I may have gone a little overboard planning this party, but how could I not?  Hannah is just so dang ADORABLE.

Big tent?  Check.

Good food?  Check.

Barbie cake?  Check.

Warm water in the pool? Check.

Lot’s of friends?  Check.

Yes.  Oh yes.  I made this cake.  (Stop snickering right now, you know I have culinary skills when I apply myself.)

Turns out, doll cakes are pricey, (OK, pricey is relative, so pricey for a “recently graduated from medical school” family) so instead of buying one, (I may have gasped at the price at the bakery, but after I made the cake, I would have charged five times that much!) I decided to make one.

How hard could it be?  Seriously?

One very unsuccessful bunt cake later, I ended up buying two angel food cakes and layering them.  Decorating was the easy part, getting Barbie the right height without chopping off her body, was the difficult part.

Everyone had a great time, and I heard the cake was delicious.  (I felt like trash that day, so I didn’t eat one thing.  Just looking at Hannah’s cake made me want to vomit.)

Hannah is one sweet little girl and she had a fabulous time with her “too many” friends.

Happy birthday Hannah!

Every Monday night this summer, we have attended concerts in the amphitheater.

Sometimes, Hannah gets really into the music, and feels compelled to dance for everyone.

It’s adorable.

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When Pigs Fly . . .

I can’t say that statement to my kids to drive a point home because they pointed out a pig in the sky on our way to a parade!

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I can only imagine how our kids are going to react when we take them to Disneyland someday . . .

Because these little carnival rides had them bursting out of their own skin in excitement.

Check out Dallin’s face!  I swear he’s having the time of his life . . . he just hasn’t told his face yet!

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I love this picture . . .

Nothing. and I mean nothing, makes my heart explode out of my chest like this.  I love to hear Dallin yell, “HAND” to Hannah.  Oh. My.  Heck.  They hold hands all the time when we’re driving.  This makes the trip pleasant for everyone.

Dang.  Why do kid have to be so cute?

Oh.  My.  I think I’m going to barf right now.

Last week, I took Hannah to the dentist to get a cavity filled.  You know what I was thinking, “LUCKY ME!”

She had to get ONE cavity filled. One cavity mind you.

When we walked into the office, Hannah was elated to find toys, and people to talk to.  When they called our name, Hannah skipped over to the dental assistant and promptly said, “My name is Hannah!”

She then hopped right into the chair and crossed her legs, settling back into a comfortable position.  I kept thinking, “Oh my, she has NO IDEA what’s in store!”  And then I started to panic, thinking that I WOULD be the parent she looked at as the one who deceived her!  The one who took her to her doom!   The one who ruined her sweet innocent life!  Oh my heck!  Why was I on dentist duty?  There are two of us!  Hello?  Where is David when dental duty calls?

The dental assistant told Hannah she needed to take a picture of her teeth, and Hannah smiled and said, “My mommy is a photo-grapher!  She takes TOO MANY pictures!”  She then held up all ten fingers and blinked them several times to convey her message.

Looking at her x-rays, Hannah needed FOUR cavities filled.

Seriously, I was all, could you just hand me the gas and put me out for this session?  Heaven help this dentist.

The dentist walked in, chatted with Hannah, put the gas on her, and went to town.  She watched Cars (the movie) on the flat screen panel on the ceiling . . .  relaxed as a cool cat.

Quiet as can be, and giggling at the movie.  Not once did she un-cross her legs from her comfy position.  After the dentist gave her a couple of shots, the dentist asked her a question and she said, “No thank you.”

WHAT?  Where is the trauma?  Where is the fear?  Is she not going to grow up hating and fearing dentists like the rest of the world?

40 minutes later, her mouth was as good as new.

As I walked out to settle my $995 bill, the girl behind the desk told me I was not going to be charged, and that the services were complimentary.

Oh.  My.

I don’t fear or hate the dentist anymore.  In fact, I quite like him!  Thank you Mr. Dentist for taking pity on my life as the wife of a recently graduated medical student, and thank you Hannah for making his job so easy and tipping the scale in our favor.

Gosh, and I was just starting to think that life basically sucked and that most people were selfish jerks.

Well, shut my mouth.

Speaking of mouths . . . here are some notable comments from Hannah in the last few weeks:

“Why Did the Easter Rabbit bring me a broken movie?”  (The DVD she got for Easter is scratched.) He SHOULDN’T DO THAT!

“Mom!  You can just drop me off!  You don’t have to stay!” (I took her to visit the kindergarten class my sister teaches and Hannah was mortified that I was hanging around.  She totally thinks she’s as big as all the other kids, and who taught her it’s not cool to have your mom go to school with you?!)

“Mom, if you told me a lie, we would have to talk about it.”

“My tears are too wet!  I can’t even talk!”

“Mommy, if you die, then daddy will marry a really nice step-mother.”  (WHAT THE HECK?!?!  David and I have NO idea where she came up with this.)

“I’m not a doctor.  Only daddy is a doctor.  I’m just a super hero.”

“Mommy!  We can’t forget to pray!  Heavenly Father will be so sad if he doesn’t hear my sweet little voice!  Mommy!  YOU.  SHOULD.  NOT.  FORGET!”  (I almost forgot her night time prayer during one bed time routine.  Heaven help me to never forget again!)

“Look!  My tithing built that temple!”  (Hannah, confident the Draper temple was built on the 80 cents she paid in tithing last month.)

“Mommy are you not perfect?  Are you just a parent?”

“The life-jacket-police said I was too little to go down the water slide by myself.  Why did they say that?  I’m big enough, and I have BIG muscles!”

“Daddy . . . is this Colbie Callet singing?”  (Listening to a song on the radio, which indeed was Colbie Callet)

“Waking you guys up is my biggest job.  IT.  IS.  REALLY.  HARD.  It makes me so tired, that I have to go back to sleep!”  (Hannah explaining the disadvantages of being an early riser.)

“I want to get on Barbie.com!  Oh!  Oh!  And Nickjr.com too!”  (WHAT?!  Maybe no more TV ads until you’re 18!)

I don’t think any other sentence could make me feel older.  (OK, don’t start offering suggestions, I’m just sayin’ . . .)  13 years.  WOW.  Seriously?  Where has time gone?

One of our favorite movies is The Family Man (2001).  When we saw it in the theaters 10 years ago, I vividly remember a line Kate (Tea Leoni) said to Jack (Nicholas Cage): “How can you look at me like that?  Like you haven’t seen me everyday for the last 13 years?”

I remember thinking, “Man, they have been married FOREVER!”

Well.  Here we are friends.

We kicked off our anniversary last night by going to see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir perform at the Conference Center in Salt Lake City.  Apparently, 10,000 other people had the same idea.  Still, our seats were good and the entertainment was amazing.  We then enjoyed a walk around downtown barefoot.  OK, now before you gag and throw up a LOT in your mouth, just know that LOTS of other people decided to go barefoot as well . . . I should know better than to hoof it all over town in shoes not conducive to walking long distances.  My feet felt so much better on the warm streets.  David on the other hand, is always barefoot, so this was just a normal night, for him . . . walking around downtown SLC barefoot.

We came home to our sweet sleeping children, and thought about drifting off to sleep ourselves until . . .

BLEH!  BLEH!  BLEH!

What the heck?!

Hannah started vomiting!  David stayed up with her all night while she vomited every 15 to 30 minutes while I got some shut eye.  I knew I made a good choice when I picked my spouse!

Up next?  David’s birthday, Hannah’s birthday, Jess’ wedding, Pioneer Day, and one big family party.  (Not to mention four photo shoots next week!  EEK!)

And that’s just the next seven days.

Oh boy!

I look forward to many more anniversaries with the one that God made for me!

We rented an eight bedroom beach house to accommodate seven families which equated to 28 people.  It was a lot like being in a nice hotel with lots of common area to move around in, but at the end of the day, you share a room with your kids which is not my favorite way to sleep.  I seriously don’t know how kids can share a room.  I mean, I shared a room growing up for several years (probably until I was 12, then I got my own room) but I don’t know how anyone gets any sleep when two little people in the same room don’t sleep the exact amount of hours!  I know I have great sleepers, and I’m talking about how one child sleeps 11 hours and one sleeps 13 hours, so some of you are throwing eggs at your monitor reading about my sleeping woes while on vacation, but seriously, Dallin really needs his extra two hours of beauty rest!

Hannah LOVED the beach.  Why wouldn’t she?  She’s from the Caribbean!  The water was a nippy 50 degrees (or less!) and the weather only topped 75 degrees (too cold for my blood!) but she loved every minute of it just like she did two years ago when my family went on this very same vacation.

She was very busy making sand castles and watching her uncle Brent go in and out of the water doing various water sports.

Oh.  My.  Heck.  I could just kiss her face off.

Dallin on the other hand . . . hated the sand and the freezing cold water!

Do you see this chair he’s sitting in?  He did not get off this chair for SIX HOURS.

Yes.  You read that right.  SIX WHOLE HOURS.  This is where he ate, jumped, socialized, and took a two hour nap on my lap.

Making sure my kid was safe at the beach was a no-brainer for me in this great baby-sitting-chair.  :)

This is Katie and Hannah.  Hannah thinks she is 12.

This is one of my nephews, Luke.

Brent and his sailboat.

This is another nephew, Aaron.

This is my niece Becky learning how to windsurf.

Hello Brent.

This is Hannah and Becky on their canoe adventure.

David missed this day at the beach, but Hannah sure had fun with her “too many friends” anyway.

I may have been a bit confused on his birth date a week a so or go, so I pulled out his birth certificate to verify his birthday.  That’s normal, right?  You’d think I’d vividly remember the day I voluntarily walked into the hospital and allowed them to gut me open like a deer, but I seriously drew a blank.

Planned c-sections are not nearly as traumatic as emergent c-sections.  Trust me, I remember all 29 killer hours of labor with Hannah which ended in surgery.

Happy birthday little Dallin-boy!

YUM.  HE IS EDIBLE.

He is also one very sassy almost-two-year-old.

My favorite phrases:

• “I’ll hold you mommy? “
• “Go away!”
• “I don’t want it!”
• “Mommy!  I need you!”
• “I want it!”
• “Just one more minute?”
• “Just one second!”
• “GUMBS?”  (Gum)

He loves his small cars, trains, and trucks more than anything in the world.

He always has a car in his hand, and sometimes he even sleeps with them.

Such a lover.   Such a cutie.

We celebrated Gloria’s big 7-0 at the Harmon Ranch (David’s sister and brother-in-law’s ranch up in South Fork Canyon) with family.

Hannah and Dallin particularly liked the goats, and Dallin accepted the challenge to head butt one of the goats.  Fortunately, David has cat-like reflexes and swooped in just in time to save Dallin’s cute little forehead from some mean goat horns.

Dallin loves to run.  He is either sleeping or running.  In fact, the most common question out of his mouth is, “I run around?”

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Hannah asked the primary president at church when she could give a talk in primary.  In Hannah’s words, she told the lady, “I’m DYING to give a talk.  When is it my turn?!”  Taken back by her request, (most kids do not volunteer to speak in primary,  especially not three-year-olds) she gave Hannah a speaking assignment right away.

Of course, Hannah took her “talk” very seriously, and practiced her talk diligently throughout the week.  This image is truly a snap shot . . . she set up the step and microphone (which is really a drum stick) to the “podium” to make her practice as real as possible.

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I snapped this picture on the iPhone.  My dad wheeled the kids around his backyard in this cart, and they loved it.  Seriously, who said Dallin could get so big?  He is my baby and must remain that way FOREVER!  Look at him!  He’s a little boy in this picture!

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We took the kids to the carnival in Eagle Mountain and David got into the carnival spirit.  There was a $20 bill at the top of this climb, so he gave it a try.  He was a little rusty on his climbing skills, and did not have chalk or his climbing shoes, but gave it his best shot anyway.  He rang the bell at the top but did not grab the $20 bill in time before he slipped.  Such a bummer.  The kids were even chanting, “GO DAD!” sending good vibes his way.

I know it’s completely not obvious in this picture, but Dallin is LOVING this ride.  He has mastered the “stoic” look quite well, even though he is bursting inside.

OK, now you can see he had a good time.  :)

Hannah asked to go on the Gravitron, which is like a crazy closet that spins you around until your feet come off the ground and you don’t know which way is up or down.  After you pee your pants and projectile vomit on all the passengers within 10 feet of you, the ride finally stops and you realize you’ve just ruined your entire night with motion sickness that will take HOURS to wear off.

Yes.  That is the ride Hannah wanted to go on.  I was secretly hoping she wouldn’t make the height requirement, but dang it, that girl is tall.  To my surprise, David and Hannah walked out all smiles.  In the moment she walked out of that vomit comet all happy and such, I was all, “Are you sure you belong to me?”

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Hannah and I met up with my friend Katie and her daughter to see our friend Bethany star in the play “Funny Girl.”  Hannah thinks Bethany is the star of every play now.  :)  Bethany was fabulous and is moving to Los Angeles next week where I’m sure she will shoot to super stardom overnight.

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This last weekend, we took the kids to the Strawberry Days Parade.  Hannah loved every second of it, and scored enough candy to rival her Halloween stash.  Dallin wasn’t as impressed with it.  He only cared for the horses and balloons.  For everything else, he just buried his  head into my shoulder wishing it would all just disappear.

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And finally, the kids are now just shedding some nasty viruses they’ve had for a while.  YUCK.  Who has time to get sick in the summer?  Dallin managed to pick up croup (lucky him!) and landed in the ER last weekend.  Lucky us right?

We took the kids to Chuck E Cheese’s, which was our first time there since we were kids.  Oh.  My.  It was kid heaven.  The food was overpriced and average, but the kids loved every second on the rides.  At one point (before dinner mind you) Dallin climbed up the slide, and to our surprise, another child left a PUDDLE of pee for him to crawl into.

Oh.  My.  GROSS.

Of course I didn’t have extra clothes for him (Why would I?  He never leaks and never needs a bib, so I don’t pack extra clothes every time I leave the house!) so we stripped him down to his diaper and let him run around.

Boy did we ever feel like white trash.  Fortunately, the shirt was fine, but still . . . a baby running around in a shirt and a diaper in a public place just screams white trash to me.

On Saturday we hiked up to Timpanogos Cave (for those of you not familiar with Utah, it is cave in American Fork Canyon on the North end of Timpanogos Mountain.  The cave sits at 6,730 feet, and the hike is 1 1/2 miles rising 1,065 feet) and Hannah hiked the entire way up, complaining that her legs were tired almost the entire way.  (Poor kid, we only had one backpack for Dallin, but even if we had one for Hannah, neither one of us would have volunteered to carry her up!)   I planned on taking my camera, but at the last minute decided not to.

Really.  It was a good choice.  The hike is steep, and long (about an hour and a half hike uphill) and with kids, and all the extra hud we were carrying up (for the kids, who are needy) it would have been a pain.

But . . . the view is AMAZING.  I plan to hike this without the kids just to take pictures of the valley (where we live) from the mountain.  We did have David’s phone, so we got a few snapshots.  You might find this interesting, (because I know I did) but I am LAME, as in DO NOT KNOW HOW, to take pictures with a phone.

Silly.  Yes?

You would think that manipulating the camera in various ways (like I do) would make me an expert at all things techie (especially cameras) but you know what?  When we were driving home, I asked to see the pictures I took of David and the kids on the VERY-STEEP-DANGEROUS-TRAIL and there weren’t any.  After I accused David of deleting them, I realized I may not have successfully taken any.

Blast.

This is what we did get:

I know, it’s terrible quality, but can we just look past all that and focus on the valley between the mountains?  That’s where we live.  :)

The cave was fascinating to David, Hannah, and me, but Dallin was bored out of his brains and a little past bedtime when we entered the cave which made him extra pleasant.  You can’t take in baby carriers that have metal on them, so we had to hold the squirmy kid in a tight (and at times, claustrophobic) cave for 50 minutes while we waked through it.  (It’s a big cave.)

The last five minutes in the cave he screamed “Mommy!” and “Binkie!”  and “Tigger!” over, and over again, until everyone in that cave knew exactly what he wanted.

Note to self: Never take the kids on a hike when you can’t use the baby carrier the entire way.  Never take the kids when it’s past bedtime.  Never.

The highlight of the trip for me came a day later when Hannah was talking to Brian on the phone.  She told him, “Uncle Brian, do you know what stalactites are?  They grow from the ceiling and stalagmites grow up from the floor.”

I have a feeling this is just the beginning of her her knowledge eclipsing mine.  I don’t think I knew the difference .  .  .

Now you know I have to watch everything I say because she is paying attention!

Oh, and we hiked to Timp Cave in our Vibram Five Fingers.  It was quite nice actually.  At this point in the post, I would actually POST a picture of David in his five fingers, but  you see, I’m retarded when it comes to cameras on phones.

I seriously cannot get over how dang cute she is.  She LOVES to be the test shot for my shoots.  Loves it.  I could probably do a blog post containing test shots for lighting with her in them holding a gray card.

My friend Rebecca suggested I put Hannah on a magazine cover of her own and suggested some of the articles below!

Just the other day, I asked Hannah how she got so dang cute and she very confidently told me, “Jesus made me this cute face!”  Later that day, I noticed her run into the bathroom, and I asked her if she needed help (assuming she needed to go the the bathroom) and she replied, “NO!”  A few minutes later, she was still in there and when I asked her what she was doing, she replied, “Oh, just looking in the mirror.”  I said, “Are you just looking at how dang cute you are?”  and she said, “Yes mommy!  That’s exactly right!  I’m just lookin’ at how dang cute I am in the mirror!”  (Can you tell we tell her she’s beautiful?)

Honestly, to have 100% self-esteem.  It must be AWESOME.