Princess and the Frog

We had such a good time going to see Princess and the Frog last week with Grammy. The girls had never been to the theatre before and were absolutely amazed. Amelia said, with a 64 oz cup in her lap "I love this!"








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Puzzle time at Lybberts

C-Bus

Leah's hair-do.

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Here are a few things we miss about Comlumbus Ohio

...all these great friends. Although we are making new wonderful friends here in Utah my kids talk a lot about their friends in Columbus, Ohio. Abbey often asks, "When are we going back to Columbus, Ohio?" It's just so cute the way she says "Columbus, Ohiiiiiio." We miss you friends!

...putting "free stuff" (garbage) on your side walk and watching it disappear within a day. Not to mention FINDING cool "free stuff" or garbage on other people's side walks. O.K. maybe that's not just a Columbus thing.... I think it is a Hilltop thing. Regardless, we miss it.

...sitting on our front porch interacting with our neighbors on a daily basis. Ben could tell you more about the Sociology of front porches and how our society has changed to a more back yard, individualistic way of living. I just miss the daily eye contact with people you had no reason to talk to other than you ran into them. I don't know if we would have gotten to know very many of our neighbors. We didn't have a whole lot in common as far as family situations or professions, but we saw them on their porches often and struck up conversations often. Now they are some of our closest friends.

...and one of our neighbors/best friend that did have a lot in common with us. In fact I saw and talked and was with her more than my own husband. We spent just about every day together. Being in Utah near my mother and brother and tons of Mormons (he he) has been incredible. People are so helpful and kind and you can't beat living close to my mother (one of my other best friends). Still, I can't get over missing my friend Cathie. It's hard to understand the impact someone has on your life until you don't have them in your life anymore. We have all experienced that. I have lots of times. But Cathie is different. Like she said in her blog, "some say motherhood is like warfare which means she and I were in the trenches together." And some one said to me, "Cathie is like a ray of sunshine. When ever I talk to her she just makes me feel happier." It's true. I was trying to figure out why that is. I mean don't we all want to be like that? She is so quick to laugh. I always feel like the funniest person when I talk to her. So slow to judge. Not that she doesn't disagree sometimes but in a totally non-offensive way. And she just exudes love. I always felt like she admired me for who I was. She knows how to focus on the good things about you. I can hear her laugh right now.

So, when I got the best phone call yesterday morning from her announcing she would be coming with her daughter Leah for Abbey's birthday I was bursting with emotion.

These last 6 weeks have been hard. The constant sea sick feelings and throwing up twice a day has really gotten to me. I must admit, I'm a little down (to put it lightly) I miss my friends in Columbus Ohio and I wished I could call up Cathie or Kim or Rebecca or Melody or Beth or Mari Anne or several others and ask if I could come over and just visit. Knowing Cathie is coming next month gives me something to look forward to. I can't wait! I can't believe she really gets to come here! I can't wait!

maybe this will work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue11ecGaIlA

The Video didn't work

Just a few more pictures from this morning at our neighbor's house.

We're in Utah....

This is supposed to be a silent video of our neighborhood. We'll see if it turns out...

These are my girls across the street from our house playing in our neighbor's "garden." This is the Critchfiel's home built in the 70's. They bought it from "an ornery ol' farmer" and built their own home. They have a HUGE back yard that 26 grand kids come play in every 3 weeks. The rest of the neighborhood was a cherry orchard until the early 90's when it was developed into Stonewood Estates. Now Brother Critchfiel is the "ornery old farmer." We saw the lake develop this morning in his front yard and the girls wanted to check it out. Ben took them over there and before we knew it the girls had no clothes and we were sitting on the Critchfield's back porch eating fresh green beans. They played in that mud for 2 hours. I guess they still have water rights and the field gets flooded every week. It's so cool having a farm in the middle of the neighborhood. It was better than the pool down the road. Brother Critchfield said they could come play in the mud when ever they saw the water. They are a great couple with lots of history in the area.

Well as you have noticed, there isn't much activity lately on the blog. Danielle is really sickly. She (o.k. I... i'm writing this so let's just make it 1st person) I get these awful migraines. And I lay around all day doing nothing. I was throwing up twice a day and then last week my old friend Jenny Smith (who is 7 months pregnant) told me about ginger chews. They have changed everything. They work better than the $30 a pill Zofran. Soooo that has been great. No more vomiting. And how can you beat living close to most of your family. I do miss my friends in Columbus though. We'll be out there for 24 hours next weekend so hopefully we'll get to see a bunch of you!

http://np2yosemite.blogspot.com/

We are planning a HUGE (Donal Trump accent) trip to Yosemite National Park in California. Summer of 2010. We used to go there in the summer with friends from church and would like to get as many of those people involved to return with us as possible. You make reservations 1 year (for hotel) and 6months (for camping) in advance. I am starting a new blog to help coordinate people. Please visit the blog and make as many comments to help get people going. This will be a fabulous adventure now that we are all a little older, some just old....

Maybe we could get Jimmy Long to pull a trailer full of bikes for us.

Yosemite or BUST!

http://np2yosemite.blogspot.com/

Utah!

Cathie, this is why Utah is beautiful. And this isn't even a good picture of it.
The view of Mt. Timpinogas from Thanksgiving Point Petting Zoo. I must admit, after being at the historical 1880's working farm in Columbus, OH, this is the cleanest petting zoo i have ever seen. Concrete and lush green lawn everywhere.

Grandma Teresa holding up Amelia Teresa. Abbey is back there riding the BIG horse. We had such a great time.

Little T sitting with his dad. And those hammock swings they are sitting in... best invention ever!

Cousins! I was really surprised to see how much this little guy looks like Amelia. They were the same height and running around together I almost thought they could be siblings. Great friends at least. We sure had fun with you guys! See you at the end of the summer. We are moving to Orem, Utah right around the corner from my parent's house! We found a great house that will hopefully be our home for many, many years. More house pictures to come.

like a worm becomes a butterfly...

Happy 2nd Birthday Amelia!

Happy Easter

We have loved our time in Ohio. We love our neighborhood and we LOVE Spring. It has been so nice to have things be green and sunny again. This Easter was very nice and the girls had the prettiest dresses I've ever seen. Grandma Muse helped us out of course. They had it all, fancy dresses, sweaters with bows, hats, gloves, purses and new sparkle shoes with pink tights. They loved feeling beautiful. Yikes, it was really hard to keep them reverent during our 1pm church. You can dress them up....

But they are still my kids!

Pie Day Part II

The real reason I loved Pie Day.
If you can't tell, these are a few of my favorite "Brothers" at church. If I participated in a pie eating contest then, I could win a chance to throw a pie at one of these guys! After eating 5 pieces of pie from the other delicious pies brought by the wonderful members of our ward, I decided to go for the contest.

Who wouldn't want to throw a pie in this face?! He thought he was so cool, being the MC of the Marble Cliff Pie-newood derby 2009.
So, maybe he is so cool....

So I did it.
We still don't know if Rebecca (Left) or Brother Simmons (a sweet old guy that just got home from his grandpa mission) who smashed my face in the pie. I do know Brother Simmons (the sweet grandpa RM) was whispering trash talk in my ear as I was doing my best to eat pie with my face.

I didn't win BUT I did get to throw a pie at Ben. If you review the picture above, he has the MOST pie in his face!
Here the girls follow the example of their mother.

"Pie"newood Derby 3.14 2009

So am I the only one that never celebrated "Pie" day? March 14th is every nerdy math teachers' favorite day of the year. Apparently our Activities committee is made of nerdy Math teachers. But Pie day is my new favorite day. Just look at all those pies! We also had to tie in our other favorite ward activity and have a Pinewood Derby. There were some super fun cars!

The kids and dads had the night of their lives.

Best Valentine's Day Ever!

Some friend's had us over for a Valentine's Party. It was more fun than I've had in a long time. When we got there Ben had to carve our initials into a tree on the wall and then we had our picture in front of it. We played some cute games and then the women and the men separated. The ladies made Valentin's cards and the guys drew pictures of our fist dates. We had to guess which one's were ours and tell our story. Later there was a surprise poem read. Our 'dates' had written us love poems the night before and then had to read them in front of everyone. Most were really short and sweet and the guys were shyly smiling. So cute! Ben's was so long and so awkward. People asked him several times to stop reading. I have not laughed so hard in a long time. He prefaced it with "The Office is our favorite show." I think he meant to have Dwight's voice in people's minds but it came out a little different as tears streamed down our faces from laughing so hard. After almost every line break we laughed and laughed. I don't know if it reads the same in the Internet as it did at the party but here goes:


My Halo, Your Halo

In the sun glow
I can see your halo
Not the video game
Although you do maliciously hunt me
With your fantastic love
...but unlike that game, you really don't kill me,
just everything up until that point.

It is in the afternoon,
Autumn
6pm
And the sun is behind you
Setting
You have golden dark hair
As you roll around
In a field of tall grass
You have a blanket
With many cheeses
You beacon forth
With your fork
And we embrace
We are making out
...what those small little letters say
On all those cheeses.

You are unpredictably coy
As you toy
With my feet
Which are tired
From the hike
And scavenger hunt
You made me do
Before I could meet you
In this, secret/sacred place
That I've never been before
Is this heaven?

I am the scavenger
Hunt
ing
Like in Halo
The video game
My scopes
Are on your lips
But I spy you in my scope
not from a tall building
Or from an abandoned coal mine
Like the one Pat worked at briefly.
but millimeters from those
Frail, quivering, soft, wild, huggable lips
That whisper
"Surrender,
You sweaty hunter
With muscular feet and wheezing breath"
And I say,
"No you surrender
Because my scope is really close to your lips
And you couldn't possibly hurt me
With those puny arms"
But you can,
And I don't tell you this,
you do have muscular arms, but only in metaphor
Instead of arms, its your heart
And it is really good at beating to get all the blood around in your body
And I see your pulse going super fast on that rather large vain on your neck and on your forehead

I slowly drop my controller, which I brought with me pretending it was a gun with a long distance scope
And I move
Closer
And closer
Now closer
And your raspberry lips
Caresses my breath
Like Castellano cheese
That I just ate while you
Slipped off my socks

Game over
I need a code to continue
but you do
Continue
Without a code,
You hold
my perfect body, in your mind.
and I hold your perfect body in my mind too.



Yeah Best Valentine's Day ever! Then at the end of the party we were given our pictures in a frame with a magnet on the back so we could put it on the fridge. We look at it and remember the best day of our married lives. Well, maybe one of the best.

Columbus Freeze and BYU Freeze

The first snow started out lots of fun. We played for a while.

The Cuteness of Amelia's first snow was in full force.

Then we had an ice storm with more snow on top. This tree fell down in our neighbor's yard. Fox news even had a news crew there last night.

But Best of All, Grandma Muse came to visit for a few days. Her flight got snowed out and she got to stay for an extra day. We had so much fun. We were so glad she was there for the storm. There were two freezes. The ice storm and the "official BYU job freeze." We found out for sure there would be no BYU this coming year. That's right, a "hiring freeze" really means there will be no hires. My best friend Cathie was very excited to hear the news. There are some benefits to staying in Columbus one more year. But it was sure hard to send my mommy away knowing I wouldn't see her this summer. We love you Teresa!