Loving Life!

Kelly Bellly Boo Boo Boo!!!

2010-05-10T07:13:00.000-07:00

So my little sister Kelly moved up here this Fall for school and made my life so much brighter!!! I love, love, love my family and so having one of them living close to me is a dream come true.

For mother's day we got Kelly a cookbook. I figured this would be a good present since I didn't learn to cook until we got married, I thought that she could start now. Good luck cooking SEESTER!Kelly and Emmy getting their Cuddle on. Our fabulous Cousin Theresa. I love this girl like monkeys love bananas.

Kelly and Theresa helping me make treats for Bunco night at my house.

The sis and I, Oh I love having Kelly here and I can't wait for Ashley to make her way up here too.

Master Cahlan

2010-05-09T21:07:00.000-07:00

Here we are at the Commencement for Cahlan"s Graduation w/ crazy amounts of people. Elder D. Todd Christofferson gave a fantastic speech.

Walking across the stage. You can see his master's hood. YAY!

Here he is; Master of Instructional Psychology and Technology

With the fam afterwards. We are so proud of Daddy. during the ceremony Emmy was amazed to see all of the people walking across the stage all dressed in their robes. She said "Mommy, I want to do that some day!" I promise there was no coercion on my part to get her to say that.

I'm so proud of the hubbster. He has worked SOOO hard for the past couple of years not only at school but at work, at his calling and also teaching a class, on the the side, "for fun". Despite all of this he has made our family a priority. The other night I woke up at about 4:30am and found no husband by my side. Upon further investigation I discovered that he had been working straight since about 8:30 the night before. I was going to give him a piece of my mind but couldn't find him. Finally I heard him talking to Cohen in his room. He was obviously trying to console our upset almost 2 year old. I heard him saying "It's ok, it's ok... do you have an owie? Can I kiss it all better?" I love this man.

Utah Student 25

2010-03-15T20:24:00.000-07:00

Although the Utah 25 was back in November I thought I should do a post about it FINALLY! So back in October we found out that Sharp Media was ranked in the top 25 of student Entrepreneur run companies in Utah. It was a bit of a surprise but very exciting. We didn't realize how big the competition actually was. It includes all Universities in Utah. The event was held at the Grand America Hotel. It was a black tie affair. I should also mention that before the event they called Cahlan in for a video interview, we thought they had probably just chosen him randomly, well....

Here is a nice shot of our table all of Sharp Media and Cahlan's parents' and a couple from another company. The food was awesome and of course I have to say something about the food because that is always what I am so concerned with.

The governor even came and spoke. So I got a picture, because I am a dork and acted like a total tourist the whole time.
So when we found out that Sharp Media was in the top 25 we were fully expecting to be somewhere in the bottom 10-5. They started calling companies beginning with the 25th and worked their way up well when it got to about 9 and we hadn't seen them play any other video's yet we started to get pretty excited. 8,7,6 come and go. Then 5 first video. Ah Ha so we made it into the top 5! Then 4 SHARP MEDIA!! We were so, so, so excited, And honestly pretty surprised.

Here it is the shiny piece of glass that says that Sharp Media rocks the eLearning industry.

The boys that make it all happen. Dustin Christensen, Mark Hemingway and of course Cahlan.
The women who make it all possible, Me, Janarae Hemingway and Genie Christensen.
The lover and and me. It's amazing how happy such a little piece of glass can make you.

Cahlan's Parents, came to support. They were so proud and have always been so encouraging. We love their faces and were so happy to be able to share this exciting occasion with them.

Since the Utah 25 there have been a couple of articles that BYU has published on him and the company, as well as an article in the Utah CEO Magazine. YOU GO BOY!!

Cahlan has worked so hard over the past 3 years since the company started. Cahlan has grown so much and continues to amaze me by all he does. He will be graduating with his Master's degree this April; I can not even begin to express how proud I am of him. Besides Sharp Media Cahlan has also been teaching a class at UVU (for fun) and working on his degree at BYU as well as fulfilling his calling as the Elder's Quorum President. Despite all of this he has still somehow managed to keep us (me and the kids) as his top priority. I say this not to brag that I have the most amazing husband in the entire world :) but I say it because I know he doesn't always get the credit that I feel he deserves. I love him more every day and couldn't ask for anything more.

It's beginning to look a lot like.... it's not Christmas anymore.

2010-02-23T07:01:00.000-08:00

Despite the fact that Christmas was 2 months ago I decided that it is never too late to do a blog post. So here it goes Christmas time in the Sharp household (in a nutshell).

Before Emmy's Christmas dance recital. This is Emmy and her best friend Summer.

Most of the girls from the class, pre-recital.

The actual dance. It was so cute. Emmy is the one on the far right just standing there she stood just like this the whole time. It was pretty funny and so cute.

Good Show flowers! She was so proud of herself.

Sitting on Santa's lap. Emmy asked for a little Mermaid doll. Cohen just survived .

Picking out a Christmas tree.Emmy was cold and not amused. Turns out I'm pretty allergic to real Christmas trees. I broke out in a rash all over and couldn't breath out of my nose.

Just a few of the, what seemed like millions of Christmas cookies we made this year it was fun. I really love making these cookies.

Our Christmas Eve spread with all the Sharp's.

So we forgot to save some Christmas cookies for Santa so he got vanilla wafers.

Santa was really good to the kiddos this year.

Emmy's stuff

Cohen's stuff.

Emmy wanted to write a letter to Santa.

He wrote one back to her. What a nice guy.

Our Christmas Turkey. It was our first time to ever make a turkey.Yes that would be lots and lots of butter under the the skin of the turkey. Just one of the many reasons why I'm running a 160 something mile relay race.

Success!!

Disneyland!

2009-12-13T21:51:00.000-08:00

Oh how we love Disneyland. We got to go back in November (and of course I am late posting). It was a blast. Nana and Papa Sharp came with us and it was so nice having them there, we really enjoy being with them. And since they are are the ultimate grandparents Emmy and Cohen loved it too.
We took Emmy to this Lunch with the Princesses at Ariel's Grotto. It was like a dream come true I don't think that she actually ate anything because she was so excited. It was so much fan to see her so excited.
She's trying to look at Cinderella's "pretty nails"
She told Snow White "You have a funny voice".
AHHHH Belle
Aurora is her favorite!

YAY FOR DIBS!
Walking on the beach with Papa
Famous Balboa island ice cream bars
Cutie Face.
The New Port Temple

Princess Aurora's Castle so Pretty with the Christmas Lights.
It's a Small World after all.

When I saw her like this my first thought was OUCH!

Teacups with Nana and Papa

Halloween (SPOOKY!!)

2009-11-20T22:36:00.000-08:00

Halloween was fun this year even though we completely missed our Trunk or treat because we thought it was an hour later than it actually was. We still dinged and donged some doors and ended up with more than enough candy. Then we went to the Willit's for their awesome Halloween party they throw every year. These people are crazy in the the best way possible. Their house was completely covered in black paper and then they pained with black light paints to make it look like we were in Halloween town from the Nightmare before Christmas it was very cool.

In October I hosted Bunco at our house so of course we dressed up. It was so much fun.(p.s. I'm supposed to be pregnant and smoking hence, white trash)

Also in an attempt to become more like Martha I tried to at least once a week during October to make a spooky dinner, We had Mummy enchiladas, Witch sandwiches and Mummy Hot dogs we all had fun with it.
These are my witches

These are Cahlan's. :)

We also carved pumpkins, Emmy and Cohen picked the bat and Cahlan decided he would be adventurous and tried to carve the Decepticon face on his pumpkin. I thought it turned out quite well, he didn't think so.

Emmy's Dance class just before Halloween. They're all at that obsessed with Princesses stage.

Our spooky Eye windows

Emmy's preschool field trip in October was at Thanksgiving point they had all kids of fun stuff. It was so nice because my brother Ricky and his wife Kristen and their two bays came up to visit for a week we had so much fun with them it was a blast.

Preschool, Birthdays and Family Home Evenings.

2009-10-25T15:05:00.000-07:00

I think every post I do I'm playing catch-up so in light of that ... here's a run down of a few things that have gone on in the Sharp family lately.

About a month ago Emmy started preschool It's co-op which means that I teach with 7 other mom's and we take turns. Emmy has loved it. She only goes twice a week but really loves all of her "school friends". I really enjoy teaching too although technically I've only taught once since my first time we did a field trip to an apple orchard. But it has been a great experience so far. So here are some pictures.

Emmy's first day of preschool she was so excited to use her pencil bag.

This was on our field trip to the orchard.

And this is Emmy and her very best friend Summer. They enjoy each other so much.

Picking our own Apples.

All the kids in the Apple Bin.

These pictures are from a family home evening we had and as you can tell the kids were engrossed. Daddy is always so on top of it with the visuals.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMY!

Emmy's 3rd birthday was on September 26, we made Mickey Mouse pancakes and Emmy got to eat on the "You are special" plate.

Cohen looks like he's giving a recognition glance here. "What mom?"

I just had to put these pictures up because I couldn't believe how big she looks here. My sweet girl is growing up. Tear. (happy tear)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOVERFACE!!!

2009-09-10T14:42:00.000-07:00

We just celebrated Cahlan's 28th Birthday on Sept. 1. We made french toast with Buttermilk syrup YUMMY! Served in our "YOU ARE SPECIAL TODAY" (and every day) plate. Then for dinner we went to Tucanos Brazilian Grill AWESOME!! And Cahlan got 2 tickets to the BYU vs. Air force football game. He is so excited to go especially now that BYU beat Oklahoma.
I can't believe that Cahlan is almost 30. It's so crazy. I feel so lucky to be married to such an amazing person. He is my perfect match in every way. I love you man and look forward to making you breakfast until my hands are so arthritic that I can't do it any more. (That is supposed to sound sweet not scary).

Our Houston Trip.

2009-09-03T13:55:00.000-07:00

So back in August we were able to go down to Houston for my Dad's retirement party. My dad is a firefighter and had worked at this station for 37 yrs 8 months and 4 days. I don't think I have ever seen anyone that enjoyed their job as much as my dad has his. I think it's been on of the hardest things he has ever done. But the party was really neat they made a slide show of his life, family and life at station 31. As you can see in the pictures they also made him this beautiful memorabilia case with an axe engraved with his name and his years of service. One of the firefighters carved a beautiful helmet out of wood and my mom got a quilt made out of all of his different shirts and some pictures.
Anyways it was really neat to see how many people came to show their love and appreciation for my daddy.

We had so much fun with Nana and Papa Meraz, and all of Emmy and Cohen's anut's, uncles and cousins.

We had a birthday party for Reese my brother's little boy he turned 2 they had a pinata for the kids, it was so much fun.

Baby but cheeks, That is actually my cousin, Texann's little boy's bum. I thought it was funny that his little cheek was just hanging out.

Sitting outside watching the kids playing in the sprinklers in my parents awesomely huge backyard made me want a house SO badly.

We had so much fun thanks for everything familia.

New Blog!!!

2009-08-28T22:10:00.000-07:00

So I've decided that I want to start writing about stuff ... that's right, stuff. So I sometimes have the most random thoughts, I mean really random, like last night Cahlan and I were talking about how he could probably make it onto a football team as a water boy, which somehow through a tangled mess of thought tangents lead me to think about this one creepy looking red-headed actor that always plays a nerd, a bully or a nerdy psycho...which then lead me to start thinking about associations that our mind makes and how fascinating it is that we make associations with or for things and because of that our behaviors, likes and dislikes can be strongly effected by those associations. Anyways so as you can tell this is a very concise description of my actual thought process. So the point is that I want this blog to be my family, pictures/ stories bloggie blog. And I want my new blog (mymindbullets.blogspot.com) there's the plug, to be my outlet for my mental regergitations, or even to talk about a book I'm reading or something new I've learned or anything that might make me sound smart. So if you would like to enter a world that is most likely controlled by ADD please visit me at (here it is again) www.mymindbullets.blogspot.com GOOD LUCK!

5 years and a month ago...

2009-07-21T13:52:00.001-07:00

...I married the most wonderful man alive. Yes that's right Cahlan and I just celebrated our 5th year anniversary about a month ago (June 26). We went to see Transformers (really romantic I know, but we both really wanted to see it). Then we went to dinner at the Melting Pot it's this really cool fondue restaurant in Salt Lake. Then we went to The Anniversary Inn. This is what we do pretty much every year for our anniversary, but we always have a blast.
I love my sweet husband so much and I am so grateful that I get to be married to my best friend for he truly is my best friend. I'm so happy that we still stay up way too late sometimes just chatting and cuddling. I don't mind losing a couple of hours of sleep when they're spent that way. He makes me laugh everyday know me better than I know myself sometimes.
When I think about our relationship and the love and friendship that we share it helps me see how marriage can be such a wonderful and fulfilling part of life. I can't imagine my life without him and I look forward to spending the rest of our lives together.

The happy couple

My yummy Caprese Salad

This is how you cook your food. It was pretty cool, not the best food ever, but it was a really neat experience.

Kelly Graduated!! YAY

2009-07-03T21:03:00.000-07:00

My little sister Kelly just graduated from high school (this was the beginning of June by the way)(Ihave some catching up to do). And I got to surprise her for it I showed up at her Grad party my parents threw for her it was awesome. My mom got a stinking magician, random Right? Anyways here's the video.

P.s. Cohen's not quite used to my extremely loud family yet.

I'm so proud of her. You did it Renee! I've been pushing for her to come up here to go to school and although it was a bit of work she finally agreed to it, but not until after she goes to Russia! That's right Kelly will be going to Moscow, Russia in August to teach English to little kids (just like I did in China :). It will be such a good experience for her. I just know you'll love it. Then in the Winter I get her up here I'm so excited. I'm already planning out her housing stuff.

Kelly and her Best friends Shannon and Mallory.

The siblings that could make it Ashley, Ricky, me and Kelly of course.

At the graduation Ashley took about a million pictures of my face these are just a couple. We almost got into a fist fight. :)

Here are some random pictures , of my parents back yard, that I envy right now, and Kelly feeding Cohen in a traditional Meraz fashion.

I remember bathing Kelly and duct taping her to chairs. I remember coming home one day to find that Kelly had shaved her bangs off, although it was sad I laughed hysterically. Kelly has grown into a BEAUTIFUL , sweet young woman and I am so proud of who she is. I know I'm way to old but I love that when I go home she makes me go wrapping houses with her. I love my my sisters and my handsome brother I'm so lucky to be so dang close to all of them. Love you KellBel. Congrats!!!!

Just stuff. ...

2009-05-08T13:22:00.000-07:00

So this is probably going to be the most random post ever but I've been thinking about A LOT of random stuff and before I forget it I thought I should write it down.

First of all I realized the other that I'm not always right. Wow was that a news flash. Yeah believe it or not I can be wrong. If you're shocked it's ok it does take a little time to absorb. :) Seriously though I think sometimes I get it in my head that what I am thinking or feeling must be right because I thought it through and it seems logical. Well I just stared reading a book called To Draw Closer To God By Henry B. Eyring. And in the first few chapters I felt like reading this book was inspiration for me. I think that I sometimes don't really try to listen to others because I think I might know better or more than them. So my goal now is to try to push my preconceived ideas aside and actually try to listen to others with the spirit.

Secondly (and remember I said random) I've been thinking a lot about getting old. I love older people, I really do. Val Shields is a friend of mine she lives right below us, she's 86 years old and just went into the hospital the other day with pneumonia. Went I went to visit her she was her funny little spunky self. Cracking jokes and telling stories.
I think about Val a lot, she is really inspirational to me. She 's made me think about the kind of person I want to be when I grow up. Not in the way people are always thinking "One day I'm going to be this amazing person and do this amazing thing. ..one day." Instead I think more about the actual, kind of person I want to be when I turn 86. I want to look back and say I tried hard at life. I want to dance with my sweet Cahlan at our 50th anniversary be able to say that my husband and I had enough love to last for eternity. I want to say that I played in the mud with my kids sometimes. I want my children and my sweet husband to say that they knew every day of their lives that I loved them with more of myself than I did anything else. I want them to say that ours was a home that was filled with laughter, happiness and joy. I want to become stronger from trials and learn to overcome my weaknesses. I want to learn to love my Savior as much as is humanly possible. I want to look back on my life here and say I didn't miss out.

Lastly, and this will be mushy, I want to gush about my sweet Cahlan. When I was younger I used to dream about my future spouse and what he would be like. Cahlan looks nothing like the man I always pictured but is everything I could have hoped for and more. I feel so blessed to be his wife. He treats me like a queen, and I don't even ask for it. He is truly my best,best, best friend. We laugh together SO MUCH, in fact we sometimes have to force ourselves to bed because we can stay up for hours and hours just talking and laughing with each other. My heart is absolutely his. My friend Alaina and I were talking about outliers (an outlier is a statistical reference to an anomaly, I have a picture)
I sometimes feel like we are the oulier, in a very good way. We have a relationship that I feel is so different and wonderful. Maybe everyone feels that, and I think they should. I don't know if I could love any man as much as I do Cahlan. I loved him like crazy before we had children and then when we had Emmy he became even more amazing and my love for him grew even more. I absolutely believe in happily ever after. Cahlan if you read this "Meu rizo e tao feliz contigo".

OK that's it for now. I'm going to start doing this more often, I think it's good for me.

Fun in The Sun!

2009-04-28T21:33:00.000-07:00

We had the best time EVER in Florida. Last week we went with our friends, Camille and Dustin. They have a time share and got a condo in Orlando for the week, and invited us to go with them. There were no kiddos, which was awesome. We got to go to Disneyland's Magic Kingdom and Busch Gardens. We also spent lots of time at the pool, the beach, shopping and there was lots and lots of eating involved. Oh man we ate at some really good places. So now we're trying to adjust to real life again. But to be honest by the end of the week we were all ready to see our babies.

It was so nice though to be able to spend time with Cahlan I feel like it really helped us reconnect and focus a lot on each other. Plus I feel like it was a well deserved vacation, especially for Cahlan. He has been so busy and working so hard, but that's another post.

Anyways we had a blast. Thanks Kenyon's, we love you guys.

Here are some pictures sorry no descriptions, but i think they're mostly obvious. Oh wait I do want to explain one thing towards the bottom there is a picture of us drinking these smoothie type drinks. They are called Boba or tapioca, or bubble drinks. I discovered these in China and sadly every state in the whole freaking U.S. has them except for Utah. So anyways they are fabulous and if you ever get the chance try it.

My favorite video OF ALL TIME!!

2009-04-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

Chasing the bandwagon.

2009-04-06T14:04:00.000-07:00

So it has obviously been a while since I last updated my blog, in fact my background at this moment still says Merry Christmas! Things have been SO busy lately. It seems like my phone never stops ringing and there's always something coming up or some calls to make or some boogies to wipe or some pregnant sisters to visit, or meals to make for growing families or, sadly, shrinking families.
Anyways the whole point of this post is my attempt at a justification of why it has taken me so stinking long to update.So here they are my pictures from our Christmas vacation in Houston visiting my family.

Emmy with the cousins, and Aunt Kristen

Top row: Ashley, Stacy, Me Bottom Row: Stacy and Ashley, and then Kelly. There were these insanely strong hand dryers at the mall so ... we decided the cease this picture opportunity.

This is my nephew, Reese, he feel asleep in the middle of a tanrum and this is how he ended up. The last picture is my brother Ricky and Reese.

These pictures are from my Dad's Retirement party, too bad he didn't actually retire.

My sister Ashley , she is probably the best babysitter EVER! Oh and me and Cohen sharing a tortilla.

My Nephew Trey , Cohen, and Emmy.

Christmas morning

Playing catch-up.

2008-11-27T12:57:00.000-08:00

Yes I do remember that I have a blog in case you were wondering. We were in Texas for Christmas and constantly going, going, going. I do have Christmas pictures to upload but need to figure out how to use my new camera first so until then here is a post I started in Houston but didn't actually finish.

So every time I look at this face all of my insides turn to mush. I can't help but love this little guy when he's so stinking cute. Oh I LOVE MY BABIES.
My family thinks that these teeth are hilarious so when we get together we always end up with at least a few pictures of the billy bob teeth.
My sweet, sweet girl sleeping with her "pink bear".

Going potty.

Visiting Cousins Hailey and Gage in Beryl, Utah (where my sister lives).

Riding bikes.

Gage and Emmy were loving the sprinkles. We went to golden corral and Emmy would only eat sprinkles. Fantastic.

Emmy loves plugging her ears and making sounds and Hailey loves eating her socks.
Emmy and Her Best little friend Summer being silly.

So while in Beryl we went to this animal auction and we're walking around looking at the animals in the corrals when Emmy looks down in the sheep's pin and says, "Shhh he's so sleepy". I look down and there is a dead sleep.

So for the past oh I don't know 4 months I haven't uploaded any pictures from our ancient digital camera all of our pictures have been from our cell phones or family pics we've taken. The dang camera is such a pain to hook and so I've put it off. So since I have a few moments and I've gotten to the point that I just can't erase anymore. Here Cohen is with his cousin Abby the day before she left for Egypt about 4 months ago. But they are now on their way back and we are so excited to see them and to see how Abby has changed. Cohen loves his sister here they are in Emmy's old crib.

Memories.

2008-11-10T14:23:00.000-08:00

1. Add a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember!

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty funny to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you.

Halloween+ OCD+randomness= more pictures.

2008-11-06T11:46:00.001-08:00

So here are some Halloween pictures and other random pictures that I've wanted to put up for a while. Yay for pictures and the flu which has allowed me time to sit down and finally put these up.

Cohen is becoming such a happy, chubby baby. I love it.

We made a family trip to IKEA and they had these cute masks, needless to say we had to put one on Cohen. I know he's pretty cute.
Oh yes we went there. Cahlan and I decided to be(drum roll)... John McCain and Sarah Palin. And yes Cahlan does look like a dirty old man in Every picture.
Emmy was a Ballerina (I'm starting the brainwashing early) and Cohen was a Lion. And no I don't not have ambitions for my son to grow up to be a Lion it was just cute.
McCain Loves the kiddos. To bad he lost (which I'm not to happy about, but what can you do).

My friend Camille who dressed as a nun (her husband dressed as a Priest) and
Emmy's best friend Summer (who is a cute little witch).

Oh yeah I was so excited about this I made scary eyes in our windows.

My cute ballerina. She was so happy to see that no one took any candy from our house. I wasn't as pleased.

So I took this picture because I wanted to spread a rumor that McCain and Palin were having an affair. But Cahlan looks like he's about to throw up in my mouth and his bald cap was starting to peel off. So not believeable.

This was in Elko (where Cahlan's Parents live) we love going to see Nana and Papa Sharp and riding 4-wheelers.

My sleepy guys.

At the petting zoo. This is just a glimpse of what we go through to get Emmy to look at the camera. It is a rare occasion when we actually catch her face.

Emmy and her friend Presley. And my friend Jami.

Looking at "da tickens" (chickens)

So I seem to have somehow infected my poor child whith my OCD tendencies. She loves to organize things a little too much.

Here Emmy is finding a new way to play with Cohen's Exersaucer.

And i just thougt this was a cute picture. I love my girl.

General Conference.

2008-10-07T14:07:00.000-07:00

This weekend was General Conference and what a lovely conference it was. For anyone who has no idea what I'm talking about General Conference is a worldwide meeting that my church does twice a year where in which we hear leaders of our church speak about lots of important churchy things.
For the past couple of years conference has been a little difficult for me to listen to I think because I've been dealing with a child. For some reason, even though I have two now it seemed like I was able to pay more attention to the speakers. There were lots of wonderful speakers and many wonderful stories.
Two of my favorite talks were by President Thomas S. Monson, the prophet, and Elder Holland , an apostle. President Monson spoke of the importance of appreciating now and not spending so much time thinking of what will come next but appreciating the little things. This struck me especially hard because I find myself lately anticipating when Cohen and Emmy will get to that next stage. They just keep on growing. I realized that I think I sometimes wish their youth away too fast. They already grow fast enough and I'm so impatient sometimes. So I have made a goal to try to appreciate the stage that they are at NOW. I often look at Emmy and can't believe how she has grown and miss some of the cute things that she is growing out of and yet I still can't wait for this or that.
Elder Holland spoke of hope he started off with a story that belonged to a friend. IN the story the friend was a young boy who got into some trouble on the farm that could have cause him danger. When he realized he was in trouble he began to pray very hard. When he looked up he saw an image of white coming towards him. He was overcome with the feeling that it it was angel. It was as if he knew in that moment that God had heard his prayers and sent an Angel to assist him. Then he heard the angel calling his name and the voice was familiar to him, it was his father. The father said that when the boy took too long he felt the need to come looking for him.
Elder Holland went on to say that we have angels all around us maybe it's a friend, a mother or a spouse. We are often times blessed in our lives to have such people.
For me this story was also a good example of the power of prayer. Cahlan and I have tried to establish our marriage, our family and our home upon gospel pricples. I have seen the hand of the Lord in our lives. Ever Since we were first married we have tried to pray and ask the Lord about those things that were big and important to us especially decisions like school, work and family and we can both testify that we have been guided to know what we should do in every situation. Sometimes the answer we recieved didn't seem like the best choice or even our top choice but in retrospect we could see the reason. I love the gospel of Jesus Christ and I know that President Monson is the true and living prophet upon the earth today. I know that he was called of God just as every prophet before him was. I have a testimony of and love for the Book of Mormon. It has changed my life in more ways than I'm sure even I have noticed. I'm grateful for the inspiration and the effort that goes into Conference, for it is truly inspired. I know that God lives and love me. I love my Savior and hope that I might live my life in a way that be pleasing to him.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMMY!

2008-09-28T21:01:00.000-07:00

This past Friday, September 26, was Emmy's 2nd birthday. I can't believe it she's already 2, my sweet girl is getting so big too fast. I am a firm believer that birthday's should be super special days. I really believe that the whole day should revolve around you. We aren't actually doing Emmy's party until this coming Friday (Oct. 3 my b-day) but I still wanted to make her day special. So we started off the day by waking her up singing te Happy birthday song. Then Daddy made her Mickey Mouse pancakes.

We got this plate for our wedding and we try to use it for special occasions, this counted. We write on the back of it with a permanent marker when we use it. We have lots of good memories with this plate. This was one of my favorite wedding presents.
Cahlan actually tried to make a smiley face on the other side but it just looked creepy.

Oh man so cute, I know. Yeah we're really trying to work on the eating with your mouth closed thing as you can tell here.After breakfast we went and played at the park for a while and then we went to the Disney store in the mall and I let her walk around and pick out any toy she wanted. It took us about an hour but when she found these Little Einstein dolls nothing else mattered. She LOVES them. She has been carrying all of them around and talks to them pretty much all day long.
That night we went to the Kangaroo Zoo, it's a place with these huge blow-up toys. Uncle Chance, Aunt Sadie and Uncle Chance's "friend" came to play too. It was a blast.

We had a lot of fun racing up these slide Cahlan totally killed me every time. Here Sadie and Cahlan are getting ready to race.GO Emmy GO! She had such a good time.

At the end of the day we were all pretty tired, but it was so nice. I love my sweet Emmy so much. I have decided that she is pretty much the perfect child. She is always happy. She loves to sing and dance. She loves Cohen and helps me out so much. I could not ask for a better child. I love her so much more everyday and sometimes I just can't help but squeeze her. I really do feel like the luckiest mommy in the world, sometimes I feel like no one could love their child as much as I love my babies. But I'm sure that every mother feels the same about her babies. I love my family with all of my heart. And I love my Emmy and I can't wait for whatever comes next. HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY!

"Poo poo in da Potty"

2008-09-26T22:08:00.000-07:00

So for a while now Emmy has acted like she wants to use the potty. So last Saturday we got a training potty and on Sunday we set it up. On Monday she pooped once and peed twice! In fact she was the one that told me she wanted to go potty. She hasn't completely masted the potty yet and still mostly goes in her diaper. It's so cute though because when she sits on the potty she has to read something, so she'll grab a magazine and read while she sits.This picture is from the first day when she pooped and peed. I'm so proud. You know that you're a stinking parent when you get so happy for someone else's poo.

Nursing woes.... Or rather the end of nursing woes.

2008-08-24T20:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't talked about this on here yet but the first two months of Cohen's life were spent screaming pretty much all of the time. It was kind of hard to deal with since Emmy was such an easy baby; I wasn't really used to the whole super fussy thing. I only nursed Emmy until she was about 6 months old and after I quite I missed it so much, so with Cohen I was determined to nurse him for longer. After almost a month of dealing with a constantly fussy baby we decided to start trying things first we tried prevacid, which helped some but he was still just miserable so then I started cutting things out of my diet which still didn't help. Then one night I ran somewhere and Cahlan was with the kiddos. He called and I could hear the child shrieking in the background, he said that if I kept on nursing he would not watch Cohen by himself again. So I decided it was time to try somethig else. We tried a few different formulas which really didn't help that much except for the soy which seemed to help this horribly bad acne/rash he had developed all over his face, head and neck, but the soy made him severely constipated which was not fun either. So then I broke down and we started him on this ridiculous formula called alimentum. It costs about $25 for a container that lasts about 3 days. I think it must have gold dust in it or something. But after almost two weeks on it I can proudly say that we have a happy child!!!! YAY! I actually have a baby that smiles and tries to giggle. Turns out the kid is pretty much allergic to EVERYTHING! But now instead of screaming for hours and hours he will actually sleep and then wake up and eat and then have happy awake periods. So here's a shout out to Prevacid and alimentum. And I hope you enjoy the video of my happy boy.
Something that I have discovered about my new happy baby is that he is my biggest fan. He could just look at me forever. I love it when I look at him he gets the biggest grin and he coos and tries so hard to tell me all about his day it's so cute. I must say that newborns are cute but man can they be difficult.
I am so grateful for my babies and I can't imagine doing anything else right now. I always remember hearing people say how there's no love like a mother's love for her child and I really do understand that now. My family is my life and I love my life.

Funny story.

2008-08-20T20:33:00.001-07:00

So today Cohen had his 2 month appointment. He is getting huge he now weighs a whopping 12 lbs. 8 oz. While at the doctors office Emmy decided to make a big poop. So as I'm changing her diaper something in the little pile in her diaper catches my eye it's a yellow HAIR CLIP !! in her poo !! Somehow my child had swallowed a hair clip and digested it fully intact. Amazing. Well the best part is that when I saw it I said "Oh my gosh there is a hair clippie in your poo" She sat up looked at her little pile and said "I want it", " I wan da clippie" she wanted me to put it in her hair! I just laughed, but the only way I could get her to stop asking was to tell her she already had one in her hair. Since I don't have a picture of her clippie filled poo... here is a cute video of her dancing today.

Cute baby.

2008-07-28T14:12:00.000-07:00

So I just read a comment from my friend Chelsea and she asked for some newer pictures of the babies, so here they are.

Family Fun

2008-07-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

So my family was here for like 2 months. It was awesome at times and stressful at others but in the end I just cried when they left. My parents and 2 younger sisters live in Houston, My older sister lives in Beryl, UT (yes you have probably never heard of it) and my brother live in D.C. So it's a rare occasion when we can all get together. Fortunately everyone was here for Cohen's blessing. It was so nice to have them all here. While they were here we got to take family pictures which was quite an adventure with lots of small kids but my friend Alaina did an excellent job.Along with these sisters and brother of mine came their lovely children. Honestly though they really are all adorable. Emmy doesn't get to see her cousins very often and so she had a blast with all of them.
Emmy and cousin Hailey playing in our makshift pool in Elko.

Here Emmy is Walking her cousin Trey.
Gage, Emmy and Hailey dancing. They were so funny one would scream and the others would follow.

HE'S HERE!!!

2008-06-25T12:53:00.000-07:00

Last Monday (June 16) Cahlan and I went on date, to see the Incredible Hulk, well in the middle of the movie I started having really bad contractions. After the movie we were supposed to go to dinner at Carraba's our (one of our favorite restaurants) but Cahlan thought we should go to the hospital but man I really wanted my Sirloin Marsala. So we went to eat. We sat down and ordered our food. The waitress asked when I was due and I told her maybe tonight (haha) . Before our food even got to the table I decided that we needed to go to the hospital, but Carraba's is awesome and comped us the meal and even packed our food to go for us. So I was admitted into the hospital at 9 pm and Cohen Maxwell Sharp made his entrance into the world at 11:26 that night.
While in the hospital Cohen had to spend all of his time in the NICU. When he was born one of his lungs didn't expand like it was supposed to so he was having trouble breathing. They gave him some hormones to help him out and they worked, but he had to be monitored for the rest of his stay. Now he's home and doing beautifully, and he does have very, very strong lungs now.
I must say that for me the second baby was such an easier delivery in fact the doctor was making jokes while I was pushing and I kept on losing my breath and laughing (this is why I get epidurals) . I pushed for about 5 minutes and he was here, all 7 lbs 11 oz and 19 1/2 inches of him.
He is so cute and looks just like Cahlan's grandpa. We love him, although Emmy is taking a little longer to get used to him. Hopefully she gets adjusted soon.

Yea for drugs!

My cute sister Kelly saying bye-bye to the belly.

Proud parents.

Our little old man.

This is where Emmy wanted to see the baby.....
that was no longer there.

HAWAII FUN!!!!

2008-05-24T12:03:00.000-07:00

We've taken a really long time to get some Hawaii pictures up here, mostly because life seems to be getting crazier by the millisecond. Kim had a huge post saved in here with a ton of pictures, but we thought it might be good to just put up a slideshow, so here you go:

Yea New Blog!!!

2008-05-20T11:05:00.000-07:00

So in an effort to keep our friends and family better informed about our every move in life I have decided to take up blogging. As many of you know we did have a blog before this one (www.thesharpestfamily.com) But thanks to my lack of computer "saviness" I was never able to make posts unless I had Cahlan right there to show me everything, or basically do it all for me. So now I have rededicated myself to the task. Oh and also I really wanted to have a cute background and we couldn't figure out how to do that on the other blog. So now I am learning the ways of blogspot and enjoying the aesthetic pleasure I receive from my new background.
So some exciting things that have gone on in our lives lately involve me graduating !!! Yeah I am so happy but now trying to readjust to life as a stay-at-home-mommy. For my graduation present Cahlan surprised me with a trip to Hawaii. It was wonderful, we had a blast. I was so excited to take a trip with just the two of us and "Funnily enough" we ended up missing Emmy the entire time we were there.
Cahlan started a company with a friend a little over a year ago and that continues to go very well. We have been so blessed with the business and I am so proud of all the hard work he puts into it. And somehow he still manages to find time for his ever growing family.
Speaking of growing families, I am now almost 8 months pregnant with our second baby! He was a surprise but after 8 months time to think and prepare we are really excited. We are having a boy and we think we're going to name him Cohen Maxwell Sharp. Of course it could change.
Well I am sure there is plenty more I could talk about but we'll leave it at that for now. I do have lots of pictures i would like to add but there on Cahlan's computer so I have to wait until he gets home. But I promise pictures of our Hawaii trip will soon follow as well a pictures of my burgeoning belly. So stay tuned.