What can I say?

Meghan always encourages me to get on and blog. I have shrugged it off for long enough. She has done a terrific job updating this and keeping friends and family posted on what is happening with our family. I am amazed at the creativity, patience, and genuine love that Meghan possesses. I am the luckiest man in the world to be married to such a wonderful wife and mother. Life has thrown us our share of curve balls, as I am sure it has with all, but we have found ways to overcome and it always brings our little family closer. I am very proud of our two little ones as well. They simply brighten our lives everyday. Siobhan is getting to the point where she will tell you whatever is on her mind, and she is such a little daredevil!!! Audrey is growing up so fast, and we have recently realized she has three levels of 'scrunchy'. Depending on how stressed out she is or how unhappy you are making her, she will give you one of three levels of a scrunchy face. We will provide pictures in the near future. Her third and highest level of scrunchiness is by far the cutest because she wrinkles her forehead, nose, and mouth. She will be walking any day now. We are very excited. I am an incredibly lucky father and husband. I do not know what I would do without my girls! I love them all more than I can express. Stay tuned for the scrunchy pictures!

Catching Up

I was checking blogs today and I realized that it has been almost a month since my last post. I know, I know, I'm lame. That last post wasn't even about my family. I really wish that I could give an excuse like we've been busy traveling the world or we were in witness protection but really, I'm just lazy. With all of the dance shows that I have to watch, were did all of the time go? But in all fairness, I'm actually really behind on my Lost viewing so the blogging world is the not the only entity being neglected. That being said, here are a few of the bullet points of what we've been doing.

I pretend to cook now!!!

I'm actually pretty proud of these two meals. The one on the left the Margherita Pizza that I made with homemade pizza dough and the basil is fresh that I grew on my windowsill. The one on the left is Gnocchi (Italian pasta-little potato dumplings) which Carson and I made from scratch and the sauce was homemade pesto, again with my fresh basil. I've also tried a few other things that I've never made before and it has been really fun!

We got a piano

Some friends in our ward were moving and needed to unload this piano so they gave it to us for free-gratis! Totally in tune and painted red....can life get better? I submit that it cannot! Siobhan loves it!

Siobhan had her first summer dance recital

Here are some pictures from Siobhan's recital. She had so much fun! I'm in costume because I had to take the place of one of my students who couldn't make it and since I look like I'm 16, I was the logical replacement! Siobhan did awesome and I'm so proud of her!

Audrey turned 1!!!

I can't believe she's already 1 year old! She loved devouring the Ladybug cake that I made for her and here she is in the one of the cute outfits from Nama Nadene. So cute!

Siobhan tried fish for the first time

We were in Oregon last week for a family reunion (which I will do a more detailed post about later) and we spent a lot of the time on the Oregon coast. While we were there we went to Mo's (It's kind of famous) and we got Siobhan some fish and chips. She kept calling it fish chicken. Anyway, she did not like it. And let me clarify, that was not due to my influence. You can even ask Carson, I encouraged her to try it! She hated it all on her own. I'm so proud.

My New Love Affair

Although I'm not sure if that's the right term. I feel like if I pigeon hole the relationship, then I am automatically causing pain and betrayal to my first love(s). So maybe we should qualify this as a polygamist relationship as such.

Recently, my one and only was The Office. I would live, eat and breath it. While I watched an episode, all I ever cared about was what sort of shinnanigans Michael was going to get into. Will Jim and Pam finally take it to the next level? Is Creed going to steel something? It was a good, simple life without much complications beyond a commercial break. Then along came something new. Something exciting. With it's fancy taglines, attractive plot twists, and the endless hype, I was powerless to the intrigue. Then I rented season 2 from the library. I had already watched season 1 back in the day, but I was never able to get back into it. Then I got the season from the library and that was that. I have now watched all of the season 3 online and I am quickly making my way through season 4. I wonder how it will end. Will they get rescued? Is it all 'for real'? What is Ben's deal and all of The Others? Will the love triangle between Jack, Kate and Sawyer ever be resolved? And poor Charlie. The one made me sad. That's right I have now joined the huge throngs of people who are fans of Lost.

My Girls!

Carson's Graduation

'Quite a bit of pomp....under the circumstances.'

Well, if you don't know that quote is from, I highly recommend you rent Bee Movie. And if you put two and two together, then you figured out that I am referring to graduation. That's right folks, after a year and half of hard work, late nights and long papers, Carson is officially done with his Master's Degree! I could not be more proud of him. He actually technically finished his classes about two weeks ago, but he walked in the ceremony yesterday. It was so neat! Not a very long ceremony, thank goodness, because I think that the kids would have gone nuts. He recieved his MBA with an emphasis in Global Management. It's really interesting because when he first started talking about getting his masters, everyone at Online down in Phoenix said that he would never be able to finish it on top of working a full time job. They all said that they got through their first few classes and stopped. I guess he showed them! I could not be more proud of him for all of the hard work he put in. I can't tell you all how many nights he was up until the wee hours finishing papers and proof reading papers from other team members and helping other's with their stats homework or getting help on his homework from other team members. He really worked so hard and I'm so glad that he had the opportunity to be honored for his work.

We're so proud and happy to have Daddy back!

We had some company come into town for the occasion which was nice as well. Carson's parents and his brother Jordan and his wife Allison all came into town. I'm glad they could be there for the event.

Instead of doing a party, which Carson emphatically said he didn't want, we decided to all go out to dinner at where else but the Hard Rock Cafe. I know what you all are thinking, Hard Rock again. Well, we have so many memories at Hard Rock that we decided it was only fitting. We had great food, as usual, and they mad a big deal about him graduating. They pulled him up in front of the whole restaurant, announced that he graduated and then told him that he could have a free sundae if he could eat it in 5 seconds. As you can see from the video, he did his best. I know the video isn't that great, but it's fun to use your imagination. They actually said that they've done that trick before and nobody has every made it that far into the sundae. So I guess we reached two milestones....MBA and confirmed ice cream eater extraordinare.

I'm not sure what the pose is that Carson is doing and I'm really bummed that Audrey didn't end up in the picture. :( I'm not sure why, but Siobhan was really sad/scared after the ice cream stuff. It was kind of cute!

Please refer to the next post for some more fun pictures!

Consider me Converted....

Well, I figured that my gnarly dancer's feet were really beyond help. I really thought that it was going to take a professional grade sander to get under all of the callused skin on my heals. But I was wrong. This is one of the best investments that I have made. I'm not embarrassed to show my feet now and I've danced on them a bunch since I got it and the work has not been undone. Yippee!