A Girl After My Own Heart

Emily was recently introduced to ABBA's hit song "Dancing Queen". It is currently her favorite song and she's requested it just about every day. (Other songs that have made her fave list in the past: "How 'bout them Cowgirls", "Hotel California", and "Yellow Submarine"). It goes without saying that when that song plays, everyone dances. You just can't help it.

I love that Emily loves this song! It's definitely one of my favorites too and takes me way back to my first semester at BYU when I roomed with my two cousins, Nancy and Natalie. We played ABBA a ton and "Dancing Queen" will always remind me of those great girlies. I look back on that semester as one of the sweetest, funnest times in my life.

A few semesters later, I roomed with 5 other terrific girls: Anna, Heidi, Megan, Gina, and Stephanie. Again, ABBA was played perpetually, usually at full blast. I think dance parties occured probably every night in good ol' apartment 17. Our friendships are still strong. In fact, this spring we're all getting together for our second roommate reunion. Can't wait, ladies!

Spreading the LOVE

In the form of frosting.

On Saturday, I took some sugar cookie dough out of the freezer (from our Christmas cookie escapades), rolled it out, cut out the hearts, baked them, and made frosting when everyone was napping. We decorated them on Valentine's Day after church. As we predicted, the kids went overkill on both the frosting and the sprinkles, but they loved every minute of it.

The finished product. They're not the prettiest things in the world thanks to little hands, but they taste good. Too good, in fact. I keep eating them just because they're there.

Snow Day Continued

Here's to the snowiest day in Dallas history. I guess it is rare to have snow like this as it had been decades since anything close to this amount had fallen. The news reported over a foot of snow in some areas. Our yard had 8 inches. It snowed all day yesterday and the weather lady predicted it would continue till midnight. This beatiful scene is what greeted us this morning.

After dinner last night Danny, being the great dad that he is, bundled the kids up the best he could and took them out back to play. I'm too much of a wimp to do all that work for such a short time - and I loathe being cold. None of them had gloves, so the fun could only last so long. They all loved it, though.

As we were going to bed last night I reminded Danny that when we were in Dallas for his internship during the summer of '07, they had the rainiest summer in 80 years. And now record snow. I really hope this spring we don't experience any record-setting tornado season!

Snow Day

This is what we saw outside at morning's first light.

The good news: we don't have to go anywhere today.

The bad news: we don't own a stitch of snow clothing.

This is the third snowstorm this winter for the Dallas area. I don't know if that's unusual or not, but prior to moving here I assumed Texas had pretty mild winters. Either way, this Arizona girl is definitely ready for warmer, sunnier, play-outside-able weather.

RIP Bun Bun?

The other day I was feeding Megan lunch when out our kitchen window just a few yards from us, I see THIS - a Harris' Hawk - land on our fence just a few yards from us.

My first reaction was one of excitement and I quickly called the kids over to check it out. We were all marveling at it when it dawned on me that this could be disastrous for our little Bun Bun. The hawk flew away after maybe 20 seconds or so of hanging out on our fence. That's when I decided to investigate. From the back window it appeared that Bun Bun was not in his usual little spot in the grass. Out the side window in the grass where the hawk had just been was the gruesome evidence of a fresh kill. Fur, guts, blood, a carcass ripped to shreds. The kids were devastated and we mourned deeply for maybe a half an hour.

I decided to actually go outside to check if Bun Bun was in his spot because sometimes he get so low to the ground it just looks the dirt he lays on. Much to our surprise, Bun Bun was there! The hawk had killed some other rabbit from who knows where. Maybe we had two rabbits? Our grief turned into celebration that Bun Bun had tricked that hawk with his camouflage. A while later he was gone and I went outside just to be sure. That's when I saw the hawk again flying around, then perch on the house across the street. There was a little fur by Bun Bun's spot and again we thought the worst, worried all afternoon. Fortunately, Danny spotted him under the shrubs by our front door when he came home from work. Talk about a roller coaster of emotions!

We haven't seen him since, though. Emily has prayed for his safety, but you never know. If he truly has gone the way of all the earth, may he rest in peace. If not, may he live a long and prosperous life in a new, safer location!