I Won!!!!!!!!!!!

So we have been looking for a high chair for about a week now because Little E is so tall that her travel high chair is no longer comfortable. Her little legs can't rest on the chair when you put her tray on unless she has them all slanted. I really wanted to get a high chair like my Moms that folds up so I could keep it around for visitors without it being a huge inconvenience to store. I looked all over on Craigslist and found one that I liked in Boise. But the bum sold it to someone else after telling me I could have it. Grrr

Then I looked online and found a new one I really liked but it was $89 and i just couldn't justify that price when I could buy a used High chair for $15. So I kept searching and found an ebay bidding on the same kind of high chair, just an in-box returned one. I just WON IT! I only paid $40 including shipping and I couldn't be happier! :) Isn't if funny how getting something for less money can make you feel like such a super hero?
So here is a picture of my new purchase. I can't wait for it to get here!

Happy Halloween and a Cool New Toy!

Happy Halloween Everyone!

We had a great time this year going out trick or treating as a family. We decided to do a family costume of the Fairy Tale Little Red Riding Hood. Michael dressed up in his hunting gear and became the woodsman, I made a pair of ears and wore my coat inside out and became the Big Bad Wolf, and Little E... well, her costume took a little bit more effort. I found a really cute pattern at walmart for a Little Red Riding Hood costume and decided it didn't look too hard. Time passed and I suddenly realized I only had a week left to get started on her outfit! I asked my Mom to save me and help me figure out how to sew the thing. It literally took me an entire week of sewing all day long to get everything done, but in the end I am happy that I did it! The dress is so cute and the hood is reversible and they both will fit for a long time to come. So they will be fun dress up clothes. But next time I am going to give myself at least a month to finish a sewing project so that I can avoid the tears. :)

The white on her arms are just some leg warmers I put there to keep her warm. Its not actually part of her dress.

Little E really liked trick or treating this year. She was so cute with her little Wicker basket. I would put her down to walk up to a door and she would giggle and run for the door. Knock on it (I had to knock louder so they would actually know we were there) and then take as much candy as the person (or mommy) would let her and put each piece carefully into her basket! It was so cute to watch her get this whole concept. At first she didn't understand at all, but it really didn't take long for her to figure it out. Knock on door, grab candy. Pretty easy stuff right? :)


There was one house where they had a spooky ghost on the front door, when the door opened its eyes lit up and it would scream. She didn't like it... She just kept staring at it, on the verge of tears, and didn't even notice the candy the neighbor was trying to give her. But once we left she quickly became her giggling, sugar filled self again.


Another really fun thing that she figured out is how to slide all by herself! We bought a slide from someone in Nampa, ID. My sister picked it up for us and my Mom and Dad brought it back on their trailer after visiting her. (Thanks so much Amber! I know that was not fun! And thanks Mom and Dad for bringing it to us).

We set it up the next evening right before bed, and Little E got SOOO excited! She just kept running around it saying "Side! Side!" and signing slide too. It took her a few minutes to figure out how to climb up the thing, but she quickly got it down and started trying to slide in all kinds of crazy ways. Head first, on her side... lets just say she has way too much of her daddy in her! So far she hasn't really hurt herself on it. So I think it was a really good purchase. :) She will play on it for 15 whole minutes without even realizing that I am not paying attention and am actually getting something done. What a blessing!

Her first time down the slide.


Cut to five minutes later...


Here are some photos of additional proof that Little E is a lot like her daddy! Can anyone say Lightsaber?

Here is a little Video just to make you smile. Little E really likes dancing now. She has even figured out how to twirl and thinks it is the greatest. She is such a little Girl! :)

Old McDonald had a Farm! Eee I Eee I Ohhhh!

We have had so much fun in the past month that I just haven't had time to post about it. :)

I have been working very hard on my small business this month making leg warmers, tutus, and hair bows.
Little E has been my model for all of my Halloween costumes this year. I have had so much fun taking pictures of her in all these different outfits and knowing that I don't have to keep/store them all. :) Here is a sampling of the adorableness that is my little model.

I thought this outfit was appropriate since I had a devil of a time taking the picture. Especially since she wouldn't stop trying to grab the camera. lol


Little buzzy bee.

Cute as a pumpkin, no? The really funny thing about this outfit is that the onsie is supposed to fit up to 9 months... Little E is 16 months in this picture. I think Walmart has its sizing wrong!

We were so excited this month to go down to my sisters house for our nephews birthday! He had the coolest party ever! It was at a farm with cows, pigs, Clydesdale horses, goats, chickens, turkeys, and even a trout pond! What more could any little kid ask for?

Little E really enjoyed the horses. She knows how to sign horse and recently started clicking her tongue when she see's them because that is the sound I make to get the neighbors horses to come at grandma's house. Its really cute. :)

She wasn't quite so sure about the turkey or chicken. We had to make her touch them to show her that they were soft or "Sahh" as she says. See, just look at that face. Doesn't it just say "I don't know about this thing..."
Here is a picture of my other nephew and the chicken that he CAUGHT ALL BY HIMSELF! He was amazing! Those little buggers are fast!
Little E did like the goats, but liked their saltine crackers better. She kept taking them like she was going to feed the goats with them, and then quickly stuffing them into her mouth before we could stop her.

After the tour of the farm the kids got to take turns on the pony. Both of my nephews really enjoyed this part and Little E really liked getting to sit on the horse, even if she didn't really ride it anywhere. Here are some pictures of the little cowboys and cowgirl gideeing it up!

Birthday Boy

My Brothers youngest enjoying his first pony ride.

Little E sitting on the pony.

Here are a couple of random pictures that show how much fun Little E is having with her food now. The first is of her after she got to eat pudding with a spoon all by herself. As you can tell from the grin, she liked it!... and she ended up right in the tub afterward. The second is of her new favorite food/pastime: Black olives! She can't get enough of them and insists on having them on her fingers before she will eat them. I can't beleive how good she has gotten at putting them on. :)

This last week Little E and I got to go help at a primary activity for Halloween. Daddy and I just got called to be the 6 year old's teachers in primary so I really enjoyed getting to know all the kids. Little E went to the activity as a "princess" and I was "the wicked witch that won't let her do anything she wants to." When we got home we took some pictures of her in her costume in the backyard.

Sudafed?

Just wanted to share a quick funny story with you all. Last night my dear husband started to feel sick and had a very bad headache. I figured he must be getting a head cold and told him to take a sudafed. At about this time Little E got a poopy diaper and I asked him to come help me get her into the tub because we have really been fighting some diaper rash. So he hurried to find the sudifed, took it, and came to help me get her to bed.

About twenty minutes later he came out and collapsed on the couch. I figured he was finally getting hit by the sudafed and would feel better in about an hour. I went downstairs to make a phone call and work on some things for my business (leg warmers and wraps).

Finally I heard some bumpings upstairs and came up to find him and see if he wanted to watch an episode of something. He wasn't on the couch, he was in bed now... out like a light. I woke him up and asked if he just wanted to sleep through the night because if not he needed to get up for awhile or he would be up really late. He just kind of grunted at me and I left him to sleep in peice.

I ended up awake until 12:30 freezing strawberries that were all about to go bad (they had been on a great sale an I ran out of time the day before).

Finally I got into bed to find him still asleep, wearing his clothes. I made him change into pjs and then we both went to bed.

He just called me from the car on the way to work. He said while he felt great he thinks he knows what happened. Instead of taking sudafed like I had told him he mistakenly took Sleep Aid. :)
But since he feels better maybe sleep really is the best medicine?

Lesson of the day: Maybe husbands, like children, need supervision when they medicate themselves. Lol

Buisy as... Hornets?

Well, we certainly have been busy little bees, or maybe I should say hornets. That would be more fitting I think. Our little family got to spend the last week of summer break up with our family in Kennewick Wa. It was so much fun to hang out with my husbands sisters and all of Little E's cousins. We even got to tear down a hornet infested swing set while we were there. How can you beat that? First we had to burn it from the inside out using (to my pyromaniac of a husbands delight) lighter fluid. He got to climb on top of the monkey bars and spray the fluid into the center of the logs, then moments later have columns of flames spewing from the tops of all four surrounding logs. He had a total blast!

Yes, that is my sister in law with an ax. And yes, she is "Freakishly Strong" just ask her husband.

Little E had a great time trying to hang out with all the "big" kids and learning all kinds of things from her little cousin who is only a month older than her. They taught each other all kinds of neat things. Little E taught her cousin how to sign baby (they lay on the floor looking at each other signing baby over and over again as fast as they could. Thats why they were laying on the floor, they signed it so excitedly they fell over).
Then her cousin taught her to say cracker or "Kwahkah" and to sign both please and thank you. (Way to teach politeness little cuz!)

We also got to go to the park by the river with her older cousins. They are all growing up so fast. Don't beleive me? Here's some proof!


That's right! Those guns are lethal you better beleive it!


We all had a great time, Little E really enjoyed terorizing a nearby puppy. He couldn't stop and rest for more than 10 seconds without her trying to give him all kinds of loves. It was pretty cute.

We really had fun up in Kennewick and can't wait to go visit at Thanksgiving. Three day's is just not enough time to spend with such a fun family!


Since My loving husband has gone back to work he has really enjoyed putting Little E to bed. I really enjoy being surprised by some other funny thing he has done during the bedtime routine. The other night I came in to kiss her goodnight to find he had don't her hair in a different manner than usual...

Well, that prooves it! She really is a little rascal! :)

Well, I have to go. The rascal has woken up from her nap and she sounds kinda cranky. I have a couple of videos to post later tonight, so done forget to come back and check them out. They include her first ever cookie dough! How cool is that? :) She is mama's little girl.

Our new home! Has it really taken us a month to do all this stuff?

Hi there world! Guess what? We are still alive!!!

We have been moving into our new home and it has taken all of our effort and attention for the past month to get everything done and not to go crazy and kill any of the family off in the process.
We already miss living out in the woods but are happy to have a home to call our own and being within bike riding distance to the library and grocery store.


We spent a long time getting the home painted and ready for us to live in. There is one wall in particular that took up way too much time to finish. We decided that we didn't like the wall paper on one wall of the living room. So we got some Downy mixed with water, a scraper, and a wall paper puncturing tool and went to work one night. Little E was supposed to sleep in the play pen while we happily worked the night away. Three hours later we packed up and went home with only 1/8th of the wall finished. Little E woke up every hour and freaked out that she wasn't at home. (not that the picture was taken before we had all the freak outs. I am still smiling.)



We also figured out very quickly that the wall was a bigger job than we bargined for. It was actually two layers of wall paper with a layer of paint in between them. We ended up using the real wall paper remover chemical (I highly recomend it!) and got the rest of the wall cleared off with the help of some neighbor kids and our neices and nephews. Once it was clear we saw the real job that was ahead of us. There was a huge hole that needed patching because a door knob had gone through it, and about 1/4 of the wall was just mud and nothing else. We had to add texture, patch the hole, prime, and then finally paint the wall. But now it looks beautiful!

Ok enough of the negitives, time for the positives! Thats right Rasberries and a Trampoline!
We have had more rasberries than we know what to do with. Tomarrow I plan on makeing rasberrie peach freezer jam. Mmmmm. We have used the excess rasberries to bribe our neighbors to be our friends. :) And one of our neighbors helped me make homemade applesauce yesterday with her apples that she had in her yard.


Little E really likes the rasberries. When we go out into the backyard she points at the bushes, tries to leap from my arms, and sighns, "More! Eat!" all at the same time. She has had very interesting diapers lately. (Think fermenting fruit smell) At the same time Trek runs to the rasberrie bushes and begins harvesting the lower berries with relish. (But hey, I don't want those anyways. He is a boy dog after all. You never can tell whats on the low ones.)

She also really likes the trampoline. She crawls around and around in circles and her hair is so fine that it sticks strait up into the air. She giggles the whole time. The other night she woke up after going to bed and refused to go back to sleep until she had a good romp on the trampoline, squealing at the top of her lungs and throwing herself down like a crazy person. It was halarious.


Well, its late and I need to get some sleep so that my eye will stop twitching. (It won't stop! Its been going on for a week now!) But here is one last tid bit about what we have been up to. I just sold my first international order for my baby wraps. A girl from Canada contacted me and got a yellow one. How cool is that?

Little E at 13 Months and her First Up Do!

That's right Little E is 13 Months Old! (a week ago true, but I feel good if I at least take pictures sometime in the month.)


One of the great changes that have taken place is that she now has enough hair to do a true UP DO! That's right ladies and Gentlemen. I did my first ever set of pigtails today and was finally able to use the bows I made for her 6 months ago! Isn't she just the sweetest thing ever? Those pigtails actually look better after church than before. I had to redo them several times and they got better with practice. ;)


Here is a great picture showing how little E feels about grass. Unsure to say the least. She won't leave her blanket if I set her down on the grass and she often refuses to put her feet down when I try to make her feel it bare footed.

What day is it?

So my dear husband has been having a wonderful summer vacation. Life is pretty much normal for me, except that he hasn't been at work, so my schedule has been more difficult to keep track of. I often find myself saying, "what day of the week is it honey?" and he answers, "I don't know, go look at your phone."

Today, we woke up sure that we knew what day of the week it was. We had a leisurely breakfast, listened to a book on tape, and played with Little E. Finally 12:30 comes around. "Guess its time to get ready for church." I say.

Fast forward 30 minutes later. We pull up to an empty parking lot looking stunning in our Sunday best. There is literally 1 car in the parking lot.
"Did you hear anything about a stake conference?" asked my husband.
"nope. It is sunday right?"
"I think so" he says
"look at your watch"
"Yup SA. Thats sunday right"
"No, that's Saturday. Su is sunday.... I think.... I don't know.... What day is today?!"


Fast forward 5 more minutes and we are back home and lounging in our Saturday glory. Maybe I should get a calendar and cross the days off as they come. :)

Little E is standing up so well now! She crawls so fast that I have a hard time catching her, and nothing is safe on any surface within her reach. (which is higher than you might think) She gets to be more and more beautiful all the time (I might be a little biased) and her daddy loves how much she plays with him. Here are a couple of pictures of her in her cute dress standing all by herself barely holding onto a tree for support.

(My guy is such a good photographer! Aren't these pictures great?)

Shadows from the past!

I've been thinking about a post my sister had on her blog a while ago. It was a story about how history repeats it's self. When I was younger my sisters (not understanding the "inner sanctum" status of the toilet) used to make fun of me for singing the Star Wars theme song and pretending I was really in the seat of my very own X-wing Star fighter ridding the galaxy of it's empire scum. They later were shocked to find their sons singing the theme and playing star wars while in their inner sanctums. Personally I feel its just their star wars genes kicking in. This newly discovered gene controls sound effects, natural attraction to light-sabers, and the desire to use the force to squish your teachers head when they are droning on.
I had a few other eccentricities when I was young that my family thought were ...unique. For example I used to put myself down for a nap. I know, every mothers dream right. From the family stories told at get-togethers I would gather up my blankie, inform my mother that it was time for me to " go get happy". As I was carried off to bed I would wave goodbye to my family over my mother or father's shoulder ready and willing to start my nap time adventure (most likely as a Jedi).
I was reminded of that this morning. My 13 month old and I were playing in the front room, when she fixed me with her intense look, the that says, "I am going to tell you something very important so you better listen up" and then she signed night-night (placing her hand on her cheek and tilting her head). I wasn't sure the first time. Then she dropped the look again, this time with a little more urgency, "it is defiantly time for night-night daddy". So I brought to her room to change her diaper. While on the table she signed milk and looked hopefully at me. Lacking the proper equipment to meet her demand I laugh and gave her her "silky" (blankie), turned out the lights and tried to sing her a song. She would not have it. When we got close to the bed she lunged out of my arms toward her crib. It was all I could do to keep from dropping her. Once laid in her bed, she took her silky shoved in her face rolled over and was asleep before I could even leave the room. I had to laugh.This is a girl who takes her nap times seriously! Like father like daughter I guess.

Vacation! or is more work in disguise?

Us at our second chance prop. (doesn't Jenn look great!)




School has been out for three weeks now (I had to look at the calender, I keep forgetting what day it is) and I'm starting to wonder which one is more work, work or vacation. It seems my days start earlier (thanks to a certain little girl who loves her mommy and daddy so much that she needs to be up at the crack of dawn so she can play with them) and the day's work lasts longer! Personally I think I have to applaud you home makers. You have a very tough job out there.
Well we have finally decided on a house, after three years of searching the stars aligned and the perfect home plopped into our laps. And the best part is I get to have a MAN CAVE! A music corner, weapons on the walls, and a place for all of my wooded mask Jen won't let me put up because she is scared of them!
I have to be honest though I think buying our first home has to be one of the most frightening experiences of my life. I've never been good with commitment in the first place, and then sitting down and figuring out all of the bills we are now going to have to pay for the rest of our life, only exacerbates the fear. Thinking back a paper bag would have been nice to have had to keep from hyperventilating. Now that most of the process is almost over with I'm calming down (I still have random freak out's) but we can start planing all the fun things we can do with it!

Our little E is now cruising. Since she is so amazingly long that means that not only are coffee tables and low surface with in her reach but counter tops and higher book shelves are now subject to her tormenting. I am amazed at how one day they move at a snails pace and the next it's all you can do to keep up with them.
I have to say that parenthood certainly keeps you on your toes.






Little E sure loves her grandpa!