Dude. My ovaries.

Happy Birthday to Heather!

We have the world's best neighbors/friends/Chris's 2nd family. Their's is the house that Chris hits for a second dinner if he isn't satisfied at our house. They take very very good care of our family and Chris swears that if polygamy is ever legalized he's gonna figure out a way to have them be his other family.

Their daughter's birthday was today and she looooves helicopters so I did my best to make a helicopter birthday cake for her. She's good stuff, that one. She got excited about that helicopter, but not nearly as excited as Chris got watching her get excited. He just loves Heather and hasn't stopped talking about it since we got home. He also gave her a battery operated dart gun that he told her to use on her dad. She did and Chris and her laughed and laughed. We all did. What a good time...and a GREAT dinner. It's good to have a 2nd family.

Why comments rock

I woke up in a panic this morning, realizing that I had blogged after midnight and horrified at what I wrote. I came so close to deleting it, but I did figure that it was about as close as I get to coming right out and saying " I love you, Dad." so I left it there anyways. Thanks for not being horrified and for your lovely comments. I'm way less embarrassed now.

Top Ten Reasons Why Dad's Cancer Sucks...other than the obvious fact that Dad has cancer

1. Easter should always be at Mom and Dad's house. Having it here worked out fine, but it's not the same.

2. I'm really really homesick and since we are the Berg-Machine-of-All-Illness-All-The-Time it wouldn't be right for me to go spreading our germs around over there. Gotta get Dad healthy, not give his body one (or seven) more things to fight.

3. My dad has been sick enough already. I wish, for his sake, that he could just feel great.

4. Ok, I'm gonna say it. Mom. Mom dealing with Dad being sick is rough. She's got a whole lot on her plate right now and Morgan gets her emotional strength from her, if you know what I mean. I think Jenny might strangle her before this is over, and nobody wants to see that happen.

That's how far I got before I started thinking about the Top Ten Bright Sides To This Crap

1. If he HAS to have cancer, at least it's a good one. A great prognosis is very comforting.

2. Dad could have died during that last huge illness that I can't spell or pronounce. He didn't. I am so grateful for that. I know we all are.

3. Baby-Brother is there to help and it sounds like he's really stepping up taking care of things. That is wonderful.

4. He's been doing decent with his treatments. Not great, but it sounds like he's not completely miserable.

5. We have plenty of friends who have already lost one or both of their parents. I think it's only right that I live to be 90 something and my parents live that whole time too and they should be healthy and lively that whole time, but it's probably not realistic, so I'm just acknowledging how lucky we are that our parents are alive and it looks like they'll stick around for awhile.

6. If I can't go home for awhile, at least it's not summer time yet. That would suck way worse. No barbecues. No corn feed. No Dad bringing Mom a rose and her getting all giggly and me throwing up because it's MY PARENTS. No slumber parties and sneaking out and 7-11 and Big Gulps.

7. Grandma is still here. That's such a relief. I'm glad she's there and hope that all continues to work for them.

8. The whole "appreciate the time we have" stuff. You know what I mean.

9. That they got to go on their big vacation before his official diagnosis and chemo and all that. I wish he had felt 100% that whole time, but I'm still glad they got to do that and I look forward to them going again.

10. We are so blessed to have all of our family still here, still together, and mostly still close by. It's a huge blessing that we don't have to wait all year to see each other or travel great distances. Missing visiting my folks makes me sad, but I see the bigger picture, that I still have them there and will see them before too long.

That's all I've got. I feel better now. Jenny, stop crying, I see you and if you don't stop I'm going make fun of your red nose.

Easter was pretty good, in spite of the lame location

I've given up on getting all of Easter on one post. Here are some of the egg dying pics. Aunt Leanna pretty much did the whole thing while I worked on the cake. Maybe Jenny was helping too. I have no idea, I was in my own world.

I love Avery's face in this one. It's just soooo Avery. As Leanna's kids like to say "Show me your Avery face!" and then they scowl. I love that.

For My Mom

You know you want to see it.

He's such a good tipper

As payment for last night's haircut, Chris let me shave my name in his belly hair while I had the clippers out. It looks fantastic. I know, I know, you want to see a picture...I'll see what I can do.

Email Forwards

Every day I get forwarded emails from my aunt and uncle. I read all of them, agree with 99.9% of them, and forward many of them. But every once in a while there is one so good that I have to post it. Here is one of those....

With time, women gain weight because we accumulate so much information and wisdom in our heads that when there is no more room, it distributes out to the rest of our bodies.

So we aren't heavy, we are enormously cultured, educated and happy.

Beginning today, when I look at my butt in the mirror I will think, Good Grief, look how smart I am!

Before the day is over...Happy 5th Birthday, Grant!

Happy Birthday to my little Grant man. I love you! I can't believe you're five already. The last few months you have been working on your manners. It's super cute. You will run to find me and tell me that Morgan just kept annoying me and I ignored her, mom, instead of getting mad! Isn't that a good job? It IS a good job. So are your super enthusiastic thank yous. You're a very grateful little dude and generally very happy.

We haven't had a "party" or a "cake" yet, because Kai wasn't home, but we did have sundays tonight and you were VERY excited about that.

Just didn't want the whole day to pass without acknowledging your big day.I love you little dude!

Why I Love My Blog

Just had a great time looking back at Kai's last few birthday posts Here and here. It's so super cute to look at these same girls and realize what little babies they were and how much they've grown up. Thanks, blog, for saving these memories for me!

a few more from the party...

Loved these signs all over the house!Very proud of my Studio 13 sign I ran upstairs and made as people were arriving. Thank you Cricut machine! The cake...

And a few pictures of the other daughters...


Too sexy for my comfort level.

My MoMo...




I was flipping through all of these pictures after Jenny left. She took a bunch in a row of Morgan. I'm clicking..Morgan...clicking...Morgan...clicking....more Morgan. And then BAM! This one pops up. Scared the garbage out of me! Yikes, kid! I swear she's cute in person!

Hahahaha!!!! I laugh until I cry every time I look at it. And then I just cry.

America's Next Top 13 year old

In typical Amy Planning Mode, Kaila and I threw together her birthday party pretty last minute. Her original plan was "Nerd Night", but I wasn't quite sure what we were going to do with that. It evolved into a spa party and from there into a makeover party. Then -cue the choir of angels- Jenny agreed to come play with us. And so it was born...America's Next Top Model party of the year!

The girls arrived at various times, so we warmed up with a little Apples to Apples while we waited.

Then we dug into the cake. Maybe my best one yet. I wasn't sure about it, but the girls have all booked me for their birthday cakes, so I guess it wasn't so bad.


Then it was time for the makeovers!!!! More fun for mom and aunt or for the girls? Probably for us. It was extra much fun because they're so young and willing to trust us. Silly girls.

Here's Kai's mug-shot/before picture.

The girlies getting ready... Big sister helping out...
Mom teasing the heck of the hair... Workin' it....


Kai and Rei waiting for their spin on the catwalk...

The whole gang. I'm not posting anymore pictures of the attendees because I feel creepy posting a bunch of pics of other people's kids, but I had to throw this one on...

And here's a whole bunch more. Have I mentioned that I'm a Sepia whore? It's true. I can't get enough of sepia, and Kai just looks so go in it. I went back and added some color ones to this post because I realized I hadn't and I felt kinda stupid. Hope you like em! It was an amazing party. And the girls each got an 8x10 glossy of themselves to take home.

Friday Flashback

Today's Friday Flashback comes to you in the form of a guilt trip.

Dear Leanna, I want you to look back at your blog two years ago and think how happy you are to have captured those memories forever. Don't let another day slip away that Emery will look back at and wonder why you didn't love her as much as the other two. Why you never blogged about her big moments or adorable happenings. Don't you even care about her feelings? Please start blogging to save your baby's self esteem. But, really, to give me stuff to read. The end.

Look at those little babies!!! They grow up so fast. Capture the memories and share them with us. BTW...I've blogged more times today than you have this month.

Poor Em.

Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. Does that include craft related sales?

Just got my email ad for a big Michaels sale. It's 4 Hour's Only! Sunday, March 21st 4-8PM!!!

Lame.

Then I noticed below where it says "Except in Utah, where it will be on Saturday March 20th". That's awesome. Do they know their market or what?

I wonder if I could get special exception sale prices on Saturday if I show them my temple recommend. I should look into that. Otherwise, it's just not fair. Not fair AND they're missing out on lots of money. They should change their policy. I see it as a win-win.

Love it

Jenny used the word Glittercrotchie in casual conversation today. Fantastic.

When will she learn her lesson? (hopefully NEVER)

Jenny let me have my niece for a few hours again today. Suckerrrrr.

No injuries today, just some good ol' fashion mud wrestling (but said as wrassling. didn't know how to spell that). In the creek. In the only clothes she brought. Man, those two little turds had a blast playing in the creek and Jenny, always the trooper, just laughed and shook her head and asked her if she had fun. We threw them in the tub, loaned her some clothes, and all was well. All except her shoes, which still run brown every time I put them under the faucet. The lining in those super cute shoes may never really be clean again. Good times, good times.

Morganism

"It's not real, Mom, it's just FakeBelieve."

This deal saves me in more ways than one

Being a little, oh, hit and miss, at blogging this last year sucks now that I have nothing to print for last year's scrapbook. The blog makes all that so much easier for me. Luckily, I found a link to a website for a free photobook that syncs up to Facebook. So, I was able to log in, choose which pictures (including captions or not) I wanted to include. I didn't have to download any software, either. I usually spend days and days on a digital scrapbook, even when it's straight off of the blog. This book took me no time. None. It was super easy and I can't wait to see the book.

I just went to Pixable.com, ordered the 8x5.5 softsided book, and entered the code FREEPIX at checkout. I only paid the 2.99 shipping and handling. Really fantastic process AND cost.

I'll let you know what I think of it when in comes. In the mean time, you guys should hurry and use this code while it lasts. Even if the book is cheesy, it's still 3 bucks, ya know?

Top Ten Battles Royale

In no particular order, due to lack of time:

1. It's 11:05PM and I start crying and announce that it's because Chris doesn't love Mackenzie. I do this several nights in a row and our first marital rule is established. The "Amy isn't allowed to talk after 11pm" rule. It still stands.

2. Chris got drunk at MY company Christmas party at MY bosses house and spent the entire time hitting on MY bosses wife. Classyyyy. Then spent the next day denying that he was drunk and that he hit on her. This was pretty much a routine for awhile.

3. I'm SURE I've blogged this one before, but it's one of my all time favs. Chris's friend, Brian, had a girlfriend. His girlfriend was asian. His girlfriend was a semi-retired stripper"dancer". His girlfriend was also a hairdresser out of their home. She was Chris's hairdresser. Then, one day, we stopped by Brian's work to say hello. Brian asked me if Chris had mentioned "the show" he had gotten during his haircut, when she showed him the recent surgical enhancements she had gotten done. Brian saw my face, realized right away that Chris had NOT told me, said Oops, and we drove off. I never said a word. Chris never said a word. The next day we went to Costco and bought a set of clippers and I started cutting his hair. You know it's a good fight when no words are needed.

4. Um, do I spill ALL my secrets on here? Cuz here's another repeat goody. I was post-partum and my in-laws were here to meet the baby. I wasn't doing great "emotionally". Chris got all freaky weird about his mom being here and me not being happy and thought she was going to take it personally. She and John went to Red Robin to get dinner for us one night and after they handed me my Teriyaki Chicken Burger, Chris whispered to me that I needed to smile more. I threw the burger at him, cursed at him, and ran upstairs crying. It was an ugly night.

5. I'm going to have to wrap this up with number 5, or I'm going to be in the middle of number 6, if you know what I mean...

Our greatest fight of all time, you guessed it, SEASIDE BATTLE ROYALE. I can't recall the details well enough to do it justice, but I'll try. We had just gotten parked to walk around Seaside when one of our kids announced that she had to go potty. This would be an announcement made every 15 minutes if not nipped in the bud, so I answered, as always "You can wait, you just went", which would have been fine, but Chris wouldn't have that and rushed her into the nearest fast food place to pee. So annoying even now. Especially because that made me the bad guy and him the hero, something both worked on since then. From there, the rest of us started walking, letting him know that we'd meet on the main drag. We waited and waited and couldn't find them. He walked around and around and couldn't find us. We were both primed and ready to go, but not in a sexy way, in a fighting way. We started yelling at each other like those people we used to call 911 on when we lived in the rental house. It was a weekend and it was crowded and everybody gathered around, just like in Junior High during a fight, and people started placing bets on who would win and chanting "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT" and somebody squirted gatorade in my mouth and toweled my brow (I think it was Jeff). After Chris fell from my wicked upper-cut I stormed off to the car. I was ready to go home and leave him there with the kids. Jeff wouldn't let Leanna go with me or I totally would have. I'm still mad. Everytime I have to stop at a public bathroom for him I want to kick him in the tenders.

Other than that, we're doing pretty good!

My Latest Addiction

Don't EVEN try to perform another intervention. Y'all know that it doesn't work and that I'll just get bored and move along on my own anyways. AND this is a good addiction, which reminds me, you guys gave me so much crap about blogging too much, and now I go back and read those posts that were sometimes 5 or more each day, and I love being able to recall what my family was up to, so BITE ME, I'm totally going there again. 5 a day. Yep. Gonna do it.

Soooo....

Craft Blogs. Can't get enough right now. Obsessed. Probably more than I was with Facebook. It's true. My favorite is Nannygoat, and she shares lots of links as well, so I just branch out from there.

Here's my new must-do project:

Card table playhouse!

There are tons of other blogs with the same thing, but different details. So fun. So cheap. Hopefully so easy.

Now prepare yourselves to see lots of pictures of the crafts I'm copying. Oooh, Jenny, will you post a picture of the binky clips? Jenny is the first gift recipient of my obsession, but I'm sure that all of you will get something that you'll feel obligated to pretend to use and love. You're welcome in advance.