New 'do

I finally got my hair cut. This is something that I put off for forever. I really had no excuse - I had a gift card to the salon at my gym. So, it was already paid for and I had the option of free child care. Also, I'm putting my picture on the blog (even though I really hate getting my picture taken) to show that I do actually exist. I'm usually the one behind the camera. So, even though I think I look awful, here goes.
The before:




And the after:



I did actually get some bangs cut, but I am going to have to train them to stay down, they've been pushed off to the side for so long, that's they way they want to go. Hopefully I will still be able to do my hair "curly" (that means I don't actually do anything to it, except put some goop in it). I like the way my hair looks when it's all straightened, I just hate doing it :)

Wedding News

I am so excited for my youngest sister Sarah! She just got engaged to a wonderful guy named Spencer. They are planning a wedding for sometime in May in the Salt Lake Temple. Congratulations Sarah & Spencer!

Triple the pleasure, triple the fun

On Friday January 11th, my sweet little Josh, had surgery. He had his tonsils removed, his adenoids removed, and ear tubes put in.

He obviously doesn't know exactly what's coming. He was excited to have his own room in the hospital with his own TV.

This was after they gave him some demerol and versed - very calm and relaxed.

He cried and cried after they brought him to me when the surgery was over. It's really hard as a mom to sit there and watch your child in pain. It makes you want to cry too.

He finally fell asleep after some Tylenol with codeine and we were able to go home after a couple of hours. It has been a rough week (especially with Aaron being out of town) but I think we are past the worst of it. Hopefully his sleep/breathing/ear infection problems will be a thing of the past!

New Years Eve Traditions

I thought that we should do something fun to ring in the new year. We usually watch movies and play some games and this year we added making banana splits.

These are all the fun toppings you need.

I think this was Rachel's creation.

Emma loves to eat anything sweet - especially ice cream.

We also played a fun game that we got for Christmas. It's called Blokus.
I didn't take pictures, but it was a really fun game that even Josh could play and understand. The pieces kind of look like Tetrus blocks. You try to place as many of your color as you can - the only rule is that when you place a piece on the board, it has to touch another piece of the same color, but only at the corners. It's fun for kids and adults, takes 20-30 minutes to play, and is easy to understand. Hopefully we won't lose any of the pieces!
Anyway, that was our New Year's Eve. All the kids (except for Emma) stayed up until midnight, but they were pretty cranky the next day. We might have to pretend that new years comes at 10:00 next year :)

My 100th post

It's only taken me almost 2 years but I'm finally up to 100 posts. So, to celebrate, I'm going to list 100 things about myself. Who knows, you may learn something new! Let's start at the beginning...

1. I was born in Bountiful, Utah on September 7, 1976.
   
2. I was the second child and the first girl in my family.
   
3. I have 2 younger sisters and one older brother.
   
4. When I was born and my head came out, I was face up (sorry mom!) and the doctor said I was a girl because I was so cute!
   
5. When I was 2, I had surgery to remove a cyst from behind my left eye.
   
6. My mom got dirty looks in the grocery store because I had a black eye for several months after the surgery.
   
7. My family moved to Corvallis, Oregon when I was 4.
   
8. The first house we lived in there had a huge yard.
   
9. We had over 80 trees (I remember because I counted them once).
   
10. We had this awesome walnut tree in the front yard that was great for climbing.
    
11. We had a one acre garden that my whole family worked in.
    
12. We also had several fruit trees and my mom would make applesauce and dried plums.
    
13. We had a huge fenced field behind our house.
    
14. Our neighbor had 2 turkeys that ran around in our field.
    
15. The first elementary school I attended only had 75 students.
    
16. My siblings and I all had the same first grade teacher.
    
17. Her name was Mrs. Creighton.
    
18. She sent me a baby gift when I had my first baby (of course, this was several years later, after I got married :)).
    
19. I love to read and will read the same books over and over again.
    
20. When I was young some of my favorite books were the Ramona series by Beverly Cleary.
    
21. I also liked the Little House on the Prairie Books.
    
22. I can't not mention my all time favorite - the Anne of Green Gables series of books.
    
23. When I was in 5th grade my family was building a new house - I got to pick out the color of carpet in my room, I still remember the name "Pale Taupe".
    
24. I had small little "room" in my closet (we called it the cubby hole).
    
25. My sisters and I drew all over the walls (in the cubby hole) to decorate it.
    
26. My best friend in 5th grade was named Mari.
    
27. My 5th grade teacher was named Mr. Wagner.
    
28. He was my favorite teacher.
    
29. I got a card from him when I graduated from College.
    
30. I was in a children's choir called "Heart of the Valley Children's Choir".
    
31. With that choir I traveled to Seattle, Canada, and Disneyland.
    
32. Every summer my family would travel to Utah to visit family.
    
33. It was our big family vacation every year.
    
34. One year we went to Disneyland with my Grandparents.
    
35. My first date was with a boy named Rick to Homecoming.
    
36. We doubled with another couple - the girl was my old friend Mari.
    
37. We hadn't been friends for several years so it was a little awkward.
    
38. I spent one summer picking broccoli to make money.
    
39. I had an early morning paper route for several years.
    
40. For all 4 years of high school I attended an early morning church school.
    
41. I played softball in high school when I was a sophomore.
    
42. I played right field.
    
43. I got the "Most improved Player" award.
    
44. It was because I was really terrible at the beginning of the season.
    
45. Now I wish that I had played more sports.
    
46. My first time behind the wheel of a car (actually, it was a giant station wagon) I plowed through a row of bushes at a house in the neighborhood.
    
47. My family moved to Virgina one month before I turned 16.
    
48. I wasn't too broken up about the move because some of my friends in high school started making me feel left out. But there were also some friends that I dearly missed.
    
49. I worked at the library shelving books.
    
50. My senior year, 2 boys (and they were good friends) both asked me to Homecoming.
    
51. They went to a different school than me, so I went with one of them to my homecoming and with the other one to their homecoming.
    
52. I wore the same dress.
    
53. I never went to a high school Prom.
    
54. I graduated as a Valedictorian (there were 16 Valedictorians at my high school).
55. I went to BYU.
    
56. I lived in Deseret Towers my Freshman year (dorm style).
    
57. My sophomore year I lived in Heritage Halls (apartment style). This was way more fun.
    
58. For two summers during college I worked at the Federal Highway Administration.
    
59. My first major was Math Education.
    
60. I figured out that after Calculus, math gets really weird, and it wasn't what I wanted to do.
    
61. I changed my major to Computer Science.
    
62. I was a computer science TA.
    
63. I met my husband when he was a student in the class I was a TA for.
    
64. We dated about 3 1/2 months before we got engaged.
    
65. We were engaged for 6 months.
    
66. My husband and I were each other's first kiss.
    
67. We got married in the Washington D.C. temple.
    
68. We went to Palmyra, New York for our honeymoon.
    
69. Our first apartment was in downtown Provo, around the corner from a bar that boasted exotic dancers! (Probably the only one in Provo).
    
70. When I graduated from BYU I was 7 months pregnant.
    
71. I worked as I programmer after graduation until my baby came.
    
72. My 1st child (a girl) was born on June 9, 1998.
    
73. We lived in BYU's married student housing for a few years.
    
74. My second child (a boy) was born on May 11, 2000.
    
75. We bought our first house in Payson, Utah.
    
76. My third child (another boy) was born on Sept. 23, 2002
    
77. Baby number 4 (a girl) was born on April 26, 2005
    
78. After living in Payson for 5 years, we moved to Omaha, Nebraska.
    
79. I really like to sew.
    
80. I really love making spreadsheets and crunching numbers.
    
81. I wish I liked to scrapbook - I haven't even finished my first daughter's baby scrapbook.
    
82. My favorite dessert is ice cream - and the ice cream has to have either chocolate or nuts (or both!) in it.
    
83. My favorite comfort food is mashed potatoes - from scratch.
    
84. My favorite color is green.
    
85. My eyes are green.
    
86. I am a quiet person.
    
87. I avoid confrontation.
    
88. I cry very easily.
    
89. I always feel like crying when I watch one of my kids at a school program or performance - I have no idea why.
    
90. If I didn't dye my hair, it would probably be 30-40% gray! (and I'm only 31 )
    
91. I cook my kids a hot breakfast almost every day (except for weekends)
    
92. I make all my bread from scratch using whole wheat flour that I grind from wheat.
    
93. I almost always have on hand the ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies.
    
94. I love to do step aerobics.
    
95. I would probably do it 2 hours a day if my gym offered it.
    
96. I like to run as well.
    
97. I use a heart rate monitor when I exercise.
    
98. I love to make smoothies with frozen fruit and yogurt.
    
99. I love being a stay at home mom.
    
100. I love staying in touch with old friends with my blog.
     

Whew! I can't believe I finished that. I know the list is pretty random and there is probably some obvious stuff that I left out. But, this is what I came up with. So, there you go. That's more about me than you ever wanted to know :). Maybe this year if I keep up on my blogging it won't take me so long to post another 100 times.

I have a budding artist

whose favorite canvas is beige carpet and whose medium of choice is a dark blue sharpie marker. If I hadn't been so mad I probably would have taken a picture of it. The artist denied any involvement in the "art" but unfortunately for the artist, the drawing was his name and a stick person. This story has a happy ending. Did you know that you can remove sharpie marker with rubbing alcohol? It took half a bottle, some time, and some elbow grease but the carpet is back to it's original state. So, hopefully this artist had learned his lesson. But I needed to learn a lesson too. People are more important than things. And houses with 4 kids living in them will never be perfect.

I resolve...

I made my resolutions very simple this year - ones that I thought I might be fairly successful at achieving. And, I didn't make very many. The first one is I have to do all the dishes before I go to bed (I've been 100% so far!) This may sound easy for most people but for some reason for me it's not. I just have to not let them pile up. At the end of every day, whatever won't fit in the dishwasher, I have to wash by hand. So far, so good. The other one is to log at least 5 hours of exercise a week. I've actually been pretty good at doing this already, I just want to make sure it's at least 5 hours - so those weeks when I'm really busy, I'll have to push myself to squeeze it it. So, that's it. No promises of running a marathon or keeping my house spotless. Just simple, attainable resolutions that I think I can actually stick to.

Christmas Morning Smiles

Well, I thought I better post this before it becomes old news! We had a great Christmas morning. I love to try and capture the looks on every one's faces as they are opening their presents. These were the favorite gifts: Josh, his spiderman sofa; David - he likes everything but I think he really like the Magnetix set, Emma - her animal train - even though we got her a new baby doll, she prefers the very old and tattered one that belongs to Rachel; and Rachel - I think it was the MP3 player. She proudly came home from school on their first day back and said "Everyone cool either got a cell phone, a digital camera, or an mp3 player!" Really, a cell phone for 9 year olds? Anyway, I'm glad she was happy with it. I'm glad that Christmas is finally over and all the holiday decorations are down. Enjoy the slideshow!