Fishing, John Denver, and... throw up

That title sure was an attention-grabber, eh? Now you just can't wait to read what we've been up to! ;) We went camping last night in Burro Creek near Wikieup, AZ. It was awesome! As with all camping trips, though, we ran into a bit of problem in that Becca started throwing up just as we were getting ourselves ready to go to bed. Eeek! Thankfully, it didn't last all night and Becca and I were able to get some sleep. Little Becca seems to be doing okay today - just a little tired. I don't know what it is about camping with us lately... there's always some sort of incident that arises to keep things interesting. Well, even though there was some sick Becca involved we had a great time! Activities included: fishing (well, Ben Lee fished and showed the kids how to do it.. I enjoyed watching - at one point the fish were literally jumping out of the water, but we just didn't have good enough bait for them to grab a hold of - I suggested using Becca, but that just wouldn't be nice), eating super yummy food (we did Dutch Oven chicken and rice and cobbler for dinner, and the Lee's cooked up a huge breakfast of pancakes, eggs, bacon, fruit, and cider!), making s'mores and singing around the campfire (Ben's dad brought his guitar and we rocked out to John Denver, Buffalo Springfield, and the Beatles). Anyway, it was a good time... but now I'm soooo tired. I don't know what it is about camping exactly (maybe the sun, lack of sleep, lack of shower?), but it wears me out!

I won a trophy!

I've seriously been having such a great weekend!! I just had to get blogging! :) On Sunday, Ben and I will have been married for 6 lovely years. We celebrated last night with an awesome date! Ben's always been sooo amazing at planning great dates and being a real cutie-pie. I love you Ben! We started our date shopping around at the outdoor mall, Kierland Commons. I got a couple super cute shirts! After enjoying the evening air, we ate dinner at Lon's. This was seriously one of the best dining experiences I've had in a long time! We love to eat out, but this place tops them all. Well, I didn't think we'd ever come across a place we like more than the tree room in Sundance, but this at least ties. :) Anyway, the atmosphere was great and the food was to die for! :) It was a lovely romantic evening. Here's to 6 more awesome years married to my Ben (plus many many more!!).

The weekend continued to be great with a wonderful Saturday morning. I ran my first 5K and I was just so proud of myself for not dieing on the side of the road in exhaustion (beforehand I had thoughts of Micheal Scott running for the cure for rabies and him throwing up at the end of the 5K... that could have been me!). Anyway, I managed to push through the race without stopping to walk and I actually won a trophy! Somehow I got 3rd place in my age group. Woohoo! My trophy is a cool bobblehead - so awesome! Now I need to find a place to put it. :) I was also really proud of Emma - she ran the 1 mile kids race and almost ran the whole time! Way to go Emma! The Hunters attended the event as well. They are so fun. Craig ran the 5K also and finished in 24 minutes - awesome!! Addy also ran the kids race and was a real motivator to Emma as she booked it off the starting line!

So, Ben is currently out in Scottsdale somewhere picking up a trampoline. We're getting it for free from my brother-in-law's boss whose looking to give it away. We're so excited! Well, Emma is especially excited - she loves jumping. :)

Easter Events

Happy belated Easter! It was a great weekend! Well, it was mostly great - I was rather sad on Saturday because Ben wasn't able to spend the day with us like I would have hoped. He's just been soooo busy with his surgery rotation this past month that he had to spend a day getting some stuff done, such as studying and applying for 4th year rotations. However, because of his hard work on Saturday we were able to have the whole day with him on Sunday. He even woke up with the kids! I sure have missed my Ben! Anyway, despite not having Ben with us during our Saturday activities, we managed to have a good time. So - to backtrack - Friday we did Easter egg hunt #2 with friends and it was great! Emma just can't get enough candy! ;) On Saturday morning we went to Egg hunt #3 at Ben's school (without Ben... sigh...). As with last year, Emma LOVED jumping in the inflatable bounce house. She's always had a real fondness for jumping. :) Saturday evening we attended the Easter Pageant at the Mesa Temple with Ben's family (once again, we were Ben-less... ho hum...). I was really impressed by the show that was put on. And it was soooo busy with people. But, we got there plenty early and had seats relatively close. We had a good time hanging out till the pageant started. We had a good 2 hours to kill, so we ate dinner, chatted, wandered the grounds and attempted to take some good pictures of the kids. It's so darn hard to get decent pictures with crazy kiddos - I've just learned to snap as many as I can and hope that one of them turns out good. During the performance, I was impressed by how interested Emma was. She really enjoyed the costumes and the animals - she was really frightened during the thunder and crucifixion scene, though. I wasn't sure how I was going to like watching these events depicted in this type of setting, but I thought that it was done well. It really was a great event to be a part of. I hope to go again next year! It was nice to have an activity that reminded us all of why we celebrate Easter - it's easy to get caught up in all the Easter bunny and Egg hunt stuff and not devote enough attention to the true central focus of the holiday. Emma really learned a lot from the Easter Pageant and I was glad for it.

Sunday was just great! I was seriously just sooo happy to have Ben with us the whole day, without any school stuff hogging the attention. :) We drove down to Gilbert and attended church with Ben's family. Afterwards we spent our time hanging out at Ben's parents home. Easter dinner was really yummy - ham, rolls, "egg desserts", spinach salad, and scalloped potatoes. I was particularly glad to have leftovers to bring home for dinner tonight - I love it when I don't have to make dinner! After Easter dinner we had Egg hunt #4 at Grandma's in her backyard - the kids really cleaned up - I've got a huge amount of candy sitting in a large bowl here at my house now. If anyone felt like they didn't get their fill of chocolate and sweets, then head on over and help us eat all of this! :)

On a side note - while we were hanging out with Ben's family on Easter, Becca tried out a little walking push toy and she just LOVED it! She's been practicing her walking while holding my hands for the past couple of weeks and this was just so liberating for her - she was able to 'walk' without mommy! I'll be so excited when she can do this completely on her own - she'll be sooo happy with herself!

Leprechauns and Easter Eggs!

I've been so happy to have some holidays to celebrate this week! It seems like it's been forever since Valentines Day and I've been ready for some more holiday activities! Well, for St. Patrick's Day we didn't do much, but I'm surprised at how simple things can just make Emma's day. When Ben got home from work he distracted her while I laid out little leprechaun footprints. At the end of the trail was a little goody bag filled with coins and green Starbursts. Emma was really excited about this - I had told her earlier in the day that leprechauns might come visit our house, so to keep her eyes peeled! She was seriously on the look out all day - she told me a couple times that she thought she saw one hiding under the kitchen table - she's so funny. She really has quite the imagination!

This morning we had a little Easter egg hunt for playgroup. We had a great turnout! The park was crazy busy, but we still still had a good time. One of the girls had the clever idea of doing the egg hunt across the parking lot in the empty ballfield - this worked great... away from the busy spring break crowd! Emma sure loves Easter egg hunts and she's getting much better at it as she gets older! Last year she stopped after each egg to open it up and check out the goods - this time she swept the area clean before diving in. Way to go Emma! :) I love Easter!!

Who-cakes!

So, we had a fun morning/early afternoon today! A few days ago I would have been surprised to hear myself say that about today, considering I got my wisdom teeth pulled yesterday morning. However, I've been recuperating quickly - wonderful! I went in to the dentist a few weeks ago for a check up and they said I really needed to get my top two wisdom teeth removed. The bottom two were taken out back when I was young and spritely!. ;) Now that I'm nearing 26, I'm on the 'old' end of the ideal time to get them pulled. Anyway, I was scared to get this done, because Ben wasn't going to be home and I was afraid that it would hurt like the dickens afterwards. But, thankfully, it hasn't been too big of a deal. Dear Melinda watched my kids while I was at the dentist, Ben got home a little early from work, and Ashley even brought us dinner - goodness sakes! I'm just so well cared for. :) I've also been hopped up on vicodin - that's always fun! It reminds me of the good old days when I had a bottle of percocet pills for after labor pains with Becca. Those were the days... (sigh)...

Anyway, this morning I woke up feeling pretty good and not too terribly swollen. So, I went with Ben and the kids to attend his dad's birthday celebration. We met up at IHOP for a themed brunch. Afterwards we were to see Horton Hears a Who and IHOP is doing a promotional thing I guess and serving Green Eggs and Ham and Who-Cakes. It was a lot of fun! And the green eggs were actually quite good - done with spinach for the green. I was particularly glad to be able to eat something - the eggs were nice and soft and yummy! Yesterday I only ate ice cream and pudding, so I was definitely hungry for real food!! After eating we went to the movie and it was really great. I definitely recommend that everyone go see Horton - I thought it was funny and cute and the animation was just super. Jim Carey was hillarious!

On a side note, Becca is just a doll. Seriously. I LOVE this girl - as she grows older, she is just getting cuter and cuter and her personality is just bursting right out of her. She cracks me up with her funny faces and silly noises and the cute way she crawls and cruises. She's just great. I also noticed that I can finally put little clips in her hair - hooray for girls! She has the funniest hair right now - it's long enough to stick up in weird places when she gets up from naps and will look so silly. It's also relatively fine, but thicker than Emma's was at this age. Emma was a real baldy even past turning one. So - back to Becca's funny personality - I took a little video of her practicing her artistic skills. It's so cute to see her really start to play with Emma and join in on the day-to-day activities. It makes me feel like our family really has grown to 4 and isn't just 3 and a little baby.

Some griping... and other stuff

So, we've been really busy with day-to-day activities the last week or so - I've been really feeing like my calendar is so booked up right now between doctor and dentist visits, activities for the kids, visit teaching, Young Women stuff, baby showers, girls nights, babysitting, and on and on. Mostly just regular old events and appointments that keep life busy and fun, but still, it seems I've had an extra amount of it all. Thankfully, it's been good timing for all the business on my calendar, since Ben has been away all the time! I've been feeling like a single mommy while Ben's been keeping up crazy hours at the hospital for his surgery rotation this month. He's up in the morning at 3:00 am and sometimes doesn't get home until 7:30 or 8:00 at night. It's just crazy - and this weekend the poor boy was on call at the hospital and was there from 5am Saturday until 10am on Sunday. Good grief! They run these students ragged sometimes. Well, despite it all, we are all surviving and I've been impressed with Ben's stamina to keep up - he's coming home relatively cheerful and doesn't seem to be collapsing of exhaustion just yet. We'll see how much longer he can keep it up - he still has 2 weeks left of surgery! I'm thankful that Ben doesn't want to be a surgeon for his career because I don't think I'd be able to survive the residency years! I've learned through all this that I wouldn't fair well as a single mom - I desperately need a hubby that works reasonable enough hours so that I could at least remember him leaving in the morning and have time to give him a hug and a kiss in the evening before having to go to bed and start it all over again. I bite my thumb at you surgery rotation!

Alright, moving on.... Emma had her 3 year well check this morning (almost a month overdue) and she was just relieved that she didn't need to get any shots this time around. She was sooo pouty at the thought of having to get a shot at the doctor's office. Her stats were nothing exciting or dramatic - 50th for height and 25th for weight - nothing surprising there for my petite little Emma. It was a quick visit with nothing much to discuss, considering I don't really have any medical concerns for her. I'm happy to have a healthy, normal 3 year old! What a blessing! In other news, I noticed this morning the signs of a tooth in baby Becca!!! Can you believe it?!! There's finally one coming in! 11 months old and her first tooth is on its way! Good work Rebecca - way to really take your sweet time! She'll be so happy to finally have some teeth to help her eat, because she sure does love to eat. I've been impressed with her skills at gumming just about anything. Another new Becca thing is that she's signing! She doesn't do it much, but she can sign milk! And it's really cute. Here's a weird video of me pressuring Becca to sign for the camera.



The weather has been just perfect lately - ranging from 75 to 85 for the high over the past couple of weeks - it's just lovely! Needless to say we've been spending a lot of time at the park. I love the park! I love being able to sit outside while watching my kids play. I'm proud to say that Becca is doing quite well playing at the park without eating much of the sand. A couple months ago I couldn't put her down at the park without her going straight for a handful of dirt in the mouth, but now it's much more uncommon, which is nice. :)

Sorry this post is all over the place! This week we made shamrock cookies as a pre-St Patrick's Day activity. I used Taya's sugar cookie recipe and it's awesome! My previous recipe always resulted in rather thin and crispy sugar cookies, but these turn out thick and soft and yummy!! Thanks Taya! Anyway, they turned out nice and I was particularly grateful to be able to give a number of them away to friends, because I just kept eating them! Eeek! So many calories!! I've been becoming a little more calorie conscious this past week - I actually tried counting my calories for a few days just to get a better idea of what I usually consume in a day. It was frightening! I tried to get away with only eating 1500 calories/day for a couple days and that was way too hard for me!! I also decided I need to focus less on calorie counting and more on just eating a little healthier and mostly exercising more! I've been running a lot this past week and it feels great! I'm going to do my first 5K at the end of month and I'm so excited! I've never done anything like that before. I'm surrounded by all these athletic, fit friends, and I want to do better at joining in the fun! I don't know how some of you do these triathlons and marathons - you crazies!! Well, really, I'm just jealous and would love to work up to doing something like that - but first I've got to lay off the shamrock cookies and the double stuff oreos!! wink, wink Heather. There was a lot of exclamation points in that paragraph!

So, because Ben was on call this weekend, I missed the Spring Fling - what a bummer! But, it turned into a pleasant evening anyhow - I offered to watch Addy for the Hunters while they went to the dance (since I was just going to be home sulking anyway!) and we had a lot of fun actually - we played Easter Bingo and I was surprised at how much they both loved it! It was funny - we used Easter M&M's as markers and every time someone won they both got to eat the M&M's off their board. Obviously, they just wanted to play that over and over again. :) In addition to that, they colored and we read a bunch of books and then when it started to get late we put in Little Mermaid, which put Emma to sleep after a bit. I also enjoyed indulging in my Oreos which Heather gave me as a little present since I was having to stay home from the dance. Did you know that there are 140 calories in one serving of Oreos - and one serving is only 2 cookies! Oh my!!! But despite that, I love Oreos and thanks so much Heather!!

Emma is 3!!

Okay... she actually turned 3 a couple of weeks ago, but we had to hold off on a friend party until we got home from Utah. Melinda and I combined forces to have a double party for Benjamin and Emma who's b-day's are only a day apart. We had a great turnout and it was great to see my Emma-babe get a birthday party with her fun friends. Emma is just such a ball of energy and we LOVE having her in our family. She's so darn smart and loves to talk and play and be silly. Happy Birthday Emma Lou!

Utah: Week 4

I've been a little slow to post about our last week in Utah - we're back in Arizona now and we are getting back into the swing of things - it's been super nice having a month-long vacation! I've had plenty of people to watch the kids and I had to do very little cleaning and house tasks (thanks to my wonderful mommy!) Anyway, we were all really pampered while staying at my family's house - so now it's a bit of shock to come back and have to actually do stuff during the day! Well, despite the sudden busyness of our days, it's nice to be back with our own stuff, in our own bed, and our own cute little house. :)

So, to recap the end of our Utah stay won't be quite as epic as the previous posts - we finally ran out of birthdays and holidays to celebrate! But we did have a good week - Emma spent a lot of time playing with her birthday presents that she received over the weekend. Some of the presents that kept her particularly occupied included a train set, Color Wonder coloring books, doctor kit, a Dora writing book and a United States puzzle. In fact, we ALL really enjoyed taking turns with the Color Wonder books. They're fun - and great for church, since the markers only work on the Color Wonder paper. So, there's a little plug - if you haven't already tried them out, I recommend getting a kit the next time you're out. Anyway, other activities that kept me busy this past week included shopping, visiting friends, watching lots of Lost and American Idol, and eating out at a crazy German restaurant. Ben, Emma, my dad, and I all went out for lunch on Friday (since Ben got done with his rotation work super early!) at Siegfried's Deli in Salt Lake - it was definitely different - I've never tried German food before, but I really liked the spaetzle!

The drive home was alright - we didn't break up the trip this time and spend the night like we did coming up - so the drive felt really long. Ugh. We stopped a few times, of course, for fuel and bathroom breaks, including a stop at the In 'N Out in Las Vegas. After it all we got home safely and the kids did pretty well. We were particularly relieved to come home to a house that was intact and didn't smell horrible. I kept having horrible thoughts on our drive home that we would arrive to a house that was broken into with all our stuff missing - or at least a smelly house from leaving some garbage or something on accident. But, the house was fine and only smelt a little musty from not having the air going while we were away. Since coming home, though, we have run into a load of items needing repair - our dishwasher broke soon after getting home (but, thankfully, the owner is replacing the dishwasher for us - woohoo!! new dishwasher!!), somehow the Cavalier is leaking oil as it keeps leaving little puddles in the garage, our XBOX is flashing red lights at us and is apparently broken (we'll try taking it back to Costco!), and our vacuum is not working properly either. Oh man - and to add to the list of "broken stuff" - apparently my teeth need some work - a filling, cleaning, and wisdom teeth removal for me!! Oh man!! Well, despite all the stuff just falling apart on us, I'm quite happy at the moment. I've been enjoying the warm weather (capris and flip flops for me today, as the high is 83!!) and relaxing in my own house with my crazy kiddies. Life isn't too bad. :)

Utah: Week 3

Needless to say, I'm a little overwhelmed by everything I have to blog about... there's seriously been so much going on!! We've reached the end of our 3rd week here at my family's house - which means that we only have one more week left. We've been so busy with activities and such that it has gone by rather quickly. So, I'll do my best to recap our week for you - brace yourself for a lengthy post!! :)

Tuesday: My sister Sarah (and the youngest of the three siblings in our family) turned 19!! We spent a good chunk of the day over at my grandparents home in Salt Lake. We had lunch with them and chatted while the kids played. We also took a little field trip to the Salt Lake Cemetery to see Pres. Hinckley's grave, along with many of the other past prophets. I wish I had a camera while we were there - in addition to the gravesites, we saw a bunch of beautiful deer on the grounds. Emma called them llamas as first - I thought that was pretty odd! During our visit to my grandparents home we also tried on a beautiful Native American headdress. It made for some fun pictures! My grandma on my mom's side is 1/4 Chinook - so that would make me 1/16! Anyway, her home is filled with Native American artifacts and such; it's seriously like a museum!


Tuesday evening we had cake and ice cream and sang Happy Birthday to our dear Sarah. She also opened presents of course! Fun, fun, fun! After all that, we exchanged Valentines. This turned out to be really great! I assigned everyone the task of putting together 6 valentines to give to each member of the family. So, we each had our little baggies with our names on them and we gave out our valentines. It was really amusing because everyone's valentines were so different and original - some homemade, others purchased, but all were heartfelt and fun. I wanted to be sure we did this for Emma's sake since we wouldn't be home to do all the valentine activities with Emma's many little friends.

Wednesday: Wednesday was super snowy - it didn't really hit until around lunch-time, but it was like a blizzard outside with a ton of snow and a lot of wind, so the snow looked like it was coming in sideways. Anyway, we stayed home all day and Ben ended up having a crazy time getting home from the hospital. If I would have realized how bad the freeways were, I would have told him to spend the night at the hospital. He had a late shift that night and didn't get off until 8, but he was on the road for 3 hours traveling from Provo to Sandy - so ridiculous! He actually read his book all the way home - that's how slow he was going. I was so relieved that he didn't ever run out of gas and that he was able to get home safely. Well, the next day was actually lovely and the remains of the storm were evident in the huge mountains of snow in the front yard! That required some serious shoveling!

Thursday: Valentines Day was sooo awesome!! I was particularly spoiled this year by my dear hubby. He sent me to the spa in the afternoon to get a facial and my hair treated and styled. It was so rejuvenating. When he came home from work he presented me with some beautiful flowers. They are so lovely and it seems like they will last a good long while. I just took the picture of them this morning and there are still 3 more of the gorgeous white flowers that are still to bloom. How wonderful! For our date (thanks to Sarah for babysitting for us!!) we went to see a Ballet West performance of Cinderella. Before going I honestly thought that it might get a little boring in parts, but it was extremely entertaining and amazing! These people are so talented. I was telling Ben afterwards that I wish I had a talent like that. I was so impressed by the performance. We also went to a late dinner at Benihanas, which was located right next to Capitol Theater (how convenient!). The evening was just great. I love you Ben!

Saturday: Emma turned 3!!! Honestly, I feel like she's been 3 for a while now - so I'm just glad that she finally had her birthday and that I can officially call her 3 years old. Although, now she's no longer free at Disneyland!! Oh nooooo! ;) Well, we had a special treat to be able to spend the day with Ben's parents who came into town for the weekend. Emma shares her birthday with her Uncle Peter, so it was a day of birthday celebrating! We met up for lunch at Gateway and then went to the Children's Museum there. We took Emma there a little over a year ago when we were in town for Thanksgiving and she liked it quite a bit, but now that she's a little older, she enjoyed it soooo much more. She's much more imaginative and into creative play so the pretend grocery store and farm and house, etc were all right up her ally. It was a great time! Me, Ben, Emma, Becca, Peter, Lacy, Carol and Clyde attended the outing and it was hard to tell who was having more fun - the kids or the adults! This month the museum is hosting a Sesame Street exhibit on the body and it was really great. We were all quite impressed - there was a lot to do and it was all just so cute! They also had some rather funny parts - including a sneezing nose that drips "mucus" on you and a poop machine! We all got a kick out of that! After the children's museum we did some quick shopping and Ben's parents, the kids, and I enjoyed a ride in a heated horse-drawn carriage. So fun! After our Gateway outing, we went to my family's house to visit, eat cake, and open presents. Emma got very spoiled by her grandparents and received all sorts of fun stuff. In the evening we went out to dinner and to a movie (without the kiddos)- we saw Spiderwick Chronicles, which we all quite enjoyed. I've never read the books, but now I want to!

Utah: Week 2

So, we've continued to have a great time while here in Utah. Emma and Rebecca have especially been happy to get so much attention from grandparents, aunts, and uncles. Emma has been just talking up a storm and being so funny. Grandma Szymanski has been so nice to listen patiently to her chattering and play along as Emma paints her grandma's fingers and toes and attempts to do her hair with lots of detangler spray and ribbons.

We had a Chinese New Year celebration this week - it was especially fun to have Peter and Lacy come join us in the festivities. The evening consisted of Pei Wei (it doesn't get any more authentic than that!!), rice candy, fortune cookies, red paper lanterns (making them brought back memories of elementary school!), and money in red envelopes. Emma really enjoyed hunting for loads of coins - in fact, this evening she used some of it to buy ice cream at IKEA; she bought a cone for herself and one each for Ben and I... what a generous little girl she is! Eating rice candy was a first for me - it was actually really yummy! Each of the boxes came with a temporary tattoo, which we all proudly wore. Mine actually had Chinese characters, but everyone else's were pretty random. After putting Emma to bed, we played Curses - a game that Peter and Lacy brought up for us to play - it was a real riot. My face hurt afterwards from all the grinning and laughing.

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On Saturday we visited our friends, Eric and Kristi. It had been a long time since we had seen them. The last time we hung out with them, their little girl was only like 6 months old. Now she is 2 1/2 and they also have a little 7 month old boy, who is a real cutie (and, although 3 months younger, looks to be twice the size of tiny Becca!). We spent the afternoon eating lunch, chatting, playing with the kids, and rocking out with Guitar Hero. Ben and I totally are wanting to get it now! I thought it was even more fun than DDR, and I love that game too! Anyway, it was a great way to spend our Saturday and it was so fun to see their cute family. Come on Eric and Kristi - you know you want to move to Arizona!! ;)



Emma and Becca were really cute on Sunday wearing their matching Valentines dresses, which you can see in the picture at the top (both dresses were presents from their Grandma Dangerfield). And speaking of Valentines, we are anxiously anticipating this lovely holiday. I've deliberated in the past about why I enjoy Valentines Day - I think it's so fun. We've already spent a good amount of time making Valentines for family and friends. I love hearts and candy and cheesy I love you messages. Tomorrow we'll be having a Valentine exchange among our family, in an effort to make the holiday a little more fun for Emma, despite the fact that she doesn't have all her little Arizona friends to exchange Valentines with. It should be amusing - I'll be posting about that and other fun birthday celebrations at the end of the week. My sister, Sarah, turns 19 tomorrow and Emma (as well as her Uncle Peter) turns 3 on Saturday! And speaking of birthdays, Becca turned 10 months old today!! Can you believe it!! She's hardly any bigger than she was when she came out of me. Eeek! ;) And she still doesn't have any teeth! Where are the teeth?! Well, despite her toothless smallness, she continues to grow cuter and cuter everyday and we just LOVE her!

Utah: Week 1

Well, I've taken a little break from the blogging it seems. I've been rather distracted from the computer since we left for Utah - as always happens when we go on a trip. However, I promised my mother-in-law that I would blog weekly while away so she can see pictures of the grandkids - so I'm now attempting to catch up! Ben currently has a rotation for the month in Provo at the UVRMC (which is where we had Emma) and a nearby clinic. He's really been enjoying his time there - it's a great ward-based family medicine rotation with lots of other LDS students and residents- so it's been a fun change of pace from his other AZ rotations. It's also been fun for him to be spending so much time in Provo - our beloved newlywed home. I have very fond memories of the place! :) Anyway, we are spending the month at my family's home in Sandy for these 4 weeks and Ben is commuting to work each day in the crazy snowy weather. It's been a good refresher course in the art of scraping ice off of the car! We've had a fun time so far during our Utah stay - it's nice to get to spend so much time with my family - I miss them dearly when we are away! To backtrack and get you caught up on our activities, I'll take you through some of the pictures on my camera.

On our drive up to Utah, we stopped and stayed the night in Las Vegas. We stayed at one our new favorite places - the Hilton Garden Inn - it's on the strip, but on the far south end and away from the craziness. Well, we strolled into town on the same day as the Monte Carlo hotel fire. So, we took a few pictures as we were on the road. When we were looking at hotel prices earlier in the week, I noticed the Monte Carlo was quite reasonable and I considered it for a moment - guess that would have been a bad idea!

The first night in Utah we went to see Cloverfield - it was really fun! I mean, it wasn't a perfect movie, but I was definitely entertained! Getting out of the house that first night I realized how cold it was! I was shaking like crazy getting back to our car. It's seriously been super snowy while we've been here with a couple of decent sized storms. It's been a little winter wonderland of sorts. This past week we've also all been getting over colds, which maybe is for the best considering how rough the roads have been. So, because of snow and illnesses we've been in the house quite a bit - we've been reading a lot of books and doing lots of puzzles with Emma. She's getting to be quite good at it! I also have been enjoying snapping photos of little Becca - she's just the cutest little thing - I love her so much!


This past weekend was a lot of fun. The kids and I all started to feel much better and I was anxious to do some fun stuff! On Friday night, mom watched the kids while Ben and I went on a date - we went downtown to the Gateway mall and ate at Z'Tejas (yum!) and did a little shopping. It was a very pleasant night out. Saturday was an interesting day - we watched President Hinckley's funeral, which was so wonderful - it really helped me feel a little bit of closure and the comments and stories that were told were so appropriate. At the same time, I really felt like my feelings towards Pres. Monson grew - he is going to be an amazing Prophet for our Church - I'm so grateful for great leaders! Saturday evening dad's work was involved in a fundraiser for Junior Achievement that was held at Fat Cats. We had a great time bowling - Emma came along with us and she really enjoyed her little bowling shoes and the arcade games. Also, the evening was made extra special (and strange) with Dad and I somehow participating in a dancing contest. It was rather embarrassing, but I tried to be fun! Dad, of course, won because of his sweet moves. I have been asked politely not to include the video of us dancing - you never know - it might become a YouTube favorite and nobody wants that! ;)

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On Sunday we enjoyed a little SuperBowl fun with games and good food while watching the game. Despite not really caring about the game, we all enjoyed it - it was a real nail-biter! I have to admit it was a little weird for me to be watching the game and knowing that it was being held so near our AZ home, but that we weren't there. Oh well. We paid particular attention during commercial breaks - overall, I was quite disappointed, but there were a couple that I enjoyed. This one and this one gave us a bit of a giggle.

This morning my mom, sister, and the kids and I went to IKEA for a little outing. Since Emma is now potty trained, I thought I would see if she could get into the little play area they have there. You have to be 37 inches tall to get in and Emma just barely cut it - they had to take off her shoes to measure her and she was really a 1/4 inch too short, but they let her in anyway, since she's so close. Emma did so good going on in and playing - she didn't seem to care at all that I was just dropping her off. I was so proud of her! And our shopping experience was so great! ;)

Chest hair anyone?

BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.

Did I get your attention with that title? A little frightening I know, but take a closer look at Craig in the pictures and you'll catch a glimpse of what I mean. ;) Taya took on the task of hosting another round of murder mystery - and as everyone already knows, she's a fantastic party host! We also learned that she's a superb celebrity wedding planner! Other suspicious characters in the group consisted of a partying croquet player, a murderous beauty queen, a sleazy groom, a money-seeking hippie yoga instructor and a struggling lounge singer. I must say that the best part of these gatherings are the characters and crazy costumes and Mike definitely won the award for the shortest shorts! ;)

Bathtime!

I took this cute picture of Becca this morning as I was filling up the bathtub and I just had to put it on my blog. She's so cute at bathtime... she comes and stands up at the bath and tries to climb in, but can't quite figure out how. Anyway, she's just got the cutest little baby bum. :)

And speaking of bums (ha!), Emma is a real champ with the potty training. Yes, we do have accidents still, but she's never had an accident while out of the house (she loves using the public restrooms now!) and she's been dry at night for a couple of weeks now - I've been putting her in underwear when she goes to bed for the past couple of days and she's been doing great so far! I'm so pleased. I put a nightlight in the bathroom by her room and she now goes potty first thing in the morning on her own and a couple nights I heard her using the potty at like 2 in the morning - good work Emma - way to not pee in the bed!

This has been a weird post, and to add to the randomness, here's a video Ben found a while back of car soccer - I want to play too! Who's in?! I've got a Chevy Cavalier that could use some new dents. ;)

Nine

... is the number of months that Becca is now!. I can't believe it! I'm honestly in awe of the fact that she's crawling around the whole house, exploring things and pulling herself up everywhere! It's so fun to see her become more mobile... and she's much happier because of it. She follows me and Emma around and also slinks off to find her own things to do. She's such a darling little girl and I'm so grateful that we have her in our family now. Her stats for 9 months are- Height: 26.5" (10th%), Weight: 15.4 lbs (10th%), Head Circ: 17.75" (90th%). So, she's made good improvement in her weight. The doctor said that she is back on the growth curve for her birth weight... and her large head is going to be off the charts pretty soon - good work Becca! ;) Thankfully, it doesn't seem to be affecting her ability to stand up. :)

On Saturday we had a fun and eventful day. We spent the morning/afternoon at the Anthem Outlets. I got a new dress from Ann Taylor, Emma got a new sweater, and Ben got a cool new universal remote (so we no longer have to use 3 remotes to watch the TV!). Anyway, it had been awhile since spending time in Anthem - they have a new playground/splash pad area, which was fun. It's a little too brisk for the water aspect, but I imagine they'll turn that on in a few months. Anyway, Emma loves running around like a maniac on playgrounds and going down the slides and such... Becca enjoys spending time eating (even though she has no teeth). So Becca and I watched Emma from the side, while Becca finished eating her lunch. She could seriously just sit and eat forever! She finds it to be quite an enjoyable activity. What a funny girl - and I guess all those calories are going straight to her head!

On Saturday evening we went on a date (thanks to a last-minute babysitter! - can I tell you how much I love being in Young Women's - I have all the sitter's numbers programmed into my cell phone). Ben and I ate at the Bamboo Grille and then saw Juno at the theater. We very much enjoyed the movie, but it might have been a little on the inappropriate side - I'm getting surprised at what's okay to show in PG-13 movies. Anyway, it was so lovely to go on a date with my Ben. I sure do love him. :)

A short one

I'm not referring to Becca so much as I am this post. I hope none of you are disappointed - this will be quite brief :) Last week, we went down to a reception for one of Ben's cousin's in Tucson. Once again, we tried to take a picture of Emma, Becca, and Adam together in their matching Christmas attire. These turned out a little better than the last attempt. It's so hard to take pictures of kids (I don't know how you do it Heather!). Anyway, Becca is moving on to another stage in her physical abilities - she's pulling herself up to stand all over the place. She loves to be on her feet and not her knees. Now when I go get her from a nap or in the morning, she's standing up! It's so cute. She just melts me when she smiles. I love it!