Emma's First Date

Emma has been betrothed to approximately one dozen eligible suitors.

But, you know how it goes in the fairy tales...

The princess always ends up with the prince of HER choosing.

For now, she has chosen Roman. He has stolen her heart.

His mom, Erin, was kind enough to watch Emma while I helped JJ with a wedding dress fitting. She helped them into their little recliner, popped some popcorn, turned on a movie... and the two lovebirds enjoyed a pleasant morning together. SO CUTE.

Roman (and his parents) are also kind enough to keep Emma occupied and entertained during most sacrament meetings.

Please note that in the top pic Emma has BOTH of her hands in the bowl of popcorn and in the second picture she has BOTH of her hands in her mouth. She comes genetically predisposed to GORGING on yummy food.

Even as I sit and write this post, she is on my lap begging for more pictures of Roman.

On a completely different tangent, a few nights ago during our prayer over dinner, she started off with both arms folded reverently. When I snuck a peak mid-way through the prayer, she had her left arm folded gently over her stomach and her right arm was MADLY shoving her dinner in, as if it would walk away if she didn't INHALE it NOW. What's a girl to do when she is so spiritual, but also so hungry? :)

Ready, Ready, Ready, Ready - Ready To Run

Dear (crazy) running friends,

I started running outside, on the open road (errr...sidewalk) last week. All went well, loved the change of scenery, but almost DIED of dehydration because I didn't bring water with me.

I have been running on the treadmill for so long, that I forgot I would not have a handy dandy cup holder close to my side once I left the comfort of my moving rubber slate.

How do you stay hydrated while you run? Camelbak? Water Bottle? Waist Pack? What do you prefer and why? And how much did "said item" cost you?

Please Help!

Parched and Puzzled,
Tammy

PS - I know it hurt a lot of you to hear that I really hate running, and I will update you to know that I now "tolerate" it. I still love biking and swimming WAY WAY WAY WAY more, but it's become like a loveable wart. I don't like that it's there, but since it's stuck, I've learned to deal.

Showering the Bride

[Cue Music]
JJ's gettin' married in September,
Ding Dong the bells are gonna chime...

When I moved to Arizona in 2000 after just graduating from BYU, I was nervous, scared and excited to start a new chapter in my book of life.

My Uncle Wayne was in the Bishopric of a singles ward and on the very first weekend I went to one of their ward parties.

At this ward party, my Aunt Sharron (pictured above) said to me, "Tammy, I'd like you to meet this cute girl JJ, I think she's going to be your best friend."

JJ immediately made me feel loved, welcomed and was HYSTERICAL. In fact, later that week JJ got me a job at her insurance company, where we worked together for two years.

And as "they" say... THE REST IS HISTORY.

After many long years of singlehood, JJ has met a wonderful man Zac, and they are getting married on September 12th in Oregon.

Yesterday was her bridal shower, of which I had the honor of throwing.

For 120 people.

JJ and I like to party.

We rented out the clubhouse in her town home community and hosted a "dessert" shower, where many wonderful ladies brought their favorite desserts to share.

For the party favors, I typed up all of the recipes for guests to take home. I'm excited to add them to my collection, because DANG. There were so many good ones.

We ate together, watched a pre-recorded "Soon to Be Newleywed" Game Show with JJ and Zac and she opened LOTS of presents.

How blessed I am to have this wonderful friend in my life. She is truly an incredible woman and I am so happy for her and her upcoming wedding.

The Family That Plays Together...

STAYS TOGETHER!

Here are Daddy and Emma on their nightly playtime excursion to the "bailbox" or mailbox in adult language. This little 5 minute trip every evening lights up her little face for hours.

As my faithful blog readers know, we received a homemade ice cream machine for our birthdays a few weeks ago. On the evening of celebration, my SIL Michelle suggested, NAY challenged, the entire family to an Ice Cream Competition. Bring It Sister! BRING IT.

This world class competition was held last Sunday night at our home, with a BBQ preceding the festivities. As I take my desserts VERY seriously, this competition was no exception. We turned to our trusty "Ben and Jerry's" ice cream recipe book for ideas and found a homemade Mint Oreo, which I knew was a winning combination.
A picture of the innocent bystanders unaware of the "fight to the death" race happening in the kitchen. Oh to be young and innocent again.

Kurt and Tara brought an interesting element with the "roll your ice cream on the ground" ice cream machine. It yielded excellent results. Their concoction included strawberries, brownies and chocolate. YUM.

Here are the contenders.

In addition to ours and the rolly polly creation, Mom Adams brought a fantastic homemade strawberry (probably my favorite of the night), and the Jeff/Michelle team made a spectacular oreo/brownie ice cream. And where it lacked in consistency (more like a shake) it made up for AMPLY in taste. YUM YUM YUM!!

Don't worry this was our "First Annual" Ice Cream Competition... so start preparing NOW and you can join us next year. Start saving your recipes and your calories, cause your gonna need them for this FIERCE evening.
And what would a summer be without a cute little baby in a cute little bikini?

I know, I know - I'm a horrible mother who is instilling inappropriate values in my impressionable daughter. But, guess what? Her belly hanging out over her bottoms, trumps whatever guilt trip you are about to lay on me.

I'll start the modest dress when she is out of diapers and her bum doesn't look so cute.


And the last bit of "playing" our family continues to do is our triathlon training. Yes, we are still training and yes it is going well. In fact, so well, that on Saturday we completed almost the entire triathlon in a "dry run". We were only 3.5 miles short on the bike, and otherwise we finished it all. We are pretty slow at this point, but are hoping to improve our time before the big Thanksgiving Day event. It has been a lot of FUN! I'd encourage anyone out there to join us in the craze.

18 months of JOY!

This is one of "those" posts.

You know the kind.

"I'm really horrible at writing in a baby book, so I'll capture some of it here."

So.... here's to 18 months with our precious Emma. She really is such a delightful child (*except for my birthday, see previous post, which was a horrible twist of fate).

• She loves her "Signing Times" videos. And is able to sign about 30-40 words and speak them. Her favorite video is about the colors and involves rainbows. Ever since viewing the video she has become obsessed with rainbows and sings with GUSTO "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" with Greg and I.
• She loves walking to the mailbox with Daddy at night. She will frequently find Greg in the evening and say, "walk. bail box. peese."
• She still loves shoes and socks. She tries on about 15 pairs a day. But as soon as we get in the car, off go the shoes and her chanting, "wee, wee, wee..."
• Emma also loves glasses and will rip them off of any unsuspecting person who is holding her. Many a stranger at church has had their glasses pulled off by her.
• She LOVES baths and when I pull her out, I wrap her up in her soft towel and cuddle her in my arms like an infant saying "oh... what a sweet baby..." - she has picked up on this, and now when I wrap her in the towel, even before I have begun cuddling, she says "ohhh... baby".

• Emma loves to have lotion put on and now loves to put it on herself. If ever she spies a bottle of lotion ANYWHERE in the house, she cries, "wash, wash, wash" until we give her a little on her hand that she can rub all over her face and legs. Then she promptly returns to us for "more, more, more, wash, peese."
• We sing to her before her naps and bedtime. We sing the same songs every night, so she has started to become quite familiar with them and will sing the last word of each line with forced vibrato and a ton of enthusiasm. She also sings lots of other songs with us and loves the actions that go along. Her favorites are "Wheels on the Bus" and "Itsty Bitsy Spider" - but she knows about a dozen.
• Another "Signing Time" video has airplanes in it, and she has now become a CIA operative in charge of locating planes in the sky. I'm telling you, she has some kind of weird sixth sense and can hear them and see them when they are TEENY WEENY dots in the sky. Many times I won't see the airplane until LONG after she has screamed "pane, pane..."
• She associates adults with their children or pets and will refer to them as such. She calls JJ, Alex. And calls my Aunt Sharron, Maggie (her dog). When she hears my Mom on the phone, she asks for Uncle Glen. She saw her Aunt Tara a few nights ago and called her Taytum. When I was talking to Aunt Gina on the phone, she started screaming, "Anna, Anna".

• When we ask her how old she is, she holds up one finger and says "two"... because she can't get the "counting component" out of her head. When we say, no, you are ONE, she says TWO and is very proud of her accomplishment.
• She can spell her name... sort of. We ask her to spell her name and she says "E...mumble mumble, mumble... A" And then says proudly, "EMMA!" Nice that we chose a short, simple name that makes it easy on her. Next task is her middle name Margaret. hee hee.
• In my family, we play the game "Who Loves ____ ?" followed by "I do". She picked up on this one VERY quickly and LOVES to play. Who loves Daddy? To which she screams, "I do"! Recently, she has started playing on her own when she wakes up in the morning. We will hear.... "mumble, mumble, Kucky.... I do! mumble mumble Grandpa... I do! mumble mumble Mommy... I do!" It is so funny to hear the names she chooses to use in the game.
• She still enjoys Skyping family and screams with delight when she sees people on the computer screen. Such a wonderful invention for staying in touch with long distance family.
• She went into the nursery a few weeks ago. We thought she would go in like a champ because she is such a social butterfly, but she has actually had a difficult time letting us go. Two weeks ago, I had to stay in there the whole time. Last week Greg left her, and she cried for about 5 minutes and was fine. Our nursery leaders are GREAT and I hope that soon she will not have the screaming fits. It's a little embarrassing.

• The fridge ledge is her favorite perch. As soon as the fridge door opens, she comes sprinting into the kitchen, shoves me out of the way and promptly plops down on the fridge. She tries with the freezer as well, but is not as thrilled with this options as it is usually too cold for her.
• As soon as we pull into our neighborhood she yells, "We're Home. We're Home. We're Home"!
• She is our little parakeet and repeats every word our of our mouth. Guess I better watch what comes out of my mouth now. :)

WE LOVE OUR ANGEL EMMA!!!