The Everyday

I told myself I wouldn't be a crazy dance mom. But here we are. haha. I ended up pulling Emi from Tutu School and moving her to a different studio. I know she's not even 2, but I felt justified in switching studios. Emi and I went to several classes at the Tutu School and it was the exact same lesson plan every time. It got boring real fast. haha. The teachers also didn't use many ballet terms when I feel like they easily could've used them in place of everyday terms (ie degage instead of kick). I think one of the biggest turn offs for me was that they had coloring as part of class. I just felt like I could give Emi coloring at home and that I shouldn't be paying for dance for someone to give her a coloring sheet. I had originally put Emi in Tutu School because I figured she's little enough she could go to a chill studio because nicer studios tend to be more expensive. But then I learned that nicer studios were actually cheaper than what we were paying at Tutu S

I think we went a little overboard today with the activities! Sometimes I can get carried away with scheduling. We went to Chuze, library story time, a friend's house in the afternoon, and then I had a YW activity (sunshine boxes!)  and a YW Meeting in the evening (and Marty had a softball game!). And then 2 of my siblings called! It's been non stop activities all day.  This is the picture I have from today. haha. 

Emi and I went to Chuze in the morning and then went to the park after with friends! Ronny, Jules, Evi, Isla, and Emi (of course!). We tried out a new park, Spearwood, and the kids liked it. Emi and I stayed a bit longer after everyone left and she made a new friend. It was this cute Chinese boy whose name sounded kind of like "Ethan." Anyway, his mom was doing the sort of thing all moms do at the park--cheering on their child as they try to climb up a ladder or try something new--but in Chinese. She was doing this, and then the most interesting thing happened. Emi started imitating what the mom was saying. It was so cute! Even though there was a language barrier between the mom and I, she could also tell what Emi was trying to do. It's amazing what the brain can do--especially children's brains. They are like little sponges! Anyway, I just thought that was really cool. On another note... Emi's started calling Marty and I by our first names half of the time. Today

Marty and I both had our dentist appointments today. It felt good having my teeth clean, and I like the dentist office I switched to recently much better than the previous one. I feel like they actually care about my care rather than just making money. It makes a huge difference! Marty watched Emi, Jules, and Ronny while I was at the dentist. They're such cute friends. For family night, we went bowling. Emi LOVED it. She was very sad to leave, but now we have fun activity we can do another time.  Kitty came bowling with us too. This conversation from today made my heart happy. I love that I got to teach 3rd grade for a year and I love the kiddos that I taught so much.

Today was filled with church and a few meetings! The meetings today were productive--it's always a good feeling to get things accomplished. Courtney and Michael or should I say "Nono and Mimi" let Emi hang with them for second hour of church and it was so nice not having to worry about getting her adjusted to nursery and just being able to focus on YWs. I'm happy to report that the cake was received very well in YWs! For our lesson today, we had 2 of our YW teach who just got back from HXP trips in Tonga and Uganda. It was amazing hearing their experiences! The rest of the day was chill. We went to the park, hung out, made chicken shishkabobs for dinner, and played "Silver" twice. I may have gotten a little bit slap happy at the end of the evening (it wasn't even 10 pm before we went to bed for the night lol). It's been so fun having Courtney and Michael here!  Emi doing a choo choo train with Nono and Mimi. Emi had baby on her shoulders, just like d

I went to one of my YW's cross country meets in the morning while Marty took Emi to dance. It was so fun getting to cheer her on, and it made me want to sign up for another race!  In the afternoon, one of Marty's YM from our old ward called him up and asked if he'd come to their ward's car wash fundraiser happening at the church (right then). He dropped everything to go. His boys look up to him so much and I love that they have someone like him to admire. While Emi and Marty were at the car wash, I decorated a cake for a another YW's birthday in our ward to bring to church tomorrow. Her mom said she likes vanilla or strawberry cake, so I made a vanilla cake with strawberry buttercream. The buttercream tastes so so yummy. In the evening, we met Courtney and Michael at Torchy's on their way back from Pagosa! It was delicious as always. Then we spent the rest of the evening talking and hanging out. 

Emi and I dropped JD and Adam off at the airport this morning, and then we went home for a quick snack break and headed to the pool.  Afterward, we ran into some ladies from the ward at the Rec Center and I played a quick game of pickle ball with them while Emi watched Cocomelon. I was soaking wet and Karen C. and I got pickled, but it was still a lot of fun and chill!   We came home, ate lunch, and Emi went down for a nap. She slept over 3 (!!) hours. I was able to accomplish a ton, including dividing my to-do list into separate to-do lists to make it easier to navigate. Marty was able to come home earlier today, which meant that Emi woke up around the same time he got home. After dinner we did some much needed yard work. Our yard looks wayyyy better now. I'm embarrassed to say that while I was weeding, I found a weed taller than Emi. haha.  The evening went by fast! We put Emi down for bed, tidied the house, and then watched a few episodes of "Trying." 

JD and Adam came in town this afternoon! They were in Pagosa but their flight to Portland tomorrow is out of Denver, so they stopped by to hang out with us until tomorrow. We're happy to have them here! We decided to try out a new dessert place, Crepes & Dreams, with Adam and JD tonight, and had the most incredible experience. The owner was a woman in her early 40s? from Serbia. She was so kind and gave Emi a juice box "just because" and started playing with her. She let Emi explore the shop (while the rest of us were eating), got out a note pad for her to color on, and was entertaining Emi for us. There was also a guy who walked in while we were eating, and she gave him a drink for free. Like what? I feel like it's so rare to see kindness like this! I was honestly taken aback and was trying to think of ways we could get their shop more business.haha. It's amazing what a small act of kindness can do. "Cheese" Emi doing some reading while I was cleani

I was reading a book today and came a sentence with "University of Chicago" in it. I thought it may be a sign about where we may end up at business school, but then the following sentence had both Harvard and Stanford in it. haha! So it's really a wild card. Today went by fast. Emi and I went to Chuze and story time in the morning, she took a great nap in the afternoon, and I went to the temple with the youth in the evening. Marty and I finished Season 1 of "Trying" tonight and we're going to be in bed by 9:30! 

Today's Schedule: 6:30-8:00 am: Wake up, eat breakfast, water the plants, send Marty off to work. 8:15-8:50 am: Walk 8:50-9:30 am: Get Emi ready and head to dance 9:30-10:15 am: Dance Class 10:15-10:45 am: Return books at the library and get new ones. 10:45-12:00 pm: Meet friends at the park! Brittani, Summer, and Kirsten (+ kids) 12:00-12:30 pm: Hurry home, eat lunch, and put Emi down for a nap. 12:30-2:00 pm: Emi's Nap time 2:00-4:00 pm: Wake Emi up and go to my family history lesson.  4:00-5:30 pm: Head home, take a shower, FaceTime Ingi for her first day of school, and make dinner. 5:30-7:00 pm: Eat dinner and take Emi to the park. 7:00-9:20 pm: Marty works on his resume with his parents and cleans so I can blog (thanks!). 9:20-?: The night is still young!

Much to Emi's dismay we went to Chuze this morning. She always says "no Chuze" when I mention going to the gym. She's been having a hard time with anyone but mom and dad watching her lately. I'm hoping this is a phase she grows out of because it just breaks my heart when I leave my screaming child behind. I think she calmed down shortly after I left which is good...but still sad to see her sad. We came home after Chuze, got ready, and headed to My Gym. Emi's getting really good at saying "Emi" loud and clear during circle time. She also loves hanging off the bars and narrating what's happening in class. She's a cutie! After lunch a nap we knocked out grocery shopping for the week and by that point it was basically dinner time. I had soft tacos on the menu today, and decided I wanted taco bell's taco sauce to enhance my cooking, so Marty kindly went and grabbed 20+ sauce packets from taco bell haha.  For family night we headed to the park.

You know how busy days can be so exciting but the day after a really busy day you're just tired and grumpy? That was me today! Shout out to my amazing husband for putting up with me.  Instead of having you read about my grumpy self, I'd much rather have you enjoy these beautiful pictures from Nick's farewell ;) We're kind of obsessed with this girl. Can you see why? 

Ethan and Aldo continued on their journey to Michigan this morning. It was fun hanging with them these past few days! The rest of our day was crazy busy. Marty helped with the ward clean up of open space for an hour, I had 3 hours of stake softball games, Marty had another 3 hours of stake softball games, and then I chaperoned a middle school stake activity for 2 hours. By the end of the night we were exhausted! But everything was a blast. Please appreciate Emi's cute hair today! I am fully embracing my Mom Era and loving getting to do Emi's hair.

Ethan and Aldo got in late last night! They're headed to Michigan to get Aldo situated for school, and decided to make a pit stop at our place to hang out and come with us to the 21 Pilots Concert.  I wasn't sure how the 21 Pilots Concert would go today--since I'm not the biggest fan of concerts---but I was pleasantly surprised!! It wasn't just a concert, but a show too. Marty LOVES 21 Pilots and so he got us General Admission tickets which was fun to be up close. The artists were amazing live and I enjoyed hearing all these songs I'm super familiar with (although next time I'll spend time learning all the lyrics). The one thing I don't love about concerts is all the vaping and weed. It's just kind of gross!

We had our annual bunco night tonight with ladies from our old ward! It's crazy that we've been here long enough that I'm now part of "annual" events. 

Late last night Courtney and Michael got in town. They were heading to Pagosa today, but spent the morning and part of the afternoon with Emi and I.  We walked to Dry Creek Park in the morning! Despite it being hotter than I anticipated and having a bajillion grasshoppers on our walk there, the park itself was really fun. It was shaded and almost no one was there. Emi was being her usual adventurous self and climbed through the tunnel to get to the very tall slide, tried the "zip line," and climbed up a big ladder. After the park we came home and Michael and Courtney meal planned for Pagosa while Emi and I got ready for the day. By the time we were all ready, it was lunch time and so we headed to Chick-Fil-A!  We ate our lunch and then headed to Costco to grab a few things for Pagosa...which turned into me also grabbing a few things for our house. Courtney had Emi in the cart and she said I could just wander throughout the store by myself. It was so nice! haha. It's amazi

I am finally caught up on my blog! Yay! It's taken awhile to get here. Emi and I had ballet this morning. We attempted ballet buns for the first time! This afternoon we went to the park with Katye and Easton. Emi and Easton are such monkeys--they love climbing on everything! Easton did a somersault down one of the slides, but he seemed to be okay (?). Toddlers are made for tumbles. Easton pointing to the slide that he got hurt on. I also wanted to add in this post some funny things Emi has been saying lately. "Dino Farm" is "Old MacDonald" When Marty goes to work in the morning Emi says "Bye! See ya soon!" Oatmeal is "mo nut"  She loves saying "Yeah. Okay." (ie "Emi did do you want Oatmeal for breakfast?" "Yeah. Okay.")

I went for a run with some friends early this morning. Look at what we saw! Look very closely. We were running at a leisurely pace, so when I got home I didn't quite feel like I got a good workout in even though I enjoyed the social aspect of the run. I ended up meeting Summer at Chuze for Team Training and had a great class! Afterwards, Emi and I rushed home, got ready, and headed to My Gym. She's becoming so strong and daring. I love watching her try new things and develop new skills. The afternoon is a blur, but in the evening we went to the car wash and then made sock puppets for family night! 

Today's highlight was at church this morning. Marty was giving the opening prayer for Sacrament Meeting, and after he finished Emi said "Yay Daddy!" and then when he came back to sit with us she said "You did it!" Is that not the cutest thing ever? We love her. I also feel like this picture needs to be shared. Marty got his CFA charter in the mail yesterday and it is ginormous! We were hoping to frame it, but it's kind of embarrassing to have this ginormous paper hanging in your office.

Marty again! Today was a strange day, the day before I had signed up to take the GMAT at 6:30 PM on Saturday, so we had that hanging over us all day. It’s hard to describe what we were both feeling because so much of our future was riding on this test. It felt out of Lizzie’s hands since she wasn’t the one taking the test, and it felt out of my hands in a way since I had no idea what kind of questions were gonna be on the test. We were supposed to have a stake softball that day to keep our minds off of it, but they delayed it by one week due to rain. So we woke up and started our Saturday with nothing to stop us from thinking about what was gonna happen at 6:30. We went for a walk which was really nice, the weather finally started cooling off and it was so nice to be outside in sub 80 degree weather. We decided to go to tiny town too and so we got all ready and drove up and got there around 10:30. This was my first at tiny town and I was super impressed. Emi was just having such a good

We have loved following the Olympics the past few weeks! Marty usually gets sneak peeks at work (because the TVs are right in front of him), but then he comes home and we watch the highlights together. Yesterday Emi wore her "Olympics" shirt. It has all the iconic place in Paris on it...isn't it so cute? We love hand me downs! Speaking of the Olympics we were watching gymnastics the other day, and one girl fell off the bars. Today we were watching gymnastics and Emi kept saying "fall down." We told her that it's not nice to tell the girls to fall down and that we want "no fall down." She responded with "yes, fall down." hahahaha. Not Olympic related but we went and hung out with Krissy, Aspen, and Bennett today. Krissy is Marty's mom's friend's daughter. (It sounds more complicated than it actually is! haha) We've been meaning to get together for months now and were supposed to meet up earlier this week but I completely sp

I went with the running group this morning! We ran over 7 miles and I felt great after coming home. And then the adrenaline wore off and I felt exhausted shortly after. haha. However, I'm so grateful that my body allows me to run. Ever since my rough recovery after Emi, I am amazed that my body can run longer distances and I try to not take it for granted. It may be because I was tired from the run, but I was having an emotional day. I got 2 different phone calls, one from a family member and one from a friend, and they were so patient and just listened to me. I know they were inspired to reach out on a hard day. In the evening I hosted a Mom's Night Out cake decorating party with some friends. It was a lot of fun!  Kirsten, Summer, me, and Chihiro (Mary had to go home before we took the picture). I tried a lambeth style cake!

Emi has learned to lock doors in our house recently which has been impressive but also stressful because she's locked herself in the bathroom twice and has had trouble getting out. Marty and I decided we better learn how to open locked doors in our house just in case of an emergency. After work today, Marty figured out a solution to our problem by using his fancy screwdriver tool.  Emi liked using the screwdriver too! After dinner we went to a ward softball practice and then Marty dropped Emi and I off at home before heading to his softball game. I wasn't there...so they won!

Today was Emi's first day of ballet! I've been eagerly awaiting this day and was very excited to get her all ready in her ballet outfit. In my head I was envisioning the class to be full of plies, tendus, and barre work. But as you can imagine, it was mostly toddlers running around getting their wiggles out. I was a bit disappointed to be honest, but then I realized that 1.5-3 years aren't developmentally ready for intense ballet (which I should've known haha). So we're going to keep with it! I think My Gym has a better class structure, but this is still fun.

Today was a sad, sad day. Marty has had free lunch at Chatham for over 2 years, and they decided they'd be getting rid of it. Friday was Marty's last Door Dash day, and today he brought home lunch to work. RIP Chatham's free lunch.  Emi and I had a pretty normal day! We tidied the house and unpacked from our Utah trip, and went to My Gym.  When Marty got home in the evening, we sat outside and ate ice cream:)

Nick did an incredible job with his farewell talk today. If I'm doing the math right in my head, when Marty and I got married Nick was in the summer between his 9th and 10th grade year. Kind of crazy! Now he has a year of college under his belt and is headed on his mission.  Nick really does feel like my little brother, and I think so highly of him. He's so humble, kind, and hardworking. He even let me "babysit" him a few times in high school when Dan and Angela went out of town and we'd eat dinner together just me and him (because Marty was living in CO while I was teaching). haha. And it was honestly really fun because he's a great conversationalist and very chill.  I know he'll be an incredible missionary!  I'm excited to read his letters and see how he changes and all the lives he'll touch. I don't have any pictures of Nick at his farewell but I did snap a picture of the beautiful spread of food we ate after the farewell! It was delicious.

We flew out to Utah this morning to spend a little more time with Nick before he leaves on his mission and be there for his farewell talk. Our flight was a little bit later in the morning, so we were able to go on a family run before heading to the airport! After making it to Utah, we spent the rest of the day hanging out with the family. We swam, barbecued, and took a trip to Nielsen's Frozen Custard. A perfect way to spend the day! Emi with Aunt Nono Emi was cracking us up with her counting today. Before she would jump off the diving board or the side of the pool she'd say "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 4!" She keeps us all laughing.

The highlight of today was going with Chihiro and Emma to the Children's Museum. It's been a hot minute since we've been, but going reminded me how much I love Denver's Children's Museum's set up. You could spend an entire day there and still not get to everything. A discovery this visit was an installation in a room themed around one word: snug. They had couches everywhere and stacked in fun ways. It was crazy packed but it was still cool to get to experience something new. Emi the snail at the "Bloom" exhibit.

I made it out for a run with my Thursday morning crew today! The group just runs so early, it kills me to to think about setting my alarm for 5 am when I have other workout options later in the morning...but I've decided I want to be better at running with the group.  The group consists of Michele, Lisa, Mike, and Kevin. Michele has done ultras in the past and now focuses more on swimming (she does 10ks in open water!) even though she still runs a ton. Lisa does Ultras...and wins them! She's crazy. Mike's also done ultras and helped me train for my marathon. Kevin's also run long distances and is a chameleon runner (he can change his pace to match others well). The whole group is also very patient and everyone is so interesting to talk to while running.  So I came to a realization that Thursday morning running crew is not something I want to miss out on. I have a goal of become a better runner, and there's no better way of doing that than running with people who act