Emily's First Dance Performance

Emily had her first dance performance as part of the dance team on Thursday. She was so nervous leading up to it she could hardly sleep the night before. They danced to the song Shake Your Groove Thing by Peaches and Herb and did such a great job. After it was over she told me it wasn't bad at all. She said she actually had a lot of fun out there performing and was excited to do it again at their competitions next month.

I thought it was so cute that her dance teacher gave them all this before their performance. It is a note attached to some Peeps.


This is them running through their formations on the gym floor before the program started.



Micha took some great pictures of the girls waiting to perform.

Wendy's Fourth Birthday

My little girl just turned four, I can't believe it. She is growing up so fast. She already wants to do all the things that her older sister can do. She keeps begging me to put her in dance class and soccer! She is going to have to wait a little longer for that.

We had so much fun celebrating her big day. She and Emily spent a couple hours making signs and decorations to hang up all around the house. She got spoiled by her grandparents and loved playing with all her new toys. LeeRoy made a point to stay up till 2:00am his time so he could call and talk to her during her party. That made her day!

Picnic in the Park - Iraq Style

Today our mission was to transport some Dignitaries to the Green Zone. On our way there we passed a line of vehicles. All these people and their cars, vans, and trucks are waiting to get gasoline. The line is about 2 miles long and doubles back the wrong way into traffic.


Then, once we dropped off our VIPs. We made a little detour to the Crossed Swords Monument. Here's a picture of me and some others in the platoon. The guy not in uniform is "Tony the 'Terp." He's our platoon's interpreter that we take with us on all of our missions "outside the wire." He has never had the chance to go to this monument before, because when Saddam was in power only his political and religious party members were allowed to travel there. He was as excited to see this place as we were.



The next day we were treated to the great weather in Iraq when a dirt storm blew in for 2 days. Yay. The dirt storm blew in on a Thursday night, which is also incidentally "Bomb 'da Base night." Nobody was injured, though and the dust blew out the next day. Doesn't the dirt in the air give everything a nice brown hue?

Wendy's First Talk

Wendy was recently asked to give a talk in primary on her favorite scripture story. This was her first talk so she was really excited. She chose to talk about Noah and how he obeyed Heavenly Father and built the ark. We practiced and practiced at home and she did great. I think she was a little nervous when the time came at church though. Instead of saying Noah, she pronounced it "no one".

........."no one" built the ark
........."no one" obeyed Heavenly Father
.........I hope I can be like "no one"

The other kids didn't notice but all the adults smiled. Other than that she did a great job. It is fun watching her learn and grow and try new things.

Surprise Lunch

I was sitting on my bed playing Angry Birds with Wendy on my phone when Emily came in and told me she had a surprise for me and if I wanted it I should follow the arrows. I looked on the floor and found a bunch of paper arrows guiding me into the dining room.


Wendy and I had fun following them to this note:

After the note we found this:


I was so excited. Emily has never made lunch before but she did this all by herself. She said she wanted to do something to show how much she appreciates all that I do for her. I couldn't believe it! So, we sat down and enjoyed the amazing lunch Emily made for all of us.

XOXOXO - Crash!

The morning of Valentine's Day I got up early and made German Pancakes in the shape of hearts, set the table nice, and laid out a couple surprises for the girls. They were so happy when they woke up. We were also able to Skype with LeeRoy for a bit and that put us all in a great mood for the rest of the day!


Right before Emily went to dance practice a delivery came for the girls. They were so excited to read that the flowers were from their dad. He is so sweet! For my present.....since I am so low maintenance......all I asked for was an iPhone and a letter. I got both!


Later in the day I was parked and a big SUV backed into me. Getting into an accident on Valentine's day is not so much fun but all in all it wasn't very bad. Wendy was in the car with me playing her video game and she didn't even notice when we got hit. The other driver admitted to the police that it was her fault so not a big deal I guess. Just paperwork now.


For dinner we headed over to my mom's where she made us a special Valentine's dinner. She went all out and we had a great time. I even got to play the whole "I was in a car accident today" card when it came time to clean up. SCORE!

By the time we got home that night it was pretty late but the girls and I stayed up a little longer to eat some delicious sugar cookies together. It was a great day!

Preschool Valentine

Wendy's preschool class took a field trip yesterday to the post office and the library. While at the post office they mailed out valentine's to their parents that they had made in class. I took Wendy with me to check the mail today and she was so excited to see that her card had made it home. It is so adorable! She is lucky to have such a great teacher who does such fun things.