Bag Check

Lane comes up with the most creative ways to entertain Elliot. Just a minute ago he came out of our room pulling his luggage behind him with E inside. She of course loved it & now refuses to get out.

Day 10 - Something you're afraid of

BUGS, snakes & all things like that! They are just disgusting. I really don't know why God created some of them. I just don't see their purpose!

Day 9 - A picture of your friends

I have been lucky enough to make so many friends here in Houston, but these 3 girls are staples in my life. I have been friends with them since I was really little & know that I will be friends with them 50 years from now. They have brought so much happiness into my life & I hope that Elliot can find a life long friend just like them.

Shout out to Amy, Regina & Marianne.

 Amy, Regina & Me

Marianne & I with our cuties.

Day 8 - A place you've traveled to

Cancun.

I'm sure everyone & their dog has been to Mexico, but I'm not very well traveled. We went here on our honeymoon. Aside from being woken up by our arguing neighbors in the hotel, and buying a timeshare that we no longer have, it was awesome. The water was so blue. My favorite thing that we did was take a little catamaran out in the middle of the ocean. Very risky for a wimp like me.

Day 7 - Favorite movies

When I was in elementary school, this was my favorite. I still think it's the best Disney movie.

 When I was in junior high, this was my favorite. I remember calling Blockbuster to see if it was in stock.

 When I was in high school, this was my favorite. I memorized it's release date & can't even count how many times I have seen this movie.

 In college, this was my favorite & it still is. I haven't seen another movie that's better yet.

Day 6 - A picture of something that makes you happy

The Bachelor

Bet you didn't think I'd choose this, huh? Well it's true. Whenever Monday rolls around, I am literally giddy with excitment & look forward to it all day. It puts me in a good mood. You just can't make this stuff up!

Day 5 - Your siblings

This is my sister, Jami & her family: husband Patrick, Imogen (7), Lorelai (5), Matilda (3) & Eleanor (1). They live in Arlington. Jami & Patrick are both 3rd grade teachers at the same school. Could you imagine working with your hubby everyday? I think it would be kind of fun.

This is my brother, Justin & his family: wife Jaymie & Easton (1). They live in Philidelphia. Justin is in PA school. And Jaymie gets to stay home with her sweet boy Easton.

I also have another brother, Jett. He lives in Cleburne. We don't get to see him too often. He kind of does his own thing.

Day 4 - Your parents

My mom (60) is a 5th grade teacher & my dad (69) is retired. I actually don't consider him retired because he watches my sister's daughters, ages 1 & 3 every day while she's at work. My parents are great. They are very selfless people. Growing up I felt like our house was a come & go as you please kind of place for visitors. They have allowed several individuals & families live with them for periods of time when they needed help. At the time I may have felt inconvenienced, but learned a greater lesson about service through their examples.

Day 3 - Your first love

Adam Powers.

No that is not me, I stole this picture from his Myspace page LOL!

Where to start with this kid...We met whle I was working at Gold's Gym and began dating my senior year in high school. I was 18 & he was 21. It lasted for 3 years! There was definitely a lot of ups & downs in this relationship, granted, he was my first serious boyfriend. On the one hand, he did a lot of sweet things for me like make me mixed cds, bring me my favorite ice cream, leave surprise flowers & notes on my car to find when I left for work in the mornings & planned some very creative dates. But on the other hand, we fought all the time about stupid things, he was very jealous & controlling. Bottom line, we weren't right for each other. It was a great learning experience though!

Day 2 - Meaning behind your blog name

Well this one is self explanitory. I did not try to get creative because I knew it would sound like I'm trying to hard. It works for other people, just not me. I'm pretty straight forward.

Piggies

I've started to put E's hair in pig tails. I think it's pretty cute. It's hard to see both of them in these pictures since her hair is still pretty short, but you get the idea.

Day 1 - Introduce, recent picture, 15 interesting facts

My friend, Missy, is doing this 30 days of blogging thing & I thought I'd try it out this time. We'll see how long I last. So here's a recent picture of me. I pretty much hate any picture of myself because I think I look different than I do in person. But apparently this is how I look.

15 Interesting Facts...this is a hard one. They all may not be interesting but here you go:
1) I can't go a day without eating something sweet. Sad but true.
2) Recently my feet have shrunk! I know part of the reason is because it's cold, but I have never had this much of a difference. It's not like I'm going to go out & buy smaller shoes for the winter, but currently I look like an idiot when I'm moving around. I've adopted this very stiff walk in order to keep my shoes on!
3) I am in a mid-life crisis. I know I'm not even 30, but lately I feel like I have a long list of procedures I'd like to have done.
4) My pallet has broadened since I've married Lane. I now love Indian food & will try other foods within reason.
5) I have never broken a bone...knock on wood!
6) I was born on Election Day. (seems very appropriate :) )
7) I am probably the least flexible person I know.
8) I originally wanted to be a sports broadcastor but at the time there were NO women doing that, so I thought it wasn't a smart move..dangit!
9) I was in show choir in high school therefore I was the original gleek.
10) I was deathly afraid of having a baby & now that I have one, I'm still nervous to have another.
11) I have already broken all of my New Year's resolutions.
12) I don't really care to receive flowers. I like them, but would rather have something else like clothes or chocolate.
13) Before we got married, Lane told me I had to work on my temper. Apparently I'm a hot head.
14) Back in high school, I heard that some guys thought Regina & I were lesbians because we were always together. I think they were just jealous.
15) I lived with my parents until I got married. (age 24)

Train

On MLK day we went to Hermann Park & rode the train for the first time. It was so much fun & Elliot loved it. She was very quiet, taking it all in. It was so hard getting her to look at the camera because she was so consumed by her surroundings. You could tell it was her first time because I was taking pictures the entire train ride. The people in front & behind us took notice & offered to take a family picture. So nice of them.

I really love this one & wish the sun wasn't right there.

She's saying "choo choo!"

Isn't the train cute?

Too Cute Not to Post

Here are a few random pictures we have taken recently.

Texas Fan

Celebrity Shades

This is the new face she is constantly making.

Big Foot

My little Eskimo



Speaking in Church

In our church, members are assigned to speak each Sunday. We have lived in our current ward boundaries for 3.5 years & I have managed to escape this task, which is a miracle in itself. But today they finally caught up with me. I was asked to speak on the transforming power of faith & character. This topic to me was so abstract. If it was just on faith or character alone, I feel I could come up with something decent. But the two together & then on top of that, how they can transform someone just had my mind going in all different directions. Thank goodness I have a wonderful husband who is great at putting together things like this without even breaking a sweat. Needless to say, Lane helped me out a great deal! Everything went fine. My voice eventually stopped shaking & before I knew it, it was over. So for my parents, here is my talk.

North Carolina

Lane had 2 interviews in North Carolina this past week. One with The Carolinas Medical Center & the other with UNC. They were about 2 hours apart. He really loved it there & The Carolinas will probably be near the top of our list. Here are a few pictures he took.

Here's the medical center area.

Here are a couple of houses really close to the medical center.

An awesome pizza joint he found.

Just the road. While he was there is snowed a lot & there was ice all over the roads.

Old Town Spring

Lane & I had nothing to do on Saturday, so we decided to check out Old Town Spring. There's a bunch of cute little shops with random items. I had hoped to find some better stuff, but it was still nice to get out & walk around.

 This old train is a little restaurant. The food smelled so good, but we resisted since we were about to go home & cook dinner.

 This was my favorite shop, The Dutch Girl. They had all these dutch sweets & other gifts. I got some licorice made in Holland & Heath Bar Crunch fudge.

 I couldn't resist getting E these cute little slippers that looked like clogs.

One of probably many unnecessary novelty purchases for my kid.

SLC

Lane has been interviewing at different places lately. So far besides the schools in Texas, he has gone to Tennesee, New Mexico, and now Utah. We had planned on taking pictures from everywhere he went, but he forgot the camera when he went to NM & my battery was dead when he went to TN. So finally he got some pictures of Salt Lake City.

This is the Beehive House in downtown. Brigham Young used to live there. It is now a museum.

Seagull statue. Back in 1848 crickets consumed fields of crops the pioneers had planted. Native seagulls saved the harvest & devoured the crickets. It was known as "Miracle of the Gulls".

He had to stop at Carl's Jr.

Sugar House Park. This is a hill he used to sled down.

His brother Hunter is on a mission for 2 years in Utah & Lane was able to get permission to have lunch with him. Pretty cool considering you can only communicate through letters & email.

This is the hospital he would work at. He said it's one of the nicest facilities he's seen. And the view doesn't hurt either.

Singing Garbage

I had Lane take the trash on his way out this morning, when suddenly it started singing nursery rhymes. It was then we realized that Elliot had thrown away her magnetic barn yard & the pieces that go with it. I didn't even notice it was missing from the fridge. Of course it was at the VERY bottow of the trash, so I will have to did it out later along with her duck & probably more items that I'm not aware of yet. This confirms our suspicion that she threw away the remote to the dvd player last month. We have been searching everywhere for it with no luck. We will have to order another one. Crazy kid.

New & Unfinished Projects

While we were in Arlington, I was one busy lady. I decided to tackle some unfinished craft projects & then of course, start a few more because I'm crazy like that. Every craft that I make always has SOMETHING that's wrong with it, which is why I usually just prefer to buy them. Plus I probably could buy them cheaper when it's all said & done. Anyway, let me walk you through them all.

 This Christmas tree advent calendar is the granddaddy of them all. It's a knock off of the one from Pottery Barn kids. I have been working on this beaut for 2 years! No, not continuously, but 2 years none the less. The little squares are different Christmas fabrics. I have no idea how the top 5 rows of squares ended up being slanted. I even asked my mom to take a look at it before glueing it down. But somewhere between then & the next morning it happened. Probably because I was doing that around midnight & was a tad delerious. I was pretty ticked about it, but whatever. I'm going to put different activities to do each day in December, such as: make a gingerbread house or read the Christmas story out of the bible. I'm pretty excited about it.

 These adorable stockings took me a year to complete. Again, I wasn't continuously working on these. My friend Laura walked me through these & was kind enough to let me come to her place & use her sewing machine. You can tell Elliot's was the first one made because her name is a little too high. I wish I would have made these a little wider because you really can't fit too many things through the middle. It won't matter because I plan on just putting in a giant candy can, those small cutie oranges & some nuts.  

 This is my Christmas Countdown. I love it because of the vintage cards you use. I got the idea from this blog. I used little jing bell brads that actually jingle. Love them.

 I thought this printable was cute. Again, I like the vintage look of it. I got it from here. I love this girl's blog. She always has so many cute crafts & ideas.

 Obviously this is a birthday banner. I had to break it up into 2 shots so I could fit it in. I've been wanting to make one for a while now & I love it. I wanted to choose fabrics that were gender neutral in case we have another kid someday. I ordered the fabric from here. My friend Diane referred me to them & they have lots of cute stuff. I checked back today & saw some other adorable prints that I wish I had gotten instead, but oh well.

 Here they are close up.

So that's it. I think I'm done with crafting for a while.