It's Time...

Goodbye 30 lbs. of extra baby weight. We have shared a long road together. You entered my life easily and have been a constant companion this past year. I'm sorry to tell you though, I'm kicking you to the curb. My baby, Josh, is now nearly a year old and I no longer need you. I'm sick of lugging you around, having you cling to my clothes. I'm just going to come out and say it: I am ready to let you go.

I joined Gold's Gym today and even have a personal trainer, Kenton. He's going to help me kick my butt into shape and hopefully a couple months from now I'll have a smokin' hot bod. I wasn't too sure if I would join because I thought it was pretty spendy and it's not super close to our house... but I went for a tour today and spoke with a couple people and now I'm sold. I will only pay about $25/mo for a 3 year membership. This includes the classes and even daycare for the kids. I'm paying a little extra for my trainer but to me it's worth it. I'm ready to get down and dirty and need a pro to guide me along. I want to run the Salt Lake City 1/2 marathon next year and I think this will definitely help me get there.

Goodbye baby fat! I won't miss you at all!!

Emma's Dance Class & Ben's T-Ball

Emma had her first dance class Tuesday and she LOVED it. She is the youngest in her class and it definitely shows, but she didn't care. When it was time to go she started crying because she wanted to stay and keep dancing. She gets distracted pretty easily and mostly just jumps around to the music, but that's to be expected from a 3-year old. Her group is learning a dance to Chicken Noodle Soup by DJ Webstar (see attached video clip.) She can do a few of the moves as long as the teacher is in the front, showing her what to do. I'm just happy she enjoys it. We are going to get her enrolled this fall, maybe do tumbling and a ballet/tap/jazz class. Ben and I were watching her and Ben looked at me and said "Mom, Emma is REALLY good. Maybe she will get a trophy!" It was so cute. I'm glad the kids love and support each other so much.

































Ben's t-ball coach spoke with Jake last week and said Ben could come get his shirt and hat any time so we stopped by last night. It was the team's 4th game and Ben was dying to go out and play. I thought I would let him bat one inning and see how it went. He hit the ball and flew around the bases. Even though he couldn't field the ball (can't wear the mitt), he still begged me to stay the whole game so he could bat each inning. I figured with his cast on, he would be okay (these 5 & 6 year olds don't get too physical!) He had a blast and told me at the end how he "LOVES this game!" I think we will definitely be going back each game now, at least so he can bat. His last game is the 7th and he gets his cast off the 9th. Oh well, at least he can play somewhat. Emma kept him company while his team went on the field and Josh kept busy finding every piece of garbage on the ground and putting it in his mouth. Overall, it was a great night, I just wish Jake could have been there (he was at scouts.) I'm glad my kids are happy and involved in fun activities they really enjoy.

Lime Green Cast

Ben was counting down the minutes today until we headed up to Primary Children's Hospital to get his cast put on. Dr. Christopher Morgan, an orthopedic surgeon resident, was the one who put on the cast. He was really nice and answered all of our questions, and he even asked Emma about her hip hop dance class (Emma was ready to tell him her life story!) When asked what color Ben wanted for his cast he said, "lime green!" It took about 5 minutes to get it on and then we were ready to go. It's waterproof and so he can go swimming and bathe with it on. We paid $25 extra for it but to all of us, especially Ben, it's worth it! The best news though is the doctor thinks he will only need it on for 3 weeks (half the time we were expecting.) So, July 9th at 11am he should get it off. Ben is excited to get his friends to write on it.

As we were heading out the door I overheard the receptionist tell someone they had over 160 kids scheduled to come in today, either to get a cast on or taken off. CRAZY! I guess it's that time, kids are out playing more and busting arms and legs left and right. Hopefully we won't have to go through this again with any of our kids... knock on wood!

Loving Memory Mixer

I used some of my birthday money to buy digital scrapbooking software (yes, I'm turning towards the dark side!) I'm so far behind with my kids' scrapbooks that I figure this is the only way to get them done and stay on top of it. I noticed my friend's blog was really cute and saw she used Memory Mixer to make some of her pages. It came in the mail on Saturday and I've been having fun putting some pages together. Ben used the Family Tree page on Sunday for sharing time. The second page is of Emma and her best friend, Katelyn, who moved to Muncie, Indiana two weeks ago. Anyway, if any of you are searching for easy and cute digital scrapbooking software, this is it. (Thanks, Lindsey for the recommendation!)

Try This Out

My father-in-law sent this to Jake yesterday. I did it this morning and was blown away by how accurate the personality test was. Here are just a few things it said about me that I thought were spot on:

You're romantic in your outlook. You can be a little nostalgic and you like landscapes that make you feel calm. For you music is all about joining in and expressing yourself. Music is a really positive force in your life- and a big release if you're feeling stressed. You have a real passion for life. For you, friendship is all about enjoying yourself and seeing the funny side of life.

Give it a try and see what you think. Just click on the one picture, in your opinion, that matches the statement above.

Poor Ben!

So, yesterday we had Jake's family over for my birthday. Within 10 minutes of everyone getting here, Ben got hurt and was crying hysterically and wouldn't calm down. He said he was running around with his cousins and he fell on his arm. My mother-in-law said it was broken and we should take him to Insta-Care. I didn't think it was that bad at first, but when Ben didn't wipe his tears and jump up to play with his cousins after a minute, I figured something was wrong. Jake and his dad took Ben to the doctor while the rest of us cooked dinner and ate. Jake called after two hours and said Ben fractured his olecranon, the end of the ulna bone (one of the two forearm bones.) Also, the bone looked like it was dislocated from the x-ray so the doctor sent them to Primary Children's to have a specialist look at it. The doctor at Primary's said it wasn't bad enough to need surgery and he just needed a permanent cast put on. I made an appointment with the orthopedic office at Primary's for the 18th. I was told they wait that long for the swelling to go down. If they don't and put it on right away, once the swelling goes down the cast won't fit properly and that could be dangerous for his healing arm. Poor Ben has his first t-ball game tonight (which obviously he won't be playing this month.) We were also going to swim at the Mangum's house which is out of the question until he gets his waterproof cast on next week. Right now he thinks it's cool but both Jake and I agree he won't feel the same after a couple weeks of this.

Jake told me the whole day reminded him of the Office episode where it was Michael's birthday and he gets frustrated because he wanted it to be "his day" and Kevin, a co-worker, finds out he might have skin cancer on the same day and is waiting for the news. When Michael finds out Kevin might have skin cancer he says "Oh great! That's just horrible news... for the both of us." Then he hurries into his office and slams the door. As extreme as that was, it felt a little like that. The whole day was rather chaotic. I went to bed late the night before so was pretty tired all day. Jake and I got in a fight in the morning (over choir practice of all things.) The printer/scanner/fax he bought me for my birthday wouldn't work (it still doesn't work and we can't figure it out.) Dinner was scheduled for 5pm and we didn't get home from church until 4:45pm so it was a little crazy when we got home. Josh was in a clingy mood and wouldn't let anyone touch him except me. Then Ben broke his arm. There were some other things that happened too that just sort of put me over the edge. I felt more emotional than usual (probably due to being tired) so overall it wasn't a great day.

On a more positive note, though, dinner was wonderful (thanks Jan, Katie, & Mel.) I felt cute because I got a cut and color on Saturday. Jake made me crepes for breakfast... YUM! He also bought me a new digital camera. It's a Canon PowerShot A650IS with 12.1 megapixels and a 6x optical zoom and I'm excited to read the manual and start taking great pics with it. I received a cute clock from Tyler and Allison and money from Katie and Jake, Ryan and Mel, and Jan and Dale (thanks guys!) My visiting teaching companion, Wendy, gave me a cute card with a present attached. Justin and Collette, Ashleigh, and my parents called to wish me a happy birthday. I also received 2 e-mails and 2 birthday cards from friends. So, I guess the day wasn't all that bad. ;)

Happiest Place On Earth...

No, I'm not talking about Disneyland. I'm talking about our local Jiffy Lube. Jake has been gone at Scout Camp this week so I figured I would get a few nagging errands done while he was gone. #1 on my list was to get oil changes for both cars. Well, on Thursday we took the van in and the kids were in heaven. This is the nicest Jiffy Lube I have ever been to (and I've been to quite a few of them.) There is a train table with tons of Thomas trains to play with, a fire engine ride, a plasma screen playing Nemo, and the best thing of all: there is a big window overlooking the car wash and from the inside there are two stands where the kids can push a button and squirt the cars with pink and blue soap. They LOVED that and would scream out "Look, here comes another one!!" each time another car started coming. They were very excited when we came back again today to get Jake's car done. The service is quick and everyone is very friendly. The bathrooms are nicer than many hotel bathrooms I've been in. The floor is clean enough that I didn't mind Josh crawling around on it. Also, there were cameras showing a top view and bottom view of your car while people were working on it and you could watch from a plasma screen in the lobby area. Also, you get a free basic car wash with your oil change. I highly recommend this place and I'm just happy it's only 2 1/2 miles from our house. The Jiffy Lube is located at 989 N. Hwy 89 in North Salt Lake and is called the Bountiful Firehouse Station. (And yes, I took a pic of the bathroom. Weird, I know, but I wanted you to see just how clean and nice it is... definitely not something you would expect at an oil change place!)