Birthday Pictures!

I just wanted to put up a few pictures from Makella's party! It turned out pretty fun. We just had Karianne, Larry, Jamie and my mom in law over. I made some awesome (if I do say so myself!) Chinese food. I made egg rolls and sesame chicken and rice. I was really proud of myself :) Then we just let her open presents and have cake. It wasnt a huge event, but she had a great time! I didnt get a whole lot of good pictures just because she was soo squirmy and did not care about the camera, so I did my best :)

Her tinkerbell cake that I made. It didnt taste all the wonderful, but it was cute! :)

The Party goers! After we finally got her to go to bed, I came in to check on her and found her sleeping soundly with her toys!

Little Baby Bumbs

This might be kind of long, so dont feel pressured to read it all :) Its mostly for me to try and remember for later on since Im horrid at journals!

My little Ella is going to be 2 years old tomorrow! I am so excited! Im hoping that it is a wonderful day for her! We decided not to have a real big party this year, so it will just be some of our friends there. But I think she will have fun. Ever since I first asked her about what kind of party she wanted, it has always been a tinkerbell Party. So that is what she gets. Im even attempting to make a really cute cake. Wish me luck!

It is so crazy that it has already been 2 years that she has been around. I cant say that it has been the easiest 2 years for me, but it has definetaly been worth it. Anyone who is able to be around me and Makella regularly would know that me and her dont always get along. It is a very regular occurance for us to butt heads and on more than one occasion I have heard Ella say, "I dont want to talk to mommy right now" or, if asked why she is mad she will say, " Im mad at mommy". I've gotten pretty used to it and it doesnt hurt my feelings like it used to :) She is a daddy's girl through and through and I wouldnt have her any other way and Im pretty sure Jon likes her that way too! But despite all the differences, or similarities, whatever it may be. She is so amazing to me and has taught me SO much! What a blessing she is to us! If I am having a bad day or am just way to tired, she will come up to me ask, "Mommy, you ok? you need a band aid?" Or she will just want to snuggle and say, "I need you mommy, I need you". Its moments like this that make everything perfect! Her ability to remember things and her never ending desire to learn is so amazing to me! She was talking in sentences when she was just over a year old. Her ability to speak has been one of her best talents and she definetaly does it well. She is very emotional and I think being able to express herself so well has helped her in dealing with all her emotions that are hard for her to control.

She is forever wanting to learn about something! When she was a little younger, if I was sitting at the computer or table to anything she would make her way all the way up until she was right in front of my face and then say, " lets talk about it, mommy, lets talk about it". And then we would talk about dogs, big girls, whatever was on her mind. Then when given a choice between a doll or learning the alphabet or words, she will always choose the alphabet. I have never been a very school minded person. It was pretty much the last thing on my mind. I think she will be so much better than me! Well, this is pretty long, but overall it has been such an adventure and a joy to know her and learn all the things that make her who she is. Im grateful to be able to help her grow and learn! When she was blessed some of the things she was blessed with was knowledge and having a sense of humor. She definetaly has both. We love her so much!

P.S. Her latest achievement...She read her first word yesterday! She read the word DOG. I spelled it with letters on the ground and asked her what word it was. She wasnt sure, so then I had her spell it. Then I asked her again and I didnt think she would get it so I was about to tell her what it was when she suddenly said "DOG!" Then clapped and yelled. I was pretty excited!

Comfy and Cozy

So yesterday we finally took the plunge and got Makella a "Big Girl Bed." I just felt like she was ready for it. She has been HATING bed time lately and when she starts hating something, it usually just means that she is ready for a change. So we went and got a twin bed for her and she was SOO excited about it. Its really weird to see such a tiny girl in such a big bed, but its really fun. When I was talking to her about her bed, I asked her if she liked it and she said that she did because it is comfy and cozy. Then she said that her pillow is snugli! Im glad to know she loves her bed. She still had a little trouble going to bed, but it was only because she wasnt totally tired yet.
Here are a couple of pictures in her her new bed!


Then today, Makella made it very obvious that she is turning 2 next month by throwing tantrum after tantrum...over EVERYTHING. She is pretty emotional as it is and Im pretty used to her getting upset about things, but today was BAD. For about 40 minutes, it was non stop screaming. She was in time out for a bit and would like right at me and scream as loud as she could. Then she wouldnt stop and so she like started hyperventilating and it kinda freaked me out, so I tried to just hold her and that didnt help either. So I just sat with her while she cried for a long time. I was afraid the neighbors would be and would think that I was like hurting her or something! But, I finally got her convinced that it would be good to eat lunch so she calmed down. I went into the other room for a few minutes and when I came back this is what I found:

I guess that explains why she was so upset. She woke up happy still wanted to play with me, so life is good for now. i think I still have a lot to learn about a two year old.

Recent events

Im actually in the mood to write so I better run with it and let you all know what been going on with us! We have had a few little changes to our work arrangements inthe past couple weeks. Me and Jon both work as night shift for a troubled teen house. We pretty just have to stay awake and make sure nobody runs away. Its pretty easy. Well, they were switching the program to a girls program and moving the boys to Mount Pleasant, which is an hour away. Some things happened that I dont feel like getting into and we though we were out of a job, but then I got to start working for the girls program and they offered Jon a supervisor position with the boys down in Mount Pleasant. So we have kind of been in a dillemma about what to do. We were even thining about moving down there so it would be easier to get to work. We still might change our minds, but at this point I think we arejust going to stay here and possibly try to get a new car so that jon can commute to work without having to worry about our car breaking down. So he gets a pay raise and I think we will actually be able to get insurance and stuff, which Im excited about. Plus, he gets to make his schedule however he wants. So I think it will be a really good thing. I am still working at the girls program a couple nights a week as well, which I actually really enjoy. I have a whole 8 hours, baby free! Jon will be graduating in April and we are both so excited! Hopefully then he will be able to move forward with whatever career he chooses. He has a couple choices for that as well, so only time will tell what we will actually be doing in a year from now. One path is the FBI and the other is Law School. Im kinda hoping for the first since I dont really want him to go back to school. But whatever is supposed to happen will happen and I know we will find the right place for our family!

Ok, that was long, Ill post some pitures now! In Makella's stocking, santa gave her some finger paints...great, thank santa...and so I decided to just let her have her way with it. She LOVED it! At first, she wasnt so happy about using her fingers and insisted on have a paint brush, but then she kinda got the hang of it and would switch off using a brush and her fingers. In the end, it was actually not so bad to clean up, which was good.

Dont mind her hair, it was supposed to be in pigtails, but I got distracted in the middle of doing her hair. :)

Her fabulous work of art!

Only halfway done, by the time she was done there was paint covering every paper and plus a couple of extra pieces that I gave her.

One last thing before I go. I have heard of seeing shapes in the clouds and in ink blots, but this was a little different. Makella has been using her potty a lot the last week and for the most part she does really good. Im not really officially potty training her. Im a little clueless about that, but she will go on it a couple times a day. We have a little candy bucket she can choose from if she does go on it. Well it always takes her like a half hour of just sitting on it before she does anything and then she will run out of the bathroom yelling, "I did it! Momma, come see! come see!" Always very proud of herself. Well today was another such day. She Finally goes poop and then runs out and says, " I did it, Momma come see!" So I go into the bathroom to help her and she says, "look, momma, I did Candy cane poop!" and just kept repeating the fact the it was a candy cane. Sure enough, her little tiny poop was in the shape of a candy cane! It was pretty funny. Then tonight before bed, she was sitting there again and a while later she comes running out with her usual thing, Only this time she was SOO excited because it was a "Boat poop!" She had done a little tiny poop that looked like a boat! Im not sure where she gets this stuff, but I guess you can find something in everything if you look hard enough!

Im Back!

So wow, its been a really long time since Ive posted anything. December was a really busy hectic month for me so it just never got done. I went to Boise twice and also up to rexburg to see Amiee and then I flew to my mom's house for about 2 weeks. All this traveling was done during all sorts of snow storms that everyone had during December. But amazingly, we never really had too many big problems and always made it to where we were going safely without a lot of delays. So that was nice. Makella actually did really good with all the planes and car rides and More car rides. Everywhere we went just had more fun people and kids for her to play with, so she did good. By the time it was all over though, I could tell she was ready for some normal life. The plane ride home was pretty bad and then trying to get through the airport with a crying baby, 2 HUGE bags, a carseat, a diaper bag, and an overstuffed purse was possibly one of the worst things ever! It was definataly a sight to see, But we eventually made it and it is nice to be back to everyday things. I have a million cute pictures from all my adventures, but this blog would never end it I posted them, so I will only limit myself to a few just to get the point across.

We had christmas up in Boise with Jon's family and we really had an awesome time! We spent Christmas Eve and Angie's house playing games and had a little devotional this which was really good and then we had christmas at Aaron and Kelly's house. Makella loved her Uncle Aaron and he introduced her to the wonderful world of trains! They watched a whole history channel show together about trains and she was Glued to the tv. I've never seen her want to watch something unless it is a cartoon or kid show, so it was pretty funny. It was just a good for us to spend time with everyone up in Idaho since we dont get to see them all too much.

A couple days after Christmas, I flew over to my mom's house in Washington and spent the next couple of weeks over there. During that time we hung out with Matt and Mandy a couple of times which was really fun. We had a really fun new years eve night playing games and eating way too much food and then Matt Made an awesome dinner over at his house for new years day. Makella had such a good time over there with all of pete and leah's kids and then Jeff and Val even came over from yakima for a couple days. There is nothing better than spending time with family so I loved it! I even drove over to Sunnyside for a whole 24 hours and got to see my grandparents! They had never met Makella before so it was good for her to meet them and she warmed up to them instantly! It was great! Thats kind of a small recap of the past couple months.

This is Makella, Lilly, and Danika who are all 4 months apart. Danika the oldest, then Ella, then Lilly. It was fun to watch all three of them together. We tried to have a little photo shoot of the 3 of them. this was probably the best one of the bunch. It seems to show their different personalities. They are all so cute!

While I was there I had my mom help me with all kinds of sewing projects since I have small desires to be able to sew things really well. The reality is that it is pretty hard for me to do, so having my mom there to help me ensures that I can actually do it right! Around christmas time I decided I wanted to try and make makella a christmas dress...Its not to hard right? WRONG. It was Really bad. I finished it and she wore it the next day for church and it Literally fell apart...they had to tie things together just to keep it on her. It was really embarrassing and bad, but I decided to try again at my moms, and hooray! It worked this time! This one wont fall apart and though it may be a little minnie mouse like, I think its cute! I did most of the dress myself, (my mom helped with the hard parts). I was pretty proud of myself for doing this! I also made a quilt for when we move Ella from her crib, which might be pretty soon. and some other skirts. That about sums everything up and I will end it there before this gets to be too long. There will be more recent posts to come, I promise!

Week in Pictures!

I have a ton of pictures today. Im a little late on posting all this, but we had a really good time last week for thanksgiving. Ben and Wendy and also Ben and Lacy came and hung out with us for awhile. They both got here on Sunday and Ben and Lacy stayed til Wednesday and Ben and Wendy stayed until Saturday! It was so much fun to get to see them all again. While Ben and Lacy were here, we went up to the mountains to see what we could see. Which wasnt a whole lot since it was pretty cold, but we went to Bridal Veil Falls and it was pretty. We even found some snow..probably more ice than snow, but Makella loved it anyway! We watched movies and played games and had a lot of fun while they were here. We even went to the playground by my house and played there for a bit....yeah 6 grown ups and 1 baby all playing on the slides. Unfortunetaly I didnt get pictures that day, but it was fun!






























On Wednesday, we ate breakfast with Ben and Lacy and then they had to go back to Lund. That afternoon, the zoo in salt lake had free admission! So of couse we went! Karianne got to come with us too, which made it even better! We had a lot of fun seeing all the animals. We left right when it got dark, so we got to see all the christmas lights that they had put up at the zoo. It was really pretty! The whole time Wendy was here, Makella was pretty much attached to her and was pretty content to just be with Wendy. It was a pretty nice break for me!






























This is the red panda, it was my favorite animal and I think I want one! They are so cute!













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They look pretty excited! :)















We have pictures just like this from when we were little and we came to hogle zoo!















Makella got to ride the carousel! She wouldnt ride on any of the animals because she gets scared easily, but she Loved to sit on the bench!
Then the next day was of course thanksgiving! This year me and Wendy pretty much made everything! It was the first time we have ever attempted Thanksgiving dinner. It was really a lot of fun though and everyone helped out, so it turned out awesome! We had it at Jon's parents house because they had a little more room than our apartment. They werent even there though because they had gone up to spend thanksgiving with Kami. So It was just me and Jon, Ben and wendy, and Karianne and Larry. We didnt slave too hard I dont think and it all turned out good. Im usually not a huge fan of turkey on thanksgiving, but I actually really liked it! It was really good, so I guess turkey can taste pretty good. Plus, we only had the things that everyone liked, so it was a really great meal! Jon was pretty concerned with us having enough pie...haha, so I think we overdid it on the pies...but you can never have anough pie, right?























































Jon is pretending to cut the turkey, but really Larry is the master turkey cutter, so he did the honors! After that, we spent the next couple of days out and about. We did a little shopping and then we went with Karianne and Larry to see the new James bond movie and then to Cafe Rio, which is always good. Ben and Wendy had to leave the next morning and Makella was really sad to see them go! She misses her aunt wendy and knows that she lives in california so now, that is where she wants to go! It was a really good week for us and we were so glad they could come. Its been awhile since Ive been able to have thanksgiving with anyone in my family, so it was great! Now, we are just gearing up for christmas and all the good times that come with it! I hope everyone had a good thanksgiving and that you have a good christmas holiday as well!

Post-Binky Update

First of all, Thanks for all the advice and stuff about the Binky's. I was really freaked out about getting rid of them because I thought she would never sleep well again! Well, we are on day 3 and its really not that bad! I have had 2 nights without a peep! No getting up looking for binky's, Not even getting up just to cry. She has stayed asleep all night long. Its fantastic! I took some advice and have been timing her crying and just been letting her put herself to sleep. She only cries for about 10-15 mins total! Bedtime just isnt as enjoyable as it used to be with the cuddling and singing songs stuff. Now she cries and hates it. Today when I told her it was time for bed, she actually started begging to go into timeout....So she doesnt really enjoy it, but its getting better. I should have done this a long time ago!



P.S. As I write this, she is in her bed crying and yelling.."Im Happy, Im Happy". Poor thing.... :(