Little Miss Fashionista

So I've taken a lot of pictures of Ellie girl since I first posted about her. You would think I was her mom..haha. Britt, I promise I won't steal your baby :)

This is kind of picture overload and I didn't even post all of them! I can't help myself, Ellie's just too cute! And she's pretty much more fashionable than me! Her mom has the cutest clothes for her. Love it!

Here is Miss Stylin' Ellie!

Love this picture and that little smirk on her face! Cracks me up :)

Aren't sleeping babies the most precious thing??

Ellie girl even has her own flip flops (and painted nails) :) Gotta have those here in AZ!

Look at all of her toys! They go straight to her mouth..haha

Going on a walk.

In her little Ralph Lauren Polo dress!

Ellie girl is so much fun. In fact all she wants to do is play and explore! She is very curious lately! She resists naps with all her might. Silly girl! We'll keep working on that.

And yes, I still think I have the best job :)

Minor Dilemma

So Trent and I have had a little dilemma pretty much since we first got married almost 3 years ago; he is always trying to lose/maintain his weight and I am always trying to gain weight. After we got married I lost a good 10 pounds (I don't know why) and I haven't been able to gain the weight back. Consequently I have been at least 10 pounds underweight ever since. I know, I know, many of you are thinking "Man, I wish I had that problem." I've heard it before. And please know I am not intending to brag at all. This is a sincere concern of mine. I can't seem to gain weight. Lately I try to eat something right before bed so that I'm sleeping on it. We'll see how that goes! Any suggestions?

Just this week Trent started a diet, and this time he's being serious about it! He's always been really good about exercising, but he hasn't really ever dieted. I mean, we eat really well anyway, and we rarely go out to eat, but now he's cut out all carbs. Basically this means I'm cooking for myself and he's cooking for himself..blah! At first this really freaked me out because, as I've written before, Trent's the better cook. Plus, now I'm cooking for ONE..haha. What can you cook for one person?

Anyway, I'm sure I'll be fine. I may be getting a lot more frozen meals now though..haha. I'm excited for Trent though and know he'll be successful :) He's only trying to lose about 10 pounds.

On another note, my parents are in Israel right now so we're staying at their place with Amber and the dogs. It's been fun to be in a house again, almost a little mini vacation :)

Haddie, the little white one, and Buddy, the black one, have been resisting their food a little bit so last night I let them eat inside. Usually they eat in the backyard.

This isn't a very good picture, but I was trying to be sneaky. Tess, the big one, is terrified of the camera. She actually caught me and she's getting up to leave the room in this picture..haha.

I got the treats out! Tess's eyes are always crazy when the flash is on. She got very upset after this picture and went outside for a good 15 minutes..haha. Poor girl!

Anyway, we're having fun! Driving Amber around a lot..haha

Ostrich Festival

So I've been a total slacker about blogging lately. Here is a catch up post from last week when 2 of my sisters, Jen and Amy, and 2 of my cousins, Bryn and Meg, came into town from Provo.

I was so excited for the girlies to come. I had been missing them! While they were here we spent some time at the pool (the girls were psyched because it was in the 80's the whole time they were here), played some Nerts, shopped, watched movies, etc.

Saturday, though, we went to the Ostrich Festival here in Chandler. This is the only time I took pictures while the girls were here :/ They got lots of pictures though.

Anyway, there were lots of fun things to do at the Ostrich Festival. It was a little hot and there was hardly any shade, but we had a great time!

First we went to the little petting zoo.

Look at the crazy horns on this sheep!

Here's a better shot of him.

One of the main reasons we went was to see the ostrich races and I missed most of it :( I got this one shot. Isn't that hilarious?!

Then we got to see a sea lion show.

The classic trick - balancing a ball on his nose :)

At the end they did a little conga line.

We were ready for some food after this. Can you guess what Jen and I got? Haha..is the sign big enough?

All of us girls eating. I got a frozen lemonade after this. Totally hit the spot!

The last main event we watched were the pig races. I couldn't get any good pictures because we were sitting on the ground in the front row, but you can kind of see the little piggies in this shot. They were racing for an oreo at the end..haha.

There were tons of festival rides too, but they cost quite a bit more so we didn't go on any. We still thought we'd get a picture in front of some them though!

It was so fun to have the girls in town. I wish they were still here to be my buddies at the pool. Trent's not so into laying out. He's tan enough anyway!

P.S. Four years ago today Trent and I went on our first date to see Guitars Unplugged at BYU. So St. Patty's Day is kind of a special day for us :)

Doggie Door

Just a quick, funny story from my day today!

I got a coupon in my email this morning that I wanted to print, but my old Toshiba laptop wasn't connecting to the Internet so I couldn't print it (unfortunately the printer isn't compatible with my Mac).

I happened to be in the neighborhood after babysitting, so I dropped by my parents' house to use their printer. My parents were both at work and I couldn't remember the garage code. I had texted Trent earlier to see if he remembered, but he had the numbers mixed up. I called my sisters Jen and Amy (neither of them remembered it) and texted Amber and she didn't respond. So I had to resort to crawling through the doggie door around back.

It was pretty funny because Tess and Haddie were so excited to see me. Every time I'd go to start crawling through, they'd stick their heads out. Anyway, I made it inside and then I remembered my mom's recent blog post (read it here) about a black widow right next to the doggie door! YIKES!! And I don't think my dad was able to catch it because it climbs up in an outlet box. I very quickly surveyed my body and luckily there was no spider to be seen. Phew!

I printed the coupon and figured I could leave through the garage - in other words hit the clicker, run, and jump over the sensory laser. Well I tried twice and got detected by the laser both times. I felt ridiculous and was worried people were watching me..haha. Trent is laughing at me right now for not making it over the laser..ha. I think I was just jumping too late.

I called my mom to let her know I had left the garage open (she was headed home soon) and she asked, "Why didn't you just go through the backyard sliding glass door?!" I have no idea! I don't know why I hadn't thought of that. I guess it's because my only thoughts leaving were, "I am not going through the doggie door again with a possible black widow there."

The end.

This story makes me feel like a total dork! At least I got the coupon!

P.S. Amber texted me with the code after all of this had happened. It cracked me up that Trent, my mom, and Amber all gave me what they thought was the garage code. They each gave the same 4 numbers in 3 different ways (if that makes sense). Wow! Apparently I am not the only one that needs to be reminded what the garage code is!

Body Worlds

Last night we got to go to the Body Worlds exhibit at the Arizona Science Center with my parents. I'm sure many of you have heard of this or even seen it before (the exhibits travel all over the world). For those of you who haven't, it features real human specimens, including whole bodies, individual organs, transparent body slices, and so on. Check out their website here.

My mom and I were a little disappointed that we weren't allowed to take pictures. I figured that's probably how it would be, but I was still bummed :/ Definitely check out their website to see some pictures. There's also a 50-second video under Prelude.

The whole exhibit was absolutely fascinating, but I think I had two favorite parts. First was seeing the anatomy of the inner ear. The 3 bones in the middle ear are so tiny. All 3 bones can seriously fit on your fingertip! So crazy!

Second I loved, loved seeing the little tiny fetuses. We got to see them from 4 weeks on. It was so amazing to see how much bigger they got from week to week. How incredible! In that part of the exhibit we also got to see a 5-month pregnant woman with her fetus inside. So cool to see, but sad to think that she died during childbirth :/

Our bodies are just incredible! I thank the Lord every night for my healthy body. If you ever get the chance to see one of these exhibits, do not pass it up! It is well worth it!

Because we didn't get to take any pictures inside, we took this picture outside..haha. There were 3 funny bug sculptures that all had faces and shoes on. If you zoom in on this picture (just click it) you can see all these little people around it. One's in its pincer :/ How gruesome! Scorpions are so nasty!

Love it!

I feel like I just posted about (500) Days of Summer (here), but I watched it again last week while I was finishing up my wreath (post below) and I had to share this.

Have you guys seen this video?! It makes me so happy! And the dancing totally cracks me up! And I really wish Zooey and Joseph would have dated in real life because I think they are adorable together. Except I just Wikipedia-ed (do you love how I made that a verb?) Zooey and found out she's already married..haha. So much for that!

Oh and I just found out that this is actually Zooey singing. I think subconsciously I knew that because she has such a distinct voice, but it was fun to find out for sure. She's in a band called She & Him. Isn't she talented? I just love her!

P.S. Babe, we are so learning this dance..haha

My Valentine's Wreath!

I am home sick from church today. Not only is my nose running like a faucet, but I'm on my period. No fun, no fun at all.

But enough of that. This is supposed to be a happy post because, guess what! I just hung up my Valentine's wreath!! Haha, I know it's almost a week past Valentine's, but I made this wreath and it took a whole lot longer than I thought it would. I discovered the tutorial for this wreath through a friend back in January and just knew I was going to make one for myself! Is it not gorgeous?!

One of the reasons I wasn't quite able to get my wreath done before Valentine's Day is because we couldn't find plain red cardstock anywhere. We could only find cardstock in multi-colored packs so there'd be like 10 pieces of red and then a bunch of other colors that I obviously didn't need. I finally just had to order online from Jo-Ann's and then it took TWO whole weeks to get here. I couldn't believe it! I knew then that this wreath was not going to be ready by Valentine's.

But that's okay. It's done now and I love it! Oh and the name of the color of my cardstock is Raspberry Splash! Isn't that fun?!

Here are all of my supplies before I got started (and knew what I was getting myself into..haha)

I have to admit that when I first started rolling my roses, and they weren't turning out the way they look in the tutorial, I was definitely frustrated. Luckily I got the hang of it! And it was fun to be able to pop in a movie while I was rolling.

Rolling yet another rose..haha. It was definitely tedious at times. Towards the end though, Trent jumped in! And I swear his roses turned out better than mine. What the?!

Sorry I don't have any other pictures. Trent was assigned to take candids, but was pretty sick during the week I worked on this. The only thing I did differently from the tutorial was that I waited to spray the adhesive and sprinkle the glitter until the very end. I thought it was easier that way.

And my final product!

What do you think?! I'm in love with it! And trust me, even though it's past Valentine's Day, this wreath is staying up for at least the rest of the month, if not longer!