Father's Day

My Dad.
I love this picture. He decided to eat healthier after a few medical scares. My Mom gave him a bag of rice cakes.

This was his reaction! Classic.

But now, this is him. 60 lbs lighter, and I can hardly believe it.
It really hit me when I went to the store with him. We were getting some sherbet. He couldn't find any with 90 cal per serving so he skipped out. WHAT? This is my Dad who eats chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and why not add some fudge chunks or chocolate chips? I'm really proud of him for his self control and his progress. He looks great. But I'm still getting used to it.

This Father's Day I've had a chance to reflect and think of some of my favorite memories with him.

He always had Trident gum, original. It will forever remind me of him. And we always tried to sneak it out of his suit pocket at church. Never succeeding, but eventually he would relent, give each of us a piece, and half his pack would be gone.

We loved dressing up my Dad. We'd pull his hair up in many tiny elastics. Blush and lipstick were applied. He was always a willing participant. And we loved it.

He would play us a boogey song that we would dance to at night and danced right into our beds. (one of my ALL time favorites.)

His bedtime stories were the best. They were all connected about a family of fish that ran a chocolate eclair factory.

Family Home Evenings where he was acting like a child. Jumping on couches, doing somersalts on the ground...the works.

He would always make it a point to have one on one time with each of us. We would park in front of the Temple and he would ask us about our lives. What are favorites were, who we liked etc..one of my favorite memories was with Carlee hiding out in the back of the car to spy on his and Kelsey's conversation. We were convinced that she was his favorite and that he would tell her. Well he did, after seeing Kelsey talking to us. He figured what we were doing and played it well!

Vacations. We ALWAYS went some where, even if was only an hour away...some of my favorite vacations were:

San Diego with the Cahoons (temple open house and beach time)

Navoo trip. Twice. Love them both. The best was the creepy motel with the shower in the middle of the room. Literally. And Ben with "Tony", his monkey. (since they were road trips we had lots of fun stops on the way..Six Flags, World of fun, St. Louis arch...)

Florida. Disney World and Busch Gardens. Need I say more?

Various road trips to California and Utah. Depending where we were living at the time. Including stops in Las Vegas.

South Carolina. Hilton Head at the beach house.

And the best Japan. It was truly amazing.

And finally two memories dear to me...

Our special Daddy daughter time was Saturday night. My Mom would have things for him to run to the store for before Sunday. It was our time. We would go to the the store together, get gas and he would let me get something every time. It was always sunflower seeds, slushies from the gas station and a magazine. (teen beat, seventeen, and the likes.) I loved that it was our time and I always enjoyed going.

And road trips to California, with just him and I. Listening to Jimmy Eat World and The Beatles. Going to In-N-Out with cancers, and of course Baja Fresh. He would let me talk his ear off the whole time, and would keep up with all the stories about boys, friends and our crazy adventures.

I love you Dad. And I love our memories.

For the other "Dad" in my life.

I am so thankful for him. Thankful for the memories he is creating with Aubree and Sophie. He is definitely the "fun" parent and they know it. They love playing with him and his energy seems to match theirs. I know that as they grow up they will have fun Dad stories and memories to share. Thank you for all you do, I love you and I can see how much our girls love you too.

Pictures of Dave with his girls from this last year.

Gardening

Last night Dave was working on the yard, while I was chatting with my friend Natalie. This is what I came inside to find. Cute husband.

You all can be jealous.

Birthday Bash x2

Birthday Bash #1

So finally, a month late, we had Aubree's birthday party. Because of our San Diego trip, memorial weekend, and Camryn's party, we had to postpone it until now. We didn't have a theme. Just bright colors. And I LOVE how her cake turned out.
We had a buffet of Aubree's favorites for the kids picnic. These were the cutest. Little jello watermelons. They all loved 'em.
And of course little favors.
The weather didn't want to cooperate. I thought for sure I would be safe having a splash party for her in the middle of June. However it decided to rain the day before and it was freezing. So no splash party, and the picnic was moved inside. They didn't seem to mind.
And when we sang to her she felt pretty special...
And shy.
She didn't want to blow out her candle, so Sammy helped out.
The festivities continued....Dave and my Aunt were outside playing with the water balloons that would have been for her party..Jenni would throw it and Dave (and Paul) would head but it, punch it, kick it....and the little girls thought it was so funny.
We got the pinata out, but the kids were more interested in the pool...
Hazel decided to play...
And Sammy
Helen
Emmy, who got something to come out...
Adelyn (who kept pairing off with Sammy the whole party, so this picture is perfect.)
And then Sammy finished it off for us. Little three year old girls don't have much force...good thing Sammy was there to show 'em how to do it.
Grabbing the prizes...fruit snacks, bouncy balls, squishy spiders and caterpillars, princess wands, and smarties. (Which NO ONE took!)
Aubree finds some squishies!
And finally, presents. I only have the one picture, because things got chaotic. Aubs didn't want to open them (she never has liked to, she just likes to get what's inside!) So her friends helped. The problem with that is they thought the presents were theirs, and Aubree didn't know they were hers. And then when she found out, she wanted them of course but another kid had it...so I intervened and opened them for her. Hence no other pictures.

It was a fun party. Everyone came. Thank you for making this day special for our Aubs. She has had a long birthday celebration this year and was happy to finally have her party and friends there. She got the perfect presents and really did feel like a queen.

Birthday Bash #2

The next day, Sunday, was my little sister, Carlee's birthday. We invited them, Kelsey and Guy over for dinner, desert and presents. I made better than sex cake for dessert. It's kind of a tradition in our family. And it is SO delicious. We played scattergories, and enjoyed each other's company. I hope Carlee had a good time, and felt special on her day. We didn't end up saying our favorite memories of her. I wish we had, but even so it's not the same with out our parents stories. They're the best. Everyone left and it was finally quiet after a crazy, fun weekend.

(this picture is actually from Aub's birthday party. But these are my sis's. The one in back being crazy...is the birthday girl. with her new hubby Eric.)

My plan is working.

My little sister Kelsey just moved back from Tennessee this Sunday. I am SOOOO excited and so happy to slowly be getting my family back. My plan is to marry them off to Utahan's who are homebound...then as my parents see their kids and grandkids are in Utah they will have no choice but to come back if they want to be a part of our lives. Two and a half down, two to go. Although Dave pointed out that my plan could backfire and they will love all the peace and want to stay away...it's a risk I have to take. And besides the majority of my family here is better than nothing. Hopefully it works with Kelsey and then we'll work on Ben when he gets back from his mission (after he leaves in 3 years :) And I figure Brittany will follow, so wish me luck and I will keep trying...

In the mean time, the three of us that are here are having fun, getting together, doing dinners...and I'm loving every minute. I love when your younger siblings get to the age where they realize that family does matter and it is fun to be together.

An invitation.

Dave's Mom called me and asked if we would like to go to the grand opening of Draper's Amazing Pizza Co. in Sandy. It's one of those buffet, and game centers...our invitation included free food, free games, and free entertainment. We were all in! We got our invitation that admitted up to 6 family members. So I decided to invite My Aunt Jenni and Uncle Corey. Unfortunately Corey was sick, but we still met up with Jenni. It was crazy chaos. There were a Million people there. It was hard to get food, we had to do it in shifts so the girls wouldn't go crazy. And none of us really got full before we decided to play. I took Aubree to get a balloon and she decided that she wanted a purple flower. And she LOVED it. the only time she would let it out of her sight was when she was on rides. it was over stimulating at first but once we found the sweet spots, they had a blast. It was neat because they have a mini mini-golf course, mini bowling, bumper cars, go-karts, laser tag, all your classic arcade games and a fun kid center. That is where we spent most of our time. I felt kind of bad because we didn't spend too much time with Jenni...but I hope she had fun, and it's just nice to see her even if it wasn't all night :) in the kid center they have these cool car rides that go on a track, maybe they were trains...and they have a snail ride, a mini carousel, and a play area similar to play places in fast food restaurants. We spent 80% of our time on the carousel. The girls loved it, and they even had one with a little seat that Sophie could sit by herself. She felt so big.

I didn't even think to get Sophie a balloon, but she commandeered Aubree's. This is the only shot I got of it. We left it there on accident, and Aubree didn't realize until she went to sleep and asked me if she could have her flower. I was hoping she would forget, but I told her we had to leave it there and that next time we would get one that she could take home....she handled it well.
Jenni got a dragonfly.
Aubree got her arm painted. She would NOT let them get near her face, she picked out a butterfly and a star on her hand. She loved it so much that we had to go back and do her other arm...

This time a flower, but she had to have the star on her hand again. I love this shot because her flower blends right in with her dress!
We had such a good time there. We will be back soon. And I highly recommend it to all young families....and really anyone.

Once we got home Aubree wanted to wipe off her arms. I had to ask her a bunch of times if she was sure, I didn't want her to regret it, but she was adamant. It was pretty funny, you can see her here looking down at the wipe...she thought it was "so beautiful" how it looked all smeared on the wipe. Funny girl.

And this is Sophie representing. (a few days later) She can say "D-Will" and shoots her arm in the air like she's cheering. It's awesome.
She can also say "thank you", "dog" "juice" "ball" "woody" (she loves toy story now too) and she has strung two words together and says "Hi, Daddy". But don't try to get her to say "Hi Mommy" it won't work. :( And she can pretty much repeat what we say. I love this stage when their vocabulary really takes off. It's so fun and it's a lot easier for her. It still throws me off she walks up to me and says "juice" and points to the fridge....but I love it.
This is a cute video of the girls on the carousel. And a great moment of Aubree admiring her butterfly on her arm. (before we got the flower...this helped me see how much she loved the butterfly, so cute)

Number Four

In High school I didn't feel like I had any talents. I am the least coordinated person, so sports we're out of the question; I loved drama class, but I was best at stage crew :) I loved art, but my teacher didn't love my art....and then I found sewing. I took it as an elective to fill up space in my schedule, but I found that I LOVED it. I was pretty good, and amazed at myself when I finished a project. I felt good about myself and that gave me more self esteem.

Around that time my Grandma gave my Mom money for each of her kids. I can't remember if it was for Christmas, Birthday's or just because. She wanted my Mom to get something special for each of us that we could treasure for years.

My Mom loves figurines. She's a collector. She loves Willy Ray and Jim Shore and has A LOT of their collections. So It wasn't a surprise to us when she got each of us a figurine. What was a surprise is that she got mine with a brown haired girl at a sewing machine. For some reason it really made me feel special and like what I was doing was important. It showed to me that she recognized I was good at something and got me a special present reflecting that. I saw it as my Mom, proud of me and it was the best feeling knowing that.

It's from the Dollstone Collection called "Yesterday's Child" and it is a numbered figure. Any thing numbered is special...it's not quite one of a kind, but neither is it easy to come by. I have #4 of 512.

Well yesterday Aubree decided that my #4 wanted to take a flying trip down the stairs. She threw it hard and I heard it smash all the way down. I tried to find all the parts, but to no avail. Some pieces that broke off are just too small. So instead of trying to glue it back together and try to keep it...I'm letting it go. Luckily I have enough self esteem to fall back on that I don't need it anymore :) but I do want to remember it and what it meant to me. And I didn't have the heart to get mad at Aubree, as I'm always telling myself that they are more important than things....I did give her a consequence to teach her respect of other's things. But I kept my cool. (I don't always so I have to brag when I do :)

This is my ode to my #4. So I will never forget.

Here it is in pieces...

And I'm trying to hold it together in this one....

DONE!!!

I know it's not that interesting to everyone...but I finally finished organizing my photos that got all screwed up after our comp. crashed. It feels like a big weight lifted knowing it's not looming in the background of my to-do list. I AM DONE!!!! My girls lives (in pictures) are organized and in order. Hallelujah.