My Emma

Neither of my boys were very into teasing other kids as much as this girl is. Today during preschool she was just walking behind different kids with a branch just listening to each of them cry about it. As I would walk towards her to take her to time out she would put her arm out trying to stop me saying "No MOM don't touch me, NO MOM. She is just completely entertained seeing the reactions of her friends while they are scared to be getting poked by a branch.

My mom always said that she hoped I would have a daughter just like me and this is what I get for always replying that the world would be better place if all my kids were like me.
Does anyone want Emma to come play with their kids????




Update for the day:
After Emma came home from her hour of dance class she usually is worn out and ready for some quiet time. However today while I thought she was having her quiet time and I was cleaning a bathroom she came into me with her hand covered in paint. I ran out to look for the damage and of course at first didn't see anything. Until I looked at the back of the kitchen island. Yeah , she pretty much used this as a giant canvas for her finger painting project. Last night after I had finished painting most of the playroom I left a paint tray that I thought I had used all the paint out of. Little fingers can dig into those corners and find some paint still wet and then use that to paint the house.
After this little incident I put her in her room (maybe got really mad at her) and then proceeded to put her back in her room every two minutes because she would just come out telling me not to touch her. After the 25th time of putting her in there she didn't come out. So I was at the computer and here a knock on the sliding door and look over and see her playing out there.
She had crawled out her window and decided to go play in the backyard since her attempts to come out and play in the house were not working. So now I get to paint the island again.
She is are always busy little girl!!! My life would really be so boring if it wasn't for her getting into things 20 times a day. Can you tell it's been a looong day.

It takes a lot to bring someone out of retirement...............a very high price............promises of babysitting..........and a cute girl wearing a very cute skirt. For the record it was the skirt that sealed the deal. I was trying not to post to many but I had a couple favorites from out photo shoot THIS morning. Oh yeah that was the other part of the agreement, her mom wanted them back within hours. Its people like this that forced me into retirement in the the first place.

In seriousness I loved this shoot! This reminded me why I like taking pics for people(well of there children) I love kids by themselves......no group shots..........and no families. Just the kids.

This is Emmas best frienemy Hadyn. They get along great at times and sometimes Emma get bored with playing nice and decides to tease Hadyn and make her scream her head off. Hadyn also throws fits better than anyone I have ever met. Really. So this makes for a great combination! Her mom is sooo proud of this. Last week as we were finishing up making our cake pops Hadyn started screaming(which is not completely unusual) and we look over and see Emma sitting next to her just looking at her saying shutup shutup shutup shutup shutup shutup shutup really sweetly over and over again. She is a litle sweetie, I know. She learned this from another little girl a couple weeks ago but i hadn't heard it since. I guess she was just waiting for the right time to throw that one out again.

**for the record I have really NEVER said that to any of my kids. I wish I could say that much for some of my other friends whose kids teach my little angel this language.

Cake Pops anyone???

What sounded like a fun little easy treat to make for the kids teachers and friends turned out to be an ALL day sprinkle infested cake decorating day. We managed to ruin a couple pounds of chocolate trying to get the right consistency(don't add milk or butter) but eventually we came out with some cute ones that were teacher worthy. These are fun to make in small batches but I'm not sure I would do 3 batches again. This was pretty much the extent of my Valentines day creativity. We did enjoy a kids free night while Dusty's little sister put on a Valentines Day Party for all the cousins that they LOVED. She had a ton of games and crafts for them to make and she had them all for 5 hours. My husband gave me the best gift of service and started painting Emma's bed so she can finally move out of her crib. She will be 3 next month so we figured we should start thinking about that. The real motivation for this is that we hope by her having her own big girl bed she will sleep in her own room and not with us every night. I am not very optimistic in this working.

3 weeks is a long time to leave that last post up but I couldn't bring myself to blog. That was actually a really fun birthday gift to myself and as I read over all the comments I had a good laugh. Heather, I didn't remember being late all the time. Sorry, but I made up for it with the good music. Thanks for all the mostly nice comments.
Dusty started a new job just before Christmas and this last month has had him leaving well before I get out of bed and coming home as I am walking out the door at 9 for basketball or later. It gets a little rough never seeing each other and the fact that he gave me gummy bears for my birthday didn't help. Needless to say he has been getting home at normal hours this last week and we were able to go out on a much needed date as well. Tonight he came home and took all the kids to the store to pick out a redbox movie and treats and they have been having a nice little movie night so I can work a bit(or blog). I love it when they spend time with their Dad.

My birthday bike from my parents.......... I love it and it
now has a baby seat on the back.

No I am not close to my 30's yet!!

Once again my birthday is here and so far Ben gave me one very big long fit this morning before school over what his breakfast options were. In the end he DID come out with chocolate syrup drizzled over his waffles so I'm not sure why we went through all we did. But he is safely out the door.
I decided for my birthday that I am going to ask all my friends to write a nice/funny/good memory that we have had together. Ever. Now normally I would possibly laugh if someone did this but I still think it would be fun and I would probably be reminded of funny things. Try to keep them somewhat nice..........well do whatever you want but still just do it. If no one writes anything I will remove this post and pretend I never wrote it and you will all forget it also. I recieved a nice message from my brother in China and realized this is what is fun about birthdays. Hearing from people you don't normally hear from. Even though I talk to him a couple times a week at least. Okay I'm off to workout and hopefully have a fun day out.

Because I have not loaded any pics of MY kids on my computer....

You get to see her trying to get out of the house to go play down the street.(not the first nor the last time this happened)

In the very busy month of December some of the highlights were:


Working a lot which really helped out this month and through this realized this may not be my calling in life like I had previously thought.

Going to the train park with grandparents and cousins and having the whole park to ourselves because of the threat of rain. We met Elmo and some other cartoon characters that I can't remember right now. Emma loved them from far away but as soon as they got close she would freak out a bit. Ben on the other hand had brought his pack of gum that gives you a high voltage shock when you pull out a piece and he got every character there to try and pull it. Instead of waving at him like they did to other kids they would put their fists up wanting to punch him. It was really sweet to see. I am pretty sure he punched a couple of them as well.

Somewhere during this month Emma injured her leg really bad and I thought she had broken or fractured it. We are lucky enough to know a great couple whose wife happened to stop by that evening and when she heard that Emma was hurt called her husband who is a chiropractor and he saw her that night in his home and put my mind at ease that her leg wasn't broken. He also called the next day just to see how she was and had us come into his office to get her ankle, knee , and pelvis back in place. He saw several times this month and made sure she was back to her normal self that could climb on every counter constantly and get everything out of the cupboards. (aren't they supposed to grow out of this at some point) That was the only highlight of her being hurt. I was amazed at how we were helped immediately by generous people that love Emma and just wanted to help her get better.

Another fun tradition that I am so glad my mom remembered was the kids Christmas party with the grandparents. They all got an individual invitation in the mail inviting them to a sleepover Christmas party at grandmas. I'm not even sure what they did nor does it matter. They were picked up and taken to the party and I went to get them the next morning. That is the best Christmas present I can get. We were able to go out to dinner and then to a holiday party all without thinking about kids. The holiday party was so much fun! Thanks for planning and inviting us Cindy!

Two days before Christmas we had our annual kids holiday party at my house with another friend. I'm not quite sure if this one is going to be annual yet . My kids loved it as they should but I'm not so sure my neighbors would love if I did this again.
27 kids ranging from 2-13- Pizza- flag football game in the street-basketball in the driveway- 2 bins full of little Lego's-crafts at the table with about 5lbs of glitter(this was Dusty's fav. when he came home) I tried to explain that the floor was just sparkling because it was so clean. popcorn and a santa clause movie where I'm pretty sure at least a bag of popcorn ended up in and around my couch. This three hour party ended right on time and as soon as Cindy came in to pick up her grand kids she started ordering everyone around to clean up she had the house clean in 20 minutes. That was the highlight of the party for me. I feel like I keep thanking Cindy a lot.

Christmas this year turned out to be the best Christmas we have ever had . really. I always love Christmas time and look forward to it all year. This year was different due to Dusty's job status and having just started a new job the week before Christmas. I was looking forward to it but knew it would be "less focused on presents". We learned we have some amazing friends and family looking out for us and our kids. We were sincerely shocked and amazed at their generosity and they truly made us remember what this season is about. Thank you Christmas Club!


This post is way to long and I am planning getting some pics up at some point but for now I will leave you with my goals for 2009


1. Continue to build food storage

2. Organize my house

3. work on my lay up.

4. drink lots of water

5. convince Julianne to not wait till the birth to find out her baby is a girl and {convince her to name her after me}

6. read to my kids more

7. throw a party as good as the New years Eve party that I pretty much threw.

8. find awkward moments to bring up information I learned at the party.

9. Retire from my photography business

10. practice the piano (i may have played 5 times this year)

11. exercise 5 times a week

12. get called to the Relief Society Presidency

Don't be surprised if I fulfill all of my goals because once I write them down I am COMMITTED.

Goodnight