Happy Birthday Emilia!

**This post was originally typed on June 28th**

My baby turned two today. I'm not sure how I feel about that. On one hand I am so sad because she is my baby, my last one. She was the baby I enjoyed the most as an infant. She was the one that almost... wasn't, and I treasured each day with her for that first 18 months or so. Now? Now I kind of wish we could skip right to three, past the terrible two's. Now she is a handful! Don't get me wrong, I still love her something fierce! But lately I have to say there's not a whole lot of enjoying going on. When she's cute she's SO cute! But when she is difficult...she is IMPOSSIBLE!!! Right now it feels like impossible definitely trumps cute. As I type this she is throwing a fit because I won't spray sunscreen on her, right this second, in the living room, and we're not going outside. Driving. Me. Crazy.

But alas, she is still my baby and it is her birthday so I will look past her being impossible and instead focus on the cute. For instance, she walked up to me out of the blue yesterday and climbed on my lap and just loved me with her arms around my neck and her head on my shoulder. Then, after a minute or two, she pulled back, looked into my eyes and said, "Here Mommy, a kiss!" and planted one on my lips.

I also love when she calls Maya with her little hand beckoning, opening and closing, while saying in her sweet voice, "Come here Maya, come here". Then there's her laugh. Every member in this family will do just about anything to make her laugh. It's infectious!

My favorite thing she is doing lately though is dancing. She dances anytime she hears music. When we walked into nursery one of the other kids was playing a little xylophone and Em started bustin' a move. The best though is when she doesn't just dance, but actually tries to copy someone else's moves. We  bought "Just Dance" for the Wii and she LOVES it when the kids and their friends play it because she gets in there too. She watches so close and tries to copy those moves as much as she can...SO CUTE!

Happy Birthday my cute girl!

Sneak Peek for Ashlee....

I took family pics for my friend Ashlee this past weekend and am having a hard time getting them to copy to a CD so until I can figure that out I am posting a little sneak peek for her here...

and my personal favorite...

A direct quote from Kaleb..."Mom, I'm all out of smiles!"

Testing Slideshows...

Hi Guys!

I am just posting this to see how slideshows made in PhotoShop do on my blog. Let me know if it looks good and if it takes forever to load...Thanks!

P.S. I made this for Matt for Father's Day...

Power of Moms Retreat...

Well, it was supposed to be an uninterrupted night of sleep but my sis and I are both used to kind of flat pillows so the fluffy spa pillows made it a little hard to sleep. It was nice to wake up and not have to make breakfast for anyone though! We reported to the welcoming portion of the retreat and started making new friends. I have to say that this particular activity was really hard for me. I HATE meeting new people!!! I never know what to say. I am shy and hate to be the first one to say hello to someone. When I found out I had to leave my sister's side and go mingle I panicked a little but she said, "You'll be fine. It's good for you!" and we parted ways. We were supposed to eat breakfast at a table where we didn't know anybody. We dished up our breakfast from the way too healthy and not very tasty spa buffet and got down to business getting to know each other. It was refreshing to see that I am not the only one feeling completely overwhelmed by motherhood!

(Allyson, April, Saren, Ummm....can't remember her name-retreat attendee, Shawni, and Linda)

Our classes started after breakfast and I started to feel more comfortable. I tell you each of those classes was exactly what I needed! I'll go into more of what I learned in my next post but being there among those women was so inspiring. Linda Eyre, who I have practically worshiped for years, spoke to us first. She was followed by her equally impressive daughter Saren and Saren's amazing friend April. They are the ones who started Power of Moms. Allyson followed them and had us all laughing till' our sides hurt while uplifting us at the same time. That night we had dinner discussions at different tables and I sat in on one that discussed getting the whole family to help with household chores (you bet I'll be sharing what I learned!). I ate the most delicious portabello stuffed ravioli with a macadamia  nut pesto sauce...DIVINE! It was followed by chocolate mousse...DELISH! Too bad all of the spa food wasn't like that! Afterwards we played games on the lawn like a bunch of teenagers which was a lot of fun!

Then Amber and I vegged in our room and watched a movie, an entire movie with NO interruptions, all the way through and got better sleep without the pillows.

The next day we opted out of the 7am hike (if there's no little bodies waking us up we were sleepin' in!) and got smoothies at The Orange Peel before heading to our first class on Family Systems presented by Linda, Saren and Shawni. Only THE perfect family to present that particular discussion! I have to admit that along with a case of "Linda worhip" I also have a case of "Shawni worship" so it was so fun to meet her after having read her blog daily for so long! Let me tell you she is just as tall and beautiful in real life as she is in pics and she is so stinkin' sweet!

(I gotta say-Standing next to beautiful, tall Shawni tends to make one feel a bit short and frumpy!)

 Next came a panel discussion on Picking Your Priorities and then lunch and a break. The retreat ended with a class from April, Queen of Organization, on her new Mind Organization for Moms system. Wow! You really do have to check it out! If you are like me and suffer from a severe case of "Mommy Brain" than this is exactly what you need...Brilliant! Then we took lots of pictures, said our good-byes and the retreat was over.

(I stole this pic from Shawni's blog...shhhh!) 

Amber and I went out to Red Lobster (Divine after all that.....interesting?....spa food) with one of her friends that lives close by the spa then met back up with our AZ friends in the hot tub for one last night of relaxation. Even better we added one more friend, Launi (I hope I spelled her name right!), Lynae's friend and neighbor in AZ. She is so cute! After the hot tub we all piled into their room and gorged on junk food and YouTube videos.

We reminisced and laughed till' we couldn't breathe and I seem to recall Lynae falling behind the bed at one point?...although she'll deny it if you ever bring it up!

The next morning we checked out and met the girls at Village Inn for breakfast happily trading spa food for strawberry cream crepes and greasy bacon...YUM! We parted ways with our AZ besties and made the long trip home belting out the tunes and stopping to say good-bye to my "woolen love" back at the petting zoo.

What awaited me when I got home were welcome signs on the door and love notes written in my absence, a delicious dinner timed just right for my arrival, and hugs and kisses galore! Ahhh...The best part about being "Mom"!

Now if I could just feel like this...

while doing dishes and laundry...we'd all be a whole lot happier around here!

Road Trip!

So as some of you know, I went to a Power of Moms Retreat a few weekends ago and I am just now getting the pictures edited. It was SO MUCH FUN getting to go on a good old fashioned road trip with my sister! It felt like I was a teenager again! It was about a 5 1/2 hour drive with pit stops so we had loads of time to belt out tunes (Faith Hill's "If My Heart Had Wings" was our theme song), eat junk (so..........many..........Swedish Fish........*GROAN*) and talk, talk, talk! We even happened upon a little petting zoo set up next to a gas station and couldn't resist the little lambs that came running over to greet us...

One of the lambs was just too cute and I couldn't help but give him a smooch! Don't worry all you germaphobes...I barely touched those fuzzy lips!

When we arrived in St. George we checked into the Red Mountain Spa and then hightailed it to the local Olive Garden to meet some friends from AZ that were also attending the retreat. One of these friends just happens to be my bestest friend since 2nd grade, Lynae. I was SO excited when I found out that she was going too! Even better she brought her lil' sis Rachelle and their friend Kelyn (who is now one of our besties too).

(Left to right: My sis. Amber, Rachelle, Kelyn, Lynae and moi)

After dinner we got some shopping in... 

Then we went back to the spa to soak in the hot tub and get a blissful night of uninterrupted sleep!

To be continued......