Adorable

We had some professional pictures taken last week....they turned out SO GOOD.  I am in love with this photographer.  Helena did much better this year...no crying or anything. :)  But we couldn't get her to quit saying 'CHEESE!!' and just smile.

You can view some of the session on her blog here.  And if you're in the SLC, I would highly recommend her.  Jen's super great.

-Emily :)

Of He Who Wears the Pants in the Family

So those of you who have known Ash and I for any long period of time know about our endless argument about how he often wears the same pair of pants for weeks on end without washing them.  He'll mow the lawn in a pair of jeans and then wear them to work for the next four days.  He refuses to have more than 1 pair of jeans in the rotation at one time.  I believe his personal record for consecutive days wearing the same pair of jeans is 27.  It's not normal.  I recall one time in college after we'd just gotten married when we were discussing this 'habit' of his amongst a room full of his guy friends.  Ash adamantly defended his practice saying "everyone does it, right???" to which his friend Phil replied, "Dude, that's disgusting."  Major blow.

I've quit fighting with him about it for the most part and it has gotten better, slightly, since he has to dress up more for work now.  But....this week he sends me this article in the Wall Street Journal from someone who works at Levi's (and is really too into his jeans) entitled "The Jeans Care Secret: Rarely Wash Them."  Evidently 'rarely' means every 6 months for Christ's sake.  Yuck.  I personally get too much spit up, poop, food, etc. on me almost every day for spot cleaning to do the trick.  Sorry.  But Ash has taken this as the gospel, and our plight continues...

-Emily :)

Translation Toddler

The language of toddler is often very complex.  Sometimes I take for granted that everyone can translate Helena as well as we can.  And believe me, there are a lot of opportunities to deal with her quirks.  I thought it would be fun to list some things she says that might take a few guesses to figure out the real meaning.

White Ham = Turkey
The last day = yesterday
Smores = Snores
Bazangne = Lasagne
Chicken Muggets
Hoomat (pron. HOO-MAHT) = Helmet
Nola Bar = Granola Bar
Ninoculars = Binoculars
Rove = Robe
Panpakes
MM's = M & M's...leaves out the 'and'.

There's no way I could type up a list of behavioral quirks...it would be way too long for this blog.  ;)  I just put Helena down for a nap and she asked me to fill her 3 cups in her bed up with "fresh water."  Seriously?!?  It's a good thing she's so cute and funny most of the time.

-Emily :)

A Tale of Two Signs

So this is the best pic I could get....and if you look really really closely you can see one sign says 'Buses Only', and the other one says 'Busses Only'.  This is at the elementary school closest to our house -- the one Helena will attend if we are still living here when she starts real school. 

So at first I thought, "Jeez, why can't they spell 'Busses' correctly on both signs?"  It looks like someone at the school was all, "I'm not exactly sure how to spell the plural of bus, so we'll just spell it so hopefully one of the signs are right."  Or, "Oh, crap, we spelled the first sign wrong!  We'll order another one that's right but not take the other one down because we can't afford two new signs."  Surely there has to be some explanation why signs at a SCHOOL are misspelled. Right? Or is private school looking that much better??  And after I took this picture I noticed two other school signs with blatant misspellings (but I couldn't take pics because I was driving).



But then I thought, "Wait, how do you spell the plural of bus?"  Then I thought, "Maybe one is in Spanish and one is in English?"

I did some investigating and turns out the plural of bus can be spelled buses or busses.  But I still think they should have picked one and gone with it. Just my opinion.  Would make the whole sign situation look a little less silly.  And I'm pretty sure it's not in Spanish.  Maybe one of these days I'll go down and inquire in person.

Thoughts?  Isn't Utah fun?  :)

-Emily :)

Where the Green Grass Grows...

We made a trip to Burrton/Hutchinson for a week over Labor Day.  I hadn't been home in 9 months...the longest span of my whole life.  Weird to think about it like that.  Fortunately, I had seen most of my immediate family members in that span between trips to Colorado and people coming out to Utah to see Harper.  :)

Here's a numerical synopsis of our trip:

6 : The number of things Helena 'rode' on -- boat, tube, motorcycle, four wheeler, golf cart, tractor.  She's braver than I give her credit for.
2: The number of times it took me to get up on water skis.  I went around the lake twice and then I died.
7:  The number of pies my grandma made while I was home.
17: The number of pieces of pie I consumed. 
4: The number of drinks I had in one evening at the lake. By the way, margarita popsicles are really yummy.
43: The number of friends and family we saw while in Kansas for 6 days.  That's intense.  Ash's grandma Claudene and brother Alex even came down to spend some time with us! 
5: The number of times Harper pooped and/or puked all over someone other than myself.  Also, the number of outfits he 'went through' the day before we flew home.  He's a messy one.
3: The number of people who kindly helped me by holding Harper while I folded up a stroller, entertaining Helena, etc. on the flights home in the airport when I was flying by myself with both kids. I'm pretty sure I am still tired from that day, but we survived and the kids were both really good.

Anyway, it was good to be home and breathe some good old country air!

Kane, Helena & Ellie -- probably one of the best pictures I've ever gotten of all three of them together.  There were bribes involved...

-Emily :)