Family Birthday Party

Mel and Vauna drove up from Utah on the 29th for a family dinner birthday party. It was at 5pm. Emily's friends party ended at 4pm. :) I barely had enough time to get the house back in order. Rita, Nic and their family also joined us for dinner. We had pulled bbq pork, buns, chips and salad. Emily loved having everyone around her. Mel and Vauna gave her a cute summer outfit and cute rabbit jammies. When she held up the capris she looked at Vauna and told her that they were too little for her because she had grown. I had to explain to Emily they were shorts not pants. It was really funny. Mel and Vauna stayed the night which was fun to have them here. The kids love having people stay at our home. They were also nice enough to not be upset when I ran out to a church meeting. They stayed and visited with Landon and played with the kids. We forgot to eat the birthday cake that I made for the family party so I am cutting it up tonight and Emily is delivering it with the thank-you cards she made for her friends who came to her party.

Emily's BIrthday Party

I will tentatively say that Emily's Birthday Party was a success. Only her cousins from Utah and one friend from Pocatello were unable to attend. She had eight friends come: Maddie, Bodie, Isaac, Abby, Hallie, Cassie and Maggie. Tyson and Russell came to help me by causing trouble along their journey (with my permission.) With the wonderful last minute loan of a sewing machine from Lela Anglesey I was able to get all the back packs made. I had enough for everyone including the people who didn't come. I sent the extras home with kids who had younger siblings that would like them. Two of the kid's parents Quinn (Maddie and Bodie) and Kaylene (Isaac) stayed to help which was really nice. In the backpacks I put 7 ft rope, a map, a flashlight, a pocketbook and a pencil. I told the kids that Swiper had stolen all the stars and that we were going to go on an adventure to find them. The first step was to memorize where we had to go: animals, cave, birthday party. The second step: I had Tyson and Russell hide the littlest pet shop pictures I had taken from Emily's bedroom and told the kids that they needed to round up the animals and put them behind the fences that matched the number of animals in the pictures. The kids had fun finding all the pictures and matching the numbers. Then we proceeded to the third step, decending into the cave. They took out their ropes which had a loop/knot tied onto one end. They would walk to the top of the stairs, have me hook the loop through the carabiner which was at the top of the stairs and then "repel" into the cave. (ie walk down the stairs backwards holding the rope). Three quarters of the way down the rope would end and they had to slide the rest of the way down on their behinds. It was really cute. Then we had to turn on our flashlights as we ventured farther into the cave. :) There are no windows on one half of our basement so it got dark, fast. As all the kids found their way into the tv room there was a "rockslide" (ie Tyson and Russell moved the crashbag into the doorway so no one could get out.) I told the kids that the magic potion in front would tell us who was strong enough to push the rock out of the way. The potion that turned blue told us who could do it. (I had put a drop of food colouring onto a spoon and covered it with baking powder and then put vinegar in cups.) The kids loved watching the bubbling and colour change by the light of their flashlights. Bodie got the blue cup, so with his dad's help (he's a year older than Collin but the same size) he pushed the rock away and we were able to get back to the stairs. The kids had to crawl up the tall mountain to get back upstairs. In the living room I had a pinata waiting which had candy and some paper stars in it. Tyson and Russell took turns holding it in the air as the kids took turn hitting it with ..... a wooden spoon. Yeah I wasn't so good at planning that part. It was fun to watch some of the shy kids really get into it. Bodie was wailing so hard we made people take a step back. And Isaac wanted to do it twice. With a big grin on his face. Eventually I handed Quinn a hammer and he had to hit it three times to get it to come apart. It was a well built pinata. :) The kids scrambled to grab as much candy as they could. After we opened presents where Emily was spoiled with Dora playdough set, a Cinderella barbie, a fairy barbie, a box of craft supplies (which she used today to make valentines) and a bubble gun. Then we headed into the kitchen to blow out the candles and eat cupcakes. I spread out a blanket in the toy room and allowed the kids to eat fish crackers, and gummy dots. They watched Dora episodes and played nicely together for 50 minutes! The adults sat upstairs and visited. I did have to vacuum after everyone left but other than that the room was clean. I've heard from two parents so far that their kids had a good time. It was a lot of fun. Next year I hope Emily will go along with my idea for a nice paper doll party. Where I have someone else do all the prep work!

Mother Daughter Night

Emily's Dance Teacher is a dancer for the Idaho State University Bengal Dancer. They made it to Nationals so they did a fundraiser performance on January 12th. Rita, Crystal and I decided to take our three girls who were in Katelyn's dance class to the performance. That way they would get to see their teacher dance. The girls were so excited for a girls night out with their mom's and to watch Katelyn dance. There were thirty dance numbers done besides the 2 done by the Bengal dancers. They were done by groups from all over south eastern Idaho. I got to watch two of my students dance. Half way through the performance the girls wanted to see Miss Katelyn so I walked around with them trying to find them. I saw a girl with a Bengal Dancer jacket and headed into the locker room to ask her where we might find Katelyn. 10 steps into the room I realized it was their dressing room and people were getting dressed and putting on makeup. Luckily Katelyn was putting on makeup in the mirror and saw the girls. She came running over. Emily wouldn't talk to her or go near her at first because of all the makeup she had on. Katelyn talked to her until Emily relaxed. Cassie and Hallie were in awe sbut at least recognized her. Katelyn asked the girls if they were glad they didn't have to wear this much makeup for their dances. Hallie very seriously said, "Yes." It was really cute. The girls cheered loudly for her during the last dance. They will miss her this next dance session as she will not be teaching. She is finishing her degree in early childhood. But come next semester they will see Miss Katelyn again.

Four Already!

I haven't been good about blogging lately and I am promising myself to be better! But I couldn't miss today! Emily is 4! Where has all the time gone. I remember holding her in the hospital wondering what I was doing. All I knew was that I loved this little girl. As I have watched her grow over the last year I am so amazed with who she is becoming. It has been a hard transition with the move but she has come out on top. She has made new friends while still remembering her old friends and family. She loves to meet other people and make them laugh. Her imagination amazes me. She is a wonderful big sister to Collin. When he cries she sings, "You are Sunshine" over and over again because he loves the song "You are my Sunshine." She gets up early just to say goodbye to me as I go out the door. I know that as I climb into my car she will be either standing in the window or at the door waving and blowing kisses. She is always saying thank-you mommy which makes me feel so loved. She grew so much during her dance classes and I was so impressed with her dancing at her recital. Hopefully more posted about that later. We are so grateful for her in our lives and I look forward to spending forever with her. As she said to me this morning, "I'm getting big and my clothes get small but I'm still baby Emmy." Yes forever and ever my baby you'll be! Happy Birthday Emily!

Update

My friend and her baby are doing much better. This is the email she sent out today.

"Baby Mikayla was born on January 19th, she is in the NICU here at the University of Utah Medical Center in Salt Lake, but is doing well. She was 5lb 2oz. She had an infection that caused fluid in her abdomen so had to be delivered c-section 10 weeks early. She was on a ventilator until yesterday but now is breathing well on her own without the need for oxygen. They are not sure when she will be well enough to come home, but she is a fighter and is improving daily. I was discharged on Monday from the hospital and am staying close by the hospital at the Ronald McDonald House, which is a wonderful place! I am still on IV antibiotics, but am doing well. The hospital staff here have been wonderful and I have been very well taken care of. I am so grateful for all your thoughts and prayers and hopefully we will be home soon so you can meet our new baby girl :o)"



Thank-you to those of you joined us in praying and keeping them in your thoughts.

Friendships

Sometimes when I hear the saying, "When God closes a door he opens a window" I get a little annoyed. I'll admit it. Mostly because I wish that he had just left the door open. Lately I had started to feel like the door was shut. I felt that I had put forth all this effort to make friends and everyone loved that I put forth the effort but did not feel any need to reciprocate. I realized I was doing all the work and I became very frustrated. Last Thursday was the worst. I even cried a little at work. My poor husband. He got a phone call in between his classes from a crying wife. He listened and told me he loved me. Not much else he could do. I came home from work feeling very sorry for myself. As I approached my door I saw a package sticking out of the mailbox. I didn't remember ordering anything so I was excited to see what it was. It was an envelope from my friend Amber. Amber and I have seen each other maybe twice over the last 7 years. We worked together in my first classroom. She is in my top three student support workers I have EVER worked with. She is fabulous. We have kept in touch through email and now through each other's blog. The last time I saw her was March when I visited her home in Logan. Inside was a book: "Finding the Angel Within: Spirituality, Body Image, and Self-Worth." She had enclosed a letter that was so beautiful. As she had read her own copy of this book she had remembered my New Year's resolution to increase my feelings of self worth and so she went out, bought me a copy and sent it to me. The words she spoke of our friendships truly healed my hurt heart. (Cheesy but very true.) You see, people don't do things like that for me. Not very often. She is the second person outside of my family to ever do it. I realized then that God had opened a window. He had allowed me to see that I do have friends. True friends. I may not see them often but they truely love me. So I stopped my pity party and have opened my eyes to the true friends in my life. I want to thank those people. You know who you are. You have blessed my life in so many ways.

Emily's First Recital

January 10th was Emily's first Dance Recital! Emily, her cousin Cassie and friend Hallie have been taking Ballet and Tap once a week at the Rec Center. It is really affordable and Emily loves it. She had a hard time at first listening to the teacher but she got better and by the end was always listening. The recital was at Pocatello High School in their auditorium. There are 119 dance students through the rec center. Luckily Emily's class is the youngest so they got to perform 1st and 5th. She did so well! My wonderful friend Suzanne did her hair. She had to have her bangs pulled back, half pony and bottom in curls. Emily would not cooperate and so Suzanne offered when I asked for some tips. Suzanne is the BEST hair dresser. (well she ties with Naomi so those who know how fantastic my sister is you know this is HIGH praise.) Emily sat like an angel for her. Her hair was in the cutest ringlets and I totally forgot to get a picture of them! We ran home, jumped in the car and put Emily's makeup on at the school. She loves that she wears makeup to dance class. The school lent me a video camera so I was able to tape Emily's dances (ie zoom in on Emmy and Cassie.) A student aide at school the next day put my video in dvd format. He even did an intro with Emily's name on it. I did pan out at the beginning to show how big the audience was but I guess he thought that was an accident because he cut it out of the video. The video file was too big to put up here and one of these days I'll get the smaller version from Nic and post it. Emily did an incredible job! Landon sat with Collin while I went up front to video. Poor guy! I forgot to tell him when Emily's was dancing so he didn't even realize she was performing for the first dance. (There were 8 girls in her dance class and with her bangs pulled back he couldn't recognize her.) He recognized the wings and antennas for their bug routine but couldn't figure out which one she was. He watched the video today and told me it is chaos set to music. :) Emily's antenna's came off during the tap routine but she put them back up. It made her almost miss her favourite part of the routine but she got to do one jump. She was so happy to have her picture taken with her two friends at the end. She is sad that dance is over now but she will be starting ballet and tumbling next month.

A collage of the dance recital

Emily's dance poster Rita made (she didn't want to put her dance shoes back on)

Hallie, Cassie, Emily and Miss Katelyn (their dance teacher)

Prayers Needed

I have just found out that a coworker, our school nurse, Alisha Obando was admitted to the hospital with meningitis. She is in the ICU because she has now developed encephalitis and pneumonia. She is 6 months pregnant with baby number 3. Her son and daughter are the same age as my kids. She and I have gotten to know each other because her husband is Canadian and they lived in Alberta for three years waiting for the paperwork to go through for him to move to the US. I am asking that you pray for her and her family.

Thank-you

**Update** The hospital isn't sure if its meningitis. They are waiting for test results but she is showing symptoms of it. She is on the respirator because they are worried that the baby may not be getting enough oxygen due to the pneumonia.

Bar J Wranglers

source

For Mel and Vauna's Christmas present we bought tickets to the Bar J Wranglers concert in American Falls. I have never been to any performance of the Bar J and was so excited to go. Last night was the concert and it was so much fun! They are so funny and their singing is incredible! The whole time I was thinking, I have got to take my dad to Jackson Hole to listen to them. Landon turned to me halfway through the performance and said, "Your dad would really love this!" :) So true. Danny's bass was so good I had goosebumps when he sang Old Man River. The way they play their instruments is AMAZING! Especially Donnie. And Bryan's yodelling and comedic banter was fabulous. It was the quickest hour and a half of my life. My foot was tapping the whole time. On the way out to AF we actually passed the "Bar J Chuckwagon" (their truck). Vauna said that the last time she heard them in concert she had told them afterwords that she wished they had sung Wyoming Wind because it is her favourite. They told her she should have requested it. So after we passed the truck she was joking about pulling up beside them and requesting the song as we drove down the interstate. Then she joked about ambushing them in the parking lot and requesting it. We did neither of those things but she made Landon and Mel promise that if they asked for requests they would request it for her. They didn't end up singing Wyoming Wind or asking for requests. We went through the line to shake hands with them. Mel decided it was time for a bathroom break because Vauna was threatening to tell them that they should have sung Wyoming Wind. She did mention it to Brian and he said, "I've never heard of that song" and then winked. He told us that they put that song in their show every other year. As we went down the line we shook everyone's hands until we got to the last person, Scott. When Vauna mentioned the song again he laughed and told us that during the performance Tim had paused and said that he couldn't remember the next song but let's play..... (can't remember the song). He was supposed to be introducing Wyoming Wind and he had forgotten! Scott told us that they were caught off guard because he chose a song not in the program. I had thought it was part of the comedy because they jumped right in as if that had always been the plan. We laughed about the whole thing. I ended up buying their dvd because it has the Noah's Ark song that they did. I can't wait to show it to Emily! She will love it! My favourite part of the whole evening was when they had the house lights turned up and they did a tribute to all the vetrans who had served their country. I started to cry as I watched 20-30 older men stand up. Most in their cowboy hats. It was incredible to see how many vetrans are from Power County. Incredible powerful to be able to clap and give our thanks to these men. They also gave tribute to all the family of vetrans and those who have family serving now. It was wonderful. I can't wait to go to a concert again. We are hoping to go this summer with my parents.

A big thanks to Nic and Rita who babysat Emily and Collin for us.

Happy New Year

I have two New Year's Resolutions.

1. Work on my self esteem and body image of myself

2. Get back to blogging (and finally print off the books i have made of my posts)

I am going to post about Christmas and our new house etc. I just need to kick the kids off of our computer long enough to download the pictures and post. We have been so blessed in how 2010 ended. It was a long journey this year and I am amazed with how the year turned out. I am so blessed with supportive family and friends. A man who loves me and his children and supports me in my craziness. We are not perfect by a long shot but we are happy. We have made some great friends here. Sometimes I find it hard to believe that they are our friends but I think that is my low self esteem, co dependent personality kicking in. :) Thank-you to all of you who prayed for us and sent positive thoughts our way this year. We are so grateful for you. I want to leave you with a few funny things my kids have done and my newest obsession.

First: the new obsession

We all know I like to read. Yes, I am a readaholic. Now I am not as good as many of my friends who read uplifting, soul changing and searching books. I read them from time to time but I find that my job requires me to read so much nonfiction and deal with the more sad part of life. So when I read it is to disappear into a story that is full of adventure, a little romance and life is good at the end type stories. I am definitely a fan of Hunger Games series (though I still have not been able to procure a copy of MockingJay so I don't know how it ends), Twilight series, Septemius Heap series, The Alchymist series by Michael Scott, Inkheart series, Inheritence Cycle (ie Eragon), Harry Potter, the list is probably endless but you can probably tell from this list the books are mostly found in the Young Adult section of the library. I find the books in this section are really well written but don't feel the need to expound on the violence, swearing and steamy romance scenes found in adult fiction. I had found a new series (the Immortal series) that I was enjoying until the fourth book. Hated it. Didn't actually finish reading it (which never happens). I had brought the book to read over Christmas. Quite sad when I couldn't read it. We were in Target just after Christmas and saw a book that had received good reviews from a couple of book sites I follow. Its called Clockwork Angel. But it was $20 and I didn't feel like spending $20 on a book I wouldn't know if I liked. Now Clockwork Angel is a prequel to a series she had already written. "The Mortal Instruments series" Book 1 was on the shelf for $9. I read the back and it sounded interesting so I grabbed it. When I showed it to my mother in law she asked, "What is with all these vampire and werewolf books?" I just shrugged my shoulders and said something about it being a fad. Just so you know these book are AWESOME! They are not just about vampires and werewolves. It quote Dante's Inferno which I actually enjoyed reading in college. They are face paced and COULD NOT put the first one down. Read it two days. The book is 485 pages. And mom I did not stay up all night, dinner was on the table, and I did spend some time with my kids. I just didn't check email, call anyone and sent my husband out on errands instead of doing them myself. Actually one of the errands was to send him out to find the second book for me since the library didn't have any copies in of book 2 or 3. I purchased book 3 online but since I was trying to save money I went with the cheapest shipping option. Not smart. The email I got yesterday was to expect the book on January 10th. So I think I am going to re read the first two again.

On to funny things my kids said:

Collin: Last night Collin was sitting on my bed and farted really really loudly. The only people in the room were Emily and I and Emily was sleeping. Collin gets this huge grin on his face and says, "Daddy!" then he laughs and says, "Daddy farted." and then laughed so hard he fell over. I was crying I was laughing so hard. Collin thinks that he is such a big kid and he talks in short sentences. My baby is growing up.

Emily: Emily has requested a Dora birthday party. She has already informed me that Swiper stole the stars and she and her friends are going to find them using their backpacks. Onto the internet I went looking for ideas. Nickjr.com is an awesome site with loads of free printables. I decided that the "goodie bag" is going to be either a Dora or Diego backpack with the supplies needed for an adventure (ie flashlight, map, treat, log book, etc) Since Emily lost my power cord for my sewing machine I decided to hand sew a Dora and a Diego backpack together out of fleece to see if it would work. Only took 30 minutes a bag and I thought they were pretty cute. Emily sat next to me the WHOLE time giving me advice on how to sew. I just kept rolling my eyes. When I was done she opened her eyes wide and said, "Thank-you mom for my Dora back pack that I always wanted. Can I put my lunch in it?" So we made a bag lunch and she went off in her backpack. Warmed my heart. That is what she said about everything in her stocking at Christmas. "Oh My frog game I always wanted (even though she had never seen it before), oh my chocolate I always wanted, Thanks Santa." It was cute.