Angry Emma

Emma got really mad at Lauren the other day. Lauren and her friends went into Emma's room and jumped on her bed, messing it up pretty bad. Emma was furious (and crying, of course). She posted this sign on her door. Lauren cleaned up Emma's room in about 2 minutes.

Alzheimers...here I come.

Today I plugged in my new little Scentsy warmer from my sister, Heidi, aka Scentsy representative. I plugged it into the bathroom near the sinks. I took a shower, got out and got dressed. The whole time I was drying off and getting dressed, I could smell something really good. I was sniffing around trying to figure out what that smell was and where it was coming from. I sniffed all over my bedroom and I even sniffed my own body because it smelled clean and fresh so thought it could be me. I finally gave up and started getting ready and I noticed the Scentsy warmer that I had just plugged in 15 minutes earlier! The smell was coming from the warmer, of course. I just totally forgot about it right after I plugged it in. (The smell was Ocean--very clean and fresh, by the way.)

This is the regular sized warmer that I bought from Heidi. (Sorry about the blurry pictures, not really sure what happened.) I think it's pretty. The other one I had, I gave to Landon to use in his classroom. He was really excited about it, because third graders can smell pretty ripe. He's hoping to combat the ripeness with the "Snowberry" scent today.

Cat on a Leash

Today we bought a harness and a leash for the cat. Our goal is to get him used to it so we can take him for walks. He's kind of like our little toy. In the video, it's the first time he's ever been outside. I think we kind of scared him with our enthusiasm.

Funny Video

We watched Nights in Rodanthe last night. It was horrible. My friend Kris sent me this funny video from Talk Soup right after the movie first came out. There's one bad word in it, but other than that, it's hilarious. Check it out...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elZwz6TRi3o

Saturday Morning

This morning Lauren went to a friend's birthday party, Landon went to his school to study, Emma took a 90 minute bath and I played with the kitty. We don't call him any certain name yet. Technically his name is Bam Bam, but we renamed him Boots or Bootsie, but no one has called him that yet. Everyone just calls him the cat, or the kitty. He's working out pretty well so far. He didn't eat when we first brought him home, but now he eats non-stop. I give him a can of wet food in the morning, so if one of us gets up to use the bathroom early in the morning, he starts crying and whining until I feed him his canned food. We have to be really sneaky in the morning, or he's chasing us around the house. We used to let him sleep on our bed when we first brought him home, but he started nestling into my hair or putting his nose on our noses or mouths while we slept, or batting Landon's ears or eyes with his paws. Now we put him outside our door with the door shut. He sleeps right outside on the floor next to the door (until he hears one of us use the bathroom).

Emma, the human prune.

Drug Activity

Monday afternoon we looked out the upstairs window and saw that the police had stopped a car on highway 20. In the end, three people were handcuffed and taken away and it appeared that there were several little bags of drugs found in their car. (They used a dog to find the drugs.) It was kind of fun to watch.

Emma's 10th Birthday

Emma turned 10 today! Because it was Saturday, we were able to do everything together as a family, which is what Emma requested. She asked us to hide all of her presents so she could go on a little hunt this morning to find everything. She got coloring pencils, a set of knitting looms and a giftcard to Walmart for yarn, "skip it" (a thing you put around your ankle and jump over), nail polish, a sewing machine cover from Grammy, a necklace, bracelets and jelly bellys from Lorina/Christina and money from Nana, Nanny and Grammy-which she's planning to buy an MP3 player with, among other things. Lauren gave her some markers and other art supplies and a little teddy bear.

We went to a movie this afternoon (Hotel For Dogs--don't waste your time) with Emma's friend Katrina (who gave her a baby doll from the dollar store for a present. What the ....?), then came home and made our dinner of clam chowder, served in homemade bread bowls and caesar salad with raspberry italian sodas. We had buttermilk pie with raspberry sauce for dessert (thank you for the awesome recipe, Jane) and finished the day by watching Spongebob Squarepants until the girls went to bed at 8:00pm. Emma talked to several family members on the phone today and got a really good start on knitting a hat.

Landon and I are exhausted from cooking french toast with strawberries, bread bowls, clam chowder, caesar salad, buttermilk pie, raspberry sauce and a double batch of chocolate covered peanut butter balls for a RS function tomorrow afternoon. We like making the girls' birthdays special, but this is a good example of why we only had 2 kids. As it is, I had to forbid Lauren from speaking at all by 9:00am because she was giving me a migraine from all her enthusiasm for Emma's birthday. (Why can't she show her excitement in a quiet voice?)

Anyway, we're thrilled that we have a kid whose age is in the double digits now. She's beyond what we deserve, as anyone who knows her can attest. She's a good one. We hope we don't screw her up too much before she hits adulthood.

Emma Jayne, turning 1 in Plymouth, Michigan while visiting Uncle David and Aunt Sara

Emma Jayne on her 2nd birthday in Duvall, Washington.

Emma and Lauren on Emma's 7th birthday at Biddulph Hall, BYU-Idaho.

Emma's 8th birthday at Biddulph Hall, BYU-Idaho.

Emma, on her 9th birthday at Biddulph Hall, BYU-Idaho (not wearing her glasses for some reason).

Emma, eating her favorite breakfast...french toast with strawberries and whipped cream.

Big Balls

(Emma requested clam chowder in homemade bread bowls for dinner. She helped me make them.

Emma, knitting a hat on one of the looms she got for her birthday.

Birthday girl eating buttermilk pie with raspberry sauce. Yum.

Mouse Treats

Because Emma's birthday is Saturday, tomorrow she gets to bring treats for her class. The girls and I made these chocolate covered strawberry mice. Fun times for us.

Oliviana's Birthday Video

This is a video for Oliviana Finau, who turned two today. If you're not Oliviana, you may not enjoy it very much. We had fun making it.

Rodeo

We went to the BYU-Idaho Spirit Week Rodeo last night. All things considered, it was pretty lame (unless you're a college student). The best part was "Mutton Bustin." That's where kids ages 4-7 or so mount a sheep and ride it as long as possible before falling off. My friend Jenn's twin 4 year old girls signed up for that event and only one of the girls actually was brave enough to go through with it. It was really fun to watch the little kids bust out of the gate riding a galloping sheep. At one point, Lauren turned to me and asked, "Mom, where do they get the wild sheep?"

We sat on the top of the bleachers, so we didn't get the best pictures.

Bam Bam

We took Roo back to the shelter this morning. The shelter lady told me (on the phone) his sores were probably from trauma and stress from transitioning to a new house. I said, no, I think they're more serious than that, I think he has ringworm. She said, no, he doesn't have ringworm. She was his "foster mother" before we had him and he is used to a quiet indoor life...he's never even been in a garage let alone outside, so we're probably stressing him out. I said we don't even have a garage, he's never been outside and we're a really quiet, mellow family. So I took him back and showed the lady his sores and she agreed that it's a bad case of ringworm and she quaranteed him right away. They're taking him to the vet later today and getting him on antibiotics and other medications.
While we were at the shelter, we saw that they had just received a brand new kitten only four days earlier named Bam Bam. Long story short, we have a new baby kitten named Bam Bam now. He is so precious! Landon has been at his school studying all morning so he hasn't even seen him yet, but the girls and I are loving this little guy. The shelter will pay for neutering and future immunizations, so for now we'll just see how this goes.

We like to wrap him up like a baby. We think he likes it.

Want to See Something Gross?

So here's a little update on our cat situation. We got rid of Morti less than a week after we brought him home because of his ear sucking fetish. Now our other cat, Roo, is grossing us out. He has two self-inflicted sores on his back. He licks and bites himself right there in those spots, I'm assuming because they itch or something. Last Saturday, we tried to return him to the pet adoption place, but lucky for him they were closed. So instead we bought some canned cat food to supplement his cheap, dry food. We thought maybe he wasn't getting enough vitamins in his diet or something. Well, it's been another week and his sore has doubled in size. I made a vet appointment, but Landon is insisting we return him and get another cat or just call it quits on the whole cat experience. I'm fine with that, but sadly, our kids are not. Most of the time Roo is really affectionate, mellow and nice to have around, but when he starts eating his flesh we all freak out.

This is Roo's disgusting naked spot on his back. There's another one thats a little smaller, lower on his back. I'll keep everyone posted on Roo's fate.

New Skirts

I finished the girls' skirts last week and they got to wear them to church today. They turned out cute, but it's kind of hard to see the details in the pictures. Lauren's has a pink ribbon and bow, with a flounce at the bottom, and Emma has two tiers of ruffles on the bottom of her skirt. They both liked how they turned out and I have a ton of leftover fabric.