I love this stuff!

I should really not be blogging... I have so many other things I need to do!! But oh well. I easily succumb to the procrastinating beast. Eeek!
The idea for this post came to me while I was showering this morning. I was washing my hair with my favorite shampoo and thought, "I should tell my friends about this great shampoo... I sure do love it and they might too". And then I started thinking about all the other things I've been enjoying lately. So here is a list of a few of my favorite things:

Aveda Rosemary Mint Shampoo and Conditioner: This stuff is soooo great! I discovered it while Ben and I were recently adventuring at the Boulders Resort. The bathrooms included all sorts of sample Aveda products, one of which being this shampoo and conditioner. So, later I went to the Aveda store and bought myself this little indulgence. It smells so wonderful! Every time I use it, I feel like I'm at the spa.


C.O. Bigelow Mentha Lip Balm: I must love mint, because this minty chapstick is my recent favorite! I'm obsessed and addicted to chapstick, so you will NEVER find me without some. Anyway, I'm always on the lookout for new and fun chapsticks and this great product from Bath and Body Works is just perfect! I sound like an infomercial!




Camelbak Waterbottle: Taya told me about these a while back and I am so thankful to her for her wonderful advice! Almost as much as chapstick, I hate being without a waterbottle... and this one is perfect! I drink so much more water now because it's just so convenient. It has that great bite valve that I love so much about my regular Camelbak, so it's no spill and I don't have to deal with unscrewing or even popping open a lid. I find it's especially great to use while driving.


Trader Joe's Mac 'n Cheese: This seems a little random, but it's just soooo yummy! I'm also really hungry right now so I have this on the mind. Anyway, this comes frozen... and you may think, "there's no way that can be that good if it's frozen"... but you're wrong! :) It's superb! Just as good to me as many homemade kinds and definitely not worth even comparing to the likes of Kraft. I recommend if you have a Trader Joe's near you to go buy this right now and eat it! ;)

Here we go again...

Thanks a lot Aubree! ;)

JOBS I'VE HAD:
1. Counselor for Afterschool and Summer School programs
2. Maggie Moos ice cream scooper :)
3. BYU jobs: EFY office worker, BYU Bookstore janitor
4. 5th Grade Teacher for 2 years

MOVIES I CAN ALWAYS WATCH:
1. Pride and Prejudice (with Colin Firth)
2. Sense and Sensibility
3. Harry Potter movies
4. Importance of Being Earnest (I must love Colin Firth!)

PLACES I'VE LIVED:
1. Pennsylvania
2. Sandy, UT
3. Provo, UT
4. Glendale, AZ

TV SHOWS I ENJOY:
1. So You Think You Can Dance
2. The Office
3. Medium
4. American Idol

FAVORITE FOOD:
1. All desserts... particularly trifle
2. Pasta of many varieties
3. Homemade Mac n Cheese... oh, I guess that's a pasta
4. Strawberries, kiwi, watermelon

WEBSITES I VISIT:
1. Blogs
2. Gmail
3. Martha Stewart
4. Playhouse Disney (with Emma)

PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW:
1. Sleeping
2. Disneyland
3. Disneyworld
4. with Ben... I wish he was home right now...

4 BLOGGER BUDDIES TO...TAG YOUR IT:
I think we're at the point now, where anyone who hasn't been tagged should just fill this out... but for the sake of the game, I tag-
1. Jodi
2. Aaron
3. Liora
4. Melinda

Another tagging game, eh?

Jodi tagged me, so here are my clever responses:

1. Who is your man? Benjamin Steve Dangerfield :)
2. How long have you been together? Married almost 5 1/2 years, 6 years since we met
3. How long dated? 3 months dated, 3 months engaged... we were pretty speedy!
4. How old is your man? 27
5. Who eats more? usually Ben, but I pack away the sweets... I find and eat all treats in the house in record time, and when they are all gone, I go find the bag of chocolate chips. ;)
6. Who said "I love you" first? He did and then I immediately returned the favor.
7. Who is taller? He is 6' and I am like 5'4" I think
8. Who sings better? We are about the same - he's great at singing tenor! We especially enjoy singing hymns together at FHE
9. Who is smarter? He is, with most stuff... and I definitely wouldn't be able to succeed as well with med school like he has.
10. Who's temper is worse? We are both pretty mild mannered individuals... I don't think there's ever been any real yelling in our house.... although we sometimes really raise our voices to Emma because she is crazy. ;)
11. Who does the laundry? I do most of the time, but there are many times where I'll run loads during the day and he'll put the clothes away in the evening.
12..Who does the dishes? I do
13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? I have for the longest time, but I recently requested a switch because I wanted something new. So now, he is on the right side.
14. Who pays the bills? I do
15. Who is better with the computer? He is, but I'm better at blogging!
16. Who mows the lawn? We have no lawn! But I imagine when we do someday that he will do the mowing.
17. Who cooks dinner? I usually do. He tries to cook once a week though. He often picks out new and interesting recipes and turns into an awesome chef. He is even great at setting a pretty table.
18. Who drives when you are together? Usually him
19. Who pays when you go out? He always pulls out his card first
20. Who is most stubborn? Me... and honestly I never realized I was a stubborn person until I got married.
21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? He is
22. Whose parents do you see the most? His, because they live in Gilbert. I wish we could see mine more, though. I miss my cute family.
23. Who kissed who first? He tried to kiss me on like our 4th date... in fact, he asked if he could before doing so, which I appreciated and found to be rather cute. Anyway, I said "no". (I was afraid that I wouldn't like kissing him, because the last time, and only other time I had kissed someone, I hated it!... I really liked Ben and was scared to death that I wouldn't like kissing him and that would be the worst!) Anyway, about a week later I announced I was ready to kiss him and we did. It was wonderful! :)
24. Who asked who out? He did... he was quite the romancer throughout our dating time.. buying me flowers often, taking me out to fancy restaurants, and just spoiling me rotten. He still spoils me like crazy! What a lucky girl I am!
25. Who proposed? He did and it's a funny story, so I guess I'll tell it - Our engagement was rather backwards actually. We already had our reception center picked out and temple date chosen before he actually proposed. Anyway, my family and I drove down to AZ to meet his parents just shortly after Christmas. We had dinner all together over at Ben's family's house one evening. Before dinner started, Ben's mom and sister pulled me aside and told me that Ben was planning on popping the question sometime during the meal. They had purchased a thrift store wedding dress that I was to try on while Ben excused himself "to use the restroom". Well, during dinner Ben did in fact excuse himself. He was actually putting on a suit and grabbing a ring and roses from another room. While he was doing that, I sneakily went off and put on the wedding dress (my family was unaware of the little trick that was going on... so this was rather odd to them). Well, I came back to the table and sat back in my chair wearing the dress. Ben soon returned in his handsome attire and a dozen roses and was shocked and confused as to why I was dressed as I was. It was so funny! He continued on as he had planned and proposed in front of both of our families... I cried like a baby and later had a good laugh about the stunt that was pulled. :)
26. Who is more sensitive? Me... definitely me
27. Who has more friends? I do I think, but Ben is actually more social than me.
28. Who has more siblings? We have the same. We both have one brother and one sister. I am the oldest sibling and he is the middle.
29. Who wears the pants in the family? Good question... probably him. But we're definitely a joint companionship. :)

Now I will tag: Mom, Jess, and Nicole!

The pains of moving...

This week has been weird... a good weird, but very different from our average goings on. We moved into our lovely little home on Saturday evening. We were grateful to have so many awesome helpers! By the time our help arrived we were ready with only the furniture left to be loaded into the truck. Throughout the week, we had taken over loads of everything but big furniture pieces, so the Saturday evening move went rather quickly and smoothly. Thank goodness! Anyway, the reason why I say that this has been a weird week so far is because I've been spending the mornings over at our apartment cleaning (ugh!) and then afternoons and evenings have been full with unpacking and reorganizing projects. I've been making steady progress with the unpacking, but there is still a ton to do! It's fun to be in a new house, but the work is not so fun. I don't mind the unpacking part that much... it's kind of nice to purge and start over with a vow to be a little more organized this time around. The apartment cleaning is a real pain, however. Yesterday morning when we pulled up to the gate to our old apartment, Emma threw a little fit screaming "New house now! Back new house now!" I think she thought we might have changed our minds and were going to go back to the apartment for good. How funny. Anyway, I've kept our little TV/DVD combo at the apartment with some of Emma's favorite movies so she has something to do while I clean... because the apartment is completely emptied. I've also been timing our cleaning outings so that it's during Becca's naptime (9:00-10:30). I just wrap her up and rest her in her carseat and she sleeps in a dark corner while I keep busy. It's worked out pretty well. Ben is going to be spending tonight and tomorrow repainting our bedroom back to its original white. What a pain... but that's what we get for painting it in the first place. Is this really all worth it just to get a security deposit back?

Well, to end, let me leave you with a short video of Becca rolling over! This was taken last week before she had figured out how to roll back over to her back once onto her tummy. Now she can roll both ways and is so happy to have learned a new skill. I'm so proud of little Rebecca!

Packing and Playing

We will officially be moving into our new house on Saturday. I can't wait! We've already started taking loads of stuff over there. We've borrowed Ben's dad's truck and we've basically taken a truck-load each day since last Friday. I spent this morning over at the house unpacking a bunch of boxes and putting stuff away in closets so that we can reuse the boxes. How clever of us. :) We spent a good hour and half at the house and I was so impressed that Becca was able to quietly entertain herself on a blanket on the floor the entire time! What a good little girl she is. She's just so cheerful and sweet (I think I say this in almost every post). I tried putting her in the walker for the first time today. She was so content, just looking around and sucking on the chair... I think she really enjoyed having a better view of everything around her. Emma continues to be a fabulous big sister! She is really so good to little Rebecca. I'm so pleased. She loves to do what Becca is doing and enjoys helping her out if she's sad or in need of something. It was so cute to see her doing pat-a-cake to her in the car yesterday and talking to her in her high-pitched "motherly" voice. Emma has also been loving helping with the packing this week. She even helped daddy reach some pictures on the wall. I really think she's excited to move and I suspect she understands pretty well that we really are going to be leaving our apartment and will soon be sleeping in this new house. Yippee!

Blessing Day

Today was Becca's baby blessing and it was so lovely! Ben gave a beautiful blessing and afterwards Becca just seemed so radiant to me... what a cutie I have. :) Ben's family stayed over at our house for the afternoon after church - we had a yummy lunch with a wonderful cake that Emily brought. We also played a rousing round of "spoons" and took a quick field trip to see our new house that we'll be moving to this Saturday. We didn't stay long because the house currently doesn't have any power... so it was super hot. Power is supposed to get turned on tomorrow, so I can start really spending some more time over there getting our first loads of boxes unpacked and organized. Anyway, it was a pleasant day and I'm just so happy to now have Becca blessed - she's just precious!

Little Bitty Baby Becca

Rebecca turned 4 months old this past Sunday. What a cutie she is becoming! I mean, she was a cutie from the beginning, but her smile is infectious and she is just a real sweetheart and it shows more and more as she grows. She had her well-baby visit on Tuesday. She's a tiny one - only 10 lbs 12 oz, which puts her in the 10th percentile. I was a little concerned when the nurse gave me her percentiles, but the doctor assured me that since she was only in the 10th% when she was born, that she is healthy and growing well. The doctor also gave the go ahead for rice cereal, which we started right away. I was so excited to try feeding her with a spoon for the first time and was anxious to see how she reacted to the new food. Emma helped a little as well, and Becca just loved it! She was so full and giggly afterwards. So, in addition to Becca turning 4 months old, we will finally be having her baby blessing this Sunday. We tend to be a slow to bless our little ones. Emma didn't get blessed till she was 3 1/2 months old... with Becca we're setting a new record. Ben joked that we better take care of it before she's able to say, "It's my blessing day, mommy!" ;)

We signed our lease for the house last night and the Realtor even gave us the keys! Woohoo! We weren't expecting to get them till the last week of August, but he gave them to us now, without even charging us for the extra time. So, this means we have 2 full weeks to start taking boxes of stuff over before we actually have to be out of our apartment. How splendid! I love a low stress move! When we were moving from Utah to AZ, it was a much different experience. We were actually going to live with Ben's parents for a few months at first, to save money and to give us time to find a place near the school... so that meant that we had to put all of our belongings in a storage unit for the summer, which was a little sad and a lot of work. This move will be much easier... thank goodness!

A few triumphs...

Hmmm... well this post is going to be full of a bunch of random items that have been on my mind lately. To start, I'm in the midst of reading Harry Potter. I feel embarrassed to call myself a true Harry Potter fan, when I have yet to finish the final book. Good grief. I'm so lame. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get started with it... Ben read it first in like one day and then the next day I got sick with a cold and it gave me a headache to read... and by then all of Ben's family had finished it already and I was the lame duck out. Oh well... I finally got going with it (and it's just AWESOME!) Don't spoil anything for me... I'm on chapter 26: Gringotts... it's really getting to some good stuff... I guess if I were really a true fanatic, I wouldn't be wasting time blogging, when I could be reading. :/

Heather mentioned on a previous post that Taya was fitting into her "skinny jeans" again. Well, it inspired me to give my good old jeans another try. The last time I tried to put them on was 3 weeks after having Becca, and I couldn't even get them buttoned up... oh man! Well, much to my surprise... I have shown some real triumph over the post-prego fat and could fit into them again! It's a miracle! And I didn't even have to suck it in. Woohoo!

Another piece of good news, is that Emma has started to eat carrots! Some of you may wonder why this is so amazing, because I am sure you all have kids who love eating vegetables and never complain about the food on their plate (wink). Well, I have not been able to get Emma to eat any veggies for ages... so I consulted Ben, who at the time was in his pediatric rotation, for some possible advice. He happened to be listening to some pediatric lectures in the car recently and the doctor on the CD mentioned putting out a tray of vegetables everyday. The idea is to not make a big fuss about it and to not make the child eat any of it if they don't want to... but to just put out a plate of veggies daily, so they get used to seeing the food and is convenient to get at. So, I tried this out, and at first, Emma wouldn't even touch any it... however, I did start including some fruit on the plate because she really likes many types of fruit and this got her to at least start eating off it. And during this whole process, I have been eating a lot more veggies myself, because if Emma doesn't eat any of it in the course of the morning, I start picking at it so it doesn't go to waste. Anyway, it had been 3 weeks of this with no progress, and then all of a sudden, a couple of days ago Emma came up to me with a bunch of chewed up carrot in her mouth and excitedly tells me, "I eat a carrot mommy!" I cheered and said "Hooray for Emma!" She was so pleased with herself... and now she seems to really enjoy eating the carrots. How amazing is that?! Well, I'm still putting out a variety of fruits and veggies everyday, with the hopes that she'll start sampling some other things like peas, cucumber, etc. We'll see where this goes.

In closing... here is a super funny clip from Jay Leno where this little kids calls 911. It's absolutely hilarious! A friend of Ben's emailed it to him recently, and we were just cracking up about it....

Finally... a house!!

So, we're finally moving on from apartment life and getting ourselves into a house! Don't get too excited... we're just renting, but we couldn't be happier! It is closer to our friends, has 3 bedrooms (so Emma and Becca can each have their own room), a garage, a backyard, and a super huge master bedroom and bathroom. We're just super excited for the move at the end the end of this month. Yippee! I just drove by this morning on our outings and took a picture of the outside of the house. We don't have any keys yet, so this is the best I can do. :)

So, we've recently started going to the zoo every Friday. It's been nice... we don't stay too long, just enough to play a little and see a few animals and eat a snack. Then we go home before it gets too hot. However, even with our relatively short zoo visit this past week, I still must have worn the kids out. We arrived at home a little after 10:30 and I found both my girls, just totally asleep. How cute they are - I just love it when they're asleep. ;)

Rainy Days

Emma has been loving the crazy rainstorms we've been having lately. Apparently the beginning of the Arizona monsoon season is upon us and its awesome! Yesterday morning the rain was really loud as it pounded on the outside of the building, so Emma wanted to get a closer look. I opened the front door and sent her outside to get wet. She loved it! She screamed when I made her come back in to take a bath.

On another note, Becca is growing bigger and cuter everyday. I remember when Emma was a little babe and I always thought at each new stage as she grew that she just couldn't get any cuter... but she kept surprising me. Now, I think the same of Becca... she just keeps getting cuter, especially now that she can smile in her darling way and she is always sucking on her hands. She's also started grabbing at her toes a little, which is super cute too. I've recently changed up Becca's eating and sleeping schedule to accomodate an earlier bedtime. Emma has always gone to bed quite early...even now her bedtime is 7 or 7:30. But it used to be 5:30 or 6 for the longest time. Anyway, Becca has been going to bed so late and being so fussy too. I finally realized that she's just tired and needs to be put to bed before she can even start the evening fussiness. So, now she says goodnight at six o'clock and its so much better! :) Just look how happy my well-rested Becca is....

Tummy Time

I took a cute video of Becca. I've been so lame about taking pictures and such... I figured my mom in particular would enjoy this to see how big she's getting! She's actually still such a teeny little thing, but she looks much more like a baby and not so much like a bitty newborn. Oh, my little cutie! We've been trying to make tummy time a routine every day... she likes it for a little while but soon gets tired and flustered. She's fun to watch...



Oh, and as you can see, Emma likes to get in on the tummy time too. What a cute goof! :)

P.S. Ben received his USMLE board scores today! He did awesome! I'm such a proud wife. :)

Pie, pie, and pie...

I imagine I won't be the only one blogging about the pie party last night. It was so amusing... Thanks Heather! You're just so fun to put that together. :) I'll start with a couple videos of the pie-eating contest. It turned into quite the mess (you'll notice upon close observation that Craig started it!)... also my laughter was rather uncontrollable throughout the whole video... pardon my silliness. ;)



You may have noticed that once the pies started to get tossed around, many of the kids got a little upset. Emma started crying and then refused to join in on the kids pie eating contest. I think she was worried she might get one thrown in her direction. ;) This second video is to give props to Cory Brown for his determined effort to finish his pie, instead of just cheating and throwing it at someone. ;)



Anyway, it was a great evening. Emma really enjoyed jumping on the Peck's trampoline all night. She was so red in the face from all the activity. There were also many delicious pies to sample (that weren't thrown at others). My favorite was the lemon cream pie (I believe this was Heather's). I also really enjoyed the two ice cream pies brought by Aubree and Jess. Yummy! You can never go wrong with an ice cream pie! :)

Harry Potter in 3D?... Awesome!

Last night we went to see Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix on the IMAX. It was superb, I must say. First of all, Aubree was a super friend and watched Emma for the evening (Thank you so much... Emma can't wait to play with Addy on Friday!). Ben's family met up with us for the evening and we started with a quick dinner at Macaroni Grill (my favorite was the chocolate cake with a birthday candle). After eating we walked over the theater and got in the MASSIVE line. It wrapped around a couple of times and we ended up right near the emergency exit door... goodness sakes. But it didn't seem to matter much because we still got good seats. This was also one of the special 3D showings of Harry Potter, so we got cool glasses as we went in. The 3D part is just at the end for about 20 during the intense part with everyone fighting at the Department of Mysteries. I thought the 3D was absolutely great! 3D has come along way from the red and blue glasses. It was really well done and I felt it really added some excitement during the finale. Anyway, I liked this movie more the all the rest of the Harry Potter's so far. The villans in the movie were played very well, I thought... ie: Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange (she was super creepy!). Now the countdown continues for the final book! Only 8 more days!

25

So, we've had some fun activities the past couple of days. Yesterday we got together with friends to swim! Emma loves swimming so much... she gets super excited any time we say we'll be going swimming. She especially enjoys her big pink swim wings. ;) I particularly look forward to the day when Emma can actually swim on her own. She loves to be in the water but she gets frustrated if she gets stuck in the middle of the pool and can't get to the side. She screams "help mommy, help!" and I have to pull her to 'shore'.

So, today is my 25th birthday! Wow! I keep telling people that I'm a quarter of a century! That sounds really old, when you put it like that, eh? Anyway, Ben didn't have to go to his rotation shift until 2, so we spent the morning at the Science Museum in downtown Phoenix. It was fun, but extremely busy with several summer school groups or something. Emma looked so small in comparison. ;) But despite the congestion, it was a great birthday outing. I just love my little family... and we're gradually becoming not so little, especially when Becca is strapped into our big sit and stand stroller, we become quite the wide load of people! Below is an amusing video of Emma enjoying a silly spinning contraption at the museum.



Oh, and Ben was so sweet and decorated the house with several flower arrangements. I have lovely flowers in the bathroom, my bedroom end table, and the kitchen table. He said that he wanted to make a my birthday just a little prettier. :) He also made a great french toast breakfast with homemade strawberry syrup and whipped cream! In addition to all this, he is making me wear a flower lei and bow for the whole day (which you may have noticed in the picture above). He wants me to stand out enough so people will ask me why I am wearing a lei and such... this way I can respond, "Because it's my birthday!" How fun for me. ;) And thank you Heather for your thoughtful blog post. I have such sweet friends.

Mickey and Minnie

Here's something new I learned today (did everyone else already know this?): The current voice of Mickey Mouse, Wayne Allwine, is married to Russi Taylor, the current voice for Minnie Mouse. That's hillarious! I wonder how that came about. Were they married first before they started doing Mickey and Minnie voices, or did they meet and marry because they obviously knew each other through their voice work. Hmmm... Anyway, I think the whole thing is rather romantic and relatively amusing.

Who started this game, hmmm?

So I was tagged. I'm going to:

* Post eight random facts about myself.
* Tag eight other bloggers (hopefully those who haven’t been tagged before).
* Post these rules.

Here are eight random facts about me.

1. I used to be a huge fan of the Disney Channel. To clarify: This was between the ages of 17-19. I loved to get ready for the day while watching the cute kids shows- ie: Bear in the Big Blue House. Call me crazy... I guess I was prepping to have little kids, or something.

2. I'm terrified of the ocean! When we were in Mexico a few weeks ago, I refused to go snorkeling with Ben because I am afraid of what I might see! I'm scared of weird fish or stingrays, or whatever else might sneak up and bite my toe! To sum up: I'm particularly scared of deep waters in which I can't see the bottom.

3. I bounce back and forth between super productive and super lazy. If only I could find a happy medium between the two, I would be soooo pleased with myself!

4. I used to be a huge basketball fan! My dad really got me excited about the NBA, particularly following the Jazz back in their glory days with John Stockton, Bryon Russell, and Karl Malone. :) I even subscribed to ESPN magazine for a time... partly because of my odd dream of becoming of sportscaster alongside Dan Patrick. This is why I minored in Communications, I guess.

5. I am so happy being a mom! I taught elementary school for a couple of years before having Emma and I feel like motherhood is everything I enjoyed about teaching (plus more!), but without all the stuff that I didn't like about being a teacher. I get to make up daily routines and organize my home the way I want (which is a lot of what I enjoyed about running a classroom), but I don't have to deal with other people's naughty children. :)

6. I've had a cough for the past 10 months.... I'm in the process of trying to get a referral to a pulmonologist.

7. I am deathly afraid of spiders and other creepy crawly things. Ben once showed me a picture of a scary spider while he was studying about various insect bites. The picture caught me by surprise and I started crying. I'm a mess.

8. I have an aversion to seafood, and any meat that is served with bone. I have never prepared any type of fish for dinner (I told Ben that if he wants to eat any type of seafood or any meat other than chicken breasts or ground beef, he has to make it himself - is that mean?)

Here are the 8 bloggers that I've decided to tag (lucky you!):
Muffin
Brittanie
Taya
Melinda
Aubree
KelliAnn
Aaro
Dadoo

I hope none of you let me down!

Happy Fourth!

Hello to you all! I hope everyone had a memorable holiday. We kept extremely busy with lots of activities. I came home feeling all achy and absolutely exhausted! Ben said that it was comparable to how you feel after a day at Disneyland. So true. However, it was a great day! We spent the night of the 3rd at Ben's family's house. That evening we all went to see Transformers! Ben's mom stayed home with the kids, of which I am most appreciative! I must admit that I wasn't looking forward to this movie much, but everyone else wanted to see it... but, in the end, I absolutely loved it! It was very funny and action-packed. It had a few slow/weird moments... but overall, it was great! So the day of the Fourth, we kept super busy with activities that include the following: tennis, going to see Evan Almighty (which despite its poor reviews, we all really enjoyed... Emma got a little scared during the flood part), swimming, eating, crafting (which consisted of a flag using Emma's footprints and Becca's handprints... how clever!), and fireworks! What an exciting day. My favorite activities of the holiday were swimming and movie watching. We really wore out the kids... Emma and Becca both slept in this morning and Becca is already down for another nap, only 30 minutes after waking up. Oh, and even though video doesn't do it justice, here's a portion of the fireworks show from last night, in case anyone didn't get out to see any themselves... maybe you can still enjoy a little piece of the festivities. :)

A Quick Getaway

What a lovely past couple of days we've had! Ben and I had a little getaway last night to The Boulders Resort and Spa in Carefree, AZ. Ben's parents took Emma overnight (woohoo!) and we kept Rebecca with us. She was a dream, though, and slept through most of it! We kept busy during our short stay. We arrived at about 4:00 yesterday and spent the late afternoon and evening relaxing in our wonderful room, reading, eating out at a great restaurant (The Spotted Donkey), swimming at the pool (which we had all to ourselves!), and watching the stars from our private porch. The views from our room were fantastic. The desert picture posted above was taken from the porch. So beautiful! This morning, we played some tennis, and then went swimming again. After that it was time to check out, pick up Emma, and head home. So, our retreat was short-lived, but absolutely wonderful!

Happy Kids

I've had a miserable cold the past few days. It's been frustrating to get back from a trip and be aching to get back to our everyday lives, but feel too gross to bother. Anyway, I am finally starting to feel better and am getting back on track. Since I've been under the weather, I don't really have much to write about. However, I do have some cute pictures of Becca and Emma. After Becca's bath yesterday, she was in such a giggly, smiley mood... so I took some pictures and a video of her being cute, while wrapped up in her towel. Also, I successfully got a clip in Emma's hair... it stayed in for a record 2 hours before she noticed it and yanked it out. What a goof! This girl has the craziest hair, but she refuses to wear any bows or anything to keep it out of her face. It is soooo frustrating! Anyway, I took a picture before she took it out... as proof that I succeeded for a short time, at least. Oh, and sorry that the video is so dark... it was in the morning before I had opened up the blinds.



Oh, and also... I've made an incredible discovery! Maybe some of you have already figured this out, but for those that have not I thought I'd let you know about the miraculous Google Reader. It is awesome! I don't know about the rest of you, but I've got a list of over 20 blogs that I like to check regularly... but it takes forever and usually most the blogs haven't been updated anyway. Well, with Google Reader you can compile your list of blogs in one place and it will let you know when one has been updated. And even better, I put a gadget for Google Reader on my homepage...so now, I don't have to go to each individual blog... they come to me instead! Marvelous!

Becca Smiles

So Becca started smiling a couple of weeks ago and this is my silly attempt at capturing some cute grins. It was a little tricky to get the camera to to take the picture at just the right moment, however, in the end, I think I got some amusing results. She sure is fun.