gotta get down on friday

one day, i'm going to have to send a letter to rebecca black thanking her for introducing summer (and the rest of the world) to the days of the week:



(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spRcSJ6NQ40)

an evening with alice

i hosted book club last night to discuss alice's adventures in 

wonderland (thanks again for humouring me, ladies),

and i just couldn't resist with the refreshments:

zack attack

good news everyone:  the zack is back.

but really (as you can CLEARLY see), not good news. *epic sigh*  it turns out that my hair, like miley cyrus, just can't be tamed. so stay tuned for the "i'm a quitter; i cut off all my hair" post, coming soon.

in the meantime, enjoy a little 90s flashback.

ten fingers, ten toes

announcing danton owen young, born april 25, 2011,

to proud parents, owen and anna 

summer and afton's eldest cousin à la famille young.

all dressed up

sunrise devotional

so i would like to report, as the Easter weekend is coming to a close, that though it was a bit awkward at first (and may be for awhile yet), we have been very pleased with the easter bunny's relocation to the first day of spring (read about that here).

also, a special thanks to grandma jacquie for sending me the information necessary to make the easter devotional (see: egg carton above) that was used in my home growing up. 

Easter Sunday

He is not here: for he is risen, as he said. 

Matthew 28:6

 Read He Is Risen! by President Thomas S. Monson

 Read Sunday Will Come by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin

vitamin d

finally, on april 23, 2011,

the wheeler girls get some sun:

(pictured here at the duvall community easter egg hunt, where summer
and afton turned out to be real cut-throat huntresses -- lugging
home a whopping seven eggs between the two of the them.)

s is for summer

and snake.

angry bird-thday

behold, bryan's birthday surprise/emily's first cake pops:

awhile back, bryan sent me this video about the playable angry birds birthday cake. and while it's true that i'm pretty amazing, i'm not that amazing, so i conjured up this doable substitute to bring in on bryan's birthday for him and his co-workers.

and it's totally cool that most of my angry birds ended up looking more drunk and/or crazy than angry because it's the thought that counts, right?

31 flavors

that's right,

thirty-one years deserves thirty-one flavors:

the birthday boy

happy thirty-first to the big daddio himself!

(shown here breaking in his brand new birthday hiking boots.)

so...any guesses on where the wheeler girls will be taking our main squeeze for some celebratory dessert tonight?

in bloom

is it weird that summer and i share hair accessories?

death by cookie dough

these babies are ragers:

why, yes, that is a chocolate chip cookie cupcake 

filled with chocolate chip cookie dough filling, 

frosted with chocolate chip cookie dough frosting, 

and topped with a chocolate chip cookie.

thanks for asking.

recipe here.

hippity hop

little bunnies for my little lovelies:

tutorial here.

bunny-go-round

round and round,

and round she goes,

and where she stops,

nobody knows.

i love us

for our landmark anniversary, bryan and i went out on saturday and treated ourselves to a sublime dinner at one of our favorite restaurants, a set of much-needed floor lamps, and new bedding (shown above).

i know: we party hard.

seven year itch

in honor of our seven years wed, here is bryan and emily (est. april 10, 2004) wedding video redux:



when i look back on our time as newlyweds, i think, yeah, that was good, and that was fun, but the great gift of our lives is that it just keeps getting better.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iUeFknc8Kk

growing up

return of the hunt

at the starting line:

on the move:

with their spoils:

documentary of the week

have you seen inside job?

you need to.

disobedience

it's true: my two squeeze-them-till-they-pop, too-adorable-for-words, little lovely princesses are *occasionally* (sarcastic smirk) disobedient.

while both are probably equally negligent of the rules around here, summer and afton exhibit very different personal approaches to disobedience.

afton is outright rebellious. she is perfectly conscious of the expected behavior, blatantly disregards it, and then dares you (dares you) to do something about it. summer, on the other hand, is just so off in her own world (twirling around on those tippy-tip-toes) that she's not even thinking about the expected behavior (though she does know what it is). she's not trying to be disobedient, but she's not trying to be obedient either.

anyway, one of the points of contention between the girls and i lately has been our two doll-size strollers. summer and afton cannot for the life of them keep their little bums out of those strollers. and as a result of their continued noncompliance with my reasonable request to stay out of them (so that they neither break the toys nor hurt themselves), they have recently lost the privilege of playing with one of their strollers and were reduced to using the other stroller (shown above) without the lining -- which i thought might finally diminish the risk of misbehavior.

looks like they showed me.

on the easter tree

eggstatic

i see you

sleep tight

often lauded for his technical prowess, bryan rarely gets the praise he deserves for his more artistic and/or parenting endeavors:

yes, he designed and executed summer's sleep chart all by himself. we had been talking about the need for one (as summer has recently come into some trouble sleeping -- her fears of the dark and maned wolves often driving her into our room two and three times a night), but i just hadn't gotten around to it.  i came home today from my early morning temple excursion to find this little number all posted and ready to go with summer eagerly ready to work toward the promise of a tinkerbell movie after ten good night's rest.

full marks all around.

from general conference

(summer posing sunday morning with the beautiful spring tulips bryan brought home for his girls)

a few our our favorite talks from the April 2011 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints include: President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Elder Neil L. Andersen, Bishop H. David Burton, Sister Jean A. Stevens, President Henry B. Eyring, and Elder Lynn G. Robbins

watch, read or listen here.

revealed

kudos to those of our readers who figured out that my "sandwiches" yesterday were actually cake and frosting april foolery. (which the kids didn't quite "get" but still thought were very tasty).

after last year's fried ice cream debacle, i decided to play it safe and make a quick and easy treat that, by golly, looks a whole heckofalot like a real grilled cheese sandwich (um, isn't that right, jenny?)

grilled cheese, please!