For the Record

For the record, one of the things I love most about Devin is the fact that he plays the piano. Whenever we go to my mom's house if there is time he plays the piano. I decided to record tonight's performance so you all could enjoy it too.

Fifty Nifty

My siblings and I were quite the performers when we were young. I think my first real performance was when I was 3 years old. Marie, David, and I sang Fifty Nifty United States in the ward talent show. My mom even made a cute little flag costume for us to wear.

I have never forgotten the words to that song, at least the main part that names all fifty states in alphabetical order.
Somehow over the weekend my grandma was talking about how cute we were when we sang this song and suggested that we should sing it again. It's a good thing I new exactly where our flag costume was. I was surprised that I easily fit into my part again. Marie didn't have too hard of a time. David on the other hand, has got some manly shoulders that he didn't have back then so he didn't quite fit as well.

At my grandmother's request we sang our song again. Marie still knows all the words and helped us through the parts that we forgot (I'm sure it was that way 27 years ago too!). We laughed through a lot of it. Hopefully David will post the video because we added some great dance moves that weren't part of the original performance.

5k or Cow Herding???

We have had a fantastic 4th of July weekend. We had so much fun with my family. My grandparents even came out from California. There is much blogging to come from the fun and crazy things that happened this weekend. Trust me, it will take a week to do it blogging justice.

What would the 4th of July weekend be without running the Freedom Festival 5k? I can't even count how many times I have run this race (I have a drawer full of T-shirts, perhaps I could count). We woke up at 5:15am to get ready and feed Anna so we could all be down in Provo by 7am for the start of the race. Too bad we didn't bring a camera with us on the race, it was absolutely NUTS! There were so many people (not to mention that Captain America and Uncle Sam on Tall Tall stilts showed up too). I was worried that Devin wouldn't even be able to move pushing Anna in the stroller. I have been in some crowded races but this was ridiculous. I now know what a cow feels like. It took until we reach University Avenue before things thinned out a bit. I spent most of the race trying to just move around people.
Needless to say, it is still one of my favorite races to run. You get to watch all the cool hot air balloons as you are waiting for the race to start. You run the parade route and see all the crazy people who camp out over night. The weather is usually perfect. It is just a great way to start off the 4th of July.
We had lots of fun running. Even though the race was way crowded I was able to shave another 29 seconds off my 5k time and end up with 9th place in my age division.

Take Two of These

For anyone who has had, is having, or will ever have "one of those days."  

Take two of these and call me in the morning.

We all need a dose of Mary Ellen Edmunds every once and a while.

“If Thou Art Merry, Praise the Lord” (D&C 136:28)

or

Godliness with Contentment

Yummy Jam

Sleep is very important to me. I am not a night owl in any way. There are not very many good reasons to stay up past 10:30pm in my book. For the last three days I have had a good reason to stay up late.
I have been using a lot of these.

And lots and lots of these.

I've been doing a lot of this.

To make sure we have plenty of this to last all year.

I love strawberry jam! I really don't know if LOVE is a strong enough word for how I feel about good homemade strawberry jam. Since Anna has been born I have been making my own bread. It would make sense that I should make my own jam to go on the bread. So for the last three nights I have made a batch of jam each night. It is well worth staying up really late. We now have 27 half pints of strawberry jam. Each jar needs to last two weeks in order for our supply to last all year. I hope we can use some control.

7 Months, Almost 8

I decided to surprise Devin by getting Anna's pictures taken for Father's Day. It has been almost a month since I went to Target to get these pictures taken. I have really wanted to get her pictures taken, REALLY taken, not just in our house for a long time. I see cute baby pictures all the time. I hoped that taking the cheap, easy, Target coupon route would still produce some really cute pictures of Anna. I was very pleased with what they could do in 10 minutes. Out of all the pictures taken these are my top 5.

I am happy to report that Devin loved his new pictures. He can't wait to show them off at work tomorrow. I don't blame him. It has taken all the control in the universe to not post these pictures, since I have had them for several weeks now.

I'm Going Down to the Library

Why is reading in the summer more magical than during the school year? Especially for me and the state of life I am currently in (it's like summer vacation all year). Summer reading is still magical though. For the last several months I have been taking Anna to the library for Lap Time (story time for little kids). We love it! I love the library! I made Anna a special "library book" bag. Each week we go and check out all the board books we can cram into the bag. It has been a fun chance for her to interact with other little kids, listen to stories, and to sing fun songs. The teacher in me just eats it up every week.

Last week was special because it was the Teddy Bear Picnic. They had a Wizard of Oz theme (What does that has to do with the Teddy Bear Picnic????? Who knows!). The library was all decked out Yellow Brick Road and all. There were storytellers that told great stories. Anna was happy and sat through the whole thing. So yeah for the library! We are there every Thursday morning at 10:30am. Come one, come all, you'll love it too!

Oh, and if you haven't been to the Orem library lately, they have a new way to check out books that is pretty cool. It is worth going just to check out a book using their new computer system. Today it was funny though, it started checking my books out before I even pulled them out of the bag. So friendly warning the system is a little sensitive.