Emma is TEN!

On Wednesday September 24th my darling baby girl turned 10 years old. The night before her big day she asked if I would make her a special breakfast. She wanted either cream of wheat of pancakes. Of course I made both.

Paul checked Emma out of class so that they could go out to lunch, just the two of them, no I wasn’t allowed to go, not even to take photos, to Taco Amigo. I was told (see I wouldn’t know because I wasn’t allowed to be there) that they had a wonderful time. After they ate they went and bought a bag of Halloween candy for her to pass out to her class as part of her special day.

When she got home we had her flip flop cake, balloons and piles of presents waiting for her. She had to wait over two hours for Paul to get home and before she was allowed to open any gifts. Does that qualify as cruel and unusual punishment? I made her spaghetti for dinner and once we had eaten she was then able to tear into the gifts.

She received clothes from Justice, Bakugans, Littlest Pet Shops, Webkinz, American Girl bitty twins and some other random stuff. Before she went to bed she thanked us for a fantastic birthday.

What Emma doesn’t know is that she is going to be surprised with another party tonight. We never get to spend birthdays with my brother’s kids and that is one thing she really wanted this year. When I found out that they would be there the night before we flew out to Anaheim. I asked if we could have a little party for her with her cousins. Of course my mom said yes. I can’t wait to see her excitement.

Emma is a wonderful daughter and I am so blessed to have her. It is really hard for me to believe that she is 10. Where has the time gone? I am glad that we can spoil our kids, just a little, and show them how special they are to us.

The Quest for Perfection

I knew that once we hit the school carnival, the rest of September was going to go by in a whirlwind. This is proving to be true. There are so many things that need to be packed into this last week and a half. We have celebrating, washing, cleaning, packing, haircuts, travel and work all on top of the normal everyday things like cooking, homework, piano, and dance. Oh My!

One of the most important things on my to do list was a trip to the canyon. I am still wanting and waiting for the PERFECT fall family photo. If we didn’t get up there on Saturday I just knew it wasn’t going to happen.

In the past it has been easy to pick up coordinating outfits at Old Navy for fall pictures. With me not working there anymore we had to scramble and just get things out of our closets. (Oh the horror!) We decided on black tops with denim. Aren’t we original?!? We packed the black clothes in the car (we didn't want to all be wearing black while we ate) and headed out.

We had decided that since Paul had class on Wednesday night and wouldn’t be home until later that we would take Emma to her birthday dinner at the Mayan on Saturday instead of Wednesday. We were pleased to find that they no longer serve their food cafeteria style. We enjoyed our meal and got to watch the divers perform twice. The kids also got to meet the enchantress who made the divers jump off the cliffs.

After we ate we drove up to Cottonwood Canyon hoping to get some pictures in the autumn leaves.

While the canyon was beautiful, it was lacking in red foliage and it was lacking in dryness. We hit some pockets of HEAVY rain. We gave up on trying to find a spot to take pictures (yes, I was pouting) and went to get ice cream sundaes at Leatherby’s instead. (Hello beautiful caramel) Since we were in West Salt Lake I asked if we could stop in to see the witches at Gardner Village. It ended up being a rather fun late afternoon. The kids loved all the goofy witches, especially the ones with the big lumpy bums.

I had resigned myself to taking pictures on Sunday after church. Alas it wasn’t meant to be. Instead of photos I got a three hour nap and Paul got to watch the Cowboys play with his friend Chris.

Finally, after the many trials and tribulations of the weekend, we got to the canyon with about 45 minutes of good light left on Monday evening. It was beautiful and cool. We got some fun shots but I am still on the quest for perfection. One of these years I will hire a professional, but for now, the timer and a tri-pod will have to do.

This is one of my favorites even though I would prefer to have a child hiding my mid-section.

If I Could Turn Back Time- Installment 1

This is a brief recap of some our highlights from last August through October. Hopefully there will be more installments.

August 2007
Last year we went to Lagoon again right before the kids started school. Emma and I rode Wicked, their newest coaster. Unfortunately Andrew wasn’t quite tall enough. Grandma Renee quickly volunteered to stay off of the ride with Andrew. I had never seen anything that went so straight up and then right back down before. I wasn’t sure how I felt about going on, but it was so quick that I barely even knew what had happened.

We got soaked on the Rattlesnake Rapids. Anyone who knows me, knows that this is NOT a good thing. I can’t stand to walk around in wet clothes. I don’t know how the kids stand it. They would get wet in the fountain, dry off and go back for more. We rode just about everything else we could and then went on our merry way.

The kids started back to school, Emma in fourth and Andrew in first. They were all about Transformers and Littlest Pet Shop. I continued to work at Old Navy and also with my friends Julia and Gary making popcorn balls.

September 2007

I was asked to go into the American Fork Canyon to take fall pictures of my friend Gail and her family. We all decided to go and try to get some of us as well. The kids had been playing hard all day and looked at little…rough, but we all matched. It was still beautiful though and we got some great shots for our friends and some decent ones of us.

Emma turned nine and we celebrated by going to the Nicklecade (pass the hand sanitizer please. Ick!) with the Gardner’s and Chili’s with my family. We then came home for ice cream cake and present opening.

October 2007

The beginning of October marked a milestone for me. I had worked for five years at three different Old Navy stores. I was given a plaque, pin and a watch to celebrate my anniversary. It had been my goal to stick with the job, through good times and bad, for five years. I fulfilled my goal even though it got really bad towards the end and I wanted desperately to tell them to take their job and shove it. I am so proud of myself for staying. It has been almost a year since I left and I don't miss working there at all!

October is my favorite month. I love Halloween more than any other holiday and take it pretty seriously. We decided to go to Disneyland so that I could see the Halloween decorations. It was great. Between the park photographers, Emma and myself we probably have over 1,000 photos from the trip. My favorite thing was the characters in their costumes. Due to the crowds we didn’t get many photos with them, but we did end up with a few.

Like I said before, it was very crowded which was disappointing. We had five days in the park so we got to do almost everything we wanted (we gave up waiting for Fantasmic) but it was still hard to wait so long in lines. We have always gone in the off season so dealing with crowds was a first for us.

The last time we went Emma was tall enough to go on some rides (Indiana Jones and the Mickey Coaster) that Andrew wasn’t able to go on. This time he was just barely tall enough to go on Indiana Jones. He was so excited to see the big snake but it was having technical difficulties and thus closed the whole week. He was able to go on the Mickey Coaster though.

We all went on the Hollywood Tower of Terror for the first time and LOVED it, well all except Paul. We were able to ride in the Wheel House of the Mark Twain paddle boat where the captain let the kids blow the whistle.

The last night we were there we had waited about an hour for Fantasmic before we decided to leave. On our way out of the park we all got cotton candy. We went back to our room and went to bed in preparation for the long drive home. Sometime in the middle of the night the lights went on and I awoke to Andrew puking in the hotel sink. He was up, sick as a dog, all night long. Every hour on the hour he would get up and be sick. We found a Target and bought a trash can, garbage bags, pull-ups, and sanitizing wipes for the 10 hour drive home. He only got sick a few times in the car. It was a nightmare. I felt so sorry for him. Andrew still can not look at cotton candy without feeling queasy.

The week before Halloween was filled with activities such as a church party (we got to do a trial run on their costumes and make-up. They looked GREAT!), trips to the pumpkin patch, pumpkin shaped pizza and their classroom party and parade. They had to wear different costumes to school since make-up was banned. Andrew wore his dinosaur from the year before and we had Emma dress as a cowgirl.

Halloween night was fantastic. The kids and I went around the neighborhood while Paul stayed behind to hand out candy for those willing to brave our driveway. The weather was great and the kids scored tons of candy. Emma and daddy even went to the Hills of Horror right before we called it a night.

It's Carnival Time!

Today was the annual fall carnival at Grovecrest Elementary. My friends Rees and Kari were in charge and they did a wonderful job. It was an old west theme with a fishing booth, face painting, tractor rides, branding booth (Relax, they only stamped the kids!), gold digging and so many other fun booths I can’t even name them all. It was fabulous and the kids had the best time. Oh! There was also a jail. Emma got put in it about five times and Andrew said he was put in three times.

The PTA had asked people to donate for a bake sale so I spent all morning making cute treats. I made flower shaped rice crispy treats with bubble gum centers, chocolate chip cookies and M&M cookies.

I showed up at the school around 1:45pm to see if they needed any help and ended up setting up some tables, chairs and canopy’s. I also got to run the bake sale with my friend Carrie Ann. We had so many donations! There was just about every cookie and snack that you could imagine. I didn’t get home until after 7:00pm and there was still a ton of work to do when we left. I felt bad for taking off but I was exhausted and my back and feet were hurting.

I had brought my camera with plans to take a lot of pictures of the kids and activities but we were just busy enough the whole time that we couldn’t get away. I can’t wait to hear how much the carnival rose for the school. It looked like it was a huge success.

Here are some photos of my treats and the pictures that I did get at the carnival.

Some of my Favorites

These are some of my favorite pictures from our trip. I would love to get one blown up, maybe on canvas, but I have no where to put it. (pout) For now they will live on my computer and on these pages. They are simple, yes. But they are done.

One of these days.....

...I will have all of my pictures scrap booked. No wait, I won't! I take way too many photos.

Here is one page down, few few hundred thousand to go.

This is Emma on Pier 39 in San Francisco. I made a photo book with my favorite photos from our summer vacation, so I didn't think I needed to do more with them. Today I was messing with a template and a kit that I downloaded and ended up using this picture from our trip. Now it has begun. I will need to scrap a bunch of the photos.

Maybe tonight I will work on a couple more pages, that will keep me from sewing on my quilting projects.

I already finished a great book. (It was the Dead End Job Series by Elaine Viets: Dying to Call You) That was the first thing I did to avoid sewing and now I am digi-scrapping. What is this world coming to? It is funny, I love shopping for fabric, I love putting the colors together and deciding on a design and I even like cutting out the pieces. The truth is, the only thing I don't like about quilting is the sewing!!! It must have something to do will trying to line up all those darn little pieces.

I finished my table topper for Christmas (I just need to get it quilted but I won't do that until November). It isn't half as cute as I had hoped. The colors were a bit blah so I had to put the red on the outside leaving a large white area in the center. This is where my hurricane or charger with a candle and pine cones will go. What ever my center piece is, it should distract from the light square. This is it before I started sewing it. I will say that it is better in person.

I am now sewing on Happy Jack. The easy part is almost done. After I get it all put together I will have to applique. That has me worried. I have never done it before and don't know if my machine even has what I need to do it this time. I am thinking I will beg Maggie's mother in law to do it for me ;) If all goes well this will be hanging somewhere in my house before Halloween. (Don't hold your breath)