Family Photos 2014

Photo Credit: Mae Ewing, Mae's Moments Photography

Halloween 2014

1 store bought costume + 1 store bought candy pail + 1 creativity lost (stress-free) mom + 1 happy daddy (in love with no stress) + 1 excited little snow white + 1 candy cannon = 1 very successful evening!

This is pretty much what we did all evening...sit and wait for the candy cannon to go off. In her mind it was more productive to get 1 piece of candy per minute versus several via the trunk or treat method. That or it was the thrill of the hunt!

The Princess Diaries - Entry #1

Emily: "Mom, when you grow up you're gonna go to the hospital and die. And when I grow up and turn out babies, you're gonna put a baby blanket on me and I will cry."


Guess you can never be too early on planning for the future.

Mom! Mom! Mooooom!!!!

There’s not a single piece of paper that’s safe in our house. Everything from grocery lists to church Sunday school lessons, to pads and notebooks – it’s all getting covered in letters, words, and random drawings of people. In fact, for the first time in years, I’m actually doing something with paper and markers that I haven’t done – I’m actually buying them. 2 packs of paper: Check! 1 pack of markers: Check! Endless hours of entertainment: Double Check!!

The below drawing actually cracked Emily up and sent her giggling her hind-end off at the ingeniousness of it. Sadly for me, it’s a very real tale of my life. A cute little curly-haired girl screaming out my name over and over… 

The Tale of Two Restrooms

Since we started Kindergarten we have become obsessed with public restrooms. They are wonderful and fascinating and we just looove any chance we can get to discuss boys...girls...and where everyone's appropriate place is. Of course this means that daddy gets to be reminded that he goes to the boys restroom and mommy and Emily should always go to the girls restroom. Daddy is a boy...Emily is a girl...etc. Emily has even provided a nice system of separation at home. The only problem is, daddy doesn't seem to follow his restroom assignments - he keeps using the master bathroom (aka: the girls restroom).  

For me, her obsession only became more apparent today as I opened her daily folder. Inside I found a picture that Emily was very proud to tell me everything about...

Emily: "It's a restroom! There's boys and girls"...(insert light chuckle here)

Of course what I love is if you look close enough, you can see what I imagine is someone running to go potty (I suppose no "restroom" picture would be complete without it); and her excitement for the world of public restrooms is only stronger with her new found knowledge of how to spell and write "Boys" (hence the proud usage of "boy" in the upper right corner). We now write it all. the. time.

The really great news is now mom and dad get to visit public restrooms even more than before. It's okay if you find yourself a little jealous.

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In other news, I was informed today that a certain someone is going to get to join one of the class reading groups.

I can't tell you how much we've loved seeing her eyes light up as her love for letters and words has been rekindled. This year is going to be a blast to watch.

Baptism

Grown-up School??!

One of our struggles lately is that nothing is panning out for our little family. We feel directed down one path just to find out half-way down the road that we need to make a u-turn (in your mind you swear you can hear “just kiddddding!"). I’m sure Heavenly Father has a point to all of this and I’m hoping at some point it will all make sense to me. Until then, I’m keeping my beak shut on our life’s happenings. Not much point…for all I know it’ll probably change next year.

So without going into detail, below is a conversation that Richard had with Emily.

Dad: “Emily, you know how you’re going to school here soon.”

Emily: “Yeah, I go to school.”

D: “Well daddy is also going to go to school.”

E: “Oh! Ok! You sit next to me.”

D: “No. Daddy is going to go to a different school.”

E: “Noooo…”

D: “Yeah, daddy is going to go to a grown-up school!”

E: “Grown-up school??! (giggles)…Nooo you’re going to sit next to me!”

Thankfully there is such a thing as “grown-up school”, because I see how these two act when they are sitting next to each other in the pew during sacrament meeting…

5 and Ready for the World!

Emily Loves:

• Swimming pools and playgrounds.
• Eating tacos, pizza, and anything with gobs of sugar.
• Visits to the “food store” (i.e. Chick-fil-a or McDonalds) so she can play in the jungle gyms.
• Quick visits to Sonic for slushies.
• Getting the chance to paint her nails, apply eye shadow and lip gloss.
• Swim suits are always her clothing of choice.

Emily is pretty proud of the number 5 and thinks that we should have everything in increments of 5. She’s beyond excited for school and can’t wait until she gets to walk in and “find lots of friends”. She is always talking and saying the most random stuff and she has one very “free” personality that can drive a momma crazy…In fact, it’s considered a good day if I’m not asking her to put on clothes or underwear. “Momma, the tummy neeeeds to be freeee!!”

Gregg Popovich

Gregg Popovich-

Wikipedia references Gregg Popovich as an "American basketball coach who is currently the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs." It further states:

"Taking over as coach of the Spurs in 1996, Popovich is the longest tenured active coach in the NBA [as well as the NFL, NHL, and MLB]. He is often referred to as 'Coach Pop' or simply 'Pop'. He has won 4 NBA championships and has the most consecutive winning seasons of any NBA couch."


Although difficult to pronounce, there are several well known resources that outline the exact pronunciation for Mr. Popovich. Including Em-tionary.com. Run by one of the leading experts in pronunciation, the founder, Emily has listed the following as the "proper" pronunciation.

@itch (@ĭch)
Proper Noun

1. A surname of Slavic origin.

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Em-tionary also provides the following context where *ahem*...@itch can be (and "may" have been) used:

Emily (while watching a Spurs game): "Where's @itch?"
Mom: "Excuse me??!"
E: "Where's @itch?"
M (breathing slowly...brain wheels smoking...all trying to figure out what's really being said): "Umm...do you mean 'Where's POPovich?"
E: "Yeah!"
M: "He's there somewhere. Emily, it's pronounced POP-O-VICH. Say it. POP-O-VVVVich."
E: "Popovich?? No. @itch!"
M: "Umm...No. POP-OOOO-VVVVich! @itch, isn't a nice word. It's Popovich. Say it."
E: "Popovich??"
M: "Yes!! Good job!"

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Sooo...any questions?

A Bit of Frozen Perspective

What I see...
 

 What Emily sees...

 

What I see...

What Emily sees...

Emily is Elsa and Elsa is Emily. And the music is everything!

Tickling the Ivories

Since acquiring a piano back in October (see previous post), I've pleasantly noticed that Emily has a real fascination for the instrument and possibly a real talent for music like her grandma. It only took me a few months of hearing her "tickle" the keys (sometimes pretty good for a novice 4-year old), before I knew I wanted to get her into lessons to see where her talents and fascination would go.


We have 2 lessons behind us now, and already from the first to the second lesson we have seen a change in her. It's exciting to see her face light up when she plays and we can't wait to see what it's like to sit in a recital come June. One very proud mama here!

Patchwork Quilt Home

In 2006 we purchased the perfect starter home - a 3 bedroom 1 bath house that we were sure was only going to be ours for 5 or so years. Fast forward 7 1/2 years and many many life memories, trials, ups and downs and we've come to the conclusion that our tiny starter home will be ours for the long haul. What started out as a simple "patchwork quilt" house complete with multi-textured walls, painted counter tops, and multi-painted layered cabinets, has slowly grown into what we call home.

We have renovated every single room - re-texturing walls, installing new floors, and even resurfacing the kitchen cabinets. Each renovation has brought with it a new adventure and an opportunity to grow our skills and our marriage.

Our latest adventure came when my mom moved in. The new addition to our home tipped the scale on available room and we outgrew our space. So in late October we began the process of enclosing our garage. The one and only room that we had yet to touch and update.

So after months and months of living in a construction zone, we are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. There's still a lot left to do, but I look forward to getting out of the spare bedroom and planting our roots in our new space...and it even comes with my own master bath. Woop!

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Emily is the first to announce that she is "daddy's helper"...

My soon to be master bath with adjoining master closet...

When we began discussing bathroom sinks I knew instantly that I wanted something unique. We knew exactly what that "unique" was going to be when we saw an old dining room table at a resale shop. The table was green and hideous, but the bones underneath were perfect and we knew it would be awesome re-purposed. 

This is only the start (we need to get the feet worked out...we want a really tall sink), but the sink will be awesome once we're finally done.
 

We've pretty much tapped out our budget so we'll be holding off on trim and bedroom flooring, but I don't mind. It's going to be wonderful just having a space that actually fits a queen size bed!