The Chair

  So my kid has 2 new favorite spots.  Parked right in front of the TV when Barney is on....

(she never moves from this spot until the last of the credits have rolled.  And only for Barney. I kid you not.)
And her chair.

So we got E this chair when she like 4 months because she wanted to be held all the time and I couldn't do anything and she was hitting the age where she would quickly outgrow those little bouncer thingys.  Plus the chair said it could "grow with them."  Whatever.  Anyway.  So once E was crawling and such we just stuck the chair in her room and haven't really thought about it since.
Now it is likely her favorite spot in the house.

If I can't find her I look in her room and she's sitting in her chair looking at books.  It's so funny I love it!

Family Picture

Due September 17, 2013

The Beginning Of Us

I read a friend's blog about how they got together and I thought, "what a cute idea for Valentine's Day!"  Her's is obviously more relevant since it has ties to the actual day of February 14th, but what the heck.  I love telling our story and since we never "had the opportunity" to speak in church when we first moved to this ward a year and a half ago I didn't get a chance to tell it, so bear with/ humor me. :)

The short version of our story would be that we met in a singles ward.  The long version is a bit better in my personal opinion. :)
Our story begins in the fall of 2009.  My dear best friend Amy and I had some dear guy friends (Tyler being one of them) whom we liked to gather with and play games.  Our story would first begin with Monopoly, but I am forbidden to mention that period of our history, so suffice it to say...we don't play Monopoly anymore and have not played Monopoly since that certain time.
Anywhoo...a while later, a few of us were playing games one September Sunday and decided to attend ward prayer from our previous ward.  Our ward was recently split and my house and Tyler's house had sadly been annexed (it all ended up being a very good thing since several marriages happened from that event), but we loved our old bishop and they had great treats after ward prayer, so we decided to go to the "old ward."
Well as we were eating our dessert we were all discussing the possibility of driving to Las Vegas that upcoming weekend to do baptisms in the temple there.  Our old bishop overheard, and being a singles ward bishop he says to me and Tyler, "you're getting married in Vegas this weekend?" To which we replied, no, we were doing baptisms.  He then kept insisting that we were indeed getting married in Vegas that weekend and proceeded to tell us his plan.  He would transfer my records back into his ward, he would give me a temple recommend and bada-bing, bada-boom --  we could get married that weekend.  He even offered to pay for the ring, and the marriage license.  And I kid you not, he was serious.  Then the rest of the bishopric piped in and said they would buy Tyler's ring and the their wives were telling us their plans for the reception! I mean wow! Talk about feeling a bit overwhelmed and on the spot and basically everything else!  We finally were able to say, no, and quickly tried to escape, but before we hit the door the bishop stopped us and asked us to at least please pray about it! Ha! Tyler was my friend, and barely that at the time, I was not going to pray about it!  But did I?  Oddly, yes, but very, very VERY briefly.  And not quite how the bishop wanted me to.
So anyway, on our walk home from the church we were laughing about the how situation and decided we wanted revenge.  So, we spent time that night and the next day planning how we were going to get back at the bishop.
Well, Heavenly Father has his own sense of humor, because that next day I could not stop thinking of Tyler. I thought of him in class, at lunch, at study group, etc.  And I always kept feeling the spirit with each thought and I knew I needed to give this boy a chance to win my heart and that there was a good chance he would.
So, anyway, that night we found a $10 Wal-mart engagement ring and went over to the bishop's house and knocked hand in hand with big, goofy smiles on our faces.  The bishop's wife answered the door and said the bishop wasn't home yet but would be soon and to come in and sit down.  She was curious and a little hesitant to believe our story, but kept quiet until the bishop came home.  Well he walked in and saw us sitting all cozy on the couch and said, "oh my word! What have we here?"  To which we explained that we did as he suggested and we prayed about it and felt that it was indeed right for us to get married!  We weren't going to do it that weekend, but we had set a date in December and thanked him for bringing us together!  And what did he do?  He started crying!  Crying!  What!?  That was not in the plan!  We wanted to carry this out for a few days or something.  So we finally said that we were teasing we were just trying to get back at him.  He sat there for maybe 5 seconds. Maybe, and said "It'll happen."  We just laughed, but were told all night the wonderful qualities about the other person.
When we left that night I knew things had changed though.  Something had happened at the bishop's house and I was pretty sure knew Tyler knew it too.  That night as we were getting ready for bed I told my roommate "This is it.  I'm done.  I'm taken.  I'm going to marry Tyler Anderson.  I just know it."
Well the next day Tyler and I talked and "found out" that we liked each other.  A week later we were "officially"dating, and 3 months later (December! Haha!) we were engaged.  This May will be our three year anniversary (wahoo!) and we couldn't be happier!

I love you Babe! Happy Valentine's Day!

My Daughter the Dog

So when my mom and I talk on the phone a good 95% of the time we note how similar Emma and Tilly (my parents' dog) are.  We don't know if it is the fact that they are 18 days apart or what, but they are definitely "bosom buddies," "two peas in a pod," (etc. etc.) or "partners in crime" as we commonly refer to them as. Similarities include:

1. Both hear the word "go for a ride" and immediately perk up, drop everything and come to you.

2. At least once a week, AT LEAST, both me and my mother are yelling at either Emma or Tilly to "get out of the garbage."  I kid you not, there have been times when I hear my mom yelling at Tilly to get out of the garbage and I look over at Emma and yell the same thing.

3.  They both kiss with their tongues hanging out.  Emma is good at giving kisses now, but we are trying to teach her to close her mouth or at least to keep her tongue in her mouth.  And Tilly being a dog will sometimes get adventurous and try to kiss you...differently.

4.  They both love going for walks...

...on a leash.
That would be my sister "guiding" my 1 year old around the house.  Last time she was up here she did a little experiment to see if Emma would walk (or rather crawl) with a leash.  Not only did Emma do it, she did it happily...like Tilly.

5.  They both like to eat off the floor.  Emma will purposefully throw food when she is "done" eating.  Then when we take her out of her high chair and put her on the floor she will crawl right to the food and start eating.  Sometimes she won't even pick it up with her fingers.  She will stick her mouth to the floor and try and lick it up.  I have a strange child.  I know.

6. They both love balloons.

I've semi-been trying to upload these videos for a while.  I mentioned them in a previous post (on accident...I kinda forgot the erase the text after the videos failed to upload).

Anywhoo, you get the point...they are basically best buds...

Since day 1 (well this picture is taken at 3 months, but you get the idea)

In Other News...

After the many many weeks of applying and waiting for Post-Bacc Schools, we can finally say we know where we will be living in 3 months (ah!) from now.....

We are very excited and very scared at the same time!
Now the hard part...finding an apartment....using only the internet! :(

Life

Yes, I am a slacker.  I'm not very diligent at updating, but when you stay inside all day all the time because the high out side is 5 degrees not much happens a.k.a. nothing exciting to post.
However, there is one thing!  We were accepted to the University of North Carolina at Greensboro which means...we're actually going/moving somewhere in May! Very exciting but very, VERY scary.  We are now just waiting to hear back from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri so we can pray and make a final decision of where we will be living for the next 2 years! Yikes!
Also, I forgot I had these pictures. :)

Emma had her one year old appointment a few weeks ago.  She's basically still the same: small, short and a big head.  She weighed in at 19 lbs 4 oz (25 percentile).  She's short at 28 1/4 inches (again 25 percentile) and her head is big (forget the measurement) coming in at the 97 percentile.  Again we know why its is hard to put clothes over her head!
She is also having problems with plugged tear ducts so we were refered to a specialist and unless something happens between now and the 29th, she'll go in for a 3 minute surgery to hopefully clear up the problem.  They will put her under though (especially her), Yikes!

So...that is our life as of lately.  I'm really praying it warms up to at least 30 degrees one of these days so that I actually feel like getting the mail! :)

Christmas, Birthday and New Years!

So I realize it has been a long time since my last post, but our holiday break was CRAZY!  First we went down to my parents' for not quite a week and stayed through Christmas morning.  Then we drove down to Cedar City to spend a few days with Tyler's family.  Then we went to St. George to spend New Year's at my grandparents' house with them and my family.  And during that time drove down to Las Vegas to attend Tyler's cousin's wedding.  Oh, and then drove home!  That is A LOT of driving.  ESPECIALLY  with a 1 year old who has being in the car for mare than 20 minutes at a time. But somehow we made it though...barely and lucky for us Emma has been makin gup all of her lack of sleep.  See?  There is silver lining to every bad car ride! :)
So The post is a hodge podge of our trip, but stick with me until the end.  I promise you won't regret it...I hope. :)
Christmas was great.  We went to Temple Square on December 20th!
 And why is that date mentioned?  Because...3 years ago from that date we got engaged!  We look a little different now then we did then.

 First of all it was A LOT colder in 2012 than it was in 2009.  I think we stayed a total of 20 minutes.
Emma hated us the whole time.  We wrapped her up nice and warm and she looked at us like "I want to kill you."

The look she has here was not people watching.  She was giving Jackie the death look.

Christmas day was awesome.  We were very very spoiled (thank you to all our family).  Especially Emma.  She basically went to having few toys that were probably below her development level to having too many toys.  (We had to leave several at grandma's house for her to bring up later because we simply couldn't fit everything in our car!)  Emma was also spoiled by attention.  And if you weren't giving it to her she would make you!
It took her a while, but she eventually won Davis over. :)

And on top of everything, my dear mother spent hours making us all matching pajamas for Christmas!

Emma was obviously very tired at this point in the picture taking.

New Years was great too!
Emma did not stay up until midnight, however.  I think she made to til 7:30 though!

Rewinding one day...
Sunday was Emma's first birthday!  A year really goes by fast when you have kids.

Isn't she so cute?

And again, she got many, many presents.

She was a little overwhelmed. :)

But as always, Grandma saved the day.  Emma is definitely a Grandma's girl.  Once grandma shows up she won't even come to me anymore!

We then sang

And Emma dived into her cake.  She was a little apprehensive at first.

And then she started to get the hang of it.

And then there was no stopping her.
This is her contented "I'm done" face.

Clean up was no small feat let me tell you.  She got cake in place I never would have thought of.  But she sure had fun!

Her favorite thing by far though, was balloons!

So was Tilly's (my parents' dog and Emma's "bosom buddy" as we like to refer to them.  Despite being of a different species, they are 2 peas in a pod. Anywhoo...Tilly learned to play volleyball!