my first clothing project!

you know you're an old lady when you're blogging about projects on new year's eve and HOPING to go to bed very very soon. :) but that's another post. my mother-in-law was in town for part of a day and offered to help me get going on sewing Eva some clothes. So we whipped up this little dress and I am quite proud of it, despite the many little mistakes I made. I have to say...having someone tell you what to do next rather than having to read those dang directions makes sewing a heck of a lot easier! thanks beth!

Our Christmas

I'm finally getting around to posting about Christmas (thanks for the subtle encouragement Amy!). We had a nice little Christmas here with just the three of us. It was fun trying to incorporate traditions from both mine and Jared's family. One thing Jared's family always did was to give every kid a box of cereal on Christmas. It sounds weird, but I guess with 7 brothers having a box of cereal to yourself was a real treat. It turned out to be Eva's favorite part of the whole day. She completely ignored her presents and sat happily munching on the several varieties of cereal that were left under the stockings. We spent the rest of the day eating and planning meals so we could eat some more! Our dinner could have fed a group of 16. Good thing we like leftovers.This was Eva's first encounter with Santa. I don't think she was especially fond of him.

This one cracks me up...she just climbed into the cabinet and closed the door, and then would open in and let us have an earful before going back in.

I had to include a picture of her in the beautiful dress Grandma Beth made.


Ahhh...family pictures..someone always has to look goofy...and it's very typically me.

Daddy's Girl

Eva LOVES her Daddy. He is her favorite person to snuggle up with (in those rare moments that she wants to snuggle). When she hears the phone ring she says "Dah?" and stands guard by the window to watch for him coming home, and when she sees him she FLIPS out and starts yelling and banging on the window. Before I put her down for a nap she wants to give his picture a kiss (she went through a phase of toting that picture around with her). And if she feels like making noise...she hunts down Jared who's more than happy to yell right along with her. She's definitely a Daddy's girl and I think it's adorable.

Right after she was born she was crying and crying but the minute she got ahold of her Daddy's hand..she instantly stopped.

This last picture was taken a few days ago when she got really really sick. She was just walking around crying and Jared dropped everything to sit and rock her. Thanks for being such a good hubby and Daddy Jared!

am i wrong??

The other day I received a bill from Eva's cardiologist (yeah...remember THAT fiasco?) for $300 bucks. (yes...this is AFTER the insurance. they took care of $7 bless their generous little hearts) Honestly thinking they must have sent this by mistake I calmly call they next day and tell them they sent me a bill. Yeah..they know. They tell me that if the doctor was IN the room I have to pay it. Regardless of the fact that he nor the nurse could even get near her with a stethoscope, much less take a good look at her heart. (The doctor himself sent a letter to her pediatrician that says "the evaluation was impossible") Now I'll admit...it's because she was being a pill...but come on....so anyway, I asked what the protocol for appealing this would be and they said I could send a letter, but being that the doc was in the room at one point they're just going to discard it. So I guess I'm in need of some straight forward honesty and advice. Am I in the wrong? I mean..we DID use up this guys time, but I kinda figured that's why we forked over the $40 co-pay. Or am I right and I should fight this? Honestly now...I'd hate to get all worked up when I really owe these people money. YUCK. Now I feel all depressed. I'm going to go make some of Amy's Oreo balls to make myself feel better. (recipe follows) Afterall..there's nothing like 10 extra pounds to remind you of the Happy Holidays. :)

Oreo balls, a little bit of heaven, or oreo "truffles" depending on what you feel like calling them:

1 (18 oz) package Oreo's, finely crushed, divided
8 oz Philadelphia cream cheese, softened (1/3 less fat works great)
2 (8 oz) packages semisweet baking chocolate, melted
toothpicks

• Line a baking sheet with waxed paper.
• Mix 3 cups of the cookie crumbs and cream cheese until well blended. Shape into 42 1 inch balls. Insert a toothpick into each ball.
• Dip balls in melted chocolate; place on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with remaining cookie crumbs.
• Refrigerate for 1 hour, or until firm. Store any leftover truffles in a tightly covered container in the fridge.

Amy: I'm sure I botched this recipe! I think you used almond bark, but I couldn't find any. : /

Food Co-Op

Today I picked up my first "basket" of produce in a food co-op i'm trying out. IT WAS AWESOME! I came across the website (www.bountifulbaskets.org) and after researching a little I thought I'd give it a try. It basically is a bunch of people that pool their money ($15 per "basket" distributed every 2 weeks) to have some heftier buying power so they can buy from the same sources that grocery stores and restraunts buy from, for cheap. It's fun because you get different stuff every time, so you get to try new things. This particular website is only for Arizona but I know that there are similar things elsewhere. I was worried it was going to be crappy stuff, but I'm pleased to announce that all the fruits and veggies are perfect. Anyway, here's what I got:

9 bananas
6 grapefruit
6 oranges
11 lemons
8 apples (Janagold i think?)
3 lbs pears
6 large yellow onions
2 lbs carrots
1 bunch spinach
1 bunch radishes
1 eggplant
1 head green leaf lettuce

They advertise that you're supposed to get $50 worth of produce, which it looks like to me, but I'll have to go jot down some prices to verify that. The best and worst part is that it is purely volunteer run, so they LIKE for you to volunteer to come sort the produce before distribution. But hey...it keeps the cost lower and they let volunteers have extra!

Groceries

What with all the economic crisis mess going on I thought I'd share my grocery secrets. (I know..you're all quivering with delight!) But seriously, I've cut my grocery bill in half, from around $500 per month to $200 per month, PLUS I'm getting a good stockpile. I only have maybe 2-3 months of food sitting around here, but considering I'm in a 900 square foot apartment, I don't think that's too shabby. When/If we ever get the camera fixed I may take a pic of my overflowing food closets.

My Mom got me hooked on a website called "The Grocery Game" (www.thegrocerygame.com) Basically they do all the work of correlating the sales going on at your store with the coupons taken out of the Sunday paper. Everything is color coded by how great of a sale it is: black = only buy if you need it, blue = a good sale, buy what you can and green =free. Green is most definitely my fave. :) It does take about 3 months to have a good enough stockpile to really start cutting your grocery bill, AND it does take time. I have to spend about an hour cutting out coupons, planning the meals for the week and putting my list together, plus another hour to shop, but I figure I make pretty good money with my 2 hours per week. AND it does cost money, $10 a month for the first store and $5 for each additional store, plus the cost of the paper. Anyway, IF anyone is interested you can get a 4 week trial for $1!

My receipt for this week. I saved 68 % which is pretty normal. My all time high is 77%.

PLEASE tell me that didn't just happen.

Don't ask me why, but for some reason Eva thinks it's funny when you pretend to smell her feet and act like they're stinky. (I don't even remember why this got started. Maybe to get her to hold still while I changed her diaper?) Anyway at church yesterday she got annoyed with our lack of entertainment and started booking it down the aisle looking for an escape. So this guy sticks his leg out to stop her and what does she do? SHE GRABS HIS FOOT AND SMELLS IT! I thought I was going to die of embarrassment. I have no idea if the guy even noticed since I just grabbed her and left the room. Lets hope not or he's surely going to have a complex about his feet.

cute story and random pics

I was making a cake yesterday (happy birthday jared!) and I needed to cut the top off of one the rounds so they would stack better. So I figured I'd let Eva have a taste before I threw it away. Eva takes a taste and then runs out of the kitchen. I start cramming these leftover pieces down the sink when she comes running in, both hands clutching her bib. (She knows she can't eat unless she has her bib on) She sees what I'm doing and just slumps to the ground holding her bib and crying. I felt so bad! But she got me back when we went out to eat that night by smearing BBQ sauce all over my handwash only shirt and eating all my dinner and otherwise acting like a nutcase.

For Halloween we borrowed a witch costume that my mom had made for Kelli as a baby. I kept telling her she was soo cool for having a vintage costume! I was worried because we practiced for weeks trying to get her to wear the hat and she refused until we got to our trunk or treat and then I guess she was so weirded out by all the strange sights and sounds that she left it alone. Her favorite part of Halloween was running rampant through the crowds in the church parking lot while Jared and I chased her.

This pic is her wearing Jared's socks. She went running into the bedroom and then came running back out wearing them! (i STILL can't figure out how she got them on.)

It's your birthday.... we gonna party like it's your birthday

Profile of a one year old sweet heart:

height: 30 inches

weight: 19.5 lbs

eyes: blue

hair: brown? maybe?

teeth: 6

Likes: Dogs, stuffed animals, screaming, elmo, dancing, cheese, any rude body noise, digging in the dirt, medicine, making people laugh, baths, giving daddy kisses, vacuuming and dusting.

dislikes: doctors, applesauce, having her diaper changed, getting her nose wiped, baby safety locks, long car rides, naps, bows and dresses.

Sunday we celebrated Eva's FIRST birthday! I can't get over how much she's changed in a year! Tim, Megan and Shaun David were in town while Tim was interviewing with a medical school and were nice enough to stay an extra day to celebrate with us. It was a blast for Eva, although I doubt Shaun David appreciated it much. She'll start petting his head all nice and pretty soon they turn into hard WHACKS. poor kid. oh well he'll probably be beating up on her soon enough. Anyway, it was pretty much just the normal 1st birthday. She opened presents, ate cake and ice cream and then puked since she ate so much. Happy birthday pumpkin! Dad and Mom love you to pieces!you can almost see all of her teeth in this picture!

opening her present from Tim and Megan...

She loves her new kissing elmo toy. :)


the first taste...



I think she liked it ok.... :)

We went to go pick out a pumpkin the day before her birthday. She was being such a ham!

Texting all her friends.

loving on her elmo...

random stories.

I realize i haven't blogged in pretty much forever so I'm warning you now...it's probably going to be pretty long!

A couple of weekends ago we went on a ward camp out, which was fun. I tend to be an overprotective mom so I was trying really hard not to be on this campout. We kept waiting and waiting for the ward production they were putting on, but it got to be 9 and they hadn't started so we decided to put Eva down and then go watch the ward thing. So we did but when we showed up a lady asked me "where's your baby?" so i told her she was alseep at which point she looked at me like i was nuts and said "aren't you worried a bobcat will get her?". needless to say i then felt like a crappy mom and so i just went back to the tent and went to sleep. We're camping AGAIN this weekend so i really should be packing, but i figured the lack of posting was getting to be a bit ridiculous.

Eva taking a bath in a rubbermaid bin


It was chilly!

Anyway, another Eva-related story (yes i am aware that 99 % of my posts revolve around her). I had to take her to the cardiologist the other day to do some tests (her pediatrician thought her heart rate was too fast). You have to understand something about Eva...she's what you might call...an excitable child. She REALLY hates if you try to put something on her that she can't take off (she won't wear socks or shoes without acting like i'm beating her senseless) or if you won't move away from her when she says. so basically she thinks doctors are bad bad people. anyway, we go in and they want to do an EKG. I tried to talk them out of it since we already had one done a few months ago and it was an awful experience but they insisted. So the guy starts putting these stickers all over her bare little chest and belly. she tries to brush them off, and when she can't she FLIPS. she starts screaming bloody murder and ripping them off. so i have to restrain her which makes her even angrier so she starts kicking and trying to BITE the nurse when he gets near her with a sticker. so finally he gives up and calls the dr in. The first thing the dr. does is try to listen to her heartbeat, which is innocent enough i suppose but eva wants none of it. she screams and screams (if she knew any profanities believe me she would have been using them), kicks, spits and bites (don't ask me where she learns this stuff). so he tries to hand her the stethoscope so she can get used to it ... she promptly throws it across the room. a few more tries and the dr literally stands up, leaves the room and said "THIS IS IMPOSSIBLE!". i thought i would DIE from embarrasment. anyway, i paid $40 for a diagnosis of "i think dr's make her nervous." oh yeah and to be humiliated for an hour. its a good thing she's such a cute little booger. is it possible for kids under one to be true brats?

It was an EXHAUSTING day. this is her hair post-pigtails.

on to other random news.... I GOT A BOSCH MIXER! i'm so stoked. i'd post a picture but eva busted the camera today. (she didn't like me trying to take close-ups and threw it across the living room) i felt like a little kid buying my first bike or something. the only thing i was missing the the piggy bank being shaken out over the counter. i literally kept giggling while we were checking out. soo embarrasing. we made pizza dough in it today and let me tell you that is one heavy duty beast! i also made mayo in the blender portion just for the heck of it. if i could figure out how to make "light" mayo i would never have to buy it again. it was stupid easy let me tell you.

and finally....

i gave eva a pedicure today. she sat amazingly still for it, which makes me think i should try that for the next doctor visit.

haircut

i just got a haircut and decided to join the bang club. jared thinks its silly since i spent the last 2 years growing my bangs out, but what can i say? i missed them. :) anyway, now i have a measly little ponytail and i can't wait for it to grow out!

before

after

she walks!

she walks! as long as there's a pillow in front of her...and she doesn't have to take more than 1.5 steps to get there. :)

pretty pretty poo??

Eva has a plethora of these little felt flower bows I made a few months ago when people kept mistaking her for a boy. Due to this I try to have her wear a bow whenever we go out. After returning from some errands I sat down to go through the mail while Eva was happily dragging everything out of the diaper bag. I look over a few minutes later and the bow is missing. So I look for it, but can't find it and figure she's eaten in. When Jared comes home that night the following conversation ensued:

me : "Jared, Eva ate her bow"
jared: histerical laughter "are you serious?"
me: "umm yeah i'm pretty sure"
jared: "you know why i like you? because most moms would be freaking out right now.
me: "why?"
jared: "well it could get stuck in her intestines and she'd have to have surgery!"
me: after a major freak out "do we need to take her to the hospital?"
jared: "nah, lets just keep an eye on her"

so i spent the next week mashing her belly to make sure it wasn't too hard, keeping track of her diapers and digging through doo doo to see if this bow had emerged. Aaaannnnd Jared found the dang bow under the couch a week later.

I think i'm finally starting to understand why mothers like to say things like, "If you had ANY idea what I went through for you!"

lighter mac n' cheese

I recently came across this recipe from America's Test Kitchen ( i LOVE these peeps) in their Test Kitchen Favorites book and thought I'd share. I don't recommend using sharp cheese (it was still good, but a little too tangy), and we also used 1 % milk with no problem. Enjoy!

Note: they recommend grating your own cheese rather than using pre-shredded.

Ingredients:

Salt
1/2 pound elbow macaroni (about 2 cups)
1 (12 oz) can 2 percent reduced-fat evaporated milk
3/4 cup 2 % milk
1/4 tsp dry mustard
1/8 tsp garlic powder or celery salt (optional)
pinch cayenne
2 tsp cornstarch
8 ounces 50 percent light cheddar cheese, grated (about 2 cups)

Directions:

1. Bring 2 1/2 quarts water to a boil in a large saucepan. Stir in 2 teaspoons salt and the macaroni; cook until the pasta is completely cooked and tender, about 5 minutes. Drain the pasta and leave it in the colander; set aside.

2. Add the evaporated milk, 1/2 cup of the 2% milk, mustard, garlic powder (if using) cayenne, and 1/2 tsp salt to the now-empty saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Whisk the cornstarch and remaining 1/4 cup milk together, then whisk it into the simmering mixture. Continue to simmer, whisking constantly, until the sauce has thickened and is smooth, about 2 minutes.

3. Off the heat, gradually whisk in the cheddar until melted and smooth. Stir in the macaroni, and let the macaroni and cheese sit off the heat until the sauce has thickened slightly, 2 to 5 minutes, before serving.

Happy Anniversary #2!

Monday Jared and I celebrated our second anniversary. It's amazing how fast two years can go! We celebrated it fairly simply, by eating some yummy meals, watching a movie and hanging out together.
Jared handled breakfast, and it was DELICIOUS. He made pretty much every breakfast food out there and even brought a huge cinnamon roll from the best b.fast place ever The Farmhouse. Eva devoured a huge mound of hash browns and by the end of the meal we all had some pretty impressive looking bellies.
After breakfast Jared headed off to work, stopping by for some spaghetti at lunch (my so called specialty, even though its not very special) and the rest of the day was pretty much buisness as usual.
After Jared got off of work we dropped Eva off at some friends of ours who have a little girl about her age. I have to admit...I cried before we took her, but I figured I needed to grow up! I had to keep telling myself "she's 10 months old...she's 10 months old...it'll be ok". So Jared and I headed off to dinner at Joe's BBQ and downed pretty much all the rootbeer and BBQ we could hold. We ate so quickly that we had time to spare so we ran by the library to grab some movies. We picked Eva up who apparently didn't miss us at ALL. In fact, she threw the biggest tantrum I've ever seen when we were leaving. Poor kid, I guess that's a big clue to me that we need to get out a little more!
After we got Eva to bed we watched "Monster Garage" (Jared's pick obviously) which actually is pretty interesting since they get a bunch of wackos with no social skills together and some pretty funny fights ensue. All in all it was a pretty good anniversary! We're headed to Sedona tomorrow to do a little more celebrating and to hang out with Tim, Megan, Shaun David, Andrew and Morgan. It should be fun!

Our Wedding day, August 25, 2006

First Anniversary





Second Anniversary, and Yes I do know we look silly. We tried for 1/2 an hour and could NOT get a good picture! I look like a deer in the headlights!

BLAH!

after starting 4 different blogs with different subjects and then deciding i hate them all i'm giving up and just posting a couple of cute pictures of eva.

eva will put ANYTHING in her mouth. even if it doesn't really fit.

she very typically sleeps like this. bum straight up in the air!

and...this is apparently what she does when she wakes up. i think my baby needs a chew toy.

These are a few of my FAVORITE things!!!

Shop till ya drop...for me that used to be about 5 minutes. that is until now...maybe its because of the mass amounts of shopping you can do in this area or maybe it's just because now that i have a kid and am home all the time i miss the opportunities to shop whenever i want, but i've realized lately that i actually LIKE to shop! here's a condensed list of some of my favorites. (yes i DID cut some out!)

1. Trader Joes:....ahhh....i LOVE this store. It always has something interesting and new to try and for amazingly good prices. plus they have the best hummus known to mankind.
2. Cost Plus World Market: I honestly probably would never have gone in this store if i hadn't heard Sarah talk about it in her blogs. But now i'm hooked! I feel like i've just been plopped in another country.
3. AJ's Fine Foods: what can i say? i like to eat! AMAZING selection of foods that can be found nowhere else. not exactly cheap, but where else are you going to find red bananas, fresh gnocchi or tomato paste in a tube??
4. Ulta/Sephora : i have to list both because they're similar in nature (beauty supply stores) but different in stock (ulta carries cheaper to nice stuff, sephora carries nice to really nice stuff) this is one stop shopping for all of your beauty needs. i hate clutter and junk, but makeup is my weakness. sometimes i'll buy something i would never wear, purely because i think it's pretty.
5. TJ Max/Homegoods: i don't think i've ever spent as much time as i would like in this store. REALLY cool finds on a budget!
6. Bookmans: used books! for someone who likes to read, this place can be dangerous!
7. Joannes: you go in normal...you emerge as martha stewart. lovely place.

Colorado and New Mexico

The Manassa Group

Last Thursday night Jared, Eva, Megan, Shaun David and I all took off to go hang out out my grandparents (one lives in Manassa, Colorado, the other in Mora, New Mexico; about 3 hours apart from each other). We left at 8:30 pm and drove alllll night getting in to Colorado at about 8:30 the next morning. It went pretty well except for me being the silence freak for fear of waking the babies, which I think only made things worse. (No music and no talking makes for sleepy drivers) We spent Friday, Saturday, and a couple hours on Sunday in Manassa and then headed over to Mora after church. We slept through the parade on Friday (I know...how DARE we!!) then ate at the hamburger stand and chatted the rest of the day...come to think of it...that day is kinda foggy. Saturday we went to the parade, ate MORE hamburgers (they're REALLY good), went shooting, rode a ride at the carnival (during which i mooned all of manassa...not on purpose...different story) got rained on, got a pedicure from my lovely cousin Amelia, ate lots of fudge...basically it was a really good day. :)

On Sunday we headed over to Mora only to find out that we were in trouble with Popper for not showing up to his branch because he was going to make us talk.....sorry Popper....but I can't say I'm all that sad about missing that blessed opportunity. :) We spent the rest of the day talking, playing games, and staying up waaaay too late since everyone was leaving at some point the next day. Monday was pretty sad since Mom, Dad, Kelli and Emma left at the crack of dawn, followed by Tom, Amy, Joni and Jackson leaving later that morning. The main reason we went on the trip was to see Tom and his family before they leave for Israel for TWO years! That was a really hard parting....Tom said when we all moved away from Utah last year he felt like he'd just gone through a bad breakup. I felt the same this time only it was WORSE! I thought I was going to die! I lived with Tom and Amy and JoJo for a year and became really close to all of them. Amy is such a great sister-in-law. It's weird to me that she hasn't always been my sister. I've learned so much from her (like how to be an amazing mom for one) and she was always so nice to me when I lived with them, even though I'm positive I had to annoy the crap out of her sometimes. JoJo...shoot...I can't even think about that cute girl without crying! She's like my own kid. I just love her to pieces! I taught her every bad thing she knows like asking for butter on toast, yelling "SICK!" when someone sneezes, and how to take off fake eyelashes (she got a little confused on that one...) Jackson...he's just adorable. I'm heartbroken that I won't get to spend time with him like I did with Jojo. and Tom...he's just a great brother. He has a way of putting a hand on your shoulder and then you'll just start bawling and telling him all your issues even though you might not have thought you even had any problems to begin with. Poopy jokes are always funniest when Tom tells them. Even though we like to tease Tom about him being SOOOOO lucky to have Amy, he really is a great person. despite the fact that he has a secret desire to know what wine tastes like. :) I'm saving to come and see you guys! you can't get rid of me that easily. Try Timbuktu next time.Me and JoJo; I'm NOT posting the ones taken with Tom and Amy...I was crying too hard!

Later on Monday we played with Mommer and Poppers horses and basically just laid about. We took off for home at about 6 and stopped at Allsups on the way out to get some of their amazing chimichanga's. They're full of cheese and fried...what's not to love?? well...i guess being in an enclosed car for many hours after eating them wasn't so great...but they were worth it. I guess we must have driven pretty fast because we got home at 2:30 am. Got a few zzz's and sent Jared off to work while the rest of us sat in a daze. Then I guess Megan missed her hubby or something because she insisted on leaving that afternoon even though I had lots of fun things we could have done instead. sheesh...;) It was a fun couple of days, but I'm not doing it again unless it's longer!

MMmmm...chimi's.....