Things are getting kinda hairy

Katelyn, loves having her hair done, the more elaborate the better, she's willing to sit for hours and hours as I find creative ways to do her hair, and she loves everything I create.... ok so the truth is, she hates it. ok "hates" is a strong word, she has a strong dislike for it. In fact she runs away screaming if I so much as glance her way with a hair brush in my hand, she really really really doesn't like having her hair brushed, but least you think that I am an insensitive mom who takes no consideration for the thoughts and feelings of my 4 year old, it's only the actual brushing out that she hates, um, "dislikes" once that is over with I can play with her hair as much as I please.... as long as there is a movie playing and I finish before the movie becomes uninteresting. and since there is no way that I would let my daughter out of the house without her hair at least brushed, I don't think I am ruining our relationship forever by trying out cute styles. hopefully we don't both end up in counseling because of this train of thought.

so here are some pictures of some of her cutest, and um, most "creative" hair styles.

Naples Open house

Cameron's brother Jordan got married to Jenny on April 25th in Utah and we had an open house for him in Naples on May 1st. It was a beautiful day and I think everyone had a great time. We are so excited to have another sister/aunt join the family.

Jenny with the girls. Lauren, Kathryn, Baby Hannah, Emily and Katelyn. They were all excited for "Princess aunt Jenny."

Thanks to Louise there was plenty of great food. Grant had so much fun eating to his hearts content, he was a complete mess by the end of the night.

Cameron loves to play with the kids, he and Katelyn had a great time goofing off together.

Katelyn loves Jenny and was thrilled when Jenny offered to let her wear the veal.

Dallin seems to be very attached to Jenny, anytime Jenny left the room he would come find me and ask where she went. When she went to change her clothes Dallin asked about her and I told him she was changing, he said, "I want to watch Jenny change!" I said, "I don't think Jenny is quite ready to have 3 year old watch her get dressed" to which he exclaimed, "but mommy I want to." I was insistent and in the end he was content to wait and sit on her lap as she opened gifts.

Cupcakes for Dinner?!?!?

With inspiration from one of my best friends/old roommates Heidi we decided to make April Fools day a little more memorable. I planned a dinner of meatloaf and cornbread with pudding for dessert. The kids were excited to play a "trick" on daddy as we were preparing the food. they watched me prepare the whole thing and were especially excited to when we set the table and the saw the "cupcakes."

Even though they had helped me make the meatloaf and watched me color the mashed potatoes blue, They couldn't believe that Mommy was actually letting them have cupcakes for dinner.

When Cameron got home he was a bit surprised too, but quickly became skeptical when the kids yelled happy April fools day.

They couldn't wait to get everyone seated to try out these cupcakes and that's when the fun ended. Katelyn licked the blue "frosting" and said "mommy, these taste kinda yucky" Dallin looked up with confusion and said, "these taste like... like... tatoes?" and they refused to take another bite. Dallin's favorite food is patatoes but the disappointment that the cupcakes weren't cupcakes at all was too great. and the meal went unappreciated as is often the case. I would just like to reinforce that the kids helped me make dinner, this should not have been a surprise.

Grant didn't care what it was suppose to be, he loved them, ate them, and wanted more.

Everyone loved dessert of course.

celebrating a rainy day

When Summer weather starts settling in by mid February we celebrate the cool days, especially if they involve rain or at the very least, sprinkling. Last week we encountered one such day and the kids begged me to take them out with the umbrellas. by the time we got out there it had stopped raining but the kids insisted on running around with their umbrellas just long enough to snap a few pictures, and then we realized we were too cold to have fun and we went back upstairs for a warm bath.

Grant was especially cold, He was the one that made me realize that perhaps it was too cold for shorts and sandals.

Katelyn refuses to take a cute picture, any cute picture This one is completely unintentional on her part.


Dallin is very serious as he heads down stairs with his umbrella

A visit from Grandma Net

My mom came to celebrate Match day with us and stayed for the weekend. we don't get to see her much so we kept her pretty busy.

Friday we went to the temple, (Thank you Carrie for babysitting!)

Saturday we spent at the zoo.

and Sunday was of course church, Katelyn was in an especially uncooperative mood.

Temple Texas here we come

That's right, Cameron matched in Temple Texas doing radiology. so we need to start practicing our "howdys" and Y'alls" Cameron fell in love with Temple when he went for his interview in January. and where is Temple you might ask? it's about an hour north of Austin TX, more or less right in the middle of TX. the current population is a little over 60,000. Temple is home to more physicians per capita than any other community in the nation. ... pretty impressive huh, are we are going to add to that number... sort of, I"m sure residents will be leaving, so actually we are keep that number alive.

I am a bit bummed to be leaving family and friends. We have loved living in Tampa, we love being close to family and we love the friends we have made here.
we will be moving sometime in June. if you know anyone from that area let me know, I have a million questions to ask.

some pictures from Match Day.

Grant and Cameron enjoying some after "match" relief.

Dallin with Great Grandpa Bennett

it's been a busy week for us, we've had swim lessons,

Dallin refuses to even touch the water, but we take him every time and try to encourage him. he sits on the edge of the pool and cries or glares.

It's so tempting to just toss him in the water, but I restrain myself.

Katelyn on the other hand is actually swimming by herself.

she loves it. she would have us go swimming everyday if we would.

she likes to wear the little "bubble" because everyone else in her class wears one even though she doesn't need it and she always swims terribly after she's had one on.

Grant is kept a save distance from the pool in the YMCA nursery, completely oblivious to the fact that he could be having fun in the pool.

I stubbed my toe on Tuesday, my little pinkie toe and it hurts, I have a bruise that goes all the way around it like a toe ring, it would be cute if it didn't hurt so much.
hum what else happened this week.... oh yeah, I went to Joann's and bought some supper cute fabric to make an Easter dress for Katelyn and a skirt for me, I'm so in love with it.

we are teaching the young women to sew, we are making aprons, some of them are good and others have never seen a sewing machine in action. it's fun though. it has rekindled my love for sewing so I'm spending a lot of time trying to sew, it slow going because my kids would love to be in the middle of it and try their darnedest to "help" so I have to try and distract them with something, then sneak into my room to sew a bit then after they wonder back there again I have to distract them again, it keeps me busy and at the end of the day I haven't accomplished much, but hey, that's ok I'm still enjoying life.

Katelyn and Dallin have been so cute playing together this week, they have this game that they play where they pretend they are going to different places together, mostly made up places, they pack all their toys into their back packs and go to a room in the house, unload the bags and set up a cavalry of toys then move to another room to set up more toys, it's funny to watch them interact with each other, they play well together and completely destroy the house in the process.

Grant is in a funny stage, he loves to wave to things, sometimes he waves to people but he especially loves waving to dogs and birds. Ducks are his favorite. he loves dogs, we were at the playground yesterday and he caught sight of a dog and starts running as fast as he can, waving his arms wildly calling to the dog as loud as he can, personally I think it would be a terrifying sight for a dog but he stood there and received his pats like a good dog. the owner suggested that Grant might need a dog of his own, I don't see that happening anytime soon though, so for now he will just have to terrorize everyone elses dogs.

Cameron is in a busy rotation, he is up and out the door by 6am which also happens to be the hour the kids have been waking up for me...coincidence? I don't think so...

bad hair day, a family affair.

(I don't particularly like this picture but it's the only one I have that shows how curly my hair has become. )

you might think this is another post about my hair, and how out of control it has gotten and you might be right if I had posted this yesterday when I tried all two of my hair styles and decided to go with a wig to stake conference. Cameron's solution to this problem... "why don't you wear a hat?"


but it's today and we have a whole other set of hair problems in this family,
each of my kids is in dyer need of a haircut so since I've been playing hair salon since preschool I didn't think twice about popping a lollypop in Grant's mouth and plopping him down in the bathroom sink for a quick cut, unfortunately despite the lollypop he was not thrilled about that and kept jerking his head away from me and push my hand away. and to make matters worse the clippers had a mind of their own and only worked when I held them at a certain angle, making hair cutting a bit tricky to say the least, no matter, I almost got most of the back done and decide this kid needs some more distraction, so I plop him in the bathtub to finish the job, to make a long story a bit shorter, the job never got finished before I moved on to child haircut number two.

Dallin noticing the distribution of lollypops gladly signs up for the next hair cut, he was sure to be easier, he holds still... sometimes. and he did, mostly, that is for the first 2 minutes until the clippers malfunctioned again, this time not working more then working, so another kid is plopped in the bathtub to finish the job, Dallin, not being too keen on the idea of scissors scoots himself to the other end of the bathtub as far away from me as possible making it incredibly hard to do a good job.

Katelyn was the next victim, she consented only after receiving the lollypop and great reassurance that I would only cut 2 or 3 inches off, and I wouldn't shave her head bald. I decided to start Katelyn in the bathtub because she still had yesterdays, slept on hairdo and there is no way I can brush that bad boy out without conditioner. after attempting a few random snips, I realize this is much too difficult in the bathtub, trying to get lower then she is to cut her hair straight, so I give up, and pull it into a cute ponytail.

so yes, in one morning I have managed to butcher three heads of hair and I didn't take a single picture, but don't worry we are going to the zoo tomorrow and the only way I will have time to fix it before we go is if the kids wake up at 6am... like they did every morning last week.. yes in deed that would be the very week after the time change... crazy kids.

Match Maker, Match Maker, Make me a Match!

Cameron found out at noon today that he has indeed matched! Those of you who are unaware, or completely confused about how this whole process works you're not alone.

4th year medical students interview at different residency programs from November to January, the students pay for everything, airline tickets, hotels, car rentals etc. Cameron had 12 interviews. after the interviews are finished the student rank the programs and the programs rank the students. those lists are sent to a computer system that matches the student to the residency program based on the ranking. and that's where you go period, no questions asked. The Monday before match day each student receives an email telling them if they have ranked or not. if you've ranked you just sit and wait until Thursday to find out where, if you haven't matched you do what's called a "scramble" I'm not sure if that's the official term, but basically you get a list of the programs that have openings and you frantically call or email trying to get into an open program. then on match day all the 4th years and their families meet at a restaurant and at noon one by one they go up to a podium and are handed an envelope they open it and tell everyone where they will be going for residency. so stayed tuned to find out where we will spend the next 5 or 6 years...

Modest is HOTTEST!

My miamaids are in charge of the midweek activities this month for Young Womens, so we decided to plan a modest is hottest night. We invited the girls to bring clothes that they have made modest by either adding a layer or sewing on sleeves or whatever. Then we had a fashion show. It turned out to be so fun.

Cherry and Kelsey on the catwalk

Sister Grow and Alex getting ready to Stuart their stuff.

our DJs sister Johnson and sister Williams

Amy and Diane, doing a final pose.

A Doggie Day

Now that I am finished with radiation and can admit that I am trying to lose weight we have been making our appearance at the gym again, this morning it didn't happen, I had planned on it, I even got my gym clothes on, and the kids had their shoes on. That's how serious I was, until I sat down to check my email, and then check out some blogs, then work on a project on the computer, and then i wanted to finish this beading project I'm working on. The kids were playing so nicely and next thing I knew it was lunch time, and much too late to go to the gym and get naps in, so I attempted to do a Pilates DVD and that lasted 6 minutes and ended because all of my kids were "excercising" with me and somehow managed to maneuver themselves so they were actually on top of me, , I know resistance training right?

While I was making lunch the kids decided to play dog. Katelyn wanted to be the dog and Dallin be her little boy and Dallin wanted to be the Daddy doggie and Katelyn be the mommy doggy and Grant be the baby dog, so after some debate that's what they agreed to do. it was so cute, we ate a doggie dinner, on the floor with water dishes and all. I think that makes up for not going to the gym, don't you?

Grant really wanted to get down and eat on the floor with the others, he just didn't want to revert to crawling again, so that was as close as he got and then I gave him his "doggie dinner at the table.

When I asked for a doggie face this is what I got. they aren't exposed to too many dogs.

Dallin, attempting to roll over, I think.

Katelyn with her "water dish"

my excuse for not going to the gym is my kids runny nose, and here is the proof, Gross huh?

All Done!

I am officially finished with cancer treatments. It's gone fast huh? at least that's what everyone tells me... Friday was my last round of radiation. over all it went well. I never did get that sunburn effect everyone warned me about, and I was ready for it too, three different super intense lotions that don't smell that great and aloe vera to boot. I do have a spot under my arm that is tender. but it's a small spot and will not need a whole bottle of aloe vera, so I guess I'm good. . my skin did turn red, in fact I have a big red box that covers that entire side of my chest.

the appointments themselves went well, thankfully each appointment was short, sometimes very short, the part that made it long was dropping off and picking up my kids from various babysitters and the fact that the Moffitt is 40 minutes away from my house. if we hadn't moved over a year ago it would have been 3 minutes away, but then we wouldn't have free rent, I guess those are just some of the choices you make.

The radiation itself went fast, most days I would sit down open a magazine and they would call me back, have me change into one of those oh so flattering gowns that every hospital sports, and lay down on an adjustable table where they would spent 10 minutes tugging and pulling on a sheet under me until my tattoos were lined perfectly with the light beams, then they would leave the room while I received the radiation, which was a lot like getting an X-Ray, I felt nothing, and I didn't even glow afterwards, I checked. and that's it. I was done, it took longer waiting for Valet to return my car then it does for the actual appointment. and that's how it went everyday for five weeks. and now I'm done.