I got this from Alice's blog. Anytime I see these quizzes on any one's blog, I usually take the quiz only to disagree with the outcome, therefore I don't usually display the results. However, this time, I totally agree. My personality matches Ariel's, if only my shape did...



You Are Ariel!

Headstrong and fiesty. You have a mind of your own that's full of romantic dreams about the world around you. Exploring exotic places is your ultimate dream, and although you can be a little naive you'll realize that there is something to be gained from your family's wisdom.

Which Disney Princess Are You?

My wish list - Babylegs

Babylegs

For cute, chubby baby legs. I want some! I got some...off ebay. We will see if they are as cute on as they are as cute off... if they ever come in the mail.

The perfect dress

Here's a bit of background on my baby girls PERFECT blessing dress: You can go here, and then here. Here is the sweet, smooshie baby in the aforementioned dress.

Now that you have most of the facts, meet the amazing seamstress and friend:
HERE

Bags {under my eyes}

I realize now how much time I really had to "create" before baby #2 was born. Now, I get some time here and there. I made these place mat bags during Christmas vacation, while I had my mom to hold Ellie so I could get a little "me time". This red one has turned into my crochet bag, but it has also been known to contain a few diapers and wipes. This brown and pink bag is now my scripture bag. I folded one place mat in half, whereas the red bag took two place mats. I like this brown one because it fits my scriptures, a small notepad, and my checkbook, but it's not a huge cumbersome bag.
Of course I didn't make this cute bag, but my cute husband gave it to me for Valentine's Day.
Now if I can only find some time to get out my sewing machine here at home. I have come into some pretty cute fabric as of late and my fingers are itching to make a cute little jumper for my girl. I searched the patterns at the store for the easiest, yet cutest girly threads. I am not a very good seamstress, I have a hard time following directions, and I am not very patient.

And I Quote

"I wanna just squish you, squeeze your head off, and dangle you from my rear view mirror."

Thawing or freezing?

Hello, Paul again. I know, blogging is becoming an epidemic in our household. Now that you are all familiar with my mad photo editing skills, I wanted to post a non-edited photo I had taken.










This one is from first thing this morning. Right after Dallin woke up, I bundled him up in a blanket, picked him up and we went out in the front yard with the camera. We had a couple of ice storms in the past couple of weeks, but hadn't been able to get a good photo. This is of a droplet of water melting on our tree in the front yard. My favorite part is the ice crystals inside the droplet. We are hoping this is a sign of a thaw ahead of us, it has been freezing recently!



Here are a couple other photos that I was accused of editing. We need to go back and see if those camels are still there.

Great Advice

Kristen,

You know we always pray for you and Paul and Ellie and Big D!

President Hinckley said the following: "In my ninety-plus years, I have learned a secret. I have learned that when good men and good women face challenges with optimism, things will always work out! Truly, things always work out! Despite how difficult circumstances may look at the moment, those who have faith and move forward with a happy spirit will find that things always work out."

You and Paul are GOOD people! Three times you were promised by a Prophet of God that things will work out! I also promise you that things will work out! Keep your chin up...

Love ya'll
Dad

And my Mom:

Ditto to what your Dad said!

Rough Day

In an email I sent to my parents (too lazy to rewrite it):

This morning was really rough. We had a Speech Language Pathologist (SLP) here to evaluate Dallin for his First Steps Program. Last week we had a similar evaluation with a different SLP and Dallin did so good and he was happy and cooperative and talked quite a bit. He got good scores and only qualified in the speech area, which is good. Well, today was a whole other story. He was running 90 miles an hour and had no attention span whatsoever. It was a bit stressful to me. He said only two to three words while the SLP was here. He was able to follow some of her activities, but others he just got frustrated with her because he wanted to do something else. She said she thinks that Dallin has Sensory Integration (SI) problems (google it if you don't know what that is) and that if he does, and we get this taken care of, he will do a lot better with his speech. She said he might not even have Apraxia. I felt like we were starting all over again! She called me later as she was doing D's paper work. She told me that to have SI is much better than Apraxia. She also said that today, Dallin scored in speech at the age of a 15 month old (a punch in the stomach). We have another meeting with everyone involved in this process on Tuesday. Please pray for all of us and this process so that we can figure out exactly what kind of help Dallin needs. I am mentally exhausted! The SLP did say that he has a lot of strengths and that he is very bright, which helped a lot. But I already knew that he is smart and funny and cute and a great kid, and healthy.

Yesterday

Bad day, good day**, good day.

{those are links}

** We're going to Florida in April!! Road trip, baby!

Snowfakes

I know that I have been complaining about winter a lot lately. I have been so cold and bummed! We had a light snowfall the other day that actually lifted my spirits a bit. It was so light, look at the picture! Individual snowflakes were falling. This is when I really want a super nice camera; to get a picture that will do justice!

So Romantic!

As much as both Paul and I would have loved to go out, by ourselves, on a date for Valentines day, it wasn't possible. So we set up shop at home and made the best of it. Stop making fun of us (you, you, and you). You know we are idealists. Thursday night we had a bunch of appetizers: wings, dips, shrimp and then we ate chocolate fondue.....yummy! This is how romantic it got. Paul held Ellie all night and I wrestled Dallin until he went to bed at 8.
Then, on Friday night, I made fondue again. But this time we ate it for the main course. Again...yummy! The steak dipped in horseradish-mustard sauce was the favorite. Dallin's was the cut-up hotdogs!
MMMMMMM...mmmmmmmmmmm...good!
We were trying to recreate Valentines Day 2005. We went up to the Melting Pot with our friends Troy and Shari and spent the night up in Salt Lake. It was so fun and so yummy! Some day we'll do it again! That, and our spaghetti nights...

Me, too!

And...because we hve been trying so hard to get a picture of Ellie smiling, Dallin has wanting pictures taken of him as well. This is nice, seeing as he usually runs away from the camera. I love, love, love that he looks at the camera now! I have taken so many picture, infact, that I just down loaded 165 photos onto my computer!

Halloween is almost everyday in our house!

Smile, please?????

Ellie is smiling all the time. However, we are having a heck of a time getting it on camera! Not in this one.

Pretty darn close.
Almost...
She saw that the camera was out in this one.

If only we could disguise the camera.
She was loving bathtime with Dallin, just didn't want to document it!
She's a master at bubble blowing.
Here is her classic pouty lip. We always know when she is about to cry because of the lip.
Just a bonus feature.

Happy V-day!

Paul and Kristen
sitting in a tree
k-i-s-s-i-n-g
fist comes love
then comes marriage
then comes 2 babies in a baby carriage

Rye Bread and Sour Cream

Paul and I are self-proclaimed foodies. We love to cook and we love to eat. We love to try new foods and find that with everything we eat, we review as though we were food critics getting paid. We're not too picky ;) We love walking down the international food aisle at the grocery store and look at everything there is to offer. We bought rye bread the other day, purely by accident. It was yummy and is very tasty toasty! I think I might try to make some now.

I think this is all rubbing off on Dallin, all but the eating part. He's in his picky stage, but that's another story. Lately, he insists on helping with the preparation of every meal. I usually don't mind, unless I am in a hurry. He will stand on our step stool and I will let him dump ingredients into a bowl or pan. Or I will give him a plastic knife and he will cut onions with watery eyes. He'll look at me and say, "eye, eye, eye!!" and go back to cutting. He even makes a mean chocolate chip cookie!

The other night, I made fajita soup for dinner. Dallin opted out, so I made him a turkey sandwich. As Paul and I were busy garnishing our soup, I gave Dallin a spoonful of sour cream. He loves to eat this stuff plain, like yogurt.

I thought the spoonfull of sour cream would go right into his mouth. Instead, he would dollop a bit onto his turkey sandwich, just like mom and dad.

Extremes

I feel as though the last nine months or so have been filled with weather extremes.

From hot, misty, humid HEAT

to dry, dry ,dry

to tornado weather (i hate this one)

and now freezing rain.

I am sure that you all know: I am READY for Spring!

I won a prize! So now you do!!

Over Christmas, I entered a contest to win a free Mommy Cover by Joia.
By leaving my feedback on how I felt about my own Mommy Cover, I won! Seeing as I already have one, I thought that I would pass this one on to another lucky person. Yep, this is what the ***Mystery Give Away*** is! It will come in the form of a gift certificate (so you can pick your favorite one) delivered right to your mailbox. Who's mailbox???
shake, shake, shake
shuffle, shuffle, shuffle
close your eyes
pick one...
The only boy who entered!

***Two Wheeler***
With a rousing rendition of: ooh, ooh, uh, uh, me, me (right arm raised high being held up by other arm braced behind my head)

And for the boo boo prize winners?
I found this fun fabric one day:

With another shake and shuffle:
Tricia A.
and Sara C.

will be getting about a fat* 1/2 yard of each of these Spring inspired funky, fun fabrics. Come, Spring, COME!!!

*fat: not sure if this is the right term, kinda like a fat quarter, but a 1/2 yard instead.

I'm pretty sure that I have all of your addresses...if not, I have your emails.

Thanks to all of you who entered. Don't feel bad about not winning, you're all winners in my mind! {a whole lot of cheese topped cheese} And you never know, I might just have another drawing if I come across something fun again!

Snip, Snip...

Hello. Please don't faint or anything, but this is Paul again. I am not really sure what has come over me, but here is another post:

Apparently there is an unspoken rule out there that you are not allowed to warn parents that the second child will change their world forever. We are finding that we used to have this thing called free time (I know, other parents out there are wondering what I am talking about. I believe that over time, your memory of this elusive thing fades).

Anyway, pursuant to the above mentioned situation, Dallin and I have had to go without haircuts from Kristen for some time. I used to have my haircut every 3-4 weeks, but at work I have a hairnet on all day. So, when my hair gets long it is not a big deal.

So last night Kristen asked me to cut Dallin's hair. I was nervous to cut his hair, but figured worse case scenario: buzz.

I sat him on the counter in the bathroom so he could watch in the mirror, and pulled out the clippers. I started with the 1 inch, and worked my way down to 5/8 inch and it went well (Okay, minus the slight bald spot in the back where I used the opposite approach on that attachments, shortest to longest. Which, by the way, is not a good approach. Oh, yeah; he also felt the need to turn on the water. And put the plug in. And then sit in the sink, full of water. Which proceeded to flow out of the sink over the counter top and onto the floor).

With Dallin in the bath I set about to clean up. But there was a pair of thinning shears calling my name from the haircutting kit. I picked them up and and started thinning. I figured, worse case: buzz (again, the hairnet emboldened me). I trimmed the back a little, which I still haven't been able to clearly see. Anyway I think I did pretty good. Below is the before and after:

Brain damage?

I think that I might have brain damage. Or some kind of brain problem. Actually, it is a memory problem. I don't remember a lot about my life. Well, I do, but only random things. For example: I think back to high school. I remember people. But I don't remember being in classes with them. I don't remember if I went on a date with so and so, until I go back and see the cheesy pictures. I remember names, but if I were to see them, I couldn't recall their name while I first said hello (unless they have a name tag of course). I even do this now, with people that I see on a regular basis. Whenever I get, "remember when??'s" I don't. Like when my BFFEFB (100 pretend dollars to whoever can tell me what that means), Tashina, was laughing at how we met. I didn't remember. I do now, after she told me. I guess what has brought all of this up is that Paul is always asking me about my favorite things or memories growing up. I remember one Christmas with a pink bike and a gallon box of whoppers. I remember playing run-aways with my cousin, Andrea. We would take graham crackers and lemonade up to the tree house in my back yard. I remember sleeping over at her house and wetting the bed. Why do I remember that and not something less embarassing? I guess I would have to remember a lot, really, considering there are 27 years to go back to. But I wish that I remembered more.

...and the winner is...

you still have time to enter

...I'll pick a winner on Monday...

Now that's a binky!

I think I'm done nursing... or just DONE.

I swear every time I sit down to feed Ellie, Dallin goes into distruction mode. I think he knows that I am not paying attention to him, so he can get away with anything. I have tried to simultaniously take care of his wants while feeding the babe. This is what happened when I did: Broken glass. I knocked this one over.Again, while nursing, Dallin decided to dump out three full bins of toys. They are not full anymore. And, yes, he's in his Halloween costume.
He found this picture frame on a table while I was changing Ellie's diaper. I found him kneeling on it. Can you see the huge crack in the glass?
Me: nursing, again. Dallin: getting into my purse, finding my chapstick. The contents of one looks gross and the other has mysteriously disappeared. I hope he ate it, because I can't find it.
Last but not least: The crayons.
This has all happened just this morning. I am not going to pick anything up, I am done for the day. Paul can do it when he gets home.

***Mystery Give Away***

What could it be?

Leave a comment to enter the drawing!

If you don't, you'll be sorry!

Not sure when I will pick a winner, but there will be one!

I promise---it's legit.

Rules are: As the winner, you must conduct a ***Mystery Give Away*** of your own. Don't worry, though, because it doesn't have to be as big as mine.

And maybe I'll pick a boo-boo prize winner as well...