Birthday, Birthday

Lily’s and Sam’s birthday are the 24th and 27th. Sunday was Sam’s. I had worked Saturday night so I was kind of a zombie on his birthday. I knew I would celebrate it later with Lily but I still needed to do something for him. I decided to surprise him with a day alone without the girls. I had my parents take Lily and Marah after church. We didn’t do anything special but Sam and I really don’t get to spend all that much time alone together, so I loved it! All we did was hang out, we slept out on the hammock, which we’ve never done, watched some Olympics, baked whatever cookies he wanted, hung out some more, and had popcorn and a movie. I just wanted him to feel how special and important he is to me since. I’m not very good at that on regular basis. I don’t know, I hope it was a good birthday.

My mom made a pony cake for Lily, which she absolutely loved. She sat by it all through dinner looking at it lovingly. I think it made my mom happy. I sure am glad that my kids will always have a grandma to bake them fun cakes. I baked Sam a from scratch German chocolate cake and made him Hawian haystacks for his dinner. I love making him special treats and I can’t wait for my kids to start having favorites so I can show them how special they are to me by making them things they love. I guess my mom and grandma Lily are wearing off on me. I have so many great memories of so many yummy things made just for me by both of them and I really want to carry the tradition on. The party was fun and I wasn’t even too stressed out. I took Lily to the Merc to pick something out for Sam. She insisted on getting him stickers. When I asked her if she was sure he wanted stickers she just said, in a don’t you know anything way, “dad really likes stickers, mo-uum.” She also told me they were so he could make the car and the truck pretty. She picked out an air freshener ‘to make the truck smell better’ and a bungee cord ‘to bunge stuff together’ and three nails which I tied together with a little yellow bow, of course those were to nail stuff. The kid at the counter just had to weigh the 3 nails. Sam loved his gift from her. Lily got poly’s and littlest petshops which are her two favorite types of toys right now. Sam’s big present was church shoes. He’s only been wearing his one’s from before the mission still, so about 8 years now. He was definitely due for new shoes. Well I hope they both had a good birthday. I love them both so much!

Sam's 3 nails he got from Lily.

Sam is not 27. There are 2 little blue ones to make 29. Just need to keep the record straight.

I thought this was such a pretty picture of Lily and her Great Grandma Redd.

the girls...

i just added slideshows of the girls. kinda all my favorite pictures of the two. this is kinda experimental. i have so many pictures and i wanted to figure out a way to share them. i added the two little ones on the side but then there are big versions of them at the bottom of the blog where you can pause the slideshow and look at them however you want. it's kinda fun watching both of the big ones at the same time. they pretty much change at the same time and its neat seeing the girls at about the same age and comparing the two, especially how similar but very different they are. there are over a hundred pictures on both of them, so it might be boring for some of ya, but i could never get enough of them. let me know what you guys think of the two different versions. i like to see the pictures big but i don't think anyone will scroll down to see them. anyway, let me know what the verdict is for any of those who want to see over 200 pictures of my cute and crazy girls.

the new do

well, whenever i'm up in the big city i try to go get a cheap haircut at one of the colleges. it usually works out pretty well because even if the student doesn't have a clue the instructor can generally fix it. well, this last student that cut my hair definitely didn't have a clue but her instructor saved the day. i ended up loving the haircut. it is kinda inspired by whits. it is very short on one side and long on the other, which you would think would be a very bad idea for a person with borderline OCD disorder who likes things straight and even. surprisingly it works! so much that i wish i could have that girl cut my hair everytime. i haven't been this happy with a haircut in a long time. here is a pic, but it's kinda hard to show exactly what it looks like. i guess it may be a bit on the wild side but it's giving me that much needed boost that only a haircut can do sometimes.

Lucky in In-laws!

The girls and I had a trip to Salt Lake a couple of weeks ago, mainly for Tony's wedding, but we went up early so we could have time to see friends and family. We had a lot of fun but missed Sam. Don't know how single parents do it! One of the days we got together with Sam's family and ate at Olive Garden. There were no spouses there and I was the only in law, but I found myself being so grateful that I love hanging out with "the in-laws". I don't even like that word! I really do feel like one of the family especially cuz I really do enjoy doing things with them even if Sam isn't around, so I definitely am lucky. I know not everyone can say that. So thank you Long's! I love you guys!! not to mention what amazing aunts and uncles they are to my little girls. Lily and Marah are made to feel soooo special around this family. It truly is an example to me. Little ones deserve that kindof love and attention. I want my nieces and nephews to have no doubt how much I love them. I hope I can be more like Lily and Marah's aunts and uncles and basically just take the time to be excited with them and just take time for them. Thank you, thank you guys! My girls are truly Lucky!

This is Marah showing her "pretty smile". We are trying to break her of her scowl that is no longer all in fun and her "pretty smile" is what she is replacing it with, so this smile will probably be showing up quite a bit cuz we just can't get enough of it now. She is such a character! Camillia is awasome, she insisted on letting marah hang out on her lap even though she was 38 weeks pregnant! Who, by the way, just had a beautiful baby boy this week. Congradulations Camillia and Thanye. I have no doubt this little boy is a lucky one. Welcome to the family Max! and Camillia, way to hang in there past your due date and to be happy about it. Your awesome attitude is going to help me try to be a little stronger next time around :)

Mikey and Lily
This is all the kids with grandma Long. She wanted to get a shot of them all wearing their bibs! Look at her gorgeous smile! She is so amazing through it all and I love that she can have fun with wearing a bib. Learetta is such a great example of strength to me.

Just more pics of the day!

Grandpa Sitting!

Grandma had to have eye surgery a couple weeks ago, so we got to grandpasit while she was gone. We had a blast having him around and he loved playing with the girls. He may be a little confused but he is so happy and just a joy to be around. I'm very glad we live here so we can have opportunities like this.

I left the room for not even two minutes and when I came back grandpa was on the floor. My immediate thought was that he had fallen, but turns out he just wanted to play the xylophone with lily. It was a little tricky getting him back in the chair, but it was worth it to see him having fun with the girls.

I think grandpa is wondering about the hole on the backside of that pony.

This is grandpa doin' his thing. I just had to get his little jig recorded, it cracks me up everytime. We love you so much Grandpa!!

Lily's Latest Quotables

Lily is starting to say some really random things that help keep the day a little more interesting. I figured I better start writing them down so we can use them as ammo later. She's always a lot of fun.

1. We signed up to clean the church and Lily was pretty excited, but when we got there no one was there to tell us what to do and I told Lily that as we were leaving and she said, “Well, mom, I’m here and I’ll tell you what to do.”
2. Lily was sitting in the back of the car and she was chewing on Marah’s shoe. I kept telling her to stop it and finally after the third warning she said, “but, mom, I’m hungry!"
3. The other day as we were sitting at the table, out of the blue, Lily just said, “Mom, I have so many boyfriends.” She said it very matter of factly.
4. A while back she also said, “I can’t wait to be big so I can go on dates.” I think I will lock her up most of her teenage life.
5. Lily always has to “help” me clean the bathroom. She started to clean the bathtub when I heard her say, “This sponge will cut through sticky, stubborn stains even baked on messes!” Is that a sign she is watching too much t.v.? I’ve never even noticed cleaning commercials on her cartoons.
6. I was watching a trauma E.R. show on T.V. and playing a game with Lily. She was noticing all of the hurt people and finally she said, “Mom, why don’t you jump in there and help them?” When I asked her how I was suppose to do that, she swung her arms and said, “You got to do a super jump!” It was funny but it also made me happy that in her mind I should be able to jump in the T.V. and help those hurt people. I'm always kind of hard on myself when it comes to work, especially working in the E.R., but that one little comment really made me feel good and helped boost my confidence. Love you Lily!!

24th of July

We had a lot of fun celebrating the 24th this year. It didn't take long for Marah to get into the whole candy thing. Of course she was shoving them in her mouth faster then she was getting them in the bag.

The park was a lot of fun just hangin out on the grass and seeing all the people. I spent most of the time waiting in lines but there was a lot of good food and it was worth it. The highlight of the day is always the fireworks. It's tradition to get as close as we can and then we are always covered in ash by the end. I always love the fireworks here. This small town holds it's own. This was Marah's first experience with them. She watched them but I don't know if she liked them. Lily had a lot of fun with the fireworks. I just found myself thinking about how much I love living in this small town atmosphere. We were able to just walk to everything, the crowds are pretty much all people you know, and I know we would have never made front row at the fireworks anywhere but here since we're always running late. It's just a great place to be!