I've been growing my hair out for what seems like forever. I finally took the plunge this week and chopped off 8 inches to donate. Dear sweet hair, you've served me well, but it's time to say goodbye...

As much as I try to encourage alternative female heroes and to steer Em away from the plastic pink princess culture of Disney and Barbie, every once and a while I enjoy playing to Em's ultra-girly side. Like when I saw this hot pink tutu swimsuit ensemble at the store. On the one hand, I'm thinking, "Wow, that's entirely too much pink." on the other hand, I'm thinking, "Em will adore it." I guess you can see which hand I went with.

We went and had dinner at Dee's. On the way out while I was paying, Emily said very matter-of-factly, "You guys better hurry cuz I'm leaving!" Needless to say, Tara and I hurried up. Emily had driven us there, so we didn't want to have to walk home..

So Ty came home from a week-long business trip this evening. On the way to school this morning, I told Emily that he would be coming back.
She said, "I like it when Daddy tickles me. And also when he tells me to "Don't smile" and I try not to smile but I think he really wants me to and then we laugh about it."

I can now blog from my BlackBerry..

So Em had a completely awesome idea the other morning while Tara was driving her to school. Emily told Tara that our car should have "a magic button that when you push it you are in Disneyland." Tara said that she'd like a button that would magically take them to school. But Em responded, "Yeah.. that'd be good. But I want a button to Disneyland."

So now I've been scrounging the inter-webs on how exactly to install a button in our car that would do that.

Tara's dad, Roger, has been up visiting us this week. It's been really nice. Em has had a blast! For instance, she is usually really excited about going to school, but she told Tara the other morning that she would rather stay home to play with Grandpa than go to school. So today we kept her home from preschool, and Roger and I took her to this place in North Salt Lake- The Kangaroo Zoo.

It's basically just a big warehouse with lots of inflatable slides and playgrounds. Emily loved it! In the past she has been kind of timid about trying new things. For example, she has always been nervous about going on swings or big slides at playgrounds. Today though, she totally surprised me. We watched her sprint around for an hour and a half going on every slide they had- even the really big ones.. head first (one some of them). I seriously couldn't believe it. She just went for it!

Most of the slides are shaped like dinosaurs or animals.. She would say to Roger and me, "OK Dad! Watch me get eaten by the dinosaur and then you say- 'Oh my Emily where did you go? Don't get eaten by the dinosaur!!'" Then she would run through and give precise instructions on what to say as she came down the slide like, "Oh Emily I thought the dinosaur got you and am so happy you came back!!" It was funny.

We all went to get frozen yogurt afterward. Emily had chocolate with gummy bears. ..and then I took her to her dentist appointment. haha..

Emily made me a really nice valentines card yesterday. After she finished, Tara asked her to write my name on the card. Emily wrote "Ded". I thought it was really cute when I got it, so neither Tara nor I corrected her. This morning she realized that it didn't say "dad" but rather "dead". ..so she's been calling me, "Ded" (dead) all morning.

A minute or so ago, she came by and informed me that ded rhymes with shmed and dad rhymes with shmad.