Birthday festivities

Yesterday was my wonderful honey's birthday! Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the festivities, but I hope he had a great one. On Saturday, we had a few friends from our old ward over to celebrate. Sunday was the family party (and another family party the previous Sunday). Then on his real birthday, I got up and made him french toast and bacon for breakfast and Emily gave him her present, which was a silly T-shirt with a pizza and an equation on it.

Then Emmy and I went to campus to take a picnic to Matt for lunch. But poor Emmy has been sick this week and she fell asleep on the way to campus (she NEVER does that!) even though it was an hour before her regular nap time. So we had our picnic in the car.

Then after Matt got home from school, we went to Magelby's for his birthday dinner. We had a really great coupon, so we were able to get 2 dinners, salad, bread, an appetizer and dessert for basically the price of one! Our food was so delicious, and we got so much that we brought home 5 boxes worth! Matt got BBQ pulled pork and I got this tasty chicken pasta stuff. And of course we had to get the chocolate cake! It is THE BEST! And thanks to Kyle for babysitting (aka...doing his homework at our house while Emmy was in bed.)

After we got home I gave Matt his presents. I got him a game of Risk because that is his favorite game. I (really my mom) also fixed his favorite pj pants because they had gotten a big rip in the bum. And we hemmed a couple other of his pj pants into the length he likes. And then we went to bed because Matt has also been sick this week.

Anyway, I hope he had a good birthday because he is so great. I am so thankful that he is my honey and that I get to celebrate his birthday with him!

56

56. That's how many articles I have written since I started working at home. Plus I have done 2 huge online projects. Most of my articles are just short, little articles for ehow.com. Some are kind of boring, and others have been fun. The assignments for ehow are based on what people are searching for online, and have to be pretty general and straightforward. Here are a few articles I have written: "LDS Dating Tips", "How to Make a Chinese Dragon", "The Best Practices for Creating Website Roadmaps."

Anyway, let's just say that some assignments are more enjoyable to write than others, and sometimes it's a struggle to find titles I am at least somewhat interested in writing. It always makes me laugh (and sometimes roll my eyes) to see what people are searching for. I prefer to write the longer features that can actually have some personality and depth. But it's a lot harder to get those assignments. But even though some of my assignments are boring, they do help pay the bills and let me stay home with Em, so I can't complain.

Em's new trick

Yesterday morning I went to get Emmy up and found her STANDING UP in her crib. Holy cow! I didn't think she was old enough to do that.

I also found a tooth poking through yesterday. I am going to miss her little gummy smile. But I suppose a little toothy grin will be cute too. This little girl is going to be walking before we know it!

This the shamrock plant that Matt got me for St. Paddy's Day. It's pretty cool. The shamrocks close up at night and then open again in the morning. Maybe I should take up window gardening as a new hobby. :)

Speaking of new hobbies, I have been trying out some new things to keep myself from getting bored. I made this little pillow for my cousin's little girl for her birthday. I think it turned out pretty cute. I actually had everything to make it sitting around the house. I stuffed it with rice though, and poor Lily could barely pick it up! It was pretty heavy. I guess if I ever do another one, I'll have to just use something lighter.

I have made a few more things, but they are gifts for people that I haven't given them yet, so I can't post pictures yet. But I think they are cute!

8 Months!

Emmy is 8 months today! At 8 months she...

-weighs a little over 17 pounds
-is crawling all over the place
-still does not have any teeth
-loves graham crackers & loves to eat anything we are eating. Especially if it's off our fork instead of hers.
-loves books (she will crawl over to her book bin and pull them out and look at me like she wants me to read it to her. And she will actually sit on my lap and look at about 4 books in a row that I read to her.)
-absolutely refused to nurse at all a couple weeks ago, so it's all formula now, and she has graduated to the fast flow bottles. (this cuts feeding time by about 2/3!) She is still on soy formula since the regular stuff still gives her a rash.
-LOVES her daddy. She will start crawling over toward the door when he comes home.
-is sleeping about 13 hours each night with 2 naps during the day (most days anyway...she still struggles with naps sometimes)
-sleeps with her bum way up in the air.
-can say "da-da", "bo-bo", "hey" and "whoa" but I'm sure she has no idea what it means.
-loves to fly and play patty-cake. She even knows when to throw her arms up in the air.
-can't quite get the hang of drinking out of a cup yet.
-loves to take her socks off and play with them.

Kiss me, I'm cute!

Top 'O the Mornin' To Ye! It's my first St. Paddy's Day. I got a cute new shamrock dress and ate beans and peas. I made sure to spit them all over my mommy so she could be wearing green too.

She likes to take my picture, but I like to make it hard for her by not smiling and trying to grab the camera. She tried 52 times, and this is all I would give her. I also had a cute bow on my head, but I took it off and ate it before my mom could take any pictures of me wearing it. Who needs a leprechaun when you can cause so much mischief all by yourself! I may not be Irish, but I sure am stubborn!

At least I have a cute little froggy on my bum. And at least I am cute and get lots of kisses from my mommy even though I'm not Irish.

I thought I'd do a little Irish jig for you to celebrate. It's called the Blarney Crawl. And I didn't even forget to include an authentic Irish belch at the end. I'm just so festive like that.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

And the winner is

Remember when I was trying to choose a bike jersey a few weeks ago? Well, I found some non-race-specific ones online that I liked but I couldn't decide which to get. So I ordered 5 of them so I could see them in person. (I know that is crazy!) But here they all are. I'm going with the green one in the bottom right corner of the picture. And the rest are getting returned. :)

Run for a Cure

We did the Rex Lee Run again this year. It was Em's first race! She did great. She loves her stroller. We tag-teamed the stroller pushing. Thanks to Matt who took his turn on the ginormous hill. :) This race is sponsored by the Cancer Research Center, and all the proceeds go toward future research. We ran in honor of Dad, Grandma & Grandpa L, Grandma B, Grandma S, Grandpa R, and Zac.