My Christmas wreath!

I MADE this!

I don't currently have a way to hang this on the door so the silverware drawer will have to do in the mean time.

I found several examples of a "crystal" wreath on Pinterest. This was super easy and CHEAP. It cost me about $2.50 to make.

The base is a wire clothes hanger (I had an extra hanging in the coat closet). The white "crystal" is just 70 sandwich bags (the zipper part cut off and the bags taken apart so you have two separate sides of a sandwich bag), and the flower is taken apart then glued together again and a bedazzle jewel thing glued to the middle. I bought everything at the dollar store - I would highly recommend going to the Dollar Tree, after talking to my friend it seems like there is a lot more there than the local Honks Dollar Store.

I tied the bag halves around the hanger and tried to keep the fluff in front (so the back is flat-ish). I glued some yarn  onto the back of the flower and just tied that on (so I have the option of changing the flower out to something else if I want to - or I could easily add something more!).

I love this and can't wait to hang it on the door!! If anyone has any ideas on how to hang it let me know! I don't want to buy anything but I'm not sure what I could use. 

Here are some pictures of Saoirse "watching" General Conference over the weekend.

She's so funny, she loves sitting in stuff. I always go into her room and find her sitting in her clothes drawer, and she tries to sit in one of the drawers in the kitchen too. I love that weirdo.

She's a smart one.

This is why we can't have nice things.

My poor attempt to keep her from climbing on the keyboard and touching all the buttons.

You can judge me.

Seriously.



Why would you judge me do you ask?


Because I bought this for Saoirse.

That's right. I bought her a leash. Actually I prefer to call it a "safety harness." But let me defend myself before you go all "child degradation" on me. First, this is not degrading - it's a fun monkey backpack! Second, anyone who really does have a problem with these things I cordially invite you to take my daughter in public and force her to sit in her stroller. Even better, why don't you try carrying her for a few hours? If your arms aren't tired from carrying 25 lbs, maybe they'll get that workout you've been dying for if that 25 lbs is screaming in your face and struggling for freedom.

I feel like I'm doing the world a service. I'm sure nobody wants to hear my child cry-screaming, and I don't want her wandering off by herself. Win-win right?

Really.

We're going to Iowa soon-ish and I desperately needed something to assure her protection from crazy strangers and from her own curiosity while we're at the airport(s). 

I've heard of some people having serious problems with these things. I'll admit that I didn't think they were necessary when I was younger. But that was before I had a kid and realized the genius behind these things. Your child can walk and be safe while in public! Everyone is happy.

On another note, I made this last night for dinner.

Yummy.

It's a black bean salad/dip. You can eat it by itself but I highly recommend dipping some chips in there. Have I had onion breath for 24 hours? Why yes I have. And it's been amazing, thanks for asking.

Black Bean Salad

Serves 4

Two 16-ounce cans black beans drained and rinsed well (to avoid turning your salad grey)
1 very large tomato, diced (I used three)
1 16-ounce can corn (I used 3 corn cobs)
1/2 Vidalia onion, diced (the smaller pieces the better unless you really like raw onion)
1 can sliced water chestnuts, drained, rinsed and diced
1 bunch cilantro, chopped
1/2 lime, juice and zest
3 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar or more to taste

1. Add beans, tomatoes, corn, onion, and water chestnuts to a bowl (glass looks pretty) and mix.
2. Add cilantro, lime and balsamic vinegar and mix again. Serve alone, with cucumber open-faced sandwiches or chips for a perfect meal!

Our spare time.

This is a random blogpost about things I've wanted to blog about but don't have a whole lot to say... so I'm putting them all together for one super-stupendous blogpost!

First,

Saoirse is majorly cute with this berry hat she has.  

Second,

our couch is falling apart.  In fact, there are (excuse me)  WERE giant holes in the cushions that I patched up by hand stitching on some.. patches then putting some liquidstitch stuff on there so it's extra not going to come apart.  Hopefully.

Third,

My neighbor was putting together a serious puzzle when we went over there about a week ago and I had an itch.  I NEEDED to buy a puzzle and put it together, twice.  So we went out and bought this 500 piece beauty and I put it together again the next day.  It was a lot of fun to do and even Joseph got in on it even after he explained to me that he is not interested in putting together a puzzle.  Oh the sacrifices he makes for me.  HOWEVER, when I was trying to take a picture of the moment we finished he thought it would be funny to make stupid faces.  He then confessed that he was trying to make his face really red but just ended up making weird faces for ALL of the pictures I took.  He is making a relatively normal looking face here.  He thinks he's SO funny...  *sigh* the problem is that I do actually think he's funny.  dangit. 

My giggling babe.

My neighbor, Kendra, came over to hang out while the boys when to their priesthood meeting Sunday night.  Saoirse had been in SUCH a bad mood all day, I blame her teeth, but I seem to think all of her crying ever is associated somehow with her teeth.  Anyway, Kendra came over and started making her laugh really hard and I got a video of it!  She's so cute.

Okay.... I realize this video is fast, I think I have to change its format or something.  Stupid blogger not supporting my Photo Booth movies.  I'm keeping the video there anyway, this does count as a blogpost and it won't be taken away from me!

His lie-surprises.

For my 23rd birthday (which, by the way, was an age I never thought would come quite so fast) Joseph had something very special planned for me.  I was completely unaware of anything particularly special going on.  I thought (since we discussed this as a tentative "plan") that we were going to go out to eat at 8 pm after he got home from his church meeting and after I put Saoirse down for bed and we would enjoy a little alone time together out on the town.  BUT, birthday afternoon rolls around and I get called up to my neighbor, Kendra's, house for a gift and some questions about family history.  While I was up there Joseph had some plans of his own to make my birthday quite a memorable one.  When I came back down Joseph told me it was "time to go" and whisked Saoirse and I out the door and into the car.  We filled up the already half full gastank and headed north.  I had no idea what was going on and the further we got from home the more worried I got that the one diaper I had in my purse would not be enough for our seemingly lengthy trip.  At this point Joseph reveals to me that he had several "lie-surprises" for me.  A lie-surprise is a lie that he had told me that was going to be a surprise for me.  His lie-surprises were revealed slowly throughout the evening and came as follows; "I don't have Elder's Quorum Meeting tonight," "We're not actually going to eat at Los Hermanos," "We're not going to eat at 8 but right now," "I don't have school or work tomorrow," and so on.  He drove me up to Ogden, which was a looong hour and a half drive for me not having any clue what was going on, and we went to an AMAZING restaurant called The Timbermine.  Pictured below.

It's supposed to be like an old mine.        ..with delicious food.

Awesome door handle.

See?  Mine-like.

We had SUCH good food there.  We ate the best steak I've ever had (probably because it was wrapped in bacon) with King Crab legs and free fried mushrooms.

So good, and I don't even like mushrooms or marinara sauce.

 We got free mushrooms because we were sitting in a noisy booth.  Or something.  

I just thought any noise we were hearing was part of the "eating in a mine" experience.

Everyone ate in one of these little cubby things.  Excellent for private birthday celebrations.

But it actually looked more like this in there.  You couldn't really see the floor or anything but the cubbies.  Joseph only got the previous picture by setting his exposure time to a billion years to catch any and all light.

Lamp.

This lamp was nice because we could turn down the light so I could slightly more privately feed the babe in our cubby.

Then we were off to our next adventure!  After dinner I was in a hurry to get home for Saoirse to make her 8:30 bedtime.  But Joseph wanted to go "check out the awesome canyon" we were right at the mouth of.  Even though I told him that we needed to get home he didn't listen to me and turned towards the canyon.  I was quite frustrated and on my way to angry when he realized what was happening and told me his next surprise lie; "We're not going back to Provo tonight."  I was shocked and realized that that meant that he packed our stuff which made me worry he probably forgot something I desperately need, like clothes or my toothbrush.  But he reassured me by telling me everything he packed - which was almost everything I would have packed.  He even grabbed a multitude of diapers to my delight.  And after driving only a short while into the beautiful canyon we came to a stop at the Alaskan Inn.  

Across the street/canyon.  The mountains were pretty much in your face the entire time.  I loved it.

I love Utah.

She's half under the bed, but so cute in her disposable diaper and tiny little butt.

The amazing hot tub for two with jets.  I sat in here and drank sparkling apple juice with my man.

This might seem random, but this and the next picture are the best two pictures of the inside of the cabin we were in.  Joseph apparently forgot to get one of the whole cabin so all we have are bits and pieces.

Bed and ghost Abby.

Super yummy and FREE breakfast!  We got to choose what we wanted and when.  I chose to have hot chocolate and it was a good choice if I might say so.

Cabins.

Our beautiful cabin called the Kodiak cabin!  It was bear themed - you know, Kodiak.  The next time we stay here we're getting the Christmas themed cabin.  YES CHRISTMAS.  These people are geniuses.

Cabin.  Canyon.

I just had to add this birthday face.  I hope it looks this good when it's 80.

And now for a string of cute pictures of my baby.

She loves looking at trees.

She's pretending not to notice a picture is being taken of her.

Adorable lips.

Dang.  I made a perfect baby.

A perfectly fat baby.

Her diaper rash

For my birthday Joseph surprised me with an adventure of great proportions!  I'll write another blog for that.  But while on this adventure little Saoirse was in disposable diapers, because we were no where near a washing machine.  For the first time in her LIFE she got a diaper rash.  Obviously I'm pointing my accusatory finger at those disposables because she's never gotten a rash before while wearing her cloth diapers no matter how long she's been sitting in her 'creations'.  Anywho, last night when I was changing her diaper, I had been aware that a red line on both cheeks were creeping their way to full rash status, I noticed that those two red lines looked horrible.  Upon further inspection I noticed that they were raised, a couple of layers of skin were missing on those pesky red lines and she was starting to bleed.  I've never actually really needed to deal with diaper rash before but I did know some tricks to help it go away.  Well, by "tricks" I mean I knew that you could stick them in the tub to help clean off poo so you don't have to use a wipe that all of a sudden feels like you're wiping with thorns.  Normally, when she would look like her bum was getting a little red, I would keep her out of her diaper for a few minutes while I dried the area. This consisted of being fearless and blowing gently on her bum to dry it out.  So anywho, I was searching online how to best deal with diaper rash and/or what cream is best to use (and use on cloth diapers).  WELL, I found a fabulous cure.  Yes CURE.  I don't know why I never thought of it before, but when I came home from the hospital they kindly gave me some Lansinoh HPA Lanolin to help make breast feeding a little less bloody and raw, I just put a little dab of that wherever her rash was and BOOM, 14 hours later the rash is almost GONE.  From bloody to just a little red in 14 hours!  I was amazed.  I've never heard of something working that fast.  Maybe I'm just being a first time mom discovering old remedies, but I thought I'd share with the world in case you're in my boat with an angry baby, bleeding rashes and excess nipple cream.

My precious.

Today is my birthday!  There is SO much cleaning that needs to be done, but I think I'm going to take a day off from that and do some of my favorite things!  First off, I watched Enchanted.  It's SUCH a good movie!  I love Giselle.  She's so happy!  And she has fabulous dresses.

Like I said, fabulous.

Anyway, here are some pictures of my little precious babe.

Wearing her new dress she got from the baby shower from her Aunt Danielle.  Stinking CUTE.

Hahaha.  What a face.  

She probably couldn't get any cuter though.  My little papoose baby.

She had just gotten her 6 month shots about an hour before this.  Poor little thing hated them.  

It's still weird to me that I have a little tiny human being that I take care of.  That trusts me.  That looks up to me to take care of her like I did my mom.  I love being a mom!

Our day so far.

I'm trying to start Saoirse on a new schedule so that she'll sleep through the night.  This new schedule requires just 2 to 3 naps a day and less feedings.  Hopefully (crossing fingers) over the next week she gets used to it and starts sleeping all through the night.  

So to keep us entertained, we watched some Kipper and went to the park.

We probably sat there for half an hour. She was squealing the entire time and actually screamed once. I think it was the first time she's done that.  It was pretty cute seeing how excited she was to be outside.

This is what we're doing right now.  Just snuggling and chilling.  

On a slightly sidely note, as soon as that picture was taken (with Photobooth) and she saw herself and me she got all wiggly.  She's getting quite the personality.  :)  I love it.

Other than that, I'm really tired no extremely tired.  Wait, extreallymely tired.  Yes.  Last night Saoirse decided to barely sleep.  Geez, I hope this new schedule thing works.

My brain is against me.

Soooo at the end of this lonely evening Saoirse is in her room crying by herself while my head tries to recuperate from the screams of a teething babe.  I can FEEL a migraine seeping through the cracks of my tired and withered brain.  Super, I love a good migraine.  Bring it on.  Seriously though, Saoirse is really starting this teething thing (that's what I like to say when she's inconsolable) and she is NOT happy about it.  She seems to be allergic to her bed (on top of her allergy to clothing) which makes it oh, so difficult for me when I put her in there to sleep.  Then I think, I'll just put her in her bouncer for a little while, then that turns into an hour of bouncing.  On the plus side, my calves will look great in no time.

I guess I'll go try to console her with a diaper change and maybe MAYBE a feeding.

Being a mom is hard.

In the meantime, this is our new favorite song around here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7mPqycQ0tQ

Her favorite toy.

She seems to have lost her book.  

At least she stopped staring at me.

Our little Zoolander.

SO, while I sit here thinking about how GREAT it would be if Saoirse would get at least a 45 minute nap in (alas, she enjoys anything but napping, including her tired cries and screams) I think of how cute she is getting and how wonderful it will be when she gets over this "not napping" thing she's doing.  This morning after feeding her I was laying next to her in bed trying my hardest to go back to sleep but failing, she was just laying there very awake, but looking around our room and just enjoying laying next to mom in the warm blankets.  It was soo awesome.  I caught a glimpse of her at 2 years old, coming to lay next to us in the morning to wake us up.  It's so strange how old she's getting!  I can't believe it.  In just a couple of weeks I'll be the mother of a 6 month old.  That's when all sorts of crazy things start really happening, like her crawling and the end of my leaving anything within her sticky grasp.  Right now, she's still only rolling to the left (I like to call her my little Zoolander) and trying so desperately to move in a forward direction.
P.S. weird fact, I was sitting on the couch writing this very post and heard what could only be the scratchings of a little mouse in the wall only to find Saoirse on the other side of the wall with her limbs through the crib slats playfully scratching said wall.  My crazy little Zoolander...

Anyway, here are the latest and greatest of the little drool bucket.

This is how every picture of me turns out, I swear.  She's turning into her mommy!  I love it!

Daddy and baby enjoying some time in the grass.  Saoirse seemed to be a little confused by the scratchy carpet.  When we laid her down in it the look on her face made me think she thought she was being eaten by some huge monster.  Hilarious.  Oh yeah, and I guess, her welcome for giving her the palest skin in the world.  She will have a lifetime of slathering on thick layers of sun lotion.  

This was taken yesterday and she remains the cutest baby ever.  P.S. after seeing this picture, I realized how stinking LONG her hair is getting!  Crazy.

A couple of weeks ago we packed up the fam to head down to Manti, Utah for the temple wedding of one of Joseph's favorite mission companions.  The groom was born in Taiwan and came to the United States for the first time ever just a couple of weeks before the wedding!  He married a girl from the States (Joseph thinks she's from Montana).  They're pretty cute together, he speaks Chinese to her and she speaks English to him.  It seems to work pretty well.  I mean, they got married.  ANYWAY, the Manti temple is BEAUTIFUL.  I am still shocked by it really.  See for yourself...

Yes I took this picture.  I know it should probably be in National Geographic or something.  

Super awesome Temple, super awesome people, super awesome day!  I hung out outside with Saoirse while Joseph attended the Sealing.  Have I mentioned how I LOVE sealings??  They're the best thing ever.  They're so magical and they always make me cry - whether or not I know who is being sealed whom.  Heavenly Father is so great!  He has provided us with a plan that makes it so we can be with our families forever.  That's FOREVER people!  What an awesome plan.  What the heck, it's seriously the greatest thing I've ever heard of.  How do I know it's so great do you ask?  Because I am sealed to both Joseph and Saoirse for time and all eternity and it feels awesome to know death can only separate us for a short time.  

Her allergy.

So, the mothers room at church used to be kind of cool I thought.  But the longer I attend this elite club of mothers who need to feed their babe during church the more I realize that putting a bunch of women in a room together who have virtually nothing in common creates awkward situations and conversations.  As I was leaving to go to Relief Society after feeding and changing Saoirse, a woman walked in with her son that I've spoken to on numerous occasions without awkwardness.  She said hi to me and took one look at Saoirse and said to me "Is your baby allergic to clothes?  I noticed that she isn't wearing anything and she wasn't last weekend either."  UM.  What?  Seriously?  "Uh, no, she gets hot when she's swaddled so I don't put anything on her."  Who asks that?  What the heck??  Well, I guess I should put something on her when we go to church - I did realize that taking a naked baby to church is unusual, but did it warrant that question?  It's hot outside, like I'm going to foof her up in some dress that's ridiculously hot and sweaty.

Well, here's a cute video.  The cutest one ever probably.  Blogger has been weird uploading videos so I hope it works.

Our baby is the cutest baby ever.

That kid just loves her daddy.  And she expresses that love with the best little giggles in the whole universe.

That is all.

My delight.

If you can ignore my fat arm for a minute, I finally got  a video of Saoirse giggling a little!  Long hard work to get this video.  I didn't think I was going to get it as you can see in the beginning.. but good thing I'm persistant. 

Her teeth make my life sort of miserable.

Bobee has *probably* started her teething faze of life.  Yikes.  This means crying for seemingly no reason and lots of whining and eating stuff.  Unfortunately she's not super coordinated yet with her hands so it's pretty much me putting stuff in her mouth to chew on.  The poor little dear.

I gave her a cold wet wash cloth to chew on which was cute because she'd make a weird face when it was in her mouth but she'd chew ravenously.  But again, she doesn't really have enough coordination to put it in her mouth on her own... so I think I might have to stick with her binky for chewing on.

Her cloth diapers and my next project.

Okay, so I LOVE my cloth diapers.  I ordered them off of this website www.theluvyourbaby.com because they were cute and WAY less expensive than EVERY OTHER BRAND I looked at.  Literally, every cloth diaper I saw was around $20 a diaper.  And that was JUST THE COVER.  The inserts for each diaper (inserts are to soak up anything needing to be soaked up) cost their own pretty penny.  But this site is linked to a small company based in Canada and each diaper comes with two inserts and costs $7 each.  And when you spend more than $70 you get free shipping.  Well, just to get started we bought 12 diapers (really the bare minimum if you want to do laundry everyday) which was a little over $80.  That's about how much 1 month of disposable diapers cost.  I LOVE CLOTH DIAPERS!!!  They're also super easy to clean - it's not a hassle at all.  And the best part is that we're saving loads of money every week we use those little things.  However, I've just been using regular old wipes you buy from the store.  They really don't cost much, especially because I don't wipe her every single time she has a pee filled diaper.  But I'm kind of getting tired of going to the store to buy them (lazy or a wonderful opportunity?).  Plus, I don't like wasting money on something that will be garbage.  SO my next project will be to make my own cloth wipes!  I found this awesome blog post that tells you just how to make them here http://www.myhappycrazylife.com/make-your-own-cloth-wipes/.  And the solution you use is super easy - just get a mixture of water and some of your favorite baby shampoo.  Badda-bing badda-boom.

I'm really excited to try this out.  I love the idea of saving money where I can.  Particularly when it's so dang easy to AND I can let my hippy side shine and save the rain forest (or whatever).  But really.  I feel good not filling up our beautiful gift of a planet with "disposable" (non-biodegradable) diapers.  I'd rather be a little more self-sufficient and love Heavenly Father's creation without filling it with crap (literally).

Our bobee.

Being a mommy is pretty much the best thing ever.  And being a mommy watching daddy play with the baby is even better!!  I love watching Joseph play with Saoirse and I love seeing her excited to see him when he comes home from work.  

She's so cute!

Okay, so there are two reasons why I love this picture.  Number one, pictures of daddies with their babies are the best pictures ever.  Number two, she is really rocking that cow print cloth diaper.

Holy cow she's so dang cute I could die.  She LOVES bath time!!  Besides the occasional splashing water with her feet, her favorite thing to do is to pee in the bathtub.  

Oh my little bobe is getting so big!!  I seriously can't believe it.  She giggled for the first time a few days ago.  We're patiently waiting for her to repeat the cuteness.

Anyway, she's getting pretty good at holding her ginormous head up.

Her second day.