Video

Here is a link to a short video made by the (LDS) Church, narrated by President Hinckley. What a wonderful thing to be able to listen to the words of a Prophet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkUwh1YUMtE

Gina and the Capitol

Aunty Gina came to stay with us two weeks ago, and we went to see the Capitol. The Texas state Capitol is even a few feet bigger than the United States Capitol. Silly Texas. (I don't know why I can't figure out how to rotate it.)

When we were growing up we rode horses, and my grandma was a riding instructor, and a horse show judge, so when we took this picture, Emmaline was holding onto the horn, and I was just joking around and I told her that if she held onto the horn Grandma would beat her, (because you're not supposed to hold onto the horn...I don't remember why; I think something about getting your hand wrapped around with a rope and cutting your fingers off or something) and as I was putting this picture up on the blog Emmaline said, "If I hold onto that thingy, Grandma will beat me?" It was pretty funny. (We really don't beat our children...I probably shouldn't joke around about stuff like that. :) )

It was a lot of fun, and Daddy ended up getting out of class early, and his building is only a block away, so he walked over and got to go through the last building with us.
Emmaline had a lot of fun with Aunty Gina, and it took a lot of convincing to let us giver her back to Nana and Papa. We still might have to kidnap her back sometime. :)

Emmaline also has decided that she likes to take pictures now, so I let her use the camera when we went, and it was pretty fun to see our visit through the eyes of a three year old. This was one of her favorite pictures...a picture of the Capitol and fireworks. :) She's camera crazy now; we might have to get her a little digital camera for her birthday. (But not the kid tough ones that you can throw down the stairs...they're $80! Besides we don't even have any stairs...)


Our last story of the day was pretty sad. I've been sick all last week, so Thursday I finally went to the doctor, and I had an ear infection, and a yucky cold, so I've been on my antibiotics so I thought I'd be okay to go to Church today, but by the middle of Sunday school I was feeling pretty yucky so we decided to go home, so we went to get Emmaline out of primary, and she was so sad she just starting crying because she didn't want to leave primary. I felt so bad. I almost talked Royce into staying the third hour, but he didn't want Mommy feeling sick, so we came home, and Emmaline and Royce made cookies together, and he cooked her top ramen noodles for lunch. (She loves them, but she doesn't get them very much because they don't have much nutritional value. :) ) Then we ended up playing together for the rest of the afternoon, so she ended up having a pretty good day after all.

More Pics from St. Louis

Here are some more pictures from our trip. Good thing Aunty Lea was responsible and took some pictures.

Baby Mazy. Her little bow is so cute. Lea made it.
Mazy on the day of her blessing.
Emmaline followed Lea everywhere, trying to help take care of Mazy. She'd run to get her her binky, and she'd follow them up the stairs and "help" Lea change her diaper. And we found that sometimes when Mazy would cry, Emmaline would mew like a kitty, and that sound would make her stop crying a look around a little, so everytime she cried, Emmaline would run over and start mewing at her. It was cute.
Grandpa

Cake Stuff

This is my lemon cake that I made today. I was going to make more daisies for the top, but I just ran out of time. I also ran out of my glaze so I couldn't frost the outside of my cake before I put the fondant on, so you can see the different layers. But it tasted pretty good, so I think that will make up for some of the decorating flaws. :)


I've started working on Emmaline's birthday cake. Hopefully you can tell, but she wants to have a Monsters Incorporated cake this year, so I thought I'd give myself plenty of time, and start to make the little figurines first. Hopefully she doesn't change her mind in the next three months. :)



Royce had a big package sent this last week, and Emmaline loves the box; she even convinced Daddy to give it a try.

St. Louis Preview

We (Emmaline, my parents and I) are in St. Louis visiting Lea and Mike and baby Mazy. Here are just a couple of pictures from our trip so far. It's been a lot of fun, except for missing Daddy so so much.

Tornadoes!

Last night there was a really big storm just north of us, and I guess it's not confirmed yet, but they think there were two tornado touchdowns just north of us. I have to admit, it made me a little bit nervous, so we camped out in the bathroom for a little while. Our county was under tornado warning, which means you need to go to your shelter, but the tornadoes were in the northern part of the county, and by the time the storm got to us, the warnings were off, and it was just a severe thunderstorm warning. That part was pretty cool, because there was tons of lightening, and after a couple of minutes the power went out, so we hung out in our room watching the lightening. There was some damage to the north, but nothing down where we are, so that was really good. It made for a bit of a crazy evening!
Here we are, camped out in the shower. :)
These are just some random pictures of Emmaline's bath time.

She came out of our room looking like this one Sunday after Church. Oh, one other thing. Emmaline has learned the Happy Birthday song from Primary, (which I'm pretty impressed...way to go Primary leaders.) and she loves it, and she sings it all the time. And since my birthday is coming up, she sings it to me a lot, and it's the cutest thing I've ever seen. I tear up a little every time she does. She's so cute! (And she knows her mommy well. A little too well. Lately when I ask her to clean up something, or do something she doesn't want to do, she says, "but I want to sit on the couch with you and snuggle." She's dangerous.)

Sunburn

We went to a little water-fountain park today (I don't know what they're really called :)), and now I have a big sunburn on the left side of my neck, and down my left arm. Anyone else?
It's actually kind of funny, because Emmaline and I went swimming last week, and I put sunblock on, but I couldn't reach parts of my back, so I didn't worry about it because it seemed kind of overcast, and I got a crazy sunburn right on my back where I can't reach, and this last week it has been so itchy, and I can't reach it! So maybe next time I will ask a stranger mom to help me put my sunblock on. No, no, probably not. :)