getting out of the house...even if it means he has to stay behind with the kids.

We spent Thursday driving to Portland, checked in at our hotel, got some delicious Thai food for dinner and then headed to the theater. Unfortunately, the moment we got on the freeway we were in stand still traffic. We were all a little sick inside and ended up missing the first 20 minutes of the play. Luckily we had all seen it before. And it was still amazing!

Afterward we went to VooDoo donuts for dessert. It definitely didn't disappoint. It's in a kind of scary part of town. The line was long even at midnight. But we had a great time with the homeless people! My favorite doughnut was a plain doughnut covered with marshmallow, chocolate, oreos, and peanut butter. It was amazing! They had all sorts of funky doughnuts covered in cereal, bacon, and other delicacies. If I ever go to Portland again I will definitely be going back.

The next day we caught a morning showing of Hunger Games (which I really liked and cried a lot during) did some shopping, ate food. And then spent about 6 hours on the couch in our hotel room talking and eating. We were so tired and perfectly happy to sit and do nothing.

Saturday morning we went to the Portland market on the waterfront. It was huge! We spent hours there and had fun shopping and eating. I had my first gyro. How have I never had one of those!On our drive home we stopped at a waterfall and walked around for a bit. It would be fun to go back there with the kids one day and hike to the top.We enjoyed the drive home (because lets face it, any car ride without children is enjoyable:) and got back late Saturday night. It was a fabulous little break and I came home refreshed. And then reality hit quite early Sunday morning! Ahhh, motherhood. It's these little breaks that make it even more enjoyable!

A ramdom update. Just because.

Things have been crazy around here lately it seems.
And yet I have no pictures. No proof. And not much recollection.

So here are a few of the random things I do remember.

* My current favorite thing that Emmie says is, "Thank you so so much." (This is said in the cutest little kid voice imaginable.

*My current favorite thing that Owen says is "Possibly." The word itself is not as funny as the way in which the word is used. For example, "Possibly are we going to the park today?" I smile every time he says it and have no plans of correcting him any time soon.

*Owen's love of paper continues. John bought him origami paper. The things this kids makes are crazy (in both quantity and quality for a 5 year old).

* I wish I had a nickle for every time Owen asked to have a friend over. I'd be rich. The kid loves to play with friends. Not so much with himself. And he has successfully gotten to his friend's house on his bike now. Twice. Without dying. I'm thinking this summer will be awesome. I'll just say, go ride your bike to your friends house and bug them :).

* I wish we had kids that lived on our streets. Then I wouldn't be so excited about my kids being able to get to their friends houses without me taking them.

*We had Michael and Rachelle's wedding reception here on Saturday. It was at my parent's house. It was a nice night. I got to catch up with a lot of people and only said one super awkward thing. I always have to say at least one super awkward thing at all social gatherings.

* I redecorated my living room. One day I might even post a picture :) I painted over my red wall, hung curtains, replaced my couch pillows etc. And so, naturally, we also bought a piano so we could get rid of our red chair that no longer matches. It's handy to have a father in the piano business....when you're in need of a piano. It will get here in a week or two!

*My kids made a leprechaun trap. And apparently the leprechaun's didn't stop here. Probably because I requested them not to. I'm a big ole' dud when it come to St. Patrick's day. There are enough holidays with full on festivities. I intend to hold true to the ideal's of the 80's and 90's where St. Patrick's day simply means you wear green and possibly do a St. Patrick's day word search at school.

*Emmie is in full on dress up heaven. She continues to wear her sparkly blue dress but has now added many layers to it. She suddenly has an opinion about what she wears too. It drives me crazy because I'm a bit of a control freak. And I hate changing her clothes 5 times a day. And I'm not a cool enough mom to let her wear 2 dresses to church.

*Emmie is also currently addicted to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. While it's probably not the worst thing, it's also probably not the best thing. She knows how to get to the episodes that I have on my ipod. I'm not gonna lie...I use it at stores more than I should.

*Ains is currently taking dance. She started in February, and her recital is quickly approaching. I fear Ainsley inherited my coordination and grace. Or maybe John's. Either way, this is not a good thing for her. But she loves it and so we love it!!!!!

*Ainsley is also currently being tested for her school's challenge program. To be honest I have mixed feelings about it, so if she doesn't make it I won't be very sad. But I think her other parent might be.

*I ran 3.5 miles the other day. I was pretty proud of myself considering I haven't included running as part of my workouts for quite a while. I also threw out my back again. Still not sure if these two occurrences are related at all.

*Throwing my back out makes me miss our previous chiropractic coverage. And a little mad at the county for changing our health coverage. Because now rather than being at the chiropractor getting better, I sit and try to move as little as possible and hope that things will magically realign.


I'm sure there are a million other little things that I should have recorded but didn't. But at least this semi-lame list is a start!

Our Mini Vacation

We've been living in a bit of a whirlwind here lately. We celebrated my birthday on the 24th (happy birthday to me :) And then we were gearing up for out trip to the wedding. The plan was to drive down Monday after the kids were out of school. But the weather forecast was predicting snow for Monday night. So at 11:00 on Sunday morning we decided to be spontaneous and load up the car and head out that afternoon. We were planning on staying with Syd and Cy and we knew that they would be thrilled about getting to have us in their home for another day!

So by 2:30 we had my van overflowing with sleeping bags,luggage, food, and children. We stopped and visited Michael that night in Salt Lake and then were to Provo by 10:30. I think the kids were all in bed by midnight. I should mention now the lack of sleep that accompanied the week!

Monday we ventured downtown to do a full blown temple square visit. We went to the top of the church office building, visited the church history museum (the kids loved the new children's exhibit...although I think Kortney was the biggest fan of the dress up and dance portion), we saw the Joseph Smith movie, the Christus, the visitors centers, and the conference center. The kids were troopers and did fabulously. Even Emmie did great, who I had to carry most of the day because I was stroller-less. My arms were numb to say the least.

The kids (Emmie) all got a nice little drink out of this fountain. :)

As the sun went down we met up with Michael and Rachelle for dinner at the Olive Garden. I think I might have to send a letter to Olive garden, because my last 2 times there I have been disappointed....what's up Olive Garden? And then we drove home in a blizzard. Again. I couldn't see the lines on the road...and drove between two lanes for most of the drive from Salt Lake to Provo, I'm sure the other drivers loved me.

Tuesday we spent some time at BYU. We visited the Bean Museum.

I had to take this picture of Owen hiding. We were looking at a grizzly bear and he was worried there would also be a fake snake, so he wouldn't even look in our general direction. The kid is terrified of snakes. I'm planning on having some real fun with that one day.

I bribed a worker (with my charm :) and he brought out a lizard for the kids to see. Pretty cool. Notice where Owen was standing. He's not at all squeamish.

We met up with my family that afternoon for a jaunt to IKEA. We spent 2 hours there. The hour the kids spent in the play land helped. The kids also ate for free! Thank you free kids meals on Tuesday's at IKEA. We were super lame and didn't even buy adult meals because we were headed to the Japanese steak house that night. Ya, we're that cheap.

We got our fill of wedding on Wednesday and then drove home on Thursday. But only after Cy and the kids had the ultimate Nerf gun war. Seriously, I've never seen someone with more Nerf guns! We successfully trashed Syd and Cy's house and were exhausted and had a great week!

Another Wedding!

We spent last week in Salt Lake for another wedding. Michael and Rachelle got married on February 29. Although we drove up on Sunday, the wedding festivities didn't officially begin until Tuesday night. We got together with Rachelle's family and went to a teppanyaki Japanese restaurant. It was a lot of fun.There was great entertainment. The fire thrilled everyone in the crowd except for Emmie and the other toddler in our company...they were terrified.
There was much shrimp throwing. If you look closely at this picture you can see the shrimp hitting Ainsley's chin. They threw approximately 20 pieces of shrimp at my daughter, and unfortunately she inherited her mother's ability to catch food in her mouth.

Owen on the other hand caught his first piece! It was crazy. He informed us later that he was able to catch it by just focusing. And he was pleased that he didn't even choke. The kids may or may not have enjoyed this dinner more than the reception. Receptions just don't have much appeal to little kids....

We spend a miserably cold and windy day with the newly weds at the Jordan River temple. John's mom and sister Steph were life savers and watch mine and Kortney's kids while we were at the temple. It was so miserably cold that we didn't even go back to get them for pictures.

Notice there is only one picture from the temple....did I mention it was cold? And windy?

The weather only got better and we experienced nothing short of a blizzard the night of the reception. Literally. Luckily we were cozy and warm inside.You would think by looking at this picture that they cut the cake. But they didn't. Because my brother is a dork and didn't want any. Yes Michael, I'm publicly declaring you a dork. But the picture is very realistic.

You might also notice from this next picture that Kortney and I don't have our husband's by our sides. That's right, we pulled off a week of fun, wedding, adventure, and blizzards all by ourselves. More of those adventures to come...........

And last but not least. Emmie was quite the trooper this trip. But by the end of the night we found her a cozy chair and a few episodes of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse to keep her out of trouble. Because previous to this I found her stuck in the bathroom.

Serves me right!

Today I caught Emmie 'mid-poop' and decided to try to get her to sit on the toilet. I decided this despite her absolute fear of and refusal to have anything to do with the toilet. So I took her into the bathroom and was trying to trap her in there while also trying to dig out our little toilet training seat that was in the bathroom cupboard.

What happened next took me a bit by surprise. I somehow unhooked a pipe/tube thing (forgive my lack of proper plumbing terminology) water started spraying everywhere!!! I was getting soaking wet, as was the floor, and everything under the sink. It took me a few seconds to get my bearings, pull everything out from under the sink, and figure out how to get the water shut off. It was insane! There was A LOT of water EVERYWHERE!!! Way more water than one would expect would end up on the floor after a few seconds of gushing water.

And so instead of convincing Emmie to sit on the toilet........I got to clean up this.

In case you were wondering it was that little plastic tube thingy......All in the name of potty training (or lack thereof)!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our day included....

John getting a guilty verdict. (Way to go John!)

The entire family being at the school nearly all day. Seriously, it was hours. Too. Many. Hours. But it was fun :)

Heart shaped pancakes and peanut butter sandwiches.

Chocolate.

Cookies.

Spaghetti and meatballs.

Brownies.

Candy.

A new shower head. (Heaven!)

The best Valentine's I've ever received plastered on the bathroom mirror.

(They said things like..........."There's no one else I'd rather spend this annual obligation with." "I could watch TV with you forever." "The GOP settling for Romney is a great reminder to thanks you or settling for me." (Not that either of us don't support Romney, we do, but it's still funny :) "I'm glad you recognize how terrible your life would be without me." Some people like the mushy stuff, I've learned over the years that I'm not a romantic. I'm glad John knows that these are way more my style, because it was a great laugh for the morning!

And the kids got gifts too. Gifts that fit their interests right now perfectly. Ains got new earrings. Emmie got play-doh. And Owen got a ream of paper. Now he can use all the paper he wants with out us getting mad at him. How sad that we have limited his paper usage, but it was really out of control! He makes paper airplanes and origami like no one I've ever seen. Seriously. He just folds and folds and then throws them on the floor and starts another. I'm starting to think he might have some sort of OCD. Maybe? But now he can fold in peace.

It was a good day!

Ainsley's Baptism

I'm finally getting pictures posted of Ainsley's baptism! She was baptized last Saturday, February 4th. And it really was a fabulous day. After the "unnecessary" things had been taken care of, like the dress, the shoes, the sweater, the headband, the white underwear, (You know, all the fluff. Although I think Ainsley enjoyed the countless hours we spent shopping, you don't know how hard it is to find reasonably priced white attire in January!) we were able to have a nice and relatively calm day.

Ainsley looked beautiful and so big. It was kind of surreal. I think John and Ainsley enjoyed the day the most. They were able to have time to themselves and enjoy the spirit. I was a little bit more flustered worrying about other children. John however was more choked up than I have ever seen him. Ever. It was very touching.
I think I was most touched when John was confirming her and said that the world was lacking in kindness, and this is something that Ainsley can bring to the world. She truly is kind and has developed compassion for others at such a young age. She is so special! She has been so excited about fasting and the meaning of baptism for quite a while now. I love that she took the time to understand the covenants she was going to be making. I don't know many 8 year olds that give that much thought without their parents prompting. She was able to have both of her grandpa's be witnesses. They participated in her confirmation as well, along with her uncles Dan, and Dan, and Cy. It was so nice to have family there to participate and share the moment with us. It really was a day that Ainsley will never forget.

And just for good measure, to finish off the night, we had awesome food and a dance party. We are pretty awesome dancers. Although I think I'm the best. :)