Elise's room!

Elise has been able to go from this

 Walk in closet made bedroom
to this master bedroom with her very own bathroom. (the bedroom was bigger and we figured we would keep it cleaner for guests to come use then Elise would keep hers)

We are slowly but surely moving in!

Happy Daddy's Day!

I caught her just after she gave ryan a kiss. So sweet.

BBQ brownies complete with hotdogs and hamburgers.

I'm really proud of the deals I got on his gifts.

Father's Day tie

Elise being so "helpful" in opening presents.

Happy Daddy's Day card! We love you mostest Ryan!



Valentine Dinner with the Heyborne's

I made a really easy dinner so after church I had the time to set up the table all Valentine's-y. I just used scrapbook paper and a decoration I made for valentine's as the centerpeice.

I had a little too much fun for just setting the table.

We ate and played Ryan's new little toy, a new xbox and the kinect. Trish brought yummy dessert. All in all I had a lot of fun that night. I hope everyone else did  too!

I lied, sorry

This is the last valentine's decoration I'll blog about. I started it first and finished it last. So you can see why I'm a little confused about it's order. I love this one. It's beautiful for being made of crepe paper and a Styrofoam ball.

Total Cost: $3.99 for the Styrofoam ball (I did have a 40% off coupon but I used it on something more expensive. 2 things of crepe paper at $.89 each. I didn't use much of the second one but I needed it to make the ball look nice.

less than two weeks

Less than two weeks til Valentine's Day and I got my last decoration done. That's good for me (seeing as how I already admitted to not being done with my Christmas side still, I did that one too by the way. I choose Holy Night) Anyway here are my blocks. It feels good to have it all done.

Saturday may be a special day...

Saturday may be a special day but I really enjoyed my Sunday. It was very laid back and fun. I caught up on some stuff...I guess including my blogging.

This is our family time today, making banana bread. She had fun and it was fun to cook something without Elise crying at me and trying to squeeze between me and the counter.

Not today, but recently I finished my Valentine bags. Thanks for the help guys. You really got the ball rolling. I ended up choosing a phrase that means a lot to Ryan and me.

This one is just plain cute isn't it? This moment may not happen very often for a while cuz busy season is ramping up but I took it just to document some of the day to day that I will forget in the future.

Her hair is getting CRAZY fun! She's getting to the point where I need to decide if I should cut her bangs or start pinning them back.  What are your votes?

Just in case you didn't think I was serious about the playing of video games, I got proof. She loves "playing" with dad. We make shooting sounds when she pushes button, and vroom vroom noises when she touches the joystick, and various phrases thrown in the for fun like "it's a me, Mario"

Valentine's Decoration Take 2

Another cheap(ish) idea to decorate for V-day. I found this print online from this website eighteen25
I printed it for $2.99 at Walgreens and got the frame for $4.oo Michael's. The glass container I had around and it's filled with cadbury hard shell covered chocolate ornaments from Christmas, I just took out all the green ones. I thought there would be equal parts of each color but sadly there were more green ones that the other two colors combined. So this is a pathetically fourth full glass container of candy but oh well. It makes me happy.

I got something done!

Seriously, I think I'm giving up scrapbooking until all my children are old enough to not pull everything I'm trying to work with out. I need some sort of creative outlet though, so I started sewing little projects and recently I've been trying to make some Valentine's decorations so my house doesn't look so bare. And even though I've had this to contend with....


The Ribbon Maniac

I've mangaged to make this...

 Cute huh? It's pretty cool though if I don't say so myself because the hearts are made from pictures of my family. Take a closer look.

Fun stuff right!? So for a very low price of three photos, two sheets of scrapbook paper, and some black ribbon I ended up with a cute wall decoration. (this idea isn't mine it came from this website who got it from this website) 

Some Help, Please.

My house looks so sad without any Christmas Decorations. When I lived in Utah I had this whole box of snowman decorations that I left up through January, but they just feel wrong when the weather has been sunny and 78 degrees. I decided I need some Valentine's Decorations, cuz I have zero. Well we just got pre approved for a home loan so I'm cracking down even harder on spending. Working with what I have is easy, coming up with the ideas has been harder. So I ask for your help. I made these bags out of some scrapbook paper the other day, but they need words or something on them.

I was thinking like MINE or LOVE and then I thought maybe a saying would be cute so I was trying to do like LOVE IS ALL YOU NEED but that's one word too many and LOVE ONE ANOTHER is a word too short. Now is the part where you give me your opinion and ideas so I can finish my project. Thanks in advance!

ALSO there are nine blocks on the above shelf that I have plans for writting LOVE BIRDS across, but since we were sick all of December I never got Christmas' saying on a side. Would love your nine letter ideas that as well.

One of my Projects

Before we went to Utah in November I decided I wanted to make the carseat she would be riding in a cover. I didn't have a pattern and I couldn't begin to tell you how I managed to make it. In the end though it turned out way better than I could have hoped for really.  This is a picture of her in it as we drove into Utah county on Christmas Eve.

What have I been up to?

Well Elise is growing at least tall (if not big) and strong and Ryan has passed with flying colors all of his CPA exams. But what have I been doing when I'm not changing diapers or begging Elise to eat?
Well, I like to
                facebook (my latest time consumer is bejeweled blitz, and I'm not very good at it),
                exercise (ok I don't like doing it but at least my ward friends and I can do it together),
                research (I like researching family stuff, like what milestones Elise will be hitting soon and what other families are up to that I want to do to, and how to be a better mom and wife),
                read (I'm loving audio books right now, they are hard for Elise to ruin),
                NETFLIX (nuff said),
                and I'm still uber crafty although I find it hard to scrapbook anymore cuz Elise is way too interested in what I'm doing to leave me alone long enough. I've sewn a few things like a new carseat cover for Elise. I'm soo proud of it. I didn't have a pattern to use so I made it up as I went a long and it still looks pretty descent.
My latest project is this...

 It's an advent calendar that teaches about Christ through a time line of what he's done. I got the idea from a lady teaching a class called "Teaching your Kids the Gospel." So, each day we take out a card and read the backs. It took quite a while to find all the pictures and find all the paragraphs to put on the backs. Mostly they are from lds.org 's gospel art kit. But some of the pictures I wanted didn't have a a summary so I wrote my own summaries of the scriptures that related to the picture.

This is the Premortal Christ card and on the back it talks about how Jesus offered to come to this workd and pay for our sins.



This is the back to a picture of Jesus holding a lamb.

I made a set for my sister too and she showed her friends and they wanted them too. So I thought I would offer what I have to anyone who wanted to make their own. I have a pdf file of the backs that I printed on white cardstock. Then I printed the pictures at a photo center and glued them on the front. Then I pouch laminated them (that was long story and I still owe Heather a personal apology) and cut them out. The cards end up being 4.5" x 6.5". Trish told me I should market them but to be honest nothing about this is my own. I got the pictures online, I got the summaries from lds.org and the scriptures and the idea came from someone in my stake.

Happy Turkey Day!

This is our gratitude turkey this year. We have so much more to be thankful for than the things we listed but at least we could be reminded everyday to be grateful.

Happy Actual and Not Actual Halloween

Ok, I'm a photographer so I take lots of photos and like different ones for different reasons.

Last night we had a ward Halloween Costume Ball. Our chili won best newcomer chili. Somehow I always feel like people make up categories for me to win in. I really don't need the self esteem boost. I'm just fine not winning anything. We were really there for dinner and trick or treating.

She was a Girl Tiger, thus her big bow!



Do you have something to give me? This is from the Halloween Party on October 30th.


 

Ryan and I worked really hard on her bag, but it was totally worth it.



This is fun!

Looking cute at the pumpkin patch on October 23rd. Yeah we celebrated Halloween for quite a while.

This pumpkin is so cool! Yeah we couldn't get her to look up at the camera. So almost all her pictures are looking at the fantastic pumpkins.

This is actual Halloween. Thanks Kylie for her cute shirt. It was so much fun that we left her in her tights and put the onesie on over them. Do you love her cute walmart sunday shoes? Because I do!



Brushing off my Dusty Sewing Skills

What on earth do you put your ten month old baby in as far as footwear? They can't have solid soles, she needs more traction than socks provide (besides how nasty dirty she gets them), and they all look way uncomfortable to crawl in. So, I saw this pattern on Etsy and decided that since the pattern said beginner I could probably dust off enough sewing skills to make them. They turned out really cute and only took me an afternoon to make. Yay! Elise had shoes to wear to Disneyland, thank goodness.

By the way, could my child look anymore like me?

Never again

I blogged a week ago sharing my favorite recipes for foods that we used to go out to eat. And in particular I shared a pizza dough recipe I had found online. Now I had only ever tried her slow rise pizza dough when I blogged the link to her recipe. This week was a bad one as far as anyone getting enough sleep in this house and Ellie cried for hours straight two of the afternoons. I had been putting off making dinner and decided I would try her quick and easy pizza dough since for a couple minutes I wasn't having to hold elise.

Oh my goodness! That pizza dough was fabulous! It came together in five minutes and took fifteenish to cook. That is less time than it takes to order out pizza and have it be ready! I will never again order pizza (unless it's BJ's). If I have the 20 - 30 minutes to wait for it, I can cook my own and save some money in the process. Oh and it makes a large pizza so I took a third of the dough and made papa john's style cheese sticks and I almost liked mine better! Not quite as greasy but still packed with flavor. So, here is the recipe. (from melskitchencafe)

Fast and Easy Pizza Dough and Cheesesticks

3 cups flour
1 heaping tablespoon of honey
1 heaping tablespoon of oil
1 cup warm water
1 tablespoon yeast (I just had those packets of yeast and it ended up being a package and a half)
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Preheat oven to 475 degrees. Mix all dough ingredients together, except the flour. Add flour and knead a bit (I just through the ingredients in my kitchen stand mixer and then added the flour and mixed it again and let it run for a good five minutes). Then roll it into your pizza shape and place on pan. ( I like to use a little cornmeal on the bottom of the pan to make the pizza easier to get off. It also gives it that pizza texture that I really like). Cook it for 12 minutes or until crust is browned and cheese is bubbly.

For the cheesesticks I took a third of the dough and rolled it out like a mini pizza. I spread like a tablespoon of butter on and then sprinkled some garlic powder on top. Ten I topped generously with mozzarella cheese (freshly grated melts a lot better than the packages of grated cheese you buy at the store, but hey time is time in my book). Then I don't remember how long it cooked but I think it only took like 8-10 minutes.

PS cool discovery, I really like turkey pepperoni.

Try it out and let me know if you liked it as much as me or if I am simply crazy.

Eating Out In

I've been trying to find some good recipes that would replace some of our going out to eat. 1 because we don't have time when Elise's bedtime is 7:30 pm and B it saves us money and bonus it usually is healthier too. Here are a couple of my favorites.

Honey Glazed Chicken
Pizza
Sweet and Sour Chicken
Cafe Rio Pork

Are there recipes that you like?

Sweet and Sour Chicken

Happy Birthday Ryan, A week late... I decided to fix Ryan a special dinner as well as some cupcakes in celebration of Ryan's birthday even though it was a little late. Mandi and I started working on some sweet and sour chicken. I decided to do actual breaded chicken and looked up a recipe online. It was actually super easy to do! And we all thought it tasted really good even though I used whole wheat flour to do the batter. So below is the recipe I used. I used already prepared sweet and sour sauce on top and opened some canned pineapple to go with it. Yummy and oh so easy!

CHICKEN BALL BATTER
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup cornstarch
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 teaspoons sugar
1 1/3 cups cold water
oil (for frying)
8 chicken breasts, cut into bite-size pieces
seasoning salt (optional)

In a large bowl combine flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, sugar; add in water and whisk vigorously until smooth. Add in chicken pieces and mix until well coated. Heat oil in a deep-fryer or Dutch oven to 375 degrees. Carefully dip the battered chicken pieces in hot oil and fry until golden brown (about 3-4 minutes). Remove to a paper towel. Sprinkle with seasoning salt immediately after frying if desired. Serve immediately with sweet and sour sauce. Delicious!

I can do that...

Well, so, here are the results of one of my "I can do that" episodes. Every time I see something, usually some sort of crafty or sewing thing, I think to myself I can make that. I don't know why I think I should. It doesn't necessarily need to be made by me. It probably would be better quality if I didn't do it. I really don't need more projects to work on.
However, last week I worked on making bows not just for my little one but for Trisha's as well. Gwen's birthday is this week (Yikes, she's already a year old!) Trish was saying how she was pretty sure that Gwen was the only girl that wasn't wearing one of those big headband things. We both agreed that we liked bows more than the huge flowers so I went shopping for some ribbon and tights after watching a couple clips on you tube on how to do it. It was pretty easy and the results were dang cute I think. But let's be honest, I'm not going to blog about things I've done that didn't work out so well.

What we call "Home"

It may be small but it's ours.

Family Room
(including the new couch!)




Dining Room



Kitchen
(Sorry nothing is mopped but just using the dustpan is a a physical comedy act that I prefer to do as few times as possible)


Bathroom



Yeah, no pictures of the bedroom. You'll have to come visit to see that. (hopefully that gives me a little more time to fix it up)