Six years ago.....

....this beautiful little gal was born.

It is hard for me to believe that I have a six-year-old! But I sure am glad that this is the one I get to be the mother of.

We had a birthday party for her on Saturday. She wanted a kitty cat party.
Besides her friends, Emily had a few special guests that came to the party all the way from Mesa: Grandma, cousin Lucy....

.....and Aunt Stacy.


This is cute Emily C., Emily's best friend whom she met that very first day of kindergarten.

Upon arrival, the guests colored some kitty pictures. Then they played "Pin the Bow on Hello Kitty." (Notice my amazing artwork. Seriously embarrassing, but kids don't really care, right?)

The next game was "Who has the Ball of Yarn?". All the "kittens" sit in a row and hide a ball of yarn behind one of their backs while the "owner" (the person in the chair) isn't looking. The "owner" then tries to guess who has the ball of yarn.

Then they played "Dog, Dog, Cat".

Then they played "Name that Cat". Dan put together pictures of different cats (tiger, lion, Garfield, Puss in Boots, cheetah, leopard, Sylvester, the Cheshire Cat, the Cat in the Hat, Hello Kitty). The kids were divided into two teams and each team took turns trying to name the cat that came up on the T.V. screen.

This was our favorite game, one Dan and I came up with all on our own. We called it "Clean the Litter Box". A box of popcorn for each team, some Tootsie Rolls.......You do the math.

Dig away, kids! AWESOME!!

Then the kids colored and made this cat face to put onto their goody bags. Can't get enough of my killer art skills, can you?

Emily had requested kitty cupcakes.

It was a fun party (more simplified than Dallin's - we learned from that one!). Emily really was in heaven and it was great to see her enjoying it.

On her actual birthday, she requested cold cereal and fried eggs for breakfast. Yummy!

Then she opened her presents.

She got a very long-awaited Pillow Pet. She saw them for the first time many months ago when her kindergarten class had a pajama/movie day and some of the kids brought theirs. She was in love and has wanted one ever since.

It was from Dallin and she's thanking him for it. She was beyond excited about it.

I'd planned on making a cake, but we had a bunch of cupcakes left over from the party the day before. She was content to do it this way this year.

She said her birthday was the best. We were glad, since she had been anticipating it since her last one. This girl has a lot of zest for life. She's been my right hand man since school got out and is always willing to help me. She loves her little sisters and has such an imagination.

Happy birthday, sweet Emily! We love you!

San Diego Trip Part 2

The next day we went to the Safari Park. It's like the zoo, but more interactive and they have a huge "savannah" where many African animals roam together. It was cool.



The carousel ride. Turns out Megan does not like carousels.

They have a spot where you can buy nectar and feed lorikeets. It was one of the highlights of the park. At first Emily was TOTALLY freaked out. Who wouldn't be with multiple birds flying and flapping right at you? Then she got to where she could sort of relax.

Dallin liked it.

The petting area had deer.

Cute Meg, tired after being up late throwing up the night before.

Proof to posterity that I really was on the trip.

This was another highlight: the cheetah. They brought it out and walked it right past us. We could've touched it. He was beautiful.

The bird show was neat.

This gorilla was about to be a mama. She was on 24-hour watch because she could deliver any day. It was amazing watching them.

The trip was a terrific one, though the ride home was not as smooth as on the way there. 3 days of catnaps had taken its toll on poor Hannah. There was lots of crying, stopping the car, and praying (even a little barfing by Megan again). It was all totally worth it and we have some fun memories.

San Diego Trip Part 1

Last week we drove to San Diego for our summer vacation. It was just our family and my mom (we were SO glad she agreed to come with us - I don't think we'd have survived without her). This was only our second trip of this kind, meaning just our family.

Once we got to the hotel, the kids wanted to go swimming.


We took advantage of the free dinner provided by the hotel. Megan, typically our best eater, refused to eat most of what we offered her except for plain pasta, and some olives and hard boiled eggs from the salad bar.

All 7 of us stayed in one hotel room that had a bedroom with 2 queen beds and a living room area with a sofa bed. We put Emily and Dallin in one of the beds. Danny and I slept in the other one. We also had two play pens set up for Megan and Hannah in the bedroom. My mom slept out in the living room. By the time night came, Hannah's few catnaps throughout the day hadn't been sufficient so she was totally over-tired and wouldn't happily fall asleep in the play pen like she does in her crib at home. To allow the other kids to fall asleep without a crying baby in the room with them, we put her in her carseat, covered it with a blanket, and jiggled her to sleep. Once she was asleep, we quietly put her into the room with the rest of the kids so we could play cards. I'd give her one last late feeding, and that's when we'd move her playpen into the living room with my mom and she slept out there with her. That's what we did each night we were there.

That first night we thought we were pretty awesome for getting all 4 kids to go to sleep without too much trouble. We'd only been playing cards for half an hour when we heard Megan coughing/choking. We went in only to see LOTS of really chunky throw up all over her, her pillow, the sheet, and Bunny. Was it the nasty combo of food she'd eaten at dinner? Or was it aftermath of riding for 7 hours in the very back of the van? We're not sure, but she barfed through her extra pair of jammies, and both Emily and Dallin's as well, not to mention a couple of sets of sheets. Hannah got woken up with all the hullabaloo, so it wasn't the tranquil night we thought we were in for when we sat down to play cards. Luckily, all was quiet by midnight and we were able to go to sleep. Poor baby!

Eating breakfast the next day.

Our whole purpose in going to San Diego was so we could take the kids to the zoo. They loved it.

The first thing we did was take the double-decker bus ride around the zoo.

We ate very delicious, budget-friendly sack lunches: PB&H, grapes, carrot sticks, and Doritos. Yum!


It was wonderful having my mom along. She is just so terrific.


An otter.



At the children's zoo.

We took a ride on the Skyfari. Danny took one for the team when he pushed the stroller across the entire zoo so we wouldn't have to go back and get it later.

It was a really fun ride.

Then on to see the polar bears. Check out how big that footprint is compared to Emily's foot.

Peacocks just roam free.

Orangutans.

Seeing the koalas was one of our favorites. The baby is clinging to the mother's back. It was so cute.

A lemur.

A squirrel monkey, also very adorable.

My favorite animal of the whole day: the black panther. I love big cats.


Just too cute not to put in.

Megamoo and Grandma.


Our last exhibit was the giant panda. He just sat down in perfect view and contentedly munched on his bamboo shoot. We also all really liked seeing him.

It was a great day and we were all pooped by the time we got back to the hotel. No barfs the second night, thank goodness, and Hannah did much better staying asleep the whole evening.