Merry Christmas

Free Things for ME

My sister in law Yolanda started a money saving blog a month ago. She is an amazing saver/couponer. She is constantly getting things for free or close to it. Her blog keeps readers informed about great deals (and teaches you how to get them- think packs of Huggies diapers for only $3.50!) she also has great give aways regularly. You should check it out!
freethingsforme.blogspot.com

adults

So I decided we should do Christmas cards this year. It seems like something most adults do. If you would like one then please e-mail me your address. THANKS! If you don't have my current e-mail address let me know by leaving a comment and I'll get a hold of you to make sure you get a Christmas card from us.

second wedding ring

Yep, you read the title correctly. Today I went to the jeweler and picked up my SECOND wedding ring. No, I don't have two, this is a replacement for the ring Gustavo proposed to me with on my 20th birthday. I had fallen in love with the ring my senior year of high school. After seeing it in the mall I found a picture online and tucked it away in a file folder labeled "important." When Gustavo and I decided we wanted to get married three years later I showed him the picture and sent him off searching without much luck. He was in California for language training and I was in Provo and neither of us could find anything like it. I had despondently decided I would need to find another style of ring when my friend Aimee and I went to one last jeweler who told me he could order it in! I scheduled an appointment so they would have it when Gustavo was coming to visit for my birthday. When he came to Provo we went and looked at it and Gustavo had me go to the car while he talked to the jeweler in private - of course, I figured he was working out the details of purchasing the ring and getting it sized and dipped. I expected to get it while we were together for the holidays a few months later. To my surprise the next day, my birthday, he got down on one knee and asked me to marry him while revealing the ring! I was completely shocked. After I settled down and told him yes, he told me that a jeweler in California located the last ring the company had in Texas and got it sized and sent to him the day before he traveled to Utah. I LOVED this ring, but a month or so before our first anniversary I lost my first diamond. I had it replaced and within six months lost another. This continued to happen for the next 5 years. Some years I lost one diamond, while other years I lost 4. The ring was sent away for 6 weeks each time a diamond was lost. As most of you know, this July I lost my ring and didn't find it until the end of August. After I found it, I took it to the jeweler to have the diamonds checked. They found another loose stone - of course. When they sent it away to get it fixed the "master jeweler" tried to make the ring more stable and ended up ruining it during the process. They told me I could keep my ring although it looked different and much worse, or I could take credit for my ring and order a replacement. I found the ring I feel is closest to my original ring and was able to go pick it up today (6 weeks later). It is so nice having a wedding ring again. Let's just hope I have better luck with this one!!!

big girl

My baby is 21 months old! The last few weeks she has started playing a lot more and seems to be a little less clingy. In fact, for the first time I can ever remember, Ella has asked me to put her down a few times this week! She still asks me to "hold you" throughout the day, but after some Love and Logic discipline, she seems to be better at understanding that sometimes she needs to wait and be patient. Ella has recently fallen in love with the stuffed bunny Abuela gave to her last Easter. Ella loves to take care of "Bunny." She tries to feed her and give her water and has a very hard time understanding why I won't let her. In this first picture she is putting lotion on bunny (I think she did this for almost 20 minutes and I was in heaven because she is just barely starting to play independently).

Ella likes to put Bunny down for naps and night time (yes, she is still obsessed with pacifiers and no, I have not taken them away at bedtime or for naps yet.)

Like most kids, she has always been intrigued by our computers so my parents got Ella her very own laptop on her first birthday. Whenever we're on the computer we tell her to go and get hers so she runs off to her room and brings it in with us so she can play.

For the past month or so in an attempt to get Ella to stop whining I've been telling her to use her "big girl words" or to act like a big girl so now she climbs up on things and proudly exclaims "BIG!"

She also stands on random objects to "balance" and gets so proud of herself.

She isn't interested in potty training, but she demands privacy when she is going to the bathroom. She hides behind something (usually the couch) and doesn't want you to come close to her.

Ella is still very in love with shoes (and clothes). These adorable Minnie slippers are a hand me down from my sister and Ella loves them. I had to include this random picture because she is just so cute!

Here are some other fun things about Ella right now:

• Ella loves clothes and shoes so much that she has a say in what she wears every day. I can get her excited about going somewhere by telling her what we can wear (her coat, boots, a dress- you name it!) My sister Eleanor asked me if it was hard to get Ella to wear tights and my response was, "Are you kidding me? She asks to wear tights!"
• Ella is becoming a better eater. Still not good, but better.
• Ella loves to play with Daddy. She is still a mama's girl, but she is being much nicer to Daddy and even cried the other night when he was leaving.
• She is starting to string words together. Usually not more than two, but the other night she said "baby movie here I go" which meant that she wanted to watch the Baby Signing Time movie, "Here I Go."
• She has very good manners. She always says please and thank you. Gustavo is currently teaching her to say "excuse me."
• Ella loves our neighbors Jen and Ian and asks to go play with them almost every day. When Jen and I go walking, Ella gets paranoid if Ian is ever out of her sight. Ian is 4 so even though he likes Ella, he considers her a baby.
• She loves bubbles.
• Getting her to stay in nursery is still difficult, but she has gone 4 of the last 5 weeks.
• She loves singing so much that it is usually the only way to calm her down when she is upset. Her favorite songs are "Popcorn Popping", "The Wise Man and the Foolish Man", the alphabet, and "If You're Happy and You Know it"
  

*As a disclaimer for many of the random outfits, or lack of pants in some of these pictures let me explain that those were days where I was sick or days where Gustavo had gotten up with her and I hadn't gotten her ready yet. I do dress her, I promise :)

Shutterfly Promotion

this is the picture I used for last year's Christmas card

Every year I have a hard time deciding what to get for our parents and extended family members. Now that we have Ella it is easy to make her the center of the gift. Who doesn't like pictures of a cute kid, especially one you are related to? Last year my sister-in-law and I made calendars for our family on Shutterfly. The site was so easy to navigate and the finished product was adorable. I think we'll do that again this year and I'm excited because they've made some new templates that you can check out here. I'm also excited because this year they are doing a promotion where you can earn 50 free Christmas cards. How great is that? It's really easy. You can read about it here. Shutterfly has really cute holiday card designs and Christmas photo cards. You should check them out. I am definitely ordering from Shutterfly this year.

Good luck with your Christmas gifts!

gratitude

"My brothers and sisters, do we remember to give thanks for the blessings we receive? Sincerely giving thanks not only helps us recognize our blessings, but it also unlocks the doors of heaven and helps us feel God’s love." -President Thomas S. Monson

Reading President Monson's talk from October General Conference got me thinking about all of the many blessings I enjoy.

• being a wife and mother
• staying at home with Ella
  
• having a testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ
• living near a temple
• our home
• Gustavo's job security
• family
• friends
  
• a modern prophet
• my education
• the opportunity I had to teach for 5 years
• health
• The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

We are so blessed.

giving in

Friday I gave in. I was changing the radio station and when it landed on Christmas music I kept it there. I usually wait until the day after Thanksgiving so I felt a little guilty, but I got over that quickly because the songs filled me with such excitement! I LOVE Christmas time and now I really feel like it is just around the corner.

HALLOWEEN

It is definitely safe to say that Halloween has become more fun now that I'm a mom. Of course I loved Halloween as a child and a teenager, but after high school I haven't done much. This year we were able to celebrate on five separate occasions. Thursday morning Ella and I went to our neighborhood preschool for a costume party. Our block has 7 houses (one of which is the model). Four of us participate in a weekly "preschool" of sorts. We rotate having the kids over at our house for an hour each Thursday to play, sing, read, study simple subjects, and eat snacks. It has been a really fun way to get to know our neighbors and make new friends. The boys are all 3 and capable of much more than Ella, but she still enjoys it.

Ian, Morgan, Miles, and Ella

Ella loved dancing to the Halloween music.

The kids had a cake walk, but once Ella saw the cookies she stopped playing and wouldn't take her eyes off of them!

The boys were patient and decorated their cookies, but Ella quickly ate hers and then snacked on the candy she was given to decorate with.

After preschool we had lunch and then Ella went down for her nap. When she woke up we went up to Camp Williams where Gustavo works for another party. This was her first experience trick or treating. We've been trying to teach her how to say "trick or treat" but she just smiles and sweetly says "treat." We figured that was good enough. Once we got to the different offices and Ella had the opportunity, she just took candy and said "thank you." At least she had good manners. At first she refused to let go of her candy to place it in her bag. Once she had 3 pieces Gustavo was able to convince her that it was all still her candy and that it was going to be easier if she put it in the bag. Each office was decorated with scary Halloween things so Ella learned the word "spooky." Every time we passed something she would point and say "spooky."

Friday night we went to a friend's "Dinner in Disguise" party. As a family we dressed up as characters from Peter Pan. Ella was Tinkerbell, I was Wendy, and Gustavo was a pirate.

The party was at Adobe, formerly Omniture. The building was really nice and had this adorable chair. Ella loved sitting/swinging in it, but I wasn't able to get any good pictures.

Saturday night we had big plans to go trick or treating around our block, but we got rained out so Ella ate treats from our candy bowl before we headed down to spend some time with my parents, Emily, and Max (the other kids were all out trick or treating).

On Halloween after church we lounged around and then headed up to Yolanda's house to eat her award winning chili and spend time with Gustavo's family. We've had a great time celebrating with friends and family this weekend.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Halloween Dinner Party

jogging partner

This summer Ella has become my running partner. She's usually in her pajamas, but yesterday when I finally took pictures we went out an hour or so after waking up in hopes that it would be warmer. I'm not really a runner. I just want to be healthy so each week we run about 18 miles. Yes, that is what I run in a WEEK, not on Saturdays for my long run like the rest of you!
My sweet friend and co-worker let me use her old jogging stroller at the end of last year when I was sharing my workout dilemma with her. I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to exercise each day with Ella and didn't want to invest in a stroller without knowing she would enjoy it (in case you don't know yet, she is a pretty picky girl.) After I told Kathy how much Ella enjoyed it, she gave it to me. Kathy's baby is in fourth grade so she hasn't needed it for awhile. We are so grateful for it. It is perfect because we will be able to use it for a long time since it is a double stroller.
I'm bummed that the winter is coming so soon and that we won't be able to run outside much longer. I am trying to get geared up to run at the rec center track a few days a week and to do exercise DVDs some evenings. Have you tried the Jillian Michaels workouts? Oh my goodness, they are tough! My friend let me borrow three of her DVDs and they are definitely the hardest workout I've ever done at home (okay, probably the hardest workout I've ever done period.) You should try them!

I had to include this picture because I feel like these days Ella is always pulling funny faces.

ksl finds

I am definitely in project mode. I needed to find a chair for the new desk so I searched thrift stores, yard sales, and consignment shops on Saturday and didn't find anything I loved so I looked on KSL. I found a few things I liked (one that I loved, but it was already sold) and decided to get this chair. I put a quick coat of paint on it to brighten it and then my sister Emily helped me make this chair cover with some fabric I had from a previous project that I never got around to. All together the chair and pad were $23.
While searching for the desk chair I found these bar stools that I love. I got both of them for only $25. It was perfect because my brother-in-law, Shevin, works right by the warehouse these stools were at in Salt Lake so he picked them up for me on his lunch break. I sold the 3 bar stools we used in our old house for $20 so I feel like I only spent $28 for the new bar stools and the desk chair!

FHE

Tonight for family home evening we talked about the temple. I told Ella that because Gustavo and I were married in the temple our family can be together forever. I said, "Don't you want to be together forever?" and she quickly replied, "Yep." After the lesson we were singing I Love to See the Temple and Ella started singing with us (no words of course, just "aahh".) It was so funny I couldn't help, but laugh. I believe we sang the song at least 4 times because we couldn't believe how cute she sounded (and because she kept saying "again.")

5 dollar project

I want an entry table (among a million other things). My little sister, Eleanor, and I have looked online at blogs many times for design ideas. She knew about my plan for the entry and gave me a call one Saturday morning saying that she was at a garage sale and found a table she thought I could make work. She wasn't promising anything, but she said she liked it. When I heard it was only $5 I told her to go ahead and get it without knowing much about it. When she brought it to my house I was a little surprised. First of all it was 6 feet long and couldn't even fit in my entry way. Second, it looked like this:

Gustavo looked at me and said, "You just threw away 5 dollars."

His negative attitude made me determined to prove him wrong. There was no way I could make it work in our entry, but I decided to turn it into a desk while he was off in Las Vegas for work. I sanded, scraped, and sawed the table to make it fit an area in our great room.

I had plenty of sandpaper, primer, and white paint to I didn't have to spend anymore money and now it looks like this:

I think I proved him wrong.

shoes

Ella insisted on changing her shoes all day yesterday. She rotated through these four pairs.

She is such a girl!

or...

maybe she's just like her dad

Family Pictures

Our friend and old neighbor took these pictures for us and we couldn't be happier. She also took the ones on the post below. I uploaded the edited pictures so you should peek at them again too. THANKS ANNETTE!

stay at home mom

Today one of the women I used to teach with called and asked if I can watch her little boy tomorrow. During the conversation she asked if I like how things are going this year, referring to staying home and no longer teaching. It has made me think about how much I love being home with Ella.
I do not miss feeling rushed in the mornings. I do not miss worrying about Ella. I used to worry I might miss something (like her first laugh or her first steps- oh wait, I did). Fortunately once I went part time I didn't feel much guilt. Even though staying home isn't always easy, I don't regret it. I never wish I could drop her off and go to work. I feel really fortunate that I get to be home with her. I had unrealistic ideas about being home. I thought I would have a lot more time to work on projects, but that isn't true. I'm busy taking care of Ella. Some days it is hard to just get a shower and dinner made. I do enjoy the flexibility of my new schedule though. I love that I can choose to just stay home and spend every minute with Ella, or that I can go have lunch or visit with friends and neighbors. I love that I have the time to focus on what matters most- my family. Ella is only 19 months old and it is already hard to remember when she was a little baby. It goes so fast, as cliche as it is to say, it is so true. I'm so glad I get to be with her. She means the world to me.