Slacker, but there is a reason for it

So beginning of November my laptop just shut down and we got it fixed, but now it doesn't connect to the internet. So now we have a desktop and laptop that don't connect to the internet LAME!

We decided to get a new laptop on Black Friday and it was Curtis's first experience. He seemed pretty deteremined since he waited in line for 4 HOURS for the laptop.

Ok so what has been going on with us a quick over view:
In September we got the chance to go to Disneyland with my friend Shalyse and her family. Stella absolutely LOVED it! She really wanted to challenge Darth Vader in their Star Wars play thing. She was tall enough to ride the Matter Horn and Curtis was super excited about that. He convinced her that the abominable snow man was just a big white teddy bear, so she would go on it more than once. haha

In October Stella Mae turned 3 and she had a friend party. She had so much fun helping me and watching me get her monkey invitations made and delivered. She loved having friends over, playing, eating snacks and her monkey cake. THANKS to all her sweet friends and cousins that came :)
For Halloween Stella dressed up as Princess Leia and not to brag, but she made a super cute Princess. Lincoln dressed up as an Ewok and he was awesome! He definitely knew what candy was and was ready to get more and more at each house lol.

In November we had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at Grandma Jean's. The Monday before I woke up feeling sick and hoped to feel better by Thursday. Unfortunately I woke up still not well and even throwing up. I said a prayer and had my sweet mom make me a home remedy and was blessed to feel better and spend time with family. I am so grateful for the power of prayer, a loving & supportive husband, two beautiful and healthy children, the gospel, our health, an education, a home, food, Curtis's job, my job, friends, family, Christ's atonement and so many more things.

In December I had the opportunity to participate in my first ever boutique and it went ok for me. :) Some friends and I started a crafting blog where we'll sell our handmade crafts. It's called CraftySenoritas.blogspot.com. It looks pretty ghetto right now, but hopefully we'll dedicate some time in making it look awesome!

iPad2 and Pumpkin Roll Giveaway

For those of you who love reading and eating then these are the books for you. Josi S. Kilpack's --Sadie Hoffmiller Culinary Mystery series. They are awesome! Right now Josi is doing an iPad2 and book giveaway. Here's the link:
http://josikilpack.blogspot.com/2011/09/ipad-contest-wanna-enter.html

     

Summer fun

It's true, when it comes to updating this thing I am the BIGGEST slacker of all time. It may seem like there's nothing going on in our boring lives, but lets be serious....I have a Stella and a Lincoln to entertain my days :)

What we have been up to:

The end of May Curtis' good buddy Josh was in town with his wife Melissa and we went to the AZ Science Center. I've been there a few times, but I still love it. It was soo cute to hear Stella say "I do science," every time she would go into a different room or try a different experiment. We had a lot of fun, and Stella liked hanging out with Josh and Melissa. She even invited them over to her house by saying "You go my house? Yeah you go my house." It was pretty funny.

In the beginning of June Lincoln shared a birthday party with his Uncle Clarkie. We got to go to the family reunion. And towards the end of June we got to go to Grandma's Cabin again with Nancy, Grandma Jean, Grandma Jean's friend Aiko, Ben, Clark, Olivia and Ben's friend Kawika and his brother Kalani (not sure if I'm spelling those right lol). It was a blast!

July we got to go to the cabin yet again for another reunion and the following week my mom and the kids and I went up with Grandma Jean, Nancy, Olivia, Ben and Marie was there with her little ones. It was so much fun! My mom loved it! We pretty much went on quad and prowler rides the WHOLE TIME! haha. I told Curtis he needs to get me a quad. To end the summer we went to a ward family campout, which was pretty fun. Stella sure knows how to flirt it up. Her crush Denson was there and he was a good sport to let Stella follow him around and talk his ear off haha.

Here are a few pics to highlight the fun :

Lincoln liked the swings.

Helping load the fire logs

On the way to the cabin (big grins)

Loved the rain at the cabin!

Needing some attention

His face in this picture makes me laugh. Doesn't seem to happy to be the ball.

Stella loves to hold Clark's snake every time we're over at Nanny's.

Balla!

Stella's happy countenance when she's at the cabin. She absolutely LOVES it!

My Dream Car

I have recently informed Curtis that I need a new car and that I refuse to settle for something that is not cute. I figure a cute car is like cute clothes and if I drive a cute car, then I will look cuter.

The problem is, Curtis absolutely refuses to have a car payment.

So he did some research and found a new dream car for me. It would be affordable but still classy. A very classic look. Driving it will definitely make me look cute.

I am so thankful to have such a sweet husband. If he refuses to buy me my dream car, he would take the time to find me a new dream car. That is true love, in my opinion.

So now, the moment you have all been waiting for... The unveiling of my new and improved dream car:



Yes, that is right. A station wagon!

But not just any station wagon. Curtis promises that he will buy me something really tasteful. He absolutely insists that there be wood paneling- but not just any wood paneling. He won't buy anything that looks like cheap soft wood. It will definitely be something that looks like expensive, classy hardwoods (we're thinking cherry wood or mahogany).

He also insists that I have the most convenient option. That's right ladies, we're talking third row rear facing seats.



Now, I know it is probably bad form to brag about a car I don't even own yet. But this next feature is so amazing, I can't help myself. Curtis says that since we will save so much money, we may even be able to paint the hood with a cool flame design.



I'm so thankful to my sweet husband. All this time I thought I wanted a car like a Mazda CX-9, Honda Pilot or a Nissan Armada, but all I really needed was for my awesome husband to show me what I really wanted.

Lincoln's many first steps

It's been like a month that Lincoln has been on the "verge" of walking. He stands on his own really well and he takes like 3-5 steps, but then decides "I'd rather crawl."

So technically I'm going to say he walks, but he chooses not to :)

Come on Lincoln we're rooting for ya!

JUNK MAIL!

I'm probably not the only one, when I say "I HATE JUNK MAIL!" Why does it even exist!? I got our mail from yesterday and today and finally just went through and got rid of more than half of it. Can you believe that? You're probably thinking, "She doesn't go through her mail everyday?" No people I don't. It sometimes gets really bad where there's a huge stack that I have to go through ugh. I need a system.

Anyway I just wanted to vent off some steam about yucky junk mail. I need to find a way, besides recycling, to make use out of it. Maybe I can shred it and make confetti! Or maybe i can get those paper making kits and shred it and die it to make new colored paper for cards, stationaries, etc. Who knows?

I Love You Daddy

Stella has been expressing her love to Curtis with the following line from Shrek:

I don't know if the is good or bad... but she sounds just like him. "I Love You Daddy."

I might try to teach Stella to pull on his ear when she says it. 

Freaky birthday present

Last night as we were coming home I noticed a small shadowed figure in our front yard. It was a cat laying there. Stella tried scaring it away with her growls, but to no avail. I didn't think anything of it, since we have lots of stray cats in our neighborhood.

As you all know, it rained pretty hard last night. Well this morning, the morning of my birthday, I still see the cat in our front yard just laying there when I took out the trash. I thought "hmmmm that's weird." Stella has a tendency of following me every time I go outside. So we decide to go up for a closer look and lo and behold it was DEAD!! GROSS!!!

Curtis comes home from work and I ask "So did you see the dead cat in our yard?" He said "Yeah," then I asked "What are we going to do about it? Bury it? Call an animal shelter or something?" He says "I'll probably just bury it." He went outside and I assumed he was taking care of it. When we leave for our date, I noticed that it was gone. I asked Curtis if he buried it and he said no. Creepy.

Now we have a few theories for the disappearing cat: 1. It maybe still was alive and just walked away, 2. Cannibal cats, 3. The economy is rough...people need to eat, or 4. Some people who work at Filibertos, Alibertos, Rigobertos, etc. walked down our street....enough said. I feel sorry for anyway who might've had carne asada tonight.

Hotel Weekend

This past weekend we got to stay in a really nice hotel for FREE! Yeah pretty crazy. Curtis' job had an awards dinner on Saturday and offered their employees a night stay in the Arizona Grand Hotel or $100 gift card. Curtis wasn't able to get the gift card since they only had a limited amount, so instead we got the night stay. We arranged to have the kids watched for the night and got to spend a night just me and him!

Before that though we took Stella and Lincoln to the hotel's water park which was so much FUN! They had a kiddie pool with springs bursting up water, a lazy river, a wave pool and just a regular pool with a basketball hoop and volleyball net. It was fancy shmancy. Stella loved the springs. She took a plastic cup and copied what another boy was doing, but then ended up just collecting water in it and pouring it in the kiddie pool haha. Who knew one could have so much fun with a plastic cup.

We went down the lazy river a couple of times, which was nice. One section, towards the end, had small rapids and we got splashed. The whole time Lincoln had such a somber face and when he got splashed in my lap he had no expression at all hahah. He usually is a smiley boy, but the whole time he was expressionless or looked kind of mad. lol

We didn't get to enjoy the slides since we had the kids, but all in all it was still a blast. Stella had 3 days of swim lessons under her belt at that time and she was brave enough to go under water and everything; when before she would FREAK out and cry. I'm glad swimming lessons are helping her enjoy her water experience :)

After the water park fun we dropped off the kiddos with my mom and came back to the hotel to get ready for the awards dinner. There were so many cute and fancy dresses that the ladies were wearing. They had games before the actual dinner and a meet and greet with GRANT HILL Phoenix Suns player. Yes I got to meet him, shake his hand and get his autograph. AMAZING! Curtis won a nice fossil watch with an olive toss in the martini glass game and then came dinner. It tasted soo good. I wasn't a fan of the dessert, but the salad and the main course were awesome!

And that's what we got to do for our weekend. :) Too bad we didn't win any of the door prizes (i.e. Ipad 2, Wii, XBOX 360, Dbacks package of sitting in the dugout, etc.) Maybe next year hehe

Camping, Mother's Day and many more updates

 Just an fyi this post will be quite lengthy. I won't be too sad if you don't read through it, but there will be fun information and pictures, so your loss not mine haha jk.

Ok so Stella and Lincoln were attending a Kindermusic class and they absolutely LOVED it! Every week Stella would ask to go to her class. I liked it because they were learning about different animals, sounds, instruments and just having a great ol' time! It was a gift from my awesome mother-in-law! Here a couple pictures (all taken at different times). They had their last day a week from yesterday :( We'll see if we can do it again the next semester.

 

We finally got to go camping the weekend of April 30th with my good friends Shalyse and Chase and their two sweet kids. It was so fun just to get away and enjoy nature. Stella had a blast playing with Kael, getting dirty, exploring and riding on the quad with mom. I'll admit I'm not a professional quad rider and I was freaked when I first started, but I was ok and Stella had fun. Hopefully I can get more comfortable one day. Lincoln wanted to be everywhere but he enjoyed being held and playing in his pack n play and in Claire's. They became buddies, but I think Lincoln liked her too much because he was mauling her and she just looked up with an expression of "Help me, please." Good times.

My sweet Lincoln loving the outdoors

Going on a walk to explore the area

The view

Stella's delighted face on being able to get dirty and not get in trouble haha

 On the actual day of Mother's day there really is nothing to report. We had a normal morning that became hectic and became even more hectic for me in primary. You may ask "Why is primary hectic?" Well first of all our ward is combined with the spanish ward which means a TON of kids! And secondly for the second half we (the primary presidency) were handing over the reins to the elders and priests of our ward, while we got to enjoy Relief Society. All in all though I LOVE my calling! Even though it always seems hectic, I love seeing the sweet faces and hearing their silly comments :) Oh yes the reason why Mother's day was so anti-climactic was because I received my AMAZING gift 2 1/2 weeks before! It was a new sewing machine!!!! Yay!!!! I was so happy and it seriously has made sewing so much smoother, faster and just a dream. I had my mom's old one, which was given to her by her cousin, which was given to her by an old lady who she cleaned for. So yeah it was pretty old! It only had one stitch and NO backstitch! Anyway I'm thankful to my awesome husband! He set the bar high for Mother's day, so we'll see if he keeps it up ;)

I finally finished a bag that I purchased the pattern for back in FEBRUARY! Oh my gosh what a heart ache it brought lol. Luckily Curtis is so patient that he would say stuff like "I'm sure you can figure out a different way to make it if the instructions don't make any sense." And lo and behold I did! Hurray!

Didn't like the size of the tie. I'll probably make another one so it's bigger

 

Another piece of information is that we bought a zoo membership last week and Stella's favorite part or at least the part that she constantly mentions are the monkeys. She kept saying "Monkey assedent." Translation the monkey had an accident. While we were in the Orangutan exhibit, which is so cool by the way literally because it has AC inside, the baby orangutan was climbing up the the glass and was just hanging there and felt the call of nature and just let it go right in front of us. It was pretty hilarious!

This peacock was awesome! It was just walking around and posing :)



Tried to take a quick picture because it was a cute area.



 

Lincoln staring at Stella running through the little splash park

On a final note, I make a tribute to the sweet and loving husband I have. I've been sick since Monday and have not had dinner made this whole week! Yikes! Yeah I've been a slacker, but you can't blame me fully because not only was I sick, but my sweet little ones were pretty sick too! So it was a TRIPLE whammy! But instead of complaining or asking "what are you cooking tonight?" He just went to the laptop and researched a recipe and cooked for us! What an awesome husband huh?! That was every night this week :) Yeah I'm blessed I know. I need to thank my Heavenly Father constantly for sending him my way and for blessing with two adorable kids, who like to test mom's abilities to the fullest.

Not daddy, you curtis

Stella can be such a funny girl sometimes lol. We're sitting down eating dinner and Stella points to Curtis and says "Curtis get me some juice." hahhahaa Curtis says "Did you just call me Curtis? I'm daddy to you." She responds "Noooooo, you Curtis." Then he points to me and says who's that?" Stella says "Mommy." hahahah Curtis says "Noooo that's Ashley." And she flashes her quick response "Nooooo that's my mommy."

Oh man the things she says. I seriously love being a mom and children bring the most sweetest and tender moments.

Slowly but Surely

Lincoln is a little bit on the slower side when it comes to the moving around skills. He still does an army crawl, but he sure gets around FAST! A couple of days ago I noticed him sitting in his crib playing when I had laid him down. So he finally sits up on his own now :) And just now I walk into the front room and he's standing leaning up against the coffee table!! So that means he pulls himself up haha.

There still might be hope for him to walk by a year old, but I'm in no hurry lol. He gets into plenty of things just crawling. I can only imagine what havoc him and Stella would reak with both of them on two feet :)

Anyway that's a small update on how we're doing. I have a lot of pictures that I'll post soon!

Hallelujah!!

I am happy to report that Lincoln finally took a bottle (formula) on Friday afternoon yay!! I got carried away and decided to just cut off nursing completely, rather than a gradual transition. I couldn't help but eat delicious ice-cream and AWESOME sugar cookies made by my sister-in-law Esther. Mmmm the joy of being able to eat yummy food.

On another note, Curtis and I decided to get a family gym membership at the Y and boy oh boy do I love it!! They have child watch and I have a complete hr to myself to work out :) Every time we have to leave though it's a nightmare because Stella LOVES playing on the playground and socializing with the other kids.

Today was yet another horror to leave and my body was not up for the battle due to participation in my first gym class. It was Total Body Conditioning (TBC) and oh my goodness am I going to feel it tomorrow hahah. The instructor was so cute and she was so good. We used free weights, the exercise ball, the bar and the step. I'm glad I went, although I was intimidated to go in the first place. It was my FIRST EVER gym class, even though I have had other gym memberships in the past. Crazy I know ha!

Anyway when I finally got Stella to exit the building, she decided to test my body some more by running down the little hill they have in front of the building. I set Lincoln down in his carseat (which was a nice rest to my sore biceps and triceps) and chased after her. My legs felt like they were going to give every time a stepped; they felt so wobbly and I couldn't help but laugh. Stella turned back and was grinning her wide grin and laughing out loud. I finally caught up and grabbed her. She sure put up a fight and I almost dropped her because of the soreness of muscles. Luckily she kind of freaked from that and calmed down a little. Some may wonder "Why join a gym, when you have a Stella to chase after?" I would say it is to help me catch her faster lol!

What a day

So after 2.5 hrs of waiting in the lab place to get our (Lincoln and I) blood drawn, we finally got called back. Let me just say thank goodness for grandma's haha. My mom also needed her blood drawn and joined us in our long wait. Unfortunately after she got called she had to hurry and leave to get to work on time, but I don't know what I would've done without her with a wild Stella constantly running out and down the halls haha. When we finally did get called back Stella was like "Mommy pokey, ouchy" and I would just respond with a "yeah it's ok." Her response to that was shocking "My turn mommy. Pokey me." In my mind I was "Huh, you seriously want to get poked in the arm with a needle!" Lincoln was up next, another shocking moment, he sat on my lap while one Dr. held his arm down and the other poked him. He just sat there and stared at what was happening to his arm and didn't flinch or even cry. Nothing. He was such a good baby! And Stella during the process was saying "It's ok Keenkin, ouchy you." Then she let out a huge sigh, comforting her little brother. When Lincoln was finished she said "My turn, my turn, pokey pokey me." She was so upset when we left without her getting poked. I thought I was in the clear when we were walking to our car, but she was started to throw a fit because she wanted a pokey. Kids...they don't know any better lol. Anyway tonight I went out to AJ to look at a table saw with my dad. And this is what I came home to. Cutest thing ever!! I decided to post about it rather than try to move the little ones from my bed to go to sleep heh.

I love how Lincoln is snuggling up on Curtis :)

Canker Sores yuck and ouch!

Lately I've been getting a lot of canker sores and I hardly ever get them. I think I can count on one hand the instances I've gotten one throughout my life. But in the few weeks I've gotten three!!! Ewww! So the student in me decided to do a little research to find out what the deal was. Let me just say I heart wikipedia! It is such an amazing tool! I also love medical websites hehe. From one I found that "Canker sores can be triggered by emotional stress, dietary deficiencies (especially iron, folic acid, or vitamin B-12), menstrual periods, hormonal changes, food allergies, and similar situations." -http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001993 What triggered my interest was the dietary deficiencies and emotional stress, since the others really didn't apply to my case because I rarely got them before. I searched Vitamin B12 and folic acid, since those were the ones that I was the most familiar with. I found the following on wikipedia: "Vitamin B12 is found in foods that come from animals, including fish and shellfish, meat (especially liver), poultry, eggs, milk, and milk products.[25] Eggs are often mentioned as a good B12 source, but they also contain a factor that blocks absorption.[29]" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B12 "Certain foods are very high in folate: Leafy vegetables such as spinach, asparagus, turnip greens Legumes such as dried or fresh beans, peas and lentils Egg yolks.[13] Baker's yeast Fortified grain products (pasta, cereal, bread); some breakfast cereals (ready-to-eat and others) are fortified with 25% to 100% of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for folic acid Sunflower seeds Liver and liver products also contain high amounts of folate Kidney[13]" -http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folic_acid So now thanks to my research and can better feed myself the things that I need and hopefully not get canker sores anymore lol. Sorry for this long educational post, but I have come to appreciate the internet as an awesome tool to further your education, even if you aren't in school :) Woohoo for education!

New Diet

Many of you may or may not know that about 2 weeks ago Lincoln had a visit with the allergist. I was hoping something would be found out to help me out with his poor sweet cheeks and constant rash break outs. The doctor was a little worried that the test results wouldn't really show up on the skin of his back, since it was already red and a little inflammed. But nonetheless the nurse came in and had ten small needles; 8 were common food allergies (corn, egg, fish, milk, oat, peanut, soybean and wheat), the other two were a negative and positive control to make sure the test worked properly. She wiped down Lincoln's back with alcohol and poor sweet boy cried because it stung his irritated skin. Then she poked his back with each of the tiny needles. She said that she would be back in 15 min and can tell by then if any spots had a reaction. I saw within 5-10 min that 4 of the ten spots had a protruding bump appear. When the nurse came back she said that the tenth one was supposed to have a reaction for positive control. In my head I was like "Wow, not only is he allergic to one thing, but he's allergice to 3!" I waited for her to measure and note everything and then she gave me a printed copy of the test results. A little while later the doctor came back in and went over the results with me. He said the top food allergen that people usually have is eggs and the second was milk/dairy. Lincoln has both! And to add on to that haha he was allergic to peanuts, so the doctor told me to cut out all nuts from my diet. It was so funny when the doctor saw my reaction because his quick response was "I know this is a lot to cut out, but it would really help in finding out if these are the only things that Lincoln is allergic to." I full-heartedly agree! You know I admire ALL mothers for the wonderful things that they do for their children. Heavenly Father has blessed us with such sweet, kind, loving and nurturing spirits that we would do anything for the sweet children he has blessed us with. These past couple of weeks had been an adjustment, but they have made me realize how blessed I am :)

Hair CHANGE!

Soo I've been getting sick of having long hair because of how much it weighs. I even get headaches from it. Anyway I have never been brave enough to get it cut real short, so I decided it was time. My friend Melodie cuts hair and she was the person who cut it the last time and I loved how she did the layers and everything. I was glad to share this exciting/scary experience with her rather than some unknown stylist at a great clips or something lol. Here is the picture of the before and after. I'll have to play with it and take some more pics. Still can't believe I did it! I like the freedom feel though haha.