Emily's Tea Party

For Emily's sixth birthday she requested a tea party.  It was a fun day!  We had twelve little girls all come in dresses.    Dallin played butler and served them all lemonade.  They LOVED that.  They played the "skittles" game and musical tea pots.  All in all, I think it was a success!  Emily is still talking about it!

New York, New York!

For Christmas, Jeff gave Anna and I a weekend trip to New York with our good friends, Jill and Abbey Whitaker.  It was a great surprise and an even greater trip.  Despite the cold we had the time of our lives!

It was Anna's first time to New York and we loved seeing her reactions and excitement.  Her absolute favorite part of the whole trip was riding the subways.  It was hilarious!  

Jill and Abbey are New York pro's so it was fun to have their expertise, we hardly got lost at all!  Abbey impressed us with her sense of direction and her amazing memory, she always got us to the right place!  I am determined to learn my way around that city.  I need to get there more often.

We jammed a lot of sight seeing into two days.  Friday we saw Grand Central Station, Rockefeller Plaza, the whole city at sunset from the Top of the Rock, St Patricks Cathedral, 5th Avenue, and F.A.O. Schwartz. Friday night we had tickets to see Newsies.  It was a fun show!  We really enjoyed the choreography, the dancing was amazing.  Anna especially like the boys who took their shirts off.  Ha!  (She must be 15).

Our hotel was right in the middle of Times Square, which was so convenient!  It was exciting to be in the middle of all the hustle and bustle.  

On Saturday we headed toward Central Park and had fun seeing all the fanciness of Park Avenue.  We grabbed a really yummy bagel and then spent as much time as we could in the MET.  

The MET was my favorite part of the whole trip.  What an amazing museum.  I could have spent days in there and still not have seen everything I wanted to see.  Our favorite exhibits were the impressionists and the weapon displays.  Who knew guns and armor could be works of art?  

The weather was miserable outside, cold and snowing, so a cab ride back to Times Square made the most sense.  The cab ride was heaven sent.  Not only did we get a glorious drive by glance of the Manhattan Temple, it allowed us to have enough time to eat at an amazing restaurant...Yum, Yum Thai!  Thai is my favorite! 

We ended the trip with an adventure to find Cannoli's in New Jersey.  We wanted to bring back a treat as a thank you to the guys.  They were good Cannoli's, totally worth getting lost.  

What a great weekend!  

I love New York.  I could live there, really I could.  

  

A Year Has Gone By..

Sounds like a sad song, no?  

I was thinking about blogging today, and with a woosh...realized that I really missed it.  I enjoy writing.  It has been too long.  My family memories are too precious not to preserve.  This blog is my own little slice of nostalgia.

I'm back.

Happy Halloween Jeff!

Jeff's favorite holiday of all time is Halloween.  He is such a big kid when it comes to all things scary and spooky.  He starts begging me to go into the big Halloween stores the second they make their appearance.  He makes me watch scary movies and adds scary ring tones to his phone.  I have been woken up more than once this month to a loud, dripping with scare voice saying...."Happy Halloween, you have a text message, ha ha ha."  He e-mails me links to scary glow in the dark contact lenses and realistic vampire teeth.  He takes twice as long to go grocery shopping because he spends forever looking down the Halloween isles at a store.  He does not like "corny" Halloween.  He would not be caught dead in a matchy, matchy costume like this...   

(Although this one makes me giggle like crazy...)

He wishes I would let him go trick or treating looking like this....

(Ewwwwww!)

One of my first up close and in person memories of Jeff is of eating at Denny's with my friend Courtney.  She talked me into going to hang out with these crazy friends of her's from the Drama club at NOVA.  They had just come from a haunted trail they were helping with for the county.  We walked into the restaurant and I almost ran away...it was scary.  There were 10 or so guys dressed up in Halloween make up that looked like the picture above.  Skeletons, zombies, and monsters...oh my!  Their skin was hanging, blood was dripping, eyeballs were hanging from sockets, and rib cages were exposed.  Jeff was wearing a trench coat and his face was falling off!  I knew at once he would be mine....oh yes! 

Happy Halloween Jeff!  Someday when our children are a bit older, 

and less likely to wake us up all night with nightmare, after nightmare, I promise to let you find your 

inner-demon again!

Thank You ENT

I feel so much better today.  Thanks to everyone who recommended that I should go see an ENT.  You are so smart!  The doctor gave me new drugs and did a probe up my nose that have drastically improved my sinus situation.  I woke up today being able to smell.  And my headache is gone.  It is a MIRACLE!!!! 

What's That?? Sorry I Can't Smell You.

I suspect everyone I know is sick and tired of hearing this but, I am sick.  I have been sick forever.  No joke.  It has been a month.  I have been to the doctor 3 times and have been on every medication known to man.  I have not been able to hear or smell or taste anything for 4 weeks.  So as you can imagine I am tired.  I am annoyed.  I am depressed.  I have no energy and pretty much just lay around the house all day.  The sun has forgotten my name.  I am not even sure if I remember how to drive.  I make Jeff do everything.  I think he is sick too.  Sick of me.

I am slowly turning into a giant slug (goopy mucus included.)  Can you picture it?  Yummy.  I feel pretty guilty that I am a turning into a slug.  Lots and lots of guilt.  It is almost impossible to be an effective mother when you cannot smell or hear or taste anything.  I cannot tell when Maddie is poopy.  I cannot taste the food I am cooking...too spicy, too salty, no flavor??  I keep thinking Elizabeth's voice is Dallin's voice so Dallin keeps getting in trouble when it is really Elizabeth being naughty.  I am not sure if my house is clean, because I cannot smell where Dallin left his stinky socks or where Maddie left her sippy cup of milk three days ago.  Madeline's snacks have consisted mostly of cheerio's because she can reach them and dump them out and eat them by the handful, no spoon required.  And I just let her do it, because I feel so relieved that I don't have to get up and make her something.  The thing I feel the most guilt about is that my kids brains are turning mushy because I have let them watch as much TV as they want.  Video games?  Yep those too.    

Yesterday I apologized to the kids for like the millionth time that I was still sick and Elizabeth told me that she "loves" it when I am sick.  "We get to do whatever we want."

Great.  That is just great.  Guilt.  Guilt.  Guilt. 

Too School for Cool

Elizabeth-4th Grade & Dallin-3rd Grade

Elizabeth was excited!

Dallin was nervous!

They could be twins, no???

Audrey-First Day of Kindergarten!

We love our neighbors!

Audrey is very proud of her "Hello Kitty" back-pack!

Bus Stop Kiddo's