emma's 7th birthday

well, emma-cheeks is now 7! we had a fun breakfast birthday party with some of her friends. unbeknownst to us, she had told her friends to wear their pajamas - which was fine - but half showed up in pjs and half in regular clothes. it was a lot of fun (minus kaylee's toe fiasco - see below). jon and tara even came and helped out a lot. she got lots of fun gifts (especially the coveted webkins that she has been begging for!) i think we will be doing the breakfast idea again - it was a success!

the next morning she got breakfast in bed, got to open more presents and picked hot dogs (yum...) for dinner. i think she enjoyed her wonderful weekend!Y

kaylee's tosies

during emma's birthday party, things got a little crazy with the girls running around crazy and kaylee mangled her foot. aaron is still working on replacing all our trim in the house and she caught her toes on one of the exposed corners. kaylee somehow managed to slice open the bottom of her pinkie toe and the bottom and top (what?!?) of her 4th toe. anyway, tara was over and helped to get the bleeding under control (she's an x-ray tech), but we really couldn't tell how bad it was until later that night when the bleeding totally stopped. we had bandaged it up and kaylee was saying it was fine (i'm sure she was not swayed at all by the fact that kaylee, kammy, katelyn and i had plans to go up to the twin cities for a mother daughter stake activity that she was looking forward to all week!) we did go and by the end of the night she couldn't walk on it at all and wasn't eating or wanting to do anything fun. when we got home we took the blood-soaked bandage off - i will spare you the specifics, but we did take her to the e.r. where they tried to dermabond it shut. i say tried because 24 hrs later the glue was totally gone (i guess the medical superglue has a tough time staying stuck to hamburger). anyway, what an adventure. kaylee and i stayed home from church the next day and slept (and i enjoyed every minute of it!)Y

my cute girl scouts

here are some fun pics of the girls at their girl scout cookie rally on friday. we are new girl scouters (if you couldn't tell by the girls lack of patches) - it's been quite the adventure.

the event was less than stellar (maybe i'm too picky - but it was chaotic insanity with about 200 girls there and not enough adults and the activities were more appropriate for pre-school age kids). the girls had fun (though they clung to me most of the time), but i was relieved when it was time to go home! now we have selling cookies to look forward to (as well as eating them! mmm...samoas.) Y

a quiet afternoon of checkers...

the other day rita and i had a meeting with sam's club to talk about sponsorship for girls on the run and she brought ada over for aaron to watch while we were gone. this was the scene when we left - they play so cute together!!


it takes quite a bit for dallin to sit down and do anything for long...Y

blue eyes...

thought this was a cute one of the tan-man. my baby is growing up too fast! (he has now figured out how to push the kitchen chairs to get anything his little heart desires - which is usually knives or something else dangerous or messy...) he is also an expert now about throwing fits (the flopping-all-over-the-floor-like-a-fish and screaming like a banshee tantrums.) on the flip side, he is a great bear-hugger and gives the cutest little kisses!Y

25 random things about me...

i got this tag off of facebook and similar ones through blogger, and like colleen, i thought i would post it in both places.

1. i was born 10 days late (the day after Christmas) with my ear squished against my head and my foot squished up against my shin - when it took a couple days for me to relax a little, my parents thought i was going to have some issues...

2. i'm obssessed with stephenie meyer and her twilight world...(vampires are real, right? when i grow up i want to be bella - postpartum.)

3. we're soooooo done having kids. (though i love the ones we have dearly and absolutely adore being a mom!!!)

4. i can say the abc's backwards - almost faster than i can say them forwards.

5. i almost always type without capitalizing because it's quicker (my mom said that i was very impatient, even as a baby and have been that way all my life. maybe that's why i've been blessed with 4 kids - hehe!)

6. i don't watch tv.

7. i was the teenager from hell. that's all i have to say about that.

8. i have had freakish things go wrong in birthing 3 of my 4 children - from anesthesia not working during a c-section, to major loss of blood, to dallin trying to come out sideways...the list goes on. (see #3)

9. i was stung on the tongue by a bee in the 2nd grade.

10. half of my left iris is brown. (not sure what color my eyes are...green, hazel, kinda blue??)

11. in high school i landed the lead in 2 school theater productions without knowing what the heck i was doing.

12. i played flute for 6 years and i took 2 years of japanese.

13. i am the oldest of 6 children (yes, i am the typical type a, ocd, bossy big sister).

14. i'm trying to be patient (see #5) on the very long road to becoming a nurse anesthetist.

15. i love working with teenage girls (while many won't go near them with a 10 foot pole due to emotional instability).

16. i have lived in 5 states (ca, ut, id, ny, mn).

17. i'm a participant in the 2008-2009 elizabeth kearney women's leadership development program through the ywca.

18. one of my hidden talents is speed-reading.

19. i love to run (and i secretly hate to run at the same time - don't tell anyone...)

20. i served as young women's president and then primary president before i was 30. (after reading #7 above, some parents are probably having heart failure.)

21. the creative art genes abound in my family (brothers, sisters, parents, grandparents, children, etc.) but for some reason decided high jump right over me.

22. i love, love, love reconnecting with friends on facebook.

23. if i could take a class in anything, it would be surfing. (fat chance in mn!)

24. everyone in our family has double letters in their name - even our last name has double letters. (we didn't do this on purpose until we were looking for a name for dallin.)

25. i am a food junkie - not just any food. wierd, exotic, gourmet, too-much-butter food. i'm a little too critical, though i tend to blame this on my parents' perfect cooking...

also like colleen, i tag everyone who reads this!!!Y

music update

i finally sat down and added some more songs to my pitiful playlist (thanks to estelle who inspired me). i didn't add much, just enough to give me a break from a certain little girl yelling "mmmmooommmm" from her bed well after her bedtime...

so i got a few good ones on there - i know the playlist can sometimes be annoying to some people. if so, just scroll to the bottom of the blog and hit the pause button. i did spare everyone from my techno/dance obsession and did not add any of that craziness to my playlist (i'll save that for running...)

i also finally made a background switch - man is that a pain in the rear. but i needed some fresh colors and carissa drogowski-now-barron stole my background!!! (just kidding carissa - i love you!) i thought i'd go a little valentiney.

i do love reading everyone's blogs (if you're listed on my page under friends and family, i've been following all your blogs and have been getting updates everytime you post!)

good night!Y