Craziness

That's how I feel the past month has been. And we only have one child! I can't imagine what it will be like when we have more. I have always wanted four, but I am being tested with just this one. Good thing they are so super cute!!
My plan was to post a picture of Thanksgiving, but that won't be happening. First off because I forgot to take our camera to the dinner. And second, because this year was pretty much as bad as last year. Which means I would like to forget that they ever happened! Last year, Korina started getting sick on Thanksgiving day while we were at my mom's house. Not to mention, as we were running out of the house, the juices from the pie I was carrying spilled all over the front of my shirt. So she was fussy the whole time at my mom's and we ended up leaving early. The next night at around 11:30, we were driving up to Primary Children's because she had a fever of 103. I just wish that she could have told us how miserable she was. She had come down with a mild case of RSV so we spent the next few days going back to a respiratory therapist so they could keep clearing out her nose and airways. It was torture on us having to pin her down to the table and hold her head still while she was screaming. I never want her to have to go through that again!
This year, luckily she was only teething so it wasn't quite as bad as the year before. Still, we didn't have what you would call an enjoyable time at dinner. We drove up to my cousin's house in Midway, but she was pretty good in the car. Once we got there, her nose was running non-stop, so we would have to get a tissue. Then that would make her cry and her nose would get even worse and the cycle continued like that the whole time. So again, we ended up leaving early even though there were family members there that we only see once, maybe twice, a year. The frustrating part was that as soon as we got in the car to drive home, her nose stopped running completely and she was as happy as could be! It seems she knew exactly what she was doing because once she knew we were going home, she cheered right up. We know that she is definitely a home body just like me, but at some point she will have to learn that she can't act up when we go places. We can only hope that next Thanksgiving will be a more pleasant experience.
Things are getting exciting with the company! Colby has put me in charge of internet orders to try and do some advertising and increase our online sales. November was our first month of trying out some advertising and giveaways and we have tripled the amount of our last highest month. We are very excited! As long as we always have some sort of promotion going on, our sales have really picked up. We are hoping to put something together with Groupon in the next month or so and that should really drive some traffic to our website.
As for the rest of our life, we are just staying busy getting ready for the holidays, but trying to take a moment every once in a while and just enjoy the season. I do love the holidays, but they are a little stressful at times and they pass by so quickly. Of course, when they are over, I am happy for a new year and the chance for a fresh start.
I caught this picture of the sunset a couple days ago, and I am glad it showed how beautiful it was that night.

And here is where Korina spends her time these days since she seems to be getting into more messes lately.

She's just a little too spoiled I think!

4 Months Already?!

Well, it's definitely safe to say that I have failed on my resolution to post more often on this blog. And let's just say that it doesn't really surprise me. If I am really horrible at writing in my journal, then you can assume that I will be horrible at writing on the blog. So much has happened, I'm not sure what to even write about. I'll just highlight some of the miscellaneous things going on in our life and some milestones that Korina has reached.
First off, Korina is definitely walking. She did take a little longer than other kids, but we certainly didn't mind since our house is always a mess now with everything she finds and thinks that it belongs in the middle of the floor. She is good at putting things back though. She is also talking and has a vocabulary of around 10-15 words, depending on the day and if she feels like cooperating and showing off her skills. She really understands what we are saying though, which is very helpful in asking her to do things. She is such a great helper!
She loves her bunny, her babies and Winnie the Pooh. And she insists on kissing everything and everyone, as long as she has known them for at least five minutes!
She loves putting my shoes in the hamper. I'm not sure I love this game as much as she does, but it's not that big of a deal to put my shoes back when I know she enjoys it so much.

As far as Colby and I go, we are just staying busy as usual with the company. Trying to expand and get the company as efficient as possible takes a long time and a lot of effort and thinking. Good thing Colby likes to think about that stuff and figure out solutions because it is certainly not my strong point.
I try to still craft when I find an idea that is easy enough, I have enough time and we have some spare cash that Colby generously lets me buy fabric with. You can never have too much cute fabric! I never know what the next favorite craft will be. Lately I have made this wreath for my cousin for her Christmas present. It's hard to see because of the lighting, but the main color is a dark purple. I really like how it turned out.

I also found this very simple pattern for making receiving blankets, so that is the craft that I am currently obsessed with. So easy and super cute!

And I still love getting a good deal and finding surprises in my mailbox. This is just some of the recent free samples and coupons that we have gotten in the mail. You can't beat FREE!!

And a picture of Korina because she is just so cute!

Forget about the last post...

I was right when I said she was probably close to pulling herself up to standing in her crib. The next day, we went in to get her and she was standing up. Now it's a regular occurance so we had to lower the crib to the final setting, I can't believe it. It's fun to see her progress and see how happy she gets when she does something. And of course she claps for herself! She is such a funny girl. Can't wait to see what she does next.

You can see she was pretty happy about her accomplishment!

Not much to write about

So this is one of those times where I wonder why I have a blog because I feel like nothing exciting is going on in our lives and I really have to think hard for something to write about. I guess things are happening, but they just don't seem that important to actually write them down. One thing that has finally happened is that Korina is crawling. Before crawling, she was perfectly happy to scooch around on her bum, but I guess she realized that it's much more efficient to get on her hands and knees and crawl. We are also going to have to lower her crib again since we go in there and she is up on her knees looking over the side. Luckily she can't pull herself up to standing yet, but I'm sure that she's getting close. It's fun to see her become more independent and interested in everything around her.


On another note, I decided to chop my hair off and donate it. I was getting tired of the way it looked and I wanted to keep the length but just get some layers cut into it. I have a friend who donated her hair and I thought this would be the best time to do it since I didn't really have any layers and it wasn't dyed. I am really happy with the way it turned out and it will be nice to have it short during the summer.

Happy Birthday to our Princess!

Korina's birthday came and went along with a whole bunch of other things that made the weeks crazy, which explains my lack of posts for about three weeks. Her birthday party turned out awesome except for some slightly cold weather, but luckily the rain stopped just in time. I did prefer that it was chilly instead of hot, especially when there is food outside. We had quite a few guests show up so it was a lot of fun and we hope that they had a good time as well. She was such a good baby the whole time and even kept her crown on during the whole party. I guess she just wanted to make sure that people knew it was her party and she was the princess. Her original birthday outfit included the skirt, but since it was chilly, I decided to put her in pants instead. You can never count on Utah weather I guess! By the way, can you believe those ears! I don't know who she got those from. Anyway, thanks to everyone who pitched in and helped and for Colby's parents letting us have it at their house. Also thank you for all the presents. Korina enjoyed every single one and had just as much fun with the boxes they came in. A one year old is easy to please I am finding out. And I did happen to get her quilt done in time for the party. I really enjoyed making it, but I think I will enjoy the next one since I won't be on a timeline. Luckily Korina enjoys looking at all the different patterns and playing hide and seek with it. I didn't want to do all that work and have her not even like it! These pictures were actually taken before I finished it, but the quilt is in her room right now and she's sleeping, so I don't want to risk taking it out. It's not a professional picture of the quilt, but you can get the idea of what it looked like.
Here she is playing hide and seek:

And here she is just giving me a great big smile to let me know she likes it:

Two weeks left of being a baby

So you know that clip that is in her hair in the picture in my last post.... she ate it! That's right. Mental note to Colby and I, don't put her down for a nap with something in her hair, especially when she plays for the whole half hour and doesn't even sleep. Usually I would take the clip out, but we had friends over that night and Colby was the one to put her down, so I didn't even think about it until I was brushing her teeth that night. I asked Colby if he remembered it being in her hair when he put her down and he was pretty sure that it was and I was pretty sure that it wasn't there when I went to get her. So a little bit of panic set in when I searched her crib and the floor and couldn't find anything. I feared for the worst, but prayed that it would come out safely if she indeed did swallow it. So, 48 hours later, let's just say I found it. It wasn't the most pleasant experience I've gone through, but I was glad to know what happened.

On to a lighter note, we got her one year pictures taken the other day and they turned out so cute. She woke up that morning not feeling so great because she has a tooth coming in, but I knew she would be okay once she saw the cameras. She loves for the attention to be on her. She lit right up when we gave her some props to play with and a stranger to make her laugh. We've been lucky that both times we have taken her in, we were able to get some good shots. I would hate to plan the whole thing and have a grumpy baby to work with. I am excited to get the prints back and hang them up. Here's a peek of the ones we got:









I honestly can't believe it's been almost one year since we had her. She has changed so much and the time has gone way too fast. I miss her being a tiny baby, but at the same time, she keeps getting more and more fun as we start to see her personality come out. And she sure has a lot of personality! I finished her birthday outfit and I like how it turned out. It's not perfect, but I'm pretty sure Korina won't even notice. Let's keep our fingers crossed that I can finish her quilt in time. That project is not turning out perfect either!

Patiently Waiting...

If you look at Colby and then you look at me, wouldn't you assume that any of our kids would have a head full of dark brown or black hair? Not to mention brown eyes? That's what I would have thought, but then came Korina. Light brown hair and not very much of it, paired with blue eyes. Are we sure that she is ours? I've heard things of this nature can happen, anything can happen with genes, right? So here I am with a bucket full of hair clips and bows just waiting for her hair to get thick enough that they will actually stay in. I got excited just being able to put this teeny little clip in. It does look pretty cute though even if it's not at all functional!

Speaking of waiting, I do a lot of waiting during her feeding times. Mostly waiting for her to open her mouth once she realizes that's the only way her tummy will get full. I know how hungry she is because she is vocal about her wants and she sucks her thumb when she gets to that point. She is usually good at first and will take 4 or 5 bites, but then she slouches down and acts like this is the last thing she wants to be doing. It looks something like this:

After she knows I am not going to get her out until she has eaten what she should, I guess she figures that she might as well have some fun. It looks something like this:

As for now, I will just sit back, be patient and smile. I have to admit, she's good at making me smile!
I finally feel like the space above our kitchen cabinets is no longer empty. Three years to complete that project is longer than I would have liked. I'm still not completely sure I love where everything is, but it makes me feel better to look up and actually see things rather than a bare wall. I hung these plates up today and I am really happy with the designs and colors. They're not over the top decorative, but they add just enough to give the kitchen some personality. Since I spend most of my time in the kitchen, it's nice to have it finally filled up.

Don't worry! I haven't fallen back into my bad habit of not updating this blog. Lately, I have just been so busy with things going on with the company. I started going back to work at the company to help bag a couple times a week. I really don't mind that part thanks to the machine. That thing is awesome! We should have gotten one five years ago. Also, we recently got in with a company called Diamond Creations. They are in charge of the concessions for the E Center and Usana Amphitheatre as well as some other places. From the day they told us we were in, we only had one week until our first event. That is not a lot of time to build a booth, print banners and get everything else ready that goes along with it. Needless to say it was a stressful week. And every week we have anywhere from 1 to 4 events depending on the season. Right now we have hockey, arena football and concerts going on at the same time. It's a lot of work and time for the events and my only complaint is having to leave Korina with a babysitter each time. We miss her so much when we're gone for 5 or 6 hours. There is definitely an upside though. We get in to concerts for free just by being at out booths. Daughtry is coming next Thursday and Sugarland will be here on the 7th of May. Let's just say I am really looking forward to those events! Here's a look at our booth, nothing to fancy, but we think it looks pretty good.

With all of this going on, there hasn't been a lot of time or energy available for my crafting. The picture below is of a wet bag that I made a few weeks ago, but finally finished yesterday. It can be used when going to the pool to put wet swimsuits in so they don't get water on everything else. It turned out pretty good until I put the decoration on. It didn't quite turn into the vision I had in my head. I took the picture from far away so you can't see the details because the details on this one are not pretty! Anyway, I am still pleased with the way my quilt is coming together and I am hoping to have it done for Korina's birthday. That gives me one month exactly so I'm confident it will be done.

I love coupons!!!

So I'm thinking of moving to Ogden for the sole purpose of living closer to Family Fresh. It's a grocery store that doubles coupons everyday! That is pretty much unheard of in all of Utah. I guess it was a couple that moved here from Minnesota and opened up the store. Granted, it's not a very big store at all, but it is definitely worth the drive to save a lot of money. All of the items pictured only cost me $13.15! Isn't that amazing? Without the coupons, it would have cost around $50.00. I was stoked walking out of the store having paid so little. I would like to go again when I have more time to shop. The best way to go would be to just look for what is on sale that week and then see if I have a coupon to match. It is definitely a bit of a drive, but the thrill of saving that much money was totally worth it!

By the looks of this picture, I can no longer leave Colby alone with the baby! I leave for maybe a half hour, and I come home to my sweet little girl with a crazy head of hair. He said he tried to do a mohawk, but that didn't work, so this is how it turned out. I can't believe how different she looked just with some gel in her hair. At least most of it rubbed out overnight and now she just has a couple spikes left. I'm pretty sure I like her original hair style better.
As for projects around the house, I finally got to putting something in these vases. I believe we got them for a housewarming gift. So that would make it almost 3 years that we've had them and they've been empty the whole time. I put them on top of the cabinets, but they remained empty. So then I bought some items to put in them, but then those sat in the closet for about a month. It seems I tend to start projects, but I'm not too good at finishing them in a timely manner. Every time I would go into the closet I would see the unfinished project, so I finally brought them out and told myself to get it done. I'm happy with the finished result. There has always been a lot of empty space on top of our cabinets. It's especially noticeable with our vaulted ceilings, so this fills up a little bit of the space, but I am still deciding how to fill the rest. If only decorating didn't cost any money, I could really get a lot done!

The picture you are seeing right now is one of the best I've ever taken. Not for quality purposes, simply because it means we got a new dishwasher! No more pruney hands for me. For the past couple months or so, I have been doing all the dishes by hand and definitely not enjoying it. It didn't have to go on for this long. Colby had actually bought one to surprise me for Valentine's Day, but I ended up finding out a couple of days before. We got to talking and he wanted to make sure he was doing the right thing without actually giving the secret away. Since money isn't flowing freely around here, he wanted to confirm that he should spend the money on a dishwasher instead of putting it on debt. So he finally told me what he had bought and I told him that I had heard of a few different things we could try to see if we could fix it ourselves. Maybe it was just buildup in the water hoses and we could fix it for a lot cheaper. So we decided to return the washer and I proceeded to find a solution myself. It worked for about 2 or 3 washes and then started to not function anymore. So we were back to square one. At least the timing worked out, we ended up getting a bigger tax refund than expected and so we went back to Sears and bought it again. It is one of the best gifts ever! Washing dishes by hand for a family of 3 wasn't horrible, but I'm sure if we had a few more kids, we would only have gone a few days without a dishwasher!
Now that I don't have to wash dishes by hand anymore, that means I have lots more time for crafting. Yay!!! Not that I need it, I seem to find time no matter how busy I am. The other day I made another trash bag for my mom's car, a grocery bag holder and a sandwich bag. All in one day! I was finally fed up with stuffing the grocery bags under the kitchen sink and having them spill out whenever I opened the cabinet. For the most part, we use reusable bags for this reason alone. We were collecting them a lot faster than we were using them. Now they will be neat and tidy hanging on the inside of the cabinet. As for the sandwich bag, I am quite proud of myself for this creation. I had seen a pattern on a blog a while back, but for the life of me, I could not find it again. So, I went ahead and made what I thought would be a funtional bag for Colby to use for his lunches. I was remarkably surprised how it turned out, Colby was equally impressed. I'm not a complete tree hugger, but I like to try and recylce whenever I can or just not use so much plastic in the first place. This will be a reusable and washable bag that can last for a long time. And I can admire my own handy work! My next attempt at a new project is going to be a quilt. Hopefully it will look good enough to post pictures. Stay tuned.

The Simple Things

Anyone who knows me, knows I love food. Especially a good dessert. So how happy was I to find some delicious strawberries at the grocery store. This makes me even more excited for spring and warm weather to arrive. I love eating strawberry shortcake in the warmer months. It takes care of my sweet tooth, but allows me to still feel like I didn't just gain 5 pounds! Also, one of my favorite dessert ingredients is chocolate, so I had to incorporate it somehow. It was just the right amount to hit the spot and make the dish look amazing. Colby was even impressed with my drizzling technique. I may just have to make it again this week!
On to our little chunker! Yesterday, she hit the 10 month mark. I honestly can't believe how fast the time flies. I love every stage that she does something new, but I wish I could stop her from growing up. I need to be better at savoring every moment because they definitely will not last. I just thought I would recap some of the things she is able to do these days. She's such a smart little girl!
- I'll just start off by saying she is not crawling yet. I know it's expected, but let's be honest, she is just not interested
- She does wave bye-bye as of about 4 days ago, but only if she feels like it
- Something she does feel like doing is dancing. No matter what music she hears (even me singing the alphabet song), she moves her little body side to side
- She makes lots of different sounds and says "dad." I am counting that as her first word, although I'm not quite sure why it wasn't "mom"!
- She loves to play peek-a-boo. Even if you're not playing she will lift something over her head, bring it down and give a big smile. That's our cue to start playing!
- She also loves to clap, especially when she does something good, just to make sure that we noticed it too
- She has been turning the lights off for a couple of months now, to help us save money of course!
I know I'm not remembering everything, but it is so exciting when she figures out how to do new things. Hopefully one of those things will be crawling in the next couple of weeks. As for now, I'm not complaining because those little hands are not getting into things they shouldn't be.

She was pretty tired after dancing to a few songs.


Ready for church in her spring dress and flip flops.

Just a quick post about the cute things I made yesterday. My friend Jackie and I got together and made a trash bag for our cars. I know it is much needed in our car, as long as Colby remembers to use it! It was so simple and turned out great. Thank you to Make It and Love It for the cute idea.

Another simple and fast project I found were these purses. I am really happy with the way they turned out. I will probably give some away as gifts. Although I'm sure others are not as obsessed as I am about purses. That's okay, I realize I have a problem. Thank you to Little Birdie Secrets for the purse idea.

Finally!!

So I finally got around to hanging these adorable pictures in the nursery. We ordered them when we first got the set before she was even born. That makes it 14 months that we've had them and you'd think since we payed extra money for the set, we would want to enjoy them. I guess we were still debating how her room would change in the coming years and didn't want to hang them in a spot where the hutch (that came with the changing table) would go. Hopefully they are in the right spot. I just don't like to make a lot of holes in the wall if they are not necessary. Anyway, I am pretty satisfied with the placement and I think they definitely add a lot to the room. Korina even noticed them and gave a smile!

As for my crafting adventures, I'm pretty sure they are causing me to slack off in other areas. Colby would probably attest to this. I don't have a list of the chores I should be doing or the dinners I should be making, but I sure have a list, it's a long one, of all the crafts and projects that I would love to attempt or finish. I might just have to set some limits and tell myself I can only work on one a week. But if the project only took one day to finish, the rest of the week could be very sad.

Here's some random flowers I made yesterday. I also made a hooded towel for Korina, but it shows my beginner skills so I will not post a picture of that one. I'm pretty sure I have too many crafts going on at any given time.

Counting on Spring

Can you actually believe it? Two posts within four days. I'm in shock myself. But here I am making good on my promise to do better. As you can see, I'm hoping that spring is just around the corner and since I already put this in my kitchen, I'm hoping I'm right. After Colby saw this, he said that he's happy to know that if he forgets what season it is or what he should wear that day, he can just walk into the kitchen and be reminded. I shrugged off his sarcasm because I was too busy being proud of what I had just finished. Even if it wasn't very hard of a project. I was just glad that it added a little something to my boring kitchen cabinets. I was also pleased to find out that you can create just about anything with spray paint and a glue gun, two essentials when crafting. It also works out well that they are two supplies that go a long way for the money. Speaking of spray paint, I had quite the experience when purchasing it at Walmart. Apparently you need to be 18 years old to purchase since kids probably use it to get high. So as the cashier scans it, the register beeps and the cashier needs to push yes or no if the customer is over 18. When this happened, the cashier stops and looks at me for a second and then asks if I had my ID. I told her I didn't (Colby was in the car and I had just run in), but that I was in fact 25 years old and she continues to look at me for a few more seconds. Was this a compliment or an insult? I don't mind looking younger than my age and I always have, but come on! Do I really look younger than 18? So she called another lady over and asked her if it was okay that I didn't have my ID. This lady also gives me a curious look before she tells the first cashier to go ahead and let me buy the spray paint. Lesson learned, but I'm still not sure what to conclude about the whole incident.
As for a side note about Korina, since she always gives us something to talk about. She was up to her mischievous ways once again. This is how her headband was when I left the room:













And this is what I found when I returned. Not quite sure how she managed to get the flower off, but at least she was happy!

Commitment to do Better

So I was talking to a friend the other day and she asked if I had a blog that she could look at. I replied yes, but told her that I am horrible at updating it and hardly ever post anything. She then replied, "Oh, you're one of those people." Then I got to thinking, if she meant those as in someone who has a blog just to say that they have one but doesn't bother maintaining it, I realized she was right. Thus, here I am. Vowing to be better at updating our lives even if no one is reading about it. I guess my thinking this whole time has been that I don't consider our lives to be very exciting and so most of the time I don't know what I would write about for an update. Our lives seem to revolve around the same few topics every month so why would everyone want to hear about them over and over again? Maybe this is why I never write in my journal either. I know I should be better for the sake of leaving our history for our children and grandchildren, so this is my commitment to keeping a more updated and detailed blog. And if the writing is boring, at least I will post cute pictures of Korina!

First I will talk about the company. We had the 5 year anniversary on January 6th and we celebrated in style. We had the board meeting at Noah's in South Jordan and decided to cater with Subway and Cold Stone. That may not sound like style, but it beat having me make sandwiches out of rolls and supplying homemade dessert. It was certainly nice not to do as much work. It's awesome to see how far the company has come and how many changes it has gone through in only 5 years. We are still wanting to get bigger and better, but there is a tiny little light ahead as far as reaching a point where we feel stable and not worried that all the hard work would be in vain. It's definitely exciting and scary trying to grow, but if it all comes together, boy would that be amazing.

On to our little muffin. Isn't she just so cute? And she just surprises us and makes us laugh more everyday. We had her 9 month appointment a few days ago and from the way my arms feel after carrying her around all day, I thought for sure she would be over 20 pounds. She was only 18.8. One thing needs to happen: I gain some arm muscle, or she learns to crawl. I'm pretty sure the latter needs to happen. We think she is definitely capable of doing more than she shows. Is it possible we have a lazy baby? From my understanding, babies are curious and anxious to explore the world around them. They scoot and crawl and if they fall over, they work to get themselves back up. If Korina tips over, she must figure there's nothing she can do about it because she just lays there and continues to play. We put her on her tummy, but so far, we can only see the tiniest movement of her bending her knees. I'm definitely not complaining because everyone tells me when they start to move, nothing is ever the same anymore. I'm just hoping the light turns on for her soon so she doesn't get too far behind. And so we don't disappoint the doctor at her 12 month appointment. He told us she has a lot of work to do before then.

Finally, the same friend that urged me to actually write on it if I have a blog, said I should post the crafts that I finish along the way. Too bad for Colby, my newest hobby is crafting of any and every kind. I just love to make things! Whenever I tell him I'm excited about a new idea, he just says, "How much will it cost me?" Luckily for him, I mostly choose crafts that involve little materials or cost, they are just time consuming. I have crocheted for a while always making baby blankets since that's all I know, but I tapped into the tiny creative spot in my brain and made some scarves. I say tiny spot because I am not coming up with these crafts on my own. I admit that I look at other blogs and steal the ideas right off of them. Good thing for me there are a whole bunch of very creative thinkers out there and I appreciate them being willing to share their ideas. These crafts may not be anything special, but I might as well post some pictures since I have such a good time making them. So thanks Jackie for urging me to finally write on this blog and it's good to know I have a craft addict like me in the neighborhood.