First Recital

Last night we attended Molly's first singing/dancing recital! It was so cute. I don't think Molly totally understood what a "recital" meant, but she did quite well, although she was shy! Here she is with her darling teacher, Miss Tricia!

 The theme was "Oh, What a Year!" Each song/dance was a month of the year.

Here is Molly singing her solo. "This is the way we sneak around, sneak around, sneak around..." She was really quiet, but she sang it!

Another dance was the baby bumble bee song. She is squishing up her baby bumble bee here :)

Ali was mainly trying to get to the stage the whole time until I found these stairs in the back corner! She had a great time going up and down these stairs while playing with my necklace.

Here are all the girls doing a little cheer at the end.

Molly was so excited about getting her picture taken after :)

Molly and her friend Carly.

What do you think?

Just out of curiosity, what do you use in the shower? Bar soap or body wash? I am totally a bar soap person. I don't know why, but in my mind I think that it's cleaner than body wash! Ha, I know, silly. Anyway, I'm curious what you use. I know body wash has a million yummy scents but I just can't get myself to go that route.

Moving on. When you sleep, do you like the blankets in a big heap or you do you like them nice and straight? I'm quite particular about them being flat, straight, and perfect!! I had no idea I was so crazy about this until I got married and Justin is totally the opposite! He didn't even like sheets and I had to convince him that was THE ONLY WAY TO GO! So what do you prefer? Or are you somewhere in the middle? (Have I already talked about this? Sorry if I have!)

Last question. Do I have a seriously sensitive head? I cannot wear ANY kind of headband for longer than about an hour, max, unless it's fabric only. Is that weird? I wish that wasn't the case because I think there are so many cute headbands and I do own several, but I can only use them when I'm washing my face for a couple minutes! Grrr. I just wondered if I'm the only one!

Six years ago on another Friday the 13th of May, we tied the knot! Happy Anniversary Justin! Here's hoping for many more happy years together. I love you!

Scottsdale, AZ

We left Thursday for Scottsdale, AZ sans kids for our 6th anniversary, which is next week.  We had a blast!!  We stayed at the Hyatt Regency and enjoyed some warm weather, shopping, golfing, eating out, laying out and peaceful sleep!!

These two came with us (Justin's parents).  When we told them we were heading to Arizona, they were totally on board.  And who can blame them?  They still had snow when we left last week!  Plus, Shelley is from Mesa, so she was the navigator (actually she was the driver!) the whole time.  And boy, it was nice having her drive.  I was totally lost!  I would never have been able to find all the places we went on my own!

We ate at an Italian restaurant at our hotel one night.  The food was really yummy!

This was dessert.  It's a little gondola boat that's dipped in chocolate.  The oar is also chocolate and the bottom is creme brulee!

Thirty seconds later....

And who doesn't love a strawberry daiquiri?  (virgin of course!)  Delish!

More eating pics! For Mother's Day we had brunch at the hotel and boy, do they go ALL out!  Wow!  They had breakfast foods, a salad bar, quesadillas and mexican food, italian pastas, prime rib, ham, breads and dessert!  I don't know if you can see the plate I'm holding, but yes, I tasted all of those!  And they were so yummy.  They also gave all the moms a rose. So sweet.

The guys enjoyed the dessert too (bananas foster anyone?!).

I learned that these are date trees, not palm trees!  Who knew?  My MIL did!  They were gorgeous and all around the resort.

We enjoyed weather in the high 90s, which sounds hot, but there was a breeze so we thought it felt GREAT.  It was really depressing to come home to rain!  Really.  It was sooooo nice laying out by the pool, soaking up the sun, reading my kindle!  I highly recommend it!

One of the most fun things we did was go on a gondola boat ride.  If you eat at the italian restaurant there, they give you complimentary tickets to go for a ride there at the resort.  They have a lake behind the pool where they do the boat rides.  It was so fun!  It was quiet and calm and the guy sang us an italian love song and it was beautiful!  The guy was really talented.  (He told us he got his master's degree in vocal performance...very impressive!)

It really was perfect!  I may have also bought several new things for my wardrobe (we pretty much hit every Marshall's in the valley!  Yep, we are sick!!  And we found Nordstrom's clearance store, Last Chance!)  Of course we wish we would've had one more day, but we were pretty excited to come home and see our girls.  A big, big thanks to my sister Natalie and my mom for watching our girls for us!  We got home last night and I'll tell you, it was hard facing reality.  Our girls got up several times last night (boo!).  It was clear the vacation was OVER!!  Anyway, if it has been a while since you and your hubby have gone for a few days on your own, it's definitely worth it!

Breaking News!

Alison walks!! Today she is 16 months on the day (May 10th) and she made it a milestone by finally walking! She has been close for a couple weeks now and we are so glad she waited for us to come home (next post is our fun trip!) to walk on her own. 

So pleased with herself! Great job Ali Bug!

Thanks

Let's just say that I was in awe with all of the comments I received on my last post about breathing treatments and the dentist! Aren't blogs so funny? You think you might get a lot of comments on a certain post and nope, not many. Then on another you think you will get none and you get tons! That's how I felt on this one!!

Anyway, I think you guys are right! I think I will get a second opinion on my teeth! Here is the sad news. The dentist I saw all growing up was the greatest dentist! We all loved him (meaning my siblings and I). He was so funny and always happy and telling jokes, saying that I had the prettiest teeth ever and would I trade him teeth? Well last year he died of cancer. He was probably in his late 50s, possibly 60. It was so sad to our family. This dentist came to our wedding receptions! So I am sad that I can't go and see him, because I totally trust him. What's funny is his nephew took over his part of the practice (there are 3 brothers in the practice, all Dr. Black's if you know them) and it just so happens this nephew went to high school with me! He was a year older than me...Brian Black for those who know him. Funny huh? So do I go and see him? He seems like a newbie and do I trust him? I'm sure he's great and obviously has had all the schooling and everything but I wonder if I went to someone more experienced would the outcome be different? Thoughts? My parents go and see him and they've talked about how he knows me and my brother Ryan. So maybe that would be good because we actually know him?? I was never good friends with him by the way. Just knew who he was.

Depressing

Last week Justin had a bad cold. Luckily I didn't get it and we kept hoping our girls wouldn't. Well Alison picked up a bad cough a few days ago. Yesterday my mom commented on how bad it sounded so I called and talked to a nurse. She said they would want to see her since they've still seen some rsv going around and there is some pertussis going around too. And it didn't help that she has a history of rsv.

So I took her in and they tested her oxygen levels which really weren't bad. I know because I got to watch the monitor last year when she had rsv! Anyway, the doctor came in and I told her she had been wheezing while coughing, and breathing a bit hard. So she listened and said, oh yeah, she is wheezing! So we did a breathing treatment. Have you done one before? Essentially you have to hold up a mask to their face that blows out a mist/vapor that they are supposed to breathe. At first she was all interested and excited at this new toy. Well about one minute later she was pushing it away, crying, trying to get it away from her! So we did this for about 2 more minutes. The doctor said they usually do this about 3 times on average and then they sometimes send you home with one. I think they call it a nebulizer.

After one time the doctor said she was much better and we didn't have to do again! Wahoo! But she did send us home with kind of an inhaler contraption with a mask. We have to give her 2 puffs every four hours as she needs it. So not too bad! We picked up the inhaler/medicine thing from the pharmacy and did it this morning and it went quite well! I'm just glad we didn't have to do the other kind like at the office. Last night she slept better with much less coughing and she's better today too. Yay for that!

As for me, I went to the dentist today. The last time I went was when I was pregnant with Alison. I was on full Medicaid so it was all covered. I'm on partial medicaid now since I'm no longer pregnant. Justin is not covered but the girls are fully covered (huge blessing!). I recently found a groupon for a local dentist, so Justin went last week and I went today. It was for a cleaning and x-rays and a great deal! Justin has bad teeth unfortunately, so I assumed he would come home with bad news and he did. All of his stuff together was around $2,000!!! Um yeah, we don't have that kind of money floating around! Who does?! He's funny about it, so I don't know if he'll do anything.

Well I generally have pretty good teeth so I wasn't too worried. WRONG! They said I have 9, yes, NINE cavities! What? I don't have a total of nine cavities in my mouth now! Of course a few are little ones they said. I was kind of outraged to be honest! I said out loud, I have never had 9 cavities in my life! The dentist said, well, they have been building up for a long time. After you take care of these, you probably won't have another one for 10 years. Needless to say, I'm kind of frustrated and bummed. They told me there are 3 that they are first concerned about and I can have these done over an extended amount of time, so we'll see. I think I will slowly take care of the 3, but past that I'm not so sure.

You have any good dental stories? Please don't tell me you have none. That's not what I'm going for! :) I guess I should be grateful I don't have any root canals or crowns. At least not yet! Geez, life is expensive isn't it? The end of my ranting is here. If you read all this, congrats!