Expanding my food horizons!

Now that I am a stay at home mom, I find that lunch is an annoying thing to deal with. On the one side I really want to have something yummy, but then I'm usually working on getting Ella her lunch so I don't like spending a lot of time on mine. So here is something fast. I bought sundried tomato bread from smiths, I pop that in the toaster then I cook an egg over medium. I slice up an avocado and put that on the toasted bread and then the egg on top. It is super yummy!! It takes about 6 minutes to make and it gives you protein, good fats in the avocado, a good bread, and even a little vegetable in the tomatoes. You should try it!

Get Caught up

Well it has been an eventful couple of weeks. Two weeks ago we went to Mesa AZ. Warren's sisters Sandy and Shaunna both got their endowments taken out at the Mesa temple. Eleanor started getting a cold that weekend so she was a terrible sleeper, so it wasn't a very fun weekend for me, but it was wonderful going through the Mesa temple. On our way back we went through Sedona and stopped at a little picnic area for a break. Eleanor had a cold for a week. Luckily she slept better the last half, it was sad to see her with all her boogers.

Then last week I caught strep throat. Luckily I went to the doctor the next day and got some pills so then I was only really painfully sick for a couple days. Michelle got married on Saturday May 1st. Me being sick was a bad thing and kind of a good thing. Bad: I missed out on the bachelorette party and I had to limit my party time so I wouldn't get anyone sick, couldn't help out very much with all the wedding stuff. Good: Didn't have to help out with all the wedding stuff (Warren was happy about that), went home and took a nap in between the ceremony and the reception, and just popped in to the reception and ate the food. :) But now I am feeling better do it is all good. Strep really wasn't that bad of a sickness, it just saps your energy.

Eleanor has such a personality, it is too funny. She likes to wear stuff around her neck. Any piece of fabric or string she tries to put over her head to see if it will lay around her neck. So I have an exercise band and any time she finds it she puts it on her neck and then crawls around like that the rest of the day.

Yesterday we were outside in the back yard enjoying the weather and I was watering the plants, Eleanor kept trying to play with the water so I cleaned off a garbage can lid and filled it with water. She started by just splashing it from the sides then she crawled inside and had a hey day splashing the water all over herself. Thats my ghetto swimming pool. :)

I had a really annoying online class, but luckily it is done with. I finished my last project last night which I don't think I did a great job on but really I didn't care at the end, I just wanted to finish it. My tomato plants all did great. I raised them from seeds and put a set in my garden and was left with 43 plants. So I gave some to my husband's coworkers and I still have some at home. Maybe I'll just get a bunch of pots and have a huge tomato crop this year. 

love this song!

Doing Good

Well the weather is kind of funky today. It is breezy and all the trees decided to pollinate today so there is just a ton of junk in the air. I'm feeling good except my throat feels scratchy which I don't know if it is because of the weather or because my medicine gives you dry mouth and that is turning into dry throat.

Eleanor had a wigging out moment last night. She woke up at midnight and was crying, I went in and picked her up, gave her the pacifier and she did not want that pacifier so she started crying even harder. So I thought, ok she must be hungry, I went to nurse her and she started screaming. Scared the heck out of me because it wasn't like any of her usual cries so I didn't know what she wanted. I took her into my bedroom and Warren was awake, turned on a bathroom light, and she's just sitting there shaking and screaming. Warren tries to rock her and then she's flailing her arms and screaming. So I set her on my lap and start singing some of her bedtime songs and she slowly calms down but with that shuttering whimper type breathing. We had to just sit there for a while singing and talking till she was a little more normal. Then I nursed her and took her back to bed. Warren commented that she is a drama queen already. I was just happy that she wasn't hurt. I think that is one of my worst fears is for her to be in pain and I don't know why or what to do to stop it.

Today!

Well I went to the doctor yesterday and first of all, I changed doctors and I went to a female doctor and it was so great! It was awesome because she knew exactly how I was feeling, she summarized all the negative and positive things I've been growing through and she made me feel much better. Her name is Dr. Culley over at South West Medical here in Anthem. Second thing, I'm a very natural minded person, I feel like if you have a physical problem you can solve it naturally with exercise or diet, so I'm not a big fan of medications. She explained that my feelings of depression and moodiness are very natural and it is perfectly normal to need a little help in feeling better. So I got a low dose prescription of Zoloft.

I tried it this morning and Wow! I feel better! It is the weirdest thing. It's not like I'm this amazingly happy person or anything but it just takes all my negative feelings and tones them down so they aren't taking over my brain. Hopefully I can eventually go off these in a couple months but it is nice to actually feel better and I can immediately feel a difference from my usual self and I like this feeling much more. I feel like I can accomplish more whereas before it took so much effort to even think of doing something and then I usually talked myself out of it. So if there are other new moms out there who are feeling depressed and overwhelmed, I understand and I hope you feel better.

Beautiful Monday

Well it is a fabulous Monday in Las Vegas. The weather is an amazing 74 degrees in my backyard resulting in all my windows being thrown open to welcome in the fresh air. Mmmm how I love fresh air in the house, you forget how stale it gets inside until you open everything up. We have some wonderful birds that have taken up residence near our home and they are a twitter all day. It makes for an enjoyable background noise. Lets see... some things that have made this day better.

1. I cut my own bangs. I've been thinking about bangs for a while but every time I go to my stylist he says something like "oh no you do not want bangs, here we will just add some layers on the side." But then I look at all my photos and I have this monstrous forehead, so I just cut my own. Neener neener to my hair stylist.
2. I made a doctors appointment and am able to get in today! I have been extremely moody for a while and I, and Warren, are getting sick of it so I'm getting a physical to see if it is a physical thing or if I am just crazy.
3. I cleaned off a cabinet, tidied up the office, and found Warren's missing cell phone charger. Hurray for me!
4. I found this awesome website thanks to the Perry's blog and I updated my template and learned how to add pages to my blog which will be something to work on.
5. I fit into my t-shirts from like 10 years ago when I was a page at whitney library.
6. I figured out that Eleanor is getting old enough so that she wants solids more and less nursing, I adjusted that today and she is doing great!
7. Along with number 6 I gave Eleanor cut up blueberries and string cheese as a snack and she was so cute to see picking them up and figuring out how to eat them without dropping them in her lap.
8. I was able to put up Ella's jumper in the office doorway so I could clean in the office and she could jump like it was the funnest thing in the world!

So yeah, I am doing good, which is nice because I was kind of depressed when I got up this morning, and that is the annoying thing that I didn't even know why I was depressed. Last week I went jogging three days during the week and I went to my exercise class but even with all those endorphins I was still moody, so I think it is something else, we will see.

Eleanor at almost 8 months

Ella has figured out how to stand up in her crib, luckily she is pretty short so I don't worry about her falling out yet. Warren bought this outfit for her back in november when he went to Florida, she is just now fitting into it. I love dressing her in colors other than pink but then of course you have the olderly people who say "Oh what a cute boy!" Its ok, I forgive all the old people out there because I will be old too someday. :(

Ella is a remote fanatic. She will do whatever possible to reach one if she sees it, she is also figuring out that the buttons do things. I love her little feet they are so soft and cute.

I shot this series of photos with Eleanor on our bed. She is just such a happy little spirit, it is so much fun. I started putting her to bed at 7pm last week and she is sleeping all night, it is awesome! She is also almost crawling. She gets on her knees and then she goes into a plank position and inches her way forward. I've been testing her by putting stuff she wants like 3 feet from her and seeing how long it takes her to get over to it, each day she gets better and better at it. We also have a jump seat that hangs in the doorway and she can actually jump in it now, she gets a rhythm going and bounces up and down. I was laughing at her last night because she was having so much fun and its great because it wears her out. I just love her so much, I'm so grateful for my little sweetheart.

cloudy friday

I feel very lonely today. It is interesting being a stay at home mom, you think it would be so much fun but really i gets very dulling, like I feel like I am getting duller. I have projects to do but then some little part of me goes "why are you doing those? What good will it do?" So alot of the time I end up not doing them. I just do little stuff around the house like clean up the kitchen, do the laundry, pick up clutter. Yesterday I was all excited because I vacuumed the whole house. I just feel out of touch with the world. I finished my website www.artsylasvegan.com and sent out the announcement to probably 50 people, 1 person wrote back. I feel like, why did I even put the effort into it? Is anyone even interested in it or was it just a big waste of time.

I decided to make bibs out of vintage sheets and terry cloth. I made one and it looks super cute then I was thinking of making more and selling them on Etsy but then I get discouraged and wonder if anyone would actually buy them. I keep stock piling art supplies to work on but then I don't actually work on any of them.

Every day I try to think of something that I can look forward to, like yesterday I took our change jar over to a coinstar. Today I was excited because I was going to go over to my old school, Western, to pick up some supplies that I left there but then I realized that it is a teacher inservice day so they will be in meetings and things so I don't know when I could go over. It just made my day into a real bummer.

And I know it seems stupid, like I'm just being emotional but it is just hard to deal with and I love being home with Eleanor, I just feel very insignificant sometimes. I think that is the main point of it right there is that I used to feel significant because I was needed to teach, if I didn't show up I would have 250 students wondering where I was and what I was doing. Now its just Eleanor and Warren, it is a difficult jump to make. I go on facebook to get in touch with people and no one writes me back or responds to what I'm doing, it feels like wow, this is how much influence and interest there is in me out there, zip. Oh well, maybe its just the clouds, I always have a harder time on cloudy days. I just have to be grateful for what I have.

Christmas 2009

So Christmas was pretty fun this year. We went to Barstow for Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. All of  Warren's family came and it was really great because they haven't seen Eleanor since like August so it was fun to show her off.
We drove back to Las Vegas on Christmas Day and spent the afternoon with my family. I didn't feel like taking photos so we don't have a lot of my family. Waren drove back to Barstow the day after christmas so he could go 4 wheeling with his sister Laurel. I was boring and stayed in Vegas and Hung out with my family.

Christmas 2009

Well this was definitely a fun Christmas. I think because it was Eleanor's first Christmas, it felt more like Christmas . I feel like the past couple times haven't felt very Christmasy so it was nice to get into the spirit of the season this year.

We started off by going to our Ward Christmas party which was a breakfast on Saturday the 19th.

Travis did a great job as Santa Claus, the funny thing was Ella had a hold of some of the hair in his beard and was ready to yank it off.

For Christmas Eve we traveled to Barstow CA to hang out with Warren's family. This is Warren's brother in law Dan and his son Derrick. Dan is married to Sandy, Warren's sister. It was alot of fun hanging out with their family. Derrick really liked Eleanor and he says her name so cute, he uses an h instead of an l so it sounds like ehenor. We also got to see Warren's siblings, Laurel, Shaunna and her husband Richard, Steven, and his parents. Steven was really nice and let us take over his room while we stayed. I was suprised at how well Ella did with all the niose. Our house is pretty quiet.

Sandy, Derrick showing off his Christmas stockings, Dan, and Linda.