Vegas Weekend

So yesterday we returned home from Las Vegas... it was a great weekend! My family lives in Sandy, Utah so they drove to Las Vegas as kind of a half-way point to meet Ben, Emma, and I. We drove there after Ben's last final this past Friday (left around noon) and stayed through Monday morning. We did a lot of fun activities, and it was wonderful to be able to see my family. I love them dearly! My family consists of my mom and dad, my brother (Aaron, 21), and my sister (Sarah, 18). I'm the oldest in the family, so Emma is the only grandchild at this point. She gets lots of attention! Emma really loves her Aunt and Uncle, and her Grandma and Grandpa of coarse. Some of the highlights of the weekend, consisted of the following:

• Dinner at the MGM Grand Buffet: This buffet sure consisted of a lot of food! We all got so stuffed. I had three desserts! ;) Emma really enjoyed it because she got to eat a bunch of her favorite foods (grilled cheese, macaroni and cheese, tater tots, and ice cream!)
• Shopping at the Outlet Mall: we all bought new sunglasses at the Fossil store and really enjoyed strolling around town in our new shades. We felt very cool. I also got a couple of new maternity shirts - hooray! I love new clothes!
• Walking down Las Vegas Blvd: We spent a good portion of the morning at M&M's World. Emma picked out her own colors of M&M's (pink and blue) and ate them throughout the weekend. What a lucky child - chocolate all for herself. They also had a funny 3D movie. Afterwords, we walked to the Bellagio and watched the fountain show out front. I took a short video of a portion of it. It was quite impressive!

• Disc Golfing: We went to a local park one afternoon and played a round of disc golf. My mom and I took Emma over to the playground for a portion of the time. Everyone really enjoyed themselves... the weather was nice, but very windy!
• Poker night!: This isn't really what it seems, but on the last evening we were together, we all decided we wanted to learn how to play poker, so dad looked up the rules on the internet and we played several rounds using the change from mom's purse (mom got all her change back at the end, but it was exciting anyway). I actually won a hand with a full house! I'm a real pro. ;)

On the way home from Las Vegas, Ben, Emma and I stopped at the Hoover Dam briefly to enjoy the sights. It was sad to say goodbye to the family. The next planned visit will be when mom comes down to see the new baby at the end of April (Yippee!).

Good news, Bad news

Aaaaah! Today has been rather frightful. We had to take Emma to the ER... (no worries, grandma's and grandpa's... she's okay). She was playing in the silverware drawer while Ben and I were finishing eating lunch; I had forgotten that in the back of the drawer is an attachment blade for the food processor (this whole story is going to make me look like a bad mother!). Well, she got a hold of it while we weren't looking and got her thumb stuck in between one of the blade openings. Ben and I ran over to help her get it off, and in the process she yanked her thumb out and sliced off most of her thumbnail and a good chunk of skin from underneath. Oh, it was horrible. She was screaming and bleeding like crazy. We were trying to hold a cloth on her finger, while Ben and I were deciding if we needed to take her to the hospital or not. Well, in the end, we opted to take her in to the ER. We were there forever... like 4 hours! The doctor ended up just removing the hanging on nail and skin and bandaging it up. They did take an X Ray to make sure she didn't break anything underneath. He said that the nail should grow back because the cut wasn't quite low enough to prevent it from doing so. I hope it heals alright. Poor thing. At least she didn't come out of the whole thing looking like poor homestar there.

On a lighter note, we celebrated Chinese New Year with Ben's family last night. It was really a lot of fun. (But once again, Ben wasn't able to come because of finals week). We ate take out Pei Wei and dressed up in Chinese attire. The kids got to search the house for money envelopes (apparently this is a traditional Chinese New Year activity). Emma loved collecting a ton of coins. They've been strewn all over the house the past couple of days, as she repeatedly gathers and scatters the numerous coins.

Tucson!

On Friday afternoon, Emma and I traveled with Ben's family to Tucson for a quick overnight trip. Ben actually stayed home to study, since finals are starting on Monday. Emma's birthday was also on Friday (Happy Birthday to Emma!). She is now a cute 2 year old! She sure keeps me busy and I love her dearly... it's fun to see her reach another birthday. Anyway, Emma shares a birthday with her Uncle Peter (Ben's brother). He turned the big 24! One year older and wiser too. I would say that his best birthday present was his new fiance. They became officially engaged on Friday evening. Congratulations to Lacey and Peter! They are a very cute couple and will soon be married in the Mesa Temple on April 28th! How exciting! While we were in Tucson, we kept quite busy even though it was a short visit. On Friday evening we ate dinner at Pinnacle Peak Restaurant. It's a steakhouse that's also part of a Wild West themed town. It was a fun evening. Adam and Emma both got play guns from the "General Store" after dinner and had a great time running around shooting at things. They're both so funny and they really love to play together. We spent the night at a nearby Hilton and the next morning we spent hiking through Sabino Canyon. It was a great morning and we got a lot of much appreciated exercise among beautiful surroundings. We walked much of the time, and also rode a tram to get up the canyon a little further. The weather was windy, but very comfortable. After hiking and then eating lunch we traveled back to the Phoenix area and met up with Ben at the Chandler Mall to go to Build-A-Bear for Emma's birthday. Emma and Adam both picked out cute bears and an outfit to dress them in. Adam's bear became "Bat Bear" in a fun Batman outfit; Emma's bear is dressed as a princess... she's quite cute. So, it was a busy couple of days; it was fun to spend time with the family... I'll be extra glad when Ben's finals are over and he can be able to spend more time with us. He's so busy right now, but I'm so glad he's such a hard worker! On Friday, he'll finish up with his finals and then will have a whole week of Spring Break! Hooray!

My Two Cute Girls

I thought I better post something tonight, even though I'm not really in the mood. This is for two reasons: first, everyone else on my list of blogs that I read have posted something for Valentines Day... and I don't want to be a loser and skip such a wonderful opportunity to write about this lovely holiday; second, we are going to Tucson for an overnighter tomorrow with Ben's family (but without Ben, because he's studying for Finals that start next week! ugh), and if I don't post tonight, I'm going to come back from our weekend trip with way too much to write about! I tend to write novels for my posts as it is, but it would turn into a real epic, if I don't get started now. ;) I'm such a goof.

So, yes, yesterday was Valentines Day and Emma ate a lot of candy! Her favorite candy are suckers. She especially enjoys it if we let her have 2 at once; she puts one in each cheek. So, we went to a fun Valentines Party in the afternoon. Emma's favorite thing was decorating heart-shaped cookies. She really liked putting lots of red cinnamon candies on it. However, when she went to eat her cookie, she kept spitting out half sucked on red candies. Lovely! :) Emma was so happy to get home and look through all her Valentines she collected from her friends. She ate all the chocolate first and then wanted to have 5 suckers at once. We decided it would be best to spread out the candy eating over the next few days... instead of downing it all at once. But, I tell you, it's not easy saying no to a candy-hungry-Emma. It can be a scary sight indeed!

This morning, Ben, Emma, and I all went to my 30 week prenatal appointment. In addition to seeing the doctor, we also got our 3D ultrasound done. Little Becca appears to have my small, pudgy nose, just like my mom, and just like Emma. I wish you could tell more from ultrasounds, though... like their hair color, for example. But then again, it's fun to be surprised!

My little Valentine

Good evening! I hope you have all had a nice day. It's been a good week for me. I've been keeping busy and getting a lot done and also doing some fun things. Saturday, in particular was quite busy and fun. I know a lot of people who tell me their Saturday's are very busy, but ours our generally not. In fact, I think I've mentioned in a previous post, that Saturday's are usually a drag, because I'm wanting to get out and play with Ben and Emma, but Ben is usually really busy studying since his tests are mostly on Mondays. Anyway, this past Saturday was uniquely packed with events, and sadly Ben was not able to be involved with much of my gallivanting. In the morning I went visit teaching; at lunch time, I met up with Emily, Carol, and Lacey (Peter's soon-to-be fiance... it's not "official" yet in that that there hasn't been an actual proposal at this point) but we gathered for lunch to talk about wedding plans and whatnot. We ate at the most fun restaurant! It's called Joe's Grill, owned by the same people (a.k.a "Joe") who do Joe's Real BBQ. It's a 60's style diner that has amazing food and a really amusing atmosphere. We had a good time. In the afternoon, I met up with some friends to get some pictures taken. My friend, Heather, is an amazing photographer and she got some great shots taken of Emma and I. It was so fun! Here's a cute collage of Emma pictures that she put together.



Isn't that the cutest Valentine ever?! :) I have such a talented friend... and such a darling Emma. Oh, and if you click on "Heather" it will take you to her new blog; also, if you haven't noticed, I've added a couple of new links to the "Susan Approved Blogs" list, such as the Hunter's and the Burtenshaw's. It's so fun having friends that are blogging too!
After our photo session, Emma and I came back to the apartment and picked up Ben... he had been stuck in the house all day studying, so we went to Wildflower Cafe to eat dinner and then over to Target to get some birthday clothes for Emma. She received a nice check from her Grandma Szymanski and we felt it would best be used for more clothing. Emma's getting so big and growing out of all her clothes! Ugh!

Earlier in the week, I did a craft! Woohoo! I don't usually do crafts, but this one just required a little cutting and gluing... simple enough. I got the instructions and template off of marthastewart.com. Anyway, I just hung my cute little heart garland in front of the china hutch. If you look closely, you may notice that our hutch is currently filled with Chinese dishes... for good ol' Chinese New Year, which is on Februrary 18th this year. We will be having a Chinese New Year dinner over at Ben's family's this next Sunday. What a fun tradition! There really are a lot of holidays and special events this month: Groundhog's Day, Valentines Day, Emma's birthday, Peter's birthday, Chinese New Year, and President's Day! What a fun and busy month!

Random: If you are in need of a little break from your daily tasks, play this fun game!

Groundhog's, Horses, and Elephants

I guess I'll provide you with a weekly update, so let's see... what have we been up to?... Well, on Thursday I had my 28 week prenatal appointment. It went well. I love to listen to the baby's heartbeat and the doctor always says she sounds great. Now that I'm in the last trimester, I start going to the doctor every 2 weeks. So, I have another appointment scheduled for February 15th. At this visit, I'll also be getting a 3D ultrasound done. How fun! I'll be sure to post a picture from it next week.

On Friday, I took Emma into the pediatrician because she appeared to have an eye infection. It turned out she also had an ear infection, so she was loaded up on medication. She's still taking the antibiotics for her ear, even though she's all better. Friday was also Groundhog's Day! Many people don't give this day a second thought, but Ben's family has had the tradition of having breakfast for dinner on Groundhog's Day. You have to include sausage on the breakfast menu to make it meaningful.... do you get it?... sausage... ground hog... ha, ha. Well, we had sausage, pancakes, scrambled eggs, and orange juice for our Groundhog's Day dinner. It was most enjoyable. :)

On Saturday, Ben, Emma, and I went to the McCormick Railroad Park in Scottsdale with Ben's family. It was really fun. Emma rode the train and the carousel and also played on the playground with much enthusiasm! The next day she reminded me a couple of times about the "brown horse" she rode on the carousel, as well as getting to the ride the fun train. Saturday evening, Ben and I actually got to go on a date! My friend, Melinda, watched Emma for us, while we went out to dinner and ice cream. We had planned on going to P.F. Changs, but we ended up eating at the Elephant Bar instead, because P.F. Changs had a 1 1/2 hour wait. We were both very pleased with the food we ordered and it made great leftovers for Sunday lunch as well! That's always fun.

So, I guess we had another eventful week. Today the only really fun thing we did was go to Costco (do other people in the world find Costco to be as fun as we do?). Well, we ate lunch there and would have liked to have come out of there with something more fun than just baby wipes, but sadly, that is all we bought. Ben tried to sneak things like an IPod and Windows Vista in the cart when I wasn't looking, but I guess he wasn't successful. ;)