The Birthday Girl:)

So Willow had an awesome birthday. She was able to celebrate her birthday with my family on Sunday, and then her official birthday was on Monday. I felt like i didn't do a very good job celebrating her birthday this year...but i guess i will just have to make up for it next year. She didn't seem to notice, other than i never made her a cake:( I am so terrible, i know.

Willow looking at her set of 6 pairs of new dress-up shoes from Grandma and Grandpa. These are a huge hit around here and there are even enough to share with Elwyn. AMAZING!!!

My two little cuties. Elwyn is always making the silliest faces. She cracks me up:)

Willow, on her birthday. The girls (and mostly Rich), love Kungfu Panda. Look at Elwyn, she is SO excited:)

Willow walking outside, suprised to see....

A new bike. (okay, technically it is not new. It is my bike from when i was a kid. Thanks dad for fixing it up and giving it a new paint job. I'm glad we didn't buy her a BRAND NEW bike. You should see the way she falls all over the place on this one.) Grandma and Grandpa gave her a pretty white basket and really ANNOYING horn to go on the bike. What a lucky girl:)

Daddy and Willow at dinner

Mommy and Elwyn at dinner. I don't know why we go out, no one ever eats what they order!!!! LAME!!!!

Happy Birthday Willow

My sweet little Willow turned 6 today (sigh). I cannot believe how fast she is growing up. I swear i just brought her home from the hospital. She was such a good baby. I was not ready to be a mom...but she was ready to come. Now i don't know what i would do without her. She is such a big help around the house and loves being a big sister. She is so smart and amazes me each day with the things that she knows. I love you Willow bug:)

I will post about her birthday and all that later.

This is Willow at 3 days old. My whole pregnancy my doctor told me that she was going to be little (right around 6 lbs). haha, very funny, they had to vacuum the fatty out of me. 8 lbs 3 oz and 21 inches long. She had rolls on top of rolls. I love fat babies:)

Willow at 1 year old. Still a fatty but a goody!!!

I love this pic of Willow. She grew up so fast. Of course i made her grow up. She is 2 in this picture and so dang cute:) I miss those chubby cheeks.

Willow at 3 years old. This was at Rich's brothers wedding. What a cutie!!!

Willow at 4 years old. I love this haircut on her.

Willow at 5 years old. She has such a cute smile.

Willow a couple of months ago...so not officially 6 yet, but you get the point.

Anniversary, Birthday and sprained elbow???

So you would think with so many exciting things going on at our house, that i would have some good pics to go along with this post. Nope...not so much:)

Saturday July 18th, Rich and i had been married for 8 whole years. Can you believe it...don't worry, i'm shocked too!!! We went out to dinner at Tucanos...super yummy and super expensive. I would suggest only going there if you have a coupon for a free Birthday meal...which we did because Rich's birthday was the following day. Anyhooter...we had a good time and ate too much, like usual.

Sunday July 19th, Rich celebrated the big 3-1. I can hardly believe he is still alive and his heart hasn't stopped beating since he has reached such an old age. I feel bad for the guy:) We celebrated by going to church (probably one of his favorite things to do, not so much mine:)!!! jk. For dinner i made Chinese food. I love Chinese. I made super yummy sweet-n-sour chicken, way good, but takes alot of time, i also made fried rice and egg rolls...okay i didn't actually MAKE these last two, but i did have to cook them. i think that counts, especially considering the heat in the kitchen:) We finished off the night by watching the 3rd Lord of the Rings (Rich's favorite of the 3, besides that the girls love those kind of movies), and having some cake and ice cream.

These pictures are backwords..but whatever. We nearly started a forrest fire with the number of candles that were on this cake. You should have seen it afterward...covered in wax...YUM-O!!!

Willow and Elwyn were so excited for Daddy's candles.

Later that evening, the girls were messing around like they always do (trying to kill each other i assume...) anywho...Elwyn ended up hyperextending her elbow. Poor little thing. She would not stop crying and she would not straighten her arm, or use it in any way. I thought for sure we would be making a trip to the ER. After an hour of her crying, we wrapped it in and ace bandage and gave her some ibprofen...sure enough she was all better. Don't you love how a bandage cures everything. I love it!!! It really was strange because i know she wasn't faking the pain, but the minute we had that bandage on her, she was ALL BETTER. Goofy kids....

The Grotto

We got off our butts last night and did something. Can you believe it!!! Rich was home and we had nothing to do, so instead of watching TV we drove up Payson Canyon and hiked to the Grotto.

Rich had been up there a while back with the Young Men and told me it was an easy hike. Well, yeah maybe it was an easy hike, but safe....i think not!!! Hello, i'm sure many of you have been up there before, but i don't think crossing the stream on those logs over and over again is safe. Especially when you have small children with you. Maybe that's just me!!! Oh well, we survived and the best part was when Willow had to go potty so i made her squat and pee, and she peed all over her pants...AWESOME!!!!

The girls by the waterfall

Elwyn pulling one of her MANY faces

My little Willow...who by the way will be 6 in two weeks:(

Richy poo and his girls

Fat mom and her girls

Oquirrh Temple

We finally found a day and time that we could all attend the temple open house together. Shocking, i know!!!

Anywho, yesterday i picked Rich up from work after a grueling morning of running errands and then taking the kids to swimming. By the time i got home from swimming i had a total of 30 minutes to shower, do my hair and makeup, give the kids lunch and do their hair. It was really fun...what???

We arrived at the Temple just in time for our reservation. There was a line....all the way out to the street. I didn't think much of it, until we kept waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Yeah this was fun with kids and standing in the sun:) Finally we enter one of the tents to watch some 12 minute video. Well in the meantime the power decided to go out, so it took them a good 15 minutes to figure out what was going on. Hello, can we skip the video and just go in the temple. Not so much, apparently.

Well the video ends and i'm thinking we can just walk right into the temple, no big deal, right. No, there is another massive line that we have to wait in. Then after all this, Elwyn decides to tell us, "I'm stinky now." Thanks Elwyn, thanks!!!

So after well over an hour of standing in line outside we enter the temple. I tell the girls if they are really super good and hold my hand the whole time they will get a treat. They did awesome. So you would think this all turned out great, except that the entire time inside the temple we had some of THE MOST ANNOYING PEOPLE behind us. They were this older couple, that were apparently dating. How annoying could they be....oh my gosh i almost turned around and slapped them. I realized this wasn't inline with the spirit of the temple, but seriously, can they stop running in to me and breathing down my neck!!! I am still obviously overly irritated about the whole experience!!!

So after 2 and a half hours of being at the temple we were glad to leave. That is a sad thought. oh well. I had planned to go to Hobby Lobby (my most favorite store ever), but since it took us so long at the temple, we didn't have time. So that just adds to my irritation!!!!

The moral of the story....don't go to the temple open house on a hot day. Especially a day that everyone has off from work:(