Shower of the YEAR!

Probably one of the funnest showers I've been involved with planning was for this sweet girl, my sister-in-law, Megan. After 5 boys....she is finally having A GIRL!!! How can you NOT celebrate that?!

 The drinks....

the favors....

 some decor...

 a build-your-own fruit pizza bar...

and what's a shower without some "chick food??"... as my hubby calls it! 

 Such fun gifts!

 All the sisters gave her new bedding! Of course it had to have a little pink in it :)

 Love all these ladies! Congrats to Meg and Trev...can't wait to meet her!

...One last Birthday hoorah!

We celebrated the kids with the Anderton clan too....the definitely got their fair share of birthday wishes! Each month the birthdays get spotlighted with all the the cousins sharing something they like about the bday boy/girl. Then they get to share a talent with all the cousins/aunts/uncles. 

 Jet pointed out all the colors of Angry Birds on his beloved shirt...and then of course his GREEN hat!

 Emri read her favorite book to everyone (no, she can't read...she just has the whole book memorized). It's "There is a Bird on Your Head" by Mo Willems....one of the silliest books we own! :)

Feeling Fortunate...

So, remember how I said there was more to this pic than just Mindy and I earning our 1/2 Marathon medals? My favorite part about this picture is that there are actually 4 people in it!! We are expecting baby #3, due to arrive September 8th!! I am 12 weeks along in this pic, and Mindy is 20 weeks along!! We really feel so fortunate about this blessing! And I feel especially grateful that I've been feeling well, especially well enough to keep running! 

Here's the little bean @ 8 weeks...

and looking more like a little babe here @ 12 weeks.

 This lovely selfie was 13 weeks....

...and here we currently are at 14 weeks (at night...why is it always so much bigger at night?!) Definitely feeling the "thickening" stage coming on! haha! In fact the last few nights Emri has patted my tummy and said "Look momma, the baby is really growing!" Wow, even noticable to those 4 year old eyes....thanks E!

 I have had some feelings it's a boy (but I was wrong with both E and Jet....no motherly intuition here) so we'll see! Emri is determined it's another brother! She even announced it to her primary class on Sunday which made her teacher come to me after church with questions of a Sunbeam class rumor or if it was really true! Pregnant, true. A boy, not sure! :)

So far I've felt quite well. A few blah nights, but I really can't complain! Mostly for me I've just been really tired. I've been trying to take advantage of afternoons when Jet naps and Emri has quiet time to sneak in a little nap myself...and also I've been trying to go to bed at a decent hour. It's been good to keep running 2-3 times a week though I tire much easier; I'd like to stay active as long as possible....I wasn't active much at all with the other 2 pregnancies, but I love that time to myself in the morning even though most times it requires setting an alarm! 

We feel so fortunate to have this blessing again in our family! I must say I'm a little nervous for 3...Brett and I will be outnumbered and we're going to have to get used to a zone defense instead of man-to-man!! 

UDA Convention

Look at the following pictures and ask yourself, "What do these have to do with UDA Dental Convention, 2013?"

I'm not quite sure of the answer to that either, but I will tell you it was a good time!! Love my fellow dental peeps! Always a day or two of laughs! 

This snippet is Crystal and Kels on the jiggle machine....guaranteed to help fix back pain (and other things)!

Dogtown 1/2 Marathon

I honestly wasn't sure after my first half marathon back in October that I would do another one.... mostly because of the way I felt after. SO SICK. But, now I'm pretty sure that was just a random stomach bug (because my mom---who didn't run---got the same thing the next day). In November I somehow talked my lil brother Brody into signing up for a race....he has never been a runner. Never ran a race, not even a 5k. And he jumped at the opportunity! Once he said yes, I figured I better get on board too!

Can I just say that running is hard for me? Running is hard for me in the NICE months of the year. And I have found out that running is BRUTAL in the winter months!! Due to yucky weather and terrible stretches of inversion and bad air quality most of my training was done on a treadmill. That's ok up till about 4 miles. The 9 miler was suicide. Luckily the weekend of the 10 miler, the sun came out and Brody and I went to Morgan Valley to run it.

My thoughts on the race were a little different than my first half. I knew (somewhat) what to expect. I knew what it felt like to really go 13 miles, so that wasn't as scary. I knew the weather wasn't going to be AS nice as before, but hopefully the sun would make an appearance so we would be comfortable! I knew I would be running (again) with my awesome sis-in-law and she would keep me moving. I was nervous because my longest run was only 10 miles, last time I had gone to 11. Total race training miles= 112 miles (I think I was slightly higher my first go round). BUT, I was waaay more excited for my brother to run/accomplish the race than myself. It must be something about the excitement/anticipation of your first big race?! Brody has trained really hard the past 3 months. He went from not running or working out at all, to running 3x/week and hitting the gym 5x/week; he is a new person....and down 25 lbs! After our 10 mile training run together I knew he was gonna burn me on race day! We hit 9.5 miles and then he took off sprinting! WHAT THE?!

The Dogtown 1/2 is in southern Utah...Washington City. We took off Thursday and spent the weekend in beautiful St. George. Friday night a group of us went out to dinner at Pizza/Pasta Factory....CARB LOADING! I love having a legit reason to stuff my face with pasta and bread!

RACE DAY: freezing our bums off waiting for start time! Me and my totally rad sis-in-law

 Me and Brody

 Our group; these other ladies are Mindy's regular running buddies.

 Brody ran the first 1.5 miles with us then took off....there he goes!

 I ran with Mindy and her friend Heather. Look how cute their shirts are: "20 weeks pregnant ...A Half Marathon Halfway to Baby!"

The beginning of the race was through a neighborhood in Coral Canyon, then on a paved hilly trail through Hell's Canyon. Around 6 miles my right leg started buggin, just below my calf. I stopped for a potty break and a little stretch and after that it seemed to go away. We got into Washington City and around mile 9/10 we headed UP hill through some neighborhoods. UNCOOL! haha! Because I am a slacker on a treadmill I didn't do much training with an incline. My legs were definitely feeling it too! All I could think of was my sis-in-law and her friend that I was running with ARE BOTH 20 WEEKS PREGNANT, so I have NO EXCUSE to not keep up!

Around mile 11 Brett called and he said Brody had just finished and was going to walk back towards us (I had told him to come run the finish with us). We turned a corner where there was an aid station and they said we were at mile 12....YAY! Well, about 1/4 mile up the road there was a sign marking mile 12. I was bugged! Why would spectators tell you that?! It was kind of mental for me after that! Brody met back up with us with about 1/4 mile before the finish line. I'm SOOO glad he did, because I didn't think I could keep going, but to have him come distract us and tell us about his run made it much better! AND I was SO PROUD of him! He finished in 1 hour 53 min....a GREAT TIME!! Momma Max was our photographer and did great! 

Here's Brody coming through! 

 Mindy and Heather...

 Can you believe that backdrop?! What a GORGEOUS place to run (maybe one day I'll call it home??)!!

 YAY! Finally there! Who's the random photobomb runner? Brody was so nice to comply to my request to run that last leg in w/ me... there's no way i could run another step after crossing the finish line!

It was so nice to get to the end and see Brett with the kids and my mom there! They are awesome fans! Our time was 2 hours 18 minutes. And I was quite happy with it! The time was 5 minutes slower than my first 1/2 marathon... but it's hard to compare 2 different races. 

Don't you love Brody's hair?! He cut it just for the race ;)

The kids enjoyed the playground while we ate, stretched, and talked about the race...that arm is the only  proof i have that Momma Max was there. WHaT ThE?! How did she not get in a picture!

Yay for another fun race BEHIND me! So proud of Brody for being so awesome on his first race! Here are just a couple other pics from our fun weekend in St.G... 

Hopefully next time we get down there it will be warm enough for the pool!

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Oh, and then there's this picture... and some exciting news to go with it! More on that later :)

Emri Eleanor is 4!!

Our birthday week celebrations continued on Wednesday (Emri's actual bday)! Emri woke up @ 5:30 am that day! First a small backstory: About a month ago we were leaving Brett's parents house and they threw a huge garbage sack into our car. What the? Well, it was a collection of large stuffed animals that belonged to Brett when he lived at home. Lovely. We inherited them. So each of the kids got one on their bday. 

Ok, back to 5:30 am...Brett had tied a bow around this huge stuffed elephant and put it at the foot of E's bed after she was asleep. I'm assuming she stirred early and saw this shadow of a huge something on her bed, flipped on the light, then ran to our room. "Mommy!! I got this! It's my birthday!" Showing me the elephant. I tried to coax her back to bed, snuggling it...BUT Jet has been in the terrible habit of waking up early. He started crying around 6am, Emri heard him and it was over from there!

 They both had balloons in their rooms...

 ...then this year instead of Breakfast "in Bed"...they got breakfast in "the bedroom." Can you imagine Jet eating cereal in his crib?! They get SUGARED cereal on their birthdays. Best thing ever for them!

 Emri couldn't wait to open presents so we did it before Brett went to work. Good thing they got up so dang early... we had plenty of time to party! ha!

 Jet got a "jake" plush from "Jake and the Neverland Pirates," and we gave Izzy to Emri...you can see him admiring her in the pic. BASICALLY, he thinks Izzy is his and Emri has been very kind to share her. 

That day we met up with a friend for a day at Treehouse Museum in Ogden. Other than me losing each kid a couple dozen times, it was great! For future reference: don't take TWO MOBILE children to museum alone. 1 child= 1 adult needed supervision at all times! Here they are in the rodeo exhibit. Such cute little cow-people!

 Afternoon required a NAP...for all 3 of us! Then when daddy got home we let Emri open her "surprise" present. I'd been wanting to get her a doll house for a while. It's been a hit so far (with both kids). No-pants Jet thinks it's great! :)

We ordered pizza for dinner (per the birthday girl's request), then since we already did cake Sunday for both kids, we took the kids to E's FAVORITE icecream place, Menchies! She was happy as a clam!

I still can't believe this LITTLE PEANUT is 4 already?! 

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This chair is looking a lot smaller than it did 4 years ago when I first started snapping pics of her in it!

4 YEAR WELL-CHECK STATS:

WEIGHT: 35 lbs. 2 oz. (52%)

HEIGHT: 40.2 inches (60%)

 I'm still in love with that solo dimple!

 She loves being at the doctor...

...but was a little nervous this time anticipating a "pokey." We only had one to get, her flu shot (yeah, better late than never??) She snuggled her sleepy bear during the shot, flinched a little but didn't cry! She was so excited to tell everyone that she didn't cry when she got her pokey, and had to call Daddy right away at work to tell him how brave she was! So sweet. 

A few things about Emri right now:

• she absolutely loves preschool, her teachers, friends and everything that comes with it!
• says the sweetest prayers.
• her coloring has really improved the last few months and will stay inside the lines when she is focusing hard enough!
• she loves to play Candyland.
• she and Jet get along about 70% of the time. He's quite temperamental, which causes the other 30% most of the time. 
• at times i catch her trying to get Jet in trouble....she's super sweet but has a small side of mischief that sneaks out occasionally!
• she no longer needs Miralax to help her poop!!! Prob not a big deal to most of you reading... but this girl has struggled with bowel movements since we introduced solid food. YES, for the past 3 years we've had to be very regular (no pun intended) with a daily dose in her morning drinks. SERIOUSLY! I am soooo glad that's over! Forgetting that when packing was almost as bad as leaving diapers at home! 
• loves to chew "warm gum" (not "hot" gum like mommy's).
• She is still the most CUDDLY girl on the planet and is always up for snuggling. 
• She has a knack for memorizing songs and loves to dance! 
• She still is a Daddy's girl.....probably always will be!
• She is such a joy to our whole family and life just wouldn't be the same without her! We love you E!!!