Today was a good day...

...and let me tell you why!

It WASN'T because poor Maggie woke up from her nap with a barking cough and a sour puss attitude.

It also WASN'T because for the first time EVER one of my brides called and canceled with me because she found another videographer's demo that she liked better than mine. (FROWN!)

And lastly, WASN'T because Verison Wireless messed up our cell phone bill and sent me a statement which read $1412.68 as our balance due (causing me to call them and take an HOUR ironing out the mess on the verge of tears as well as a heart attack). You will be glad to know that our balance due now reads $44.18.

No no, none of those reasons contributed to my good day. Today was an excellent day because as I layed lifeless in the bathtub attempting to decompress, I felt the very first flutter of my sweet unborn baby against my abdomen. It was such a long awaited and highly anticipated moment that I looked down at my stomach and said out loud "Hi baby! There you are!!" I cried pregnant tears, overwhelmed with only one thought..."I am blessed!"

This is why I never have time to blog...

As the summer is slowly coming to an end I feel as though my deal with the devil is close to over and I will once again regain my SOUL! Summer weddings have eaten me ALIVE! If I am not diapering my children or feeding their bottomless tummies, you can find me here, at the computer, editing wedding videos. Don't get me wrong, I actually really love it. The freedom and creativity involved are perfect for me, but I signed on for a lot this summer and I am looking forward to the slow season! Please enjoy couple of the lovely summer weddings I have had the privilege of filming...

A very welcome pattern

So a few weeks ago, my dear friend Carrie came into town and I was able to spend a couple of days with her. As most of you know, Carrie is my very best friend and has been since we were skinny, fritzy little girls. We began to play together at the tender age of six and were inseparable through college. Marriage has definitely put a bit of a strain on the relationship. We no longer sleep in the same bed or attend one anothers family vacations, but we remain very close. Our dream growing up was that we would move into homes next door to each other and make jam while our daughters had sleepovers. Our hope was that our daughters would become best friends and carry on the legacy. When Carrie's daughter, Roxie was born our silly plan slowly started to roll into motion (or so we hoped). When you are tiny, like our girls, a few months age difference can seam like much more. During each of Carrie's previous visits, Maggie had not shown much interest in the Rox because Roxie was too little to really play. HOWEVER! This last trip proved to be very different! There was giggling, playing, communicating, and even some friendly hand holding involved! And so it starts! I can't say I'm surprised.

Big happenings at the McDowell's!

Well it looks as though we will be expanding to a party of five! That's right. MUCH to our surprise, Rob and I find ourselves expecting baby number three and we couldn't be more thrilled! I am eight weeks along and due February 27th. Just around the corner, right? (nervous laughter) So luckily for me, the morning sickness is at a minimum and all that ails me on a regular basis is how insanely tired I am. Each morning when Maggie wakes me up asking for "warm milk and a show" I feel like somehow during the night, I have been hit by a cement truck. Good times. Wish us luck! This will definitely take some rearranging to make it work, but we are more than happy to do so!

So Maggie thinks she can dance...

A few months ago I spoke to some of my friends with little girls who are Maggie's age and I began to have a Baby Boom moment. Let me explain: Baby Boom is a CLASSIC movie from the eighties about a New York career woman (Diane Keaton) who is quickly brought to her knees when an obscure relative dies and leaves her a one year old baby girl. The woman has no time for the baby, she tries to keep her career and be a mom at the same time, yackety shmack...eventually (after a montage of the woman taking care of the sick baby all night) the woman's heart is softened, she gives up her career for the child, moves to the country, starts a baby applesauce business, makes millions, and marries the local doctor. One of my all time eighties favorites, I must admit. But to get to the point, there is a scene in the movie where the woman is at a park in New York and she overhears a couple of rich, pretentious mothers talking about putting their unborn children on the waiting lists for various prestigious private schools. After that, they list about a thousand classes, activities, etc that their other children are in (fencing, gymnastics, French lessons, violin, etc.) So basically Diane Keaton panics and feels totally inadequate. She thinks her baby is way behind and she is failing as a mother. Well after speaking with my friends about their wildly advanced children and all the amazing activities and lessons they are involved in, I believe I had a strong taste of what Diane Keaton's character was experiencing in that ridiculous scene. I have always thought that those other mothers were silly and that I would be able to clearly see such a situation for exactly what it was if I were faced with the same. However, after our conversation, I believe I had some mild heart palpitations as I began to sweat at the thought of my Maggie being left behind. Moments later I called Center Stage Dance Studios. I have since gotten over my panic. Maggie is three. She is smart, fast, creative, confident, talented, and the farthest thing from "behind". I have nothing to worry about, but in the meantime, I get to go to her dance class once a week and laugh myself senseless while Maggie and six other sprightly pixies flit across the dance floor in tutus and tiny ballet shoes. Easily the most entertaining part of my week, but the best part is, Maggie LOVES it! It is all that she talks about, and for that, I am glad for my Baby Boom moment.

p.s. I am hoping that anyone reading this post is pop culture savy enough to catch that the title of the post is a play on the very popular TV show's title, So You Think You Can Dance, and not my way of mocking my poor little three year old.
p.p.s. So You Think You Can Dance rules! Go Chelsea Hightower! (She is a teacher at Maggie's very exclusive, very upper class, very better-than-you dance studio)

Hooray for Hand Sanitizer!

Rob and I recently took the chillens to the Orem Freedom Festival. I love to pry my family out of the daily grind and do something totally different as often as possible. I think that allowing my children to crawl through a filthy, portable "fun house" definitely counts as something different. Their favorite ride was definitely the "Big Slide" (such clever names these carnival people come up with). It's the one where you hike up one million narrow metal stairs that have been screwed together moments earlier while holding a dirty potato sack in one hand and clutching your child in the other. Once you get to the top there is a carny (definition: an "interesting" looking person missing a significant amount of teeth with dirty yellow finger nails, an over sized T-shirt, and long stringy hair, unless they are female in which case the hair is short like a boy's and they have no bra). The carny was sitting on the steps that lead us to the top of the slide and we had to maneuver our way around her as we awkwardly situated our potato sacks and children into the sliding position. Conveniently for us there were four slides that sat side by side. With the children on the two inside slides and Rob and I hovering over them on the outside slides, we counted to three and shoved off. It was actually really fun! The best part by far was the intense squeals of joy coming from the children. Maggie shot off ahead of us and finished first. As we hit the bottom, the kids both stood up clumsily, slipping on their potato sacks and screeched "AGAIN! AGAIN!!" Unfortunately the line was 35 minutes long and we had other filthy activities to participate in (see pictures). After that there were more rides that appeared to be duct taped together and Tiger's Blood snow cones. It took me a minute to get over the name. I almost vomited when I read it in the list of flavors, but Charlotte assured me it was delicious. Over all it was a very fun day that we will most definitely make a tradition. I would recommend it to anyone that can pack up the hand sanitizer and be prepared to look the other way as their children roll through more germs than you are willing to imagine.

Our first camping trip with the kiddles...

Rob and I have decided that we have turned into a family of hermits as of late. Somewhere between the messy diapers and scrubbing toddler vomit up off the floor, we have lost our spontaneity and become boring and predictable. This is when we decided (spur of the moment) last weekend that we would take the kids camping! Amazing idea, right? It was 4:00 in the afternoon. The plan was to pack up the car, make a quick trip to Walmart for snacks, and be on the road arriving at our camp sight and making dinner by 7:00. We frantically ran around the house gathering sleeping bags, jackets, tents, coolers, and board games. I even whipped up a pasta salad in the packing frenzy! Feeling proud of our hurried accomplishment we loaded the kids in their car seats and sped off to Walmart (all the while pumping our kids up for the smores, songs, and games that awaited them). Never mind that it was 7:00 already. We weren't going to let this get us down! So the kids would stay up later than we had originally anticipated, big deal. We roll with the punches now with our knew found spontaneity and mad cap approach to life. An hour and six grocery bags of snacks later we were back on the road (no thanks to the painfully slow cotton headed customer in front of us in the checkout line who had coupons-a-plenty and wrote a CHECK to pay). Off to Mapleton Canyon! Rob had printed off Map Quest directions and I began to guide Rob to our destination. The directions led us right into a new developing neighborhood and we found ourselves on a dirt road with a sign which read "DEAD END". Good times. Still in good spirits, we turned around and began to search for an alternate rout. An hour later the sun had gone down and Maggie's voice shyly spoke up from the back seat..."Daddy? Are we lost?" I turned around to see a nervous Maggie and a past out Henry. "We lost one," I said to Rob in reference to the sleeping child. At this point we decided it might be better to go camping the next day instead (Saturday). We would just have to pack up early so that we could be on time to church. We told Maggie that we would go camping tomorrow and tonight we would go to Carl's Jr. playland instead (we wanted her to have something fun to do after dashing her little dreams of sleeping in a tent that night). So we get to Carl's Jr, wake up Henry and drag the disappointed little children inside only to see a ghetto, hand written sign on a dirty piece of card board hanging from the doorway of the playland..."Playland closed. Sorry for inconvenience". I growled a loud involuntary sigh which caught the attention of one of the workers. He shuffled over to us feeling as though he owed us an explanation. He mumbled in an annoyed teenage tone, "Ya, um, it's closed". Rob was in no mood for this kid's antics and said "Where is the sign with your playland hours?" (referring to a professional, permanent sign). The kid pointed at the piece of garbage dangling from the doorway and said "There's a sign right there." Rob pointed dismissively at the sign and said "That is not a sign." He turned around dramatically and we all huffed out of the restaurant. At this point we had to try to explain to Maggie and Henry that the playland was "broken" and that we would try to find another one. My nerves were shot as we drove to the nearest McDonald's with Henry howling in the back seat as though his entire world had ended. Finally we found an open playland where we let our children run themselves ragged until 10:30pm.

After that things went fairly smoothly. We got up the next morning and took the kids swimming, to a movie and last but not least....camping, which was actually really fun. It was one of the most....eventful weekends we have spent as a family thus far. But what can I say, that's just the impulsive kind of people we are.