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.

While We Were There

So I already posted the bigger things that we did while we were in Arlington. But here are some little things that went on as well.

At the beginning of the month a group of us ran in The White Rock Marathon. We did the relay so there were 5 people on a team. Our team's name was "Jogging For Jake". Jake is a little boy that has Neurofibromatosis. We raised money for his cause & ran The Rock!

 This is the night before: pasta dinner at Amy's.

 The morning of all ready to go. We had to wake up at 4:30!

 Amy & I switching off. We ran our leg together (6.25 miles). You can't tell here but I had on lots of layers! I think it was like 30 degrees out! Underneath that white jacket, I had a fleece on. And under the fleece I had a shirt. I also had 2 pairs of gloves, but I gave one pair to Regina. I didn't want to be like Lloyd on Dumb & Dumber .

Kristen & Chris (parents of Jake)

 We made a stop in the Stockyards. The plan was to get a decent picture for our Christmas cards. This top picture was what I had in mind. I wish there was a way to enlarge just us & keep everything else the same. Needless to say, this picture didn't make the cut. Instead we put used one that we took on Thanksgiving. I look like crap but everyone else was cute.

 More stockyard pics.

 Elliot & her cousin Eleanor got to spend lots of time together the first 2 weeks we were there. Somehow E managed to get Eleanor to push her around in this baby stroller for about 30 minutes! She just kicked back & enjoyed the ride.

 We celebrated my dad's 69th birthday at La Playa in Fort Worth. He got a complimentary sopapilla & birthday song.

 Elliot really needs a dog. She would constantly find Winnie & give her a huge hug.

 Luckily Winnie is a good sport.

 E found another friend, Chino.

He's a gentle giant.

And for New Year's Eve we did nothing. That's right. Lane had to take his 2nd step of the Boards &  on top of that he woke up feeling really sick. When he got home, he was still feeling pretty bad. But he did think he did ok on his test. Whew! Anyway, we decided it would be best to stay home. I did make him go eat at Fuzzy's. The Baja Chicken Tacos are yummy! Then he pretty much laid on the couch while I finished my projects (more on that later). We both were in bed by 11: 20 pm.

Christmas

What a whirlwind Christmas was. I'm so sad it's over. Christmas Eve we went to Lane's dad's house. Everyone had a great time eating all the wonderful foods that Brenda prepared. At gift time things were so crazy that I didn't even get a chance to take any pictures. I guess it didn't matter because it was E's bed time, so she wasn't even around for it.

Christmas morning we were at my parents house. Elliot's big gift was a table & chairs. When she saw it, she went right on over & climbed up on the chair. That made me feel good that she actually appreciated it. Thanks Santa!

Here's her Christmas dress. It's too bad that she only got to wear it once!

Christmas night, all of my relatives came over. It was so good to see everyone. It's probably been 3 years since we've been together on Christmas. Usually Lane & I are at his mom's house, but we went earlier this year. I just have a few random pictures of E because I really love her shirt. I'm waiting for my Aunt to email me the family picture.