I make a little time..

for myself to get a little crafty!

My grandma taught me to crochet years ago and I have always done little projects here and there, but when I saw the website etsy.com I thought I would put my skills to the test!

Etsy is a place for people to sell and shop for homemade items so I thought I would give it a try. It's not finished yet at all!! So dont judge yet :)

You can find my page HERE.

ps the little baby is one of my bff's little baby SHES SO CUTE.

I will leave you with this cute little face :) Look at all those TEETH!

We're alive I promise

We are alive but exhausted, because I think some type of evil possessed my child yesterday. She screamed for literally hours. I thought the next morning would bring some peace but she woke up screaming and hitting me and trying to put my hair over my eyes. I had to admit it made me giggle because what was happening to my baby girl?!! I fished around in her mouth AHA! And found that the eye tooth she has been working on finally broke through as well as the bottom "eye tooth" I dont really know what its called. Now I am soaking up the silence while she has finally calmed down and naps.

 I dont really want to catch you up since my last blog because its been months! Just pictures happy holidays with lots of family, Mia's hair getting longer, it getting hotter outside already and there you have it. Daniel is as busy as ever with taking a fire academy through Pima, which is like an 18 credit class and he usually gets home around 11pm. Thats when we have dinner 3 nights a week. He's working full time and trying to squeeze in some time trying to apply for jobs, church and some soccer and anything else he can manage to take up any last second of his time. Not to mention, Wildland starts again in less than a month. Ahh!! I guess seeing him an hour or two a day is better than not for two weeks! Yesterday, we spent a few hours in Mesa while daddy was applying for a fire job and testing etc. so we has fun playing in the grass. We made silly faces... chased birds, played with a puppy. Ahh the life of a 16 month old.

All in all life is good. We are healthy and happy and we have seen lots of family lately with mission calls and weddings! Everything is really good we are so blessed! Ok... everything isn't always so blissful between changing poopy diapers and doing heaps of laundry that triples everytime I turn around but really, I am one LUCKY girl!!

To real tree? Or not to real tree...

I have never had to ask that question...

until I married Daniel.

I can't remember one time having a real tree growing up. Everyone drops their jaws (or at least Daniel used to) when I say that but really!! I guess if you never really had one, you don't really have that childhood connection with it.

The last three years with my new hubby I tried out the real tree business and let me tell you... (and don't hate me) but I'm not really a fan! Unless you get the really fat and bushy kind (the kind that smell good) you cant smell the "real pine". I don't mean to be a "real tree" downer, just expressing my point in the conversation I have w my hubby ever year.

Which brings me to THIS..

Ignore the cute little climber!! I finally get my beautiful,  perfectly symmetrical, needle mess-less tree!! hooray!!

I had to fight the urge to put it up today but I WILL wait until the day after Thanksgiving.

Yesterday Daniel got off work early which rarely happens so we made a quick trip to the zoo.

Don't you love this picture?? I'm in love.

I think I decided that giraffes are my favorite. Wait. I don't know.. they're all so cute!!

THIS was the cutest animal at the zoo :)

Mia is seriously crazy in love with anything with a steering wheel. SO CUTE.

She loved the duckies.

Oh and I should have got a picture but I have to tell you... it was REAL LIFE LION KING. The lions just had three baby cubs and they were all laying taking a nap. We waited as long as our one year old would let us but those cute little things would NOT wake up!! I would have given anything to see those little cubs run around!! We'll have to go back. I recommend going if you can soon before they probably get shipped to another zoo or something..

In the last three minutes of Veteran's Day I will share the saying "Freedom is not free" I think that says it all. Americans should remember that everyday! No just today.. so thankful for the freedom I have and for those who sacrifice their lives for me to have it.

Celebration weekened!!

Saturday night Daniel and I went out for our anniversary dinner since we didn't get to last year ;) We went to the Melting Pot and it was so fun!

And then after we were stuffed of chocolate covered fondue fruit, they gave us MORE chocolate covered fruit. haha I wasn't complaining!! It was so nice to spend time with my hubby!

Sunday was such a fun day! It was Jayton and Trent's court of honor so we got to see a lot of family and it was a really good day.

Monday was Mia's actual birthday!! I tried to spoil her a little bit. We went to the store, I bought her a balloon and also did this...

She was so cute just looking up at them!

Then I took her to peter piper (again) with my sister and and her kids. Mia started clapping when we walked in she loves that place.

When we got home from peter piper I came home to this...

This was the best surprise EVER!! Guess what it was?? A sewing machine!!! I am so excited!!!! I have been wanting one forever. He is the best hubby ever.

We sang happy birthday to Mia ONE more time and my sister made her the coolest cake in the world!

 My surprise to him wasn't that good I just made him dinner and a card and made him and Mia wait in the bedroom while I set up tons of blankets and pillows everywhere to watch Cars2. Mia LOVED it! She would fall straight back because everything was so soft! It actually got a little dangerous when she missed the pillows haha.

I will leave you with a cute video of Mia dancing to a happy birthday song :)

Mia's first birthday party!

 Last night was Mia's first birthday party!! We were so thankful for all the support and love we got for our little baby's BIG DAY! She isn't really one yet, she turns one on the seventh but I tried to pick a day at peter piper where it would be kinda quiet. A Thursday night right? uh no... TWO other parties were that night also. But, in the end it turned out really well. It was so nice to get family and friends together to celebrate!! I was such a proud mama to see my little girl running around, she looked so old!


So I will tell you some highlights and low lights of Mia's fun day!

Highlights: We loved everyone for coming and had so much fun visiting. Mia looked SO CUTE in her little sparkly tutu I was in love! We rode the merry-go-round. Mia got to play with all he little baby-friends and cousins. Mia got fun new toys and pretty clothes and ate lots of cake!!

low lights: I DROPPED THE VIDEO CAMERA. Not only did I drop it, I lost all the video I took on Halloween and most of the video from Mia's party... but there is a little good news. The camera still works it just lost the video that was on it already. If it wasn't Mia's party I could have cried. But, it was only about ten minutes video lost so I have to get over it.

Here is what I did get..

after I turned of the camera she just jumped right in with her face! It was really cute. A really good first birthday memory we will have forever!!

no good pictures in her outfit i made!! She would never hold still!

I am one proud mommy of a beautiful one year old baby girl!! Or as my cousin Brooke said "You did it!! You kept her alive one whole year!! Congrats!!" hahaha THAT is an accomplishment.

more family pictures!

So we recently got our first little family pictures done and they turned out amazing!! I put a bunch up on my facebook but I wanted to post the rest of them.

So much for leaving some unseen for our Christmas cards....

I finally finished!!

Last weekend I finally ran the half marathon I had been training for for six months! Can I just say that training takes MUCH more time than i had anticipated and with a baby and no husband it made it that much harder. i could have never done it without my mama to watch my baby!! I spent hours every evening and packed up every weekend to spend the night at grandma's so I could spend the bulk of my long runs while mia was still sleeping. I will NOT miss getting up at 4:45am. Needless to say I will possibly never do this again because it is so time consuming!! And I'm not having any LESS kids anytime soon... only more! So I really enjoyed training even though it was hard and I am SO HAPPY I finished something I started, even when I thought it was impossible. Sometimes I would come in the door from a hard  and tell my mom "i cant do it!! I will never be able to do it"! I thought all hope was lost when I got really really sick for the better half of two weeks. But in the end... I DID IT!!!

I was really lucky to have Daniel home race day morning because he was still "on call" and could have been gone on a fire. My mom came to watch Mia, and Daniel and I were off! We got downtown around 5:45 and it was FREEZING. Like seriously freezing. But I already felt so excited and nervous! There were over 1,000 runners!

WARNING: action snap shots are not very pretty :) but I will share them anyway

Going to line up for the start!

I felt so amateur next to all of these runners!!

I lined up in the very very back. You cant see but there are like 600 people in front of me.

This picture makes me laugh so hard. Could she get any taller blonder or skinnier or tanner?? Oh and then there I am with my dorky water pack :) haha

They shot the cap gun and we were off! A lot of people told me not too start out too fast so I started out really slow. And it was FREEZING and I couldn't get into a running groove cuz i couldn't feel my hands! So the first two miles I wish I went a little faster but A mountain I started to pass people.

That was around mile 2... still getting warmed up. Daniel parked on the side of the road. He was so funny through out the run he would pop up in the most random places!

I was headed towards A mountain and I saw the first FASTEST guy already coming down the mountain!! My goal in the run was to NOT STOP AT ALL. I was a little scared for a mountain but it ended up not being bad at all. It was really really pretty and they had a water station half way up. Also they had the coolest HUGE drum players that echoed through out the mountains! It was really cool! They kept a beat to run to.

I took this on my way up around the back side of the mt. SO PRETTY!

The top of A mt was mile 4 and then we started down to santa cruise river for miles 5-9.

That was about mile 8 and Daniel popped up again!

Around mile 9 my mom, my sister, Mia and my little nephews Kash and Ky showed up! I was so happy to see them!! Mia was holding a little "go mommy" sign and it made me so happy! I have such a fun supportive family!

Mile 10-11 was probably the hardest. I was hoping that my family might pop up again for an extra boost! Sure enough they were at the end of mile 11!

After seeing the fam I gave it my last effort to the finish!!

It was SO FUN!! Such a satisfying and enjoyable experience! Having my family there made it that much better :)