Yesterday was the White Coat Ceremony at Midwestern. It is for all the 2008 entering students in all of the disciplines. It was wonderful to watch as Jake was able to be coated by Dr. Simonsen (the dental school Dean) and Dr. Polk. Doctor Polk is the one who called Jake to tell him that he had been accepted to Midwestern. Jake's mentor, Dr. Gilpatrick, is the one who announced his name. It has been a long road to get to this point and I am so proud of how well Jake is doing and his determination to always do his best. It was great to have both his parents and my parents there to celebrate this accomplishment with us.

"The Carpool"

Dental Class of 2012

Dr. Gilpatrick and Dr. Simonsen

Although yesterday was GREAT...Sariah and I were both under the weather and are even worse today. We did get out and run errands though which was exhausting. Hence, this is how we spent our evening before she headed to bed...

P.S. We were watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer...Doesn't Christmas make everything better?!

Finger Lickin' Good!!!

This pictures says it all...we went to Cerreta's Chocolate Factory yesterday and sampled lots of chocolate. Sariah was in heaven!!! Unfortunately when we went, they were not making chocolate so we just saw the machines but not how they work. We still had lots of fun and got some yummy chocolates.

They had this HUGE chocolate....

which lead to our next idea...to tour the Cardinals stadium.

So today, we headed over there and took a tour. It was tons of fun to see the locker room, the field and the CRAZY lofts that cost a RIDICULOUS amount of money per game. It is a HUGE stadium that has seats that can be added to make more room. After the tour, we headed to Gordon Biersch to eat some WONDERFUL garlic fries. We are really enjoying our vacation and spending time together as a family.

A GREAT DAY!!!

A HUGE thanks for Grandpa and Grandma for such a wonderful day. Sariah has been asking to see "papa" and "gama" all week. Luckily, they were headed out today to bring us a new couch so she got to spend the day with them. She wanted to go for a ride in Papa's truck but she decided that she would rather drive...

Next we headed out to lunch...Sariah was cold so "Papa" shared his jacket to keep her warm.

After naptime (which I will talk about in a minute) she played in her playroom with them. (Notice our new couch in the picture...THANKS CAROLYN!!!! & Dad and Mom!!!!)

Okay now naptime...Papa took her into her room and told her stories and was going to nap on the bed while she took her nap...although instead of her sleeping in her crib she slept on the bed with him!!!
Well tonight I put her in her cirb and went in to check on her and this is what I found...


SILLY GIRL!!!! Don't worry...I moved her to the crib so she does not roll off the bed. She is too cute. THANKS Dad and Mom for a GREAT day!!!

Princess

Poor Sariah was under the weather earlier this week so we had movie time. She has been really into princess movies lately so we decided to try out a new one and let her watch Cinderella. She has watched it over and over this week since then. She really likes it. She is such a girl!!! Babies, princesses, and purses are her favorite things!!!!

She looks so sad in this pictures. You can see she does not feel good...just look at her eyes. :(

Break

We are very excited around our house to have the next two weeks to just relax and spend time together. Yesterday Jake finished his first quarter of dental school. Jake did a great job with his classes and also balancing being a husband, father and still doing his school work. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband!!!
Mandy, Megan and I needed a girls night out so we headed to the movie "The Secret Life of Bees" while the boys (Erik, Adam, and Jake) stayed home and watched the kids. I am not really sure how well they watched the kids since this was the scene when we got home at 10:00pm....The best part of this picture (which is hard to see) is that Lila is totally asleep. Too cute!!! Thanks guys for letting us have a girls night out the first night of your break. It was fun and can't wait for more!!!

So today was the first day of family time so we headed out to do some shopping and then home for family naptime!!! It was wonderful!!! After naptime, we went to play at the cute bee park in our neighborhood. Sariah had tons of fun playing with Daddy.

Our Little Ladybug

Sariah had a really good time this year for Halloween. We had a ward trunk or treat the weekend before Halloween and she would not wear her costume because it was too hot. She did have a really good time bouncing (even though she would not go in without Daddy).
On Halloween, Sariah's grandparents came over to visit. We went to dinner and then they went to a baseball game while we went trick or treating. It is really nice to still be close enough to family and be able to spend time together. Sariah has a really great relationship with all her granparents but especially my dad...she LOVES him.

No Binkie

Sariah has decided that she is done with binkies. Last week she bit holes in all of her binkies and so during her nap on Thursday she kept throwing her binkie out of her crib. That night I decided to put her to bed without it and see what she would do. She did not even mention it until the next night when I put her to bed. This is how our conversation went:

"Binkie? Blanket?"

"Here is your blanket but your binkie is broken, remember?"

"Fix it?"

"I can't fix it. Sorry!"

"No binkie."

So I laid her down and she has been binkie free ever since. She has brought it up a couple more times when she is tired but our conversation goes the same as the first. She has done really well compared to what I thought it would be like. She is growing up so fast. I thought I would share one of my favorite binkie pics...the last little while she has played with her binkies more than actually sucked on them (hence the biting holes in them).

Tagged

8 shows that I like to watch:
1. Life
2. Law & Order:SVU
3. The Office
4. House
5. Private Practice (although it has not been on for awhile)
6. Friends (even though they are reruns)
7. Biggest Loser
8. American Idol

8 favorite restaurants:
1. Olive Garden
2. Texas Roadhouse
3. Macaroni Grill
4. Training Table
5. Chiles
6. Cravings
7. Chick-Fil-A
8. Paradise Bakery

8 things that happened yesterday:
1. I went for a walk with Sariah and Jake
2. I hung more pictures on walls
3. I went to Megan's for playgroup
4. I watched Life
5. I talked to my mom
6. Sariah took a 3 hour nap!!!
7. Jake scored a 100% on his test
8. Sariah talked in her crib for over an hour before falling asleep for the night

8 things I am looking forward to:
1. Holidays!!!!
2. Two book clubs this week
3. having a three day weekend with Jake next weekend
4. adding to my family (someday)
5. going to the temple next weekend
6. getting my shelves later today
7. making a wall clock
8. going to the library with sariah

8 things on my wish list:
1. living closer to family
2. going on a cruise
3. finishing school someday
4. having healthy pregnancies in the future
5. a jogging stroller
6. owning a house
7. being caught up on my scrapbooks
8. a forever happy, healthy family

8 people that I tag:
1. Cara
2. Megan (all three of you!!!)
3. Valerie
4. Bri
5. Mandy
6. Shannon
7. Jennie
8. Stacy

BUSY WEEKEND

We had a very busy but FUN weekend.

Friday

We had a dental potluck party at the school. We were assigned dessert so I spent Friday afternoon baking a double batch of cookies for that party as well as the family party on Saturday. Well at the school, we went for a walk and Sariah saw some bunnies...she was so excited but they kept running away when she would get too close.

After eating, several of us went over to see the SIM lab. It is unbelievable...one of the benefits of being at a new school is that everything is new and top of the line. Sariah really wanted to get down but we did try to get a picture with her and her daddy...this is the best we could get...

She did stop long enough to get a picture with her new best friend, Hayden. (Aren't they the cutest??!!!!)

Saturday

We started saturday off with family pictures with Jake's family since Josh, Sarah and Jayden were in town from Texas. It was so nice to see them again...it hard been TOO long!!! The pictures went great all except that by the last couple Sariah was DONE...she was tired, hungry and sick of taking pictures so unfortunately we did not get a good grandkid shot. The rest of the shots turned out really cute though.

From there we headed over to a family party at Jake's grandparents house. It was a lot of fun to see everyone and Sariah sure enjoyed swimming (like always)!!! Sariah also LOVES her Aunt Sarah (this is the first time they have met) and hopes to see her and her family again soon!!!

Sunday

Poor Sariah woke up with her cold getting worse. She was exhausted from the previous days activities. We stayed home from church so she could get some sleep and get feeling better. She laid down on the floor and passed out...she was watching an Elmo movie but sleep was obviously more important!!!

Silly Girl

Yesterday Jake and Sariah were playing with a ball and it got stuck up on the ledge in our living room. Jake stood on a chair but was not tall enough so he did just what the picture shows...lifted Sariah up so she could get the ball down. These pictures are actually of the second time since she wanted to do it again. When Jake put the chair back, she started crying and went and got the chair and pushed it back over so they could it do it again. I of course wanted pictures so I had them do it again. It was fun to watch how proud she was that she was able to get the ball down. She is growing up so fast!!!