Sleeping Beauty and an Astronaut

Jane LOVES the Disney princesses lately and it is SOOO much fun! She sings the Disney songs with all her might pretty much all day long and wears her princess dresses, too! The other night while we were watching Sleeping Beauty before bed she got on her Aurora outfit and acted out the last part of the movie as it was playing...it was hilarious!

Right before this Jane had pricked her finger on an imaginary spinning wheel and here she is asleep awaiting her prince to wake her up...
After a long battle with the wicked witch, through which Jane stayed still and asleep the entire time :), she was awakened by the prince...
Here she is bowing...
And dancing with the prince. She put on a great performance...better than the movie :)
And here is my sweet little Beckham, who is getting so big...way too fast!! He has been so fun lately. He loves to laugh and run all over the house and climb on EVERYTHING. He is fearless!! He is talking a ton and is just a super smart kid. One thing we love about him is he is just a tank. He is a BIG Harper boy all the way and that makes him super fun to snuggle with :) I love this kid!
Here's daddy giving Beckham a horse ride to his room to go to bed.
He makes a pretty sharp lookin' astronaut I think!
Our strong boy is a pretty darn good climber, too. By the way, the Provo Beach Resort is a TON of fun!!
He really know how to keep a calm head in a stressful situation as well...
I must say, we have just about the most talented children I know :)

The Valentines Day Fun Continues...

Jane had an adorable little Valentines Day party at her school that I got to help out with!! It was so much fun. I was in charge of bringing treats so of course I called upon my favorite cupcake shop, The Cocoa Bean, to make mini cupcakes for the kids in Jane's class! Naturally, they were delicious and turned out amazing. They even added the chocolate hearts dusted with pink glitter on top of the cupcakes free of charge :0 I love that joint!!
During the party, the kids did a Valentine's Day craft...
...and played games. It was so darling! And I must add that Jane looked fabulous in her special Valentines Day get-up!
Jane came home with a pouch (that she made :)) full of Valentines from her friends at school. I know she looks pretty grouchy...however, she really was happy!
Here's the array of goodies she is still working on finishing...
And here she is after devouring one of her Valentines Day treats! Don't ask me what she was crying about...I don't remember. However, she perked up pretty quick once she saw this picture of herself with a green mouth :) Hilarious!!
We may have started February off with two awfully sick kids...again...however, this month is shaping up to be pretty awesome. I love holidays!

Best Valentines Ever!!

Since I don't have any Valentines decorations, this year I got creative with decorating and made a few of my own decorations! I got the ideas from the internet, than put my own spin on them and I think they are really fun!

The day started off with Valentine's surprises for the kids after breakfast...Jane loves surprises:)
Beckham didn't care too much but it was still fun!!
Jane loved her new microphone. She LOVES to sing and is so good at it so this was perfect for her.
Beckham got some magnet letters for the fridge since he loves playing with the magnets I already have. Later on in the day, however, I caught Beckham shoving each of the letters under our fridge...so what's left of the letters have been thrown away. His gift was a bust, but at least he had a few minutes of fun with the magnets in his own special way :)
Carrying on with the homemade theme, I made Ryan my very own box of chocolates. I decorated the box as well as made two different kids of chocolate treats to put inside!!
During the day, the kids and I went to the Provo Beach Resort to ride the carousel...they had a BLAST!! And later on, Mae and Christina came to hang out with us...we LOVE when they come over.

Around 7pm, Ryan came home from work and surprised Jane and I with a rose each...how adorable!!
Oh, and my favorite treat from Costco- Macadamia nut clusters. They are so naughty but oh so delicious:)
Ryan liked his box of chocolates, too!
At the end of the day, Beckham was apparently so ready for his bath that I found him like this!! HE jumped right in with his clothes on!!! Crazy kid!!
What a fabulous Valentines Day this was!!

Some Funnies!!

Here's a few funnies from Jane that I really want to remember. This gal is hilarious!!

1. Jane comes out wearing her Belle dress and in her high pitched "princess" voice she says, "I am Belle...and this is my beast" while pointing to Beckham. And for the rest of the day Beckham is referred to as " the beast."

2. Jane loves to join in when I am putting my make-up on and every time she says, "I need to do my wake-up, too."

3. Jane grabs a bra that had fallen out of the clean clothes basket as I was carrying it back to my room and puts it on. I ask her, "Jane what are you wearing?" and she replies, "your boobs."

4. Being near her bedtime Jane was being crazy and giggling. "I am a giggle box," she says. After she is done giggling, she takes a big, deep breath and exclaims, "good night, nurse!"

5. Jane has a little Doctor set and loves to "Doctor me" as she calls it. I usually pretend to cry when she gives me a pretend shot. Jane was going in for the shot, pauses and looks at me and says, "Now don't cry." She thinks for a minute and says, "well, you can cry a little."

6. One evening I was arguing with Ryan about something and Jane chimes in and says quite forcefully, "But, I just love him ok," referring to Ryan.

Thank you, Jane, for keeping me so entertained!!

ER Visit Number 2 for January...

A little over a week ago, this was me...more or less!! I have never had an allergic reaction to anything before. However, this first month of 2011 has been terribly dramatic and pretty much awful...so when this happened I was hardly surprised.

Not too long after Jane got over her H1N1 flu, I started getting a mild case of hives in the morning. Ryan, the genius pharmacist that he is, gave me medicine to block the histamine response in my body. It appeared to work a little. However, the hives never completely went away.

By the second night of my mysterious allergic reaction, the hives started to spread to my face. I was mildy concerned, however they were not terrible yet. Ryan upped the dose of medicine I had been taking for two days at this point and I was sure things would improve by morning.

Well, when I woke up this literally is not far from what I looked like and strikingly similar to the reaction I had as well. I immediately burst into tears seeing what a monster I was. Upon further inspection I could see that pretty much my whole body was covered by one very large hive.

Needless to say, Ryan took me to the ER being very surprised that the high dose of medicines he had been giving me was not stopping the reaction. I wore my sunglasses the whole time I was in the ER being so humiliated by my appearance. They gave me a VERY painful shot and ordered me to be on an extremely high dose of three different medications for a week...

Well, the drugs made me kinda crazy. I was moody, super sleepy, no energy, I had a strange sense that my senses were heightened, anxiety, 1 hallucination, and to put the icing on the cake the steroid I was taking made me break out...I can at least look back on this experience and have a good laugh. I did look pretty awesome as a troll and had to get a shot square in my butt after all...that's funny stuff :)

Pretty much every New Years resolution I had made for myself has been shot by this horrendous month and all its drama. So, good bye and good riddance to January 2011. I am welcoming February 2011 and proclaiming this month to a new start to the year and I just know that it is going to go MUCH better!!

Grateful for the two men in my life tonight!!

Wanna hear a scary story? Well, Ryan saved Beckham's life tonight. We had gone to Macey's and Ryan gave both the kids a sucker to keep them happy...it was getting late :) Beckham has eaten many suckers before and has NEVER given any cause to worry about him eating one. We hopped in the car and were headed to Cafe Rio to grab our dinner...yummo!!

We were nearly there when all of a sudden, Ryan pulled the car over very abruptly. I had no idea what he was doing until I heard a faint gasping sound coming from the back of the car. I had no idea how Ryan caught that small sound...but his super human hearing could have saved Beckham's life. Ryan and I both jumped from the car as fast as we could, realizing that Beckham must have been choking on his sucker. We opened the car door to see Beckham completely gasping for air, tears of fear in his poor little eyes, yet no air was going either in or out.

Being totally useless in situations like these, I began to cry and gasp for breath myself. Ryan, however, yanked Beckham out of the car without hesitation and bent him over his knee and began pounding on his back. Beckham, soon threw up all over Ryan's shoe and along with the throw up was the retched sucker that had been completely blocking his airway. Beckham began to cry...the best noise in the world at a time like that.

I scooped Beckham up in my arms and instantly began crying. I cried because I was grateful he was ok, I cried because I was scared thinking of how differently things could have been going, and I cried because I was so thankful that Ryan was there and literally, like a super hero, saved the day!!

Beckham is now sleeping, peacefully in his bed. And I am left podering how much I love that sweet boy...how grateful I am he is in my life. I love his funny little walk, I love how he "tries" to sings to the lullaby song on the good night show, I love the huge, toothy grin I get whenever I smile at him, I love the way he screams with glee with his goofy little boy voice every time you chase him, and I love the snuggle hugs he gives me every day...whenever I ask for one.

I am also immensely grateful for the amazing, wonderful man I married who is, at this very moment, watching basketball...a habit I usually don't enjoy. However, tonight I find it adorable. I am grateful that he is so strong and brave and I can always count on him to save the day whenever I call him crying about however stupid a thing. I love that he takes such good care of his family, temporally and spiritually. I love how excited he gets about his work and how passionate he is about anything he does. I love that I can never stay mad at him for long. And I love that I am married to my best friend...who is a super hero!

I am a lucky lady tonight!!

Family Fun and Ryan's Birthday!!

Ryan had his 27th birth day on January 13th!! I get really excited for birthdays and always go overboard...but I know Ryan likes it so that is OK. This year Ryan had to work ALL DAY. So. the kids and I decorated his car while he was at work. It was filled with tons of balloons and a card and present from us! His coworkers also, bought him lunch and big cake for his bday. He is so loved :)
Once Ryan got home, we opened presents and ate some of my traditional Chocolate torte I always make for his special day! He loved his presents...yay...you never know with Ryan!
After that we went out to dinner at Red Lobster so Ryan could get some sea food...I'm not a fan, so he doesn't get that much!! It was delicious and I even tried some fish this time :)
That following Saturday, Ryan got another special surprise. He saw Jimmer Fridette (not sure on the spelling) the best BYU player ever, at the mall! Ryan is a big "Jimmer" fan and we got a picture with him!! He was so nice!
Here's just a darling picture of our adorable kids. Jane set up beds for her and Beckham in the middle of the living room and they both had a blast just laying there...haha! Silly kids...they are playing together more and more and I love it! :)
Another night way back in December, we used a gift certificate I got from my wonderful sister for my birthday, and we went to Osaka for dinner! It was such a pleasant night because we sat in out very own tatami and the kids were so good...a rarity!!
It might have helped that we brought Beckham's high chair so he couldn't walk around. He even liked the Japanese food!!
Here's Jane using her very own chopsticks and eating her darling little kids meal...so cute!
We love going to the Bean Museum to hear Discovery Reading Time. It is always so fun! They read stories about the animals they eventually bring out to show. Today it was a snake...I was totally freaked! But, it was still cool.
Jane was totally brave and touched the snake...
It has been kind of a crazy year so far...too many ER visits... but, I am still so grateful for my wonderful little family and love spending time with them!