June

Eleanor turned 11 months on May 26 and she will be 1 year old on the 26th of this month which is kind of crazy to think about. She is so much fun. She's getting pretty good at walking, she can do about 5 feet without falling and since she is so small it is funny to watch her walk around. I've been trying to get her recorded but whenever I pull the camera out she knows and then she wants to crawl over and see it.

Eleanor at 11 months

Laura and I went to first friday again this weekend and it was a ton of fun. We got mixed around when we were leaving but we found out there are some more galleries that we've never been in so we will test those out next time. 

Warren went to Los Angeles for the day on Saturday for a guy's day. They putzed around and then went to the Dodgers game. He got back at 3 am this morning so Ella and I hung out in the living room so he could sleep in. We used that as an excuse to stay home from church. :)

I love church but having three hours of it is kind of annoying because it always interrupts some nap for Ella and that throws her off for the rest of the day. We have the 9 am slot which is nice because then you have the rest of the day.

I am making a goal to have my own booth at first friday in October. I make all kinds of awesome stuff and I always want to do my own show and this will be my goal. I am also going to launch my Etsy sight in September so I can have cards ready for people to visit my site after they see my stuff at first friday. I think this will be a good goal for me because I love to make my art but sometimes I get discouraged about why I am doing it and this will give me a purpose. 

I made these two barrettes this weekend they are about 2 inches on the base and you can wear them in your hair or as a pin. The blue one I wore to first friday and I gave them to my sister michelle for her birthday today but I think she really just wanted some money or a gift card so I will get them back from her and give her a gift card instead. Let me know what you think of them, if you think someone would actually buy them. I would but then I'm me :) So it would be good to hear from "normal people." 

First Friday Art Night!

In Las Vegas the first friday of the month is art night. My best bud Laura and I have been going forever to this activity. We skip sometimes in the winter when it is too chilly and in the summer when it is a bit too warm. They open up all the art galleries in the downtown area from 6-10 pm with a shuttle. There is music and tons of people of all varieties. It is really my one girl night out of the month so I really look forward to it. Laura was the art teacher I shadows for my practicum and we've been best buds ever since. We are both turning 28 this year so we had fun complaining all evening about how old we are. I wanted to get a photo of us together but I forgot about it while we were putzing around. It is so funny to go because you have all these goth and emo high schoolers walking around trying to look all cool and artsy and you know they spend like an hour putting together their outfit just so it looks like they threw something on. Then you have all the gays and lesbians who flirt with each other. :P And all the wannabe artists who try so sell their crap to anybody. This time there weren't as many people because they were all at the San Ganero Italian festival. It made for a nice change because sometimes it is a pain trying to look at the art with everyone all crowding next to each other.

The bottom photo is of the train tracks that run through the area. We walk over those to get to the art galleries.
This time we started a new tradition. We went to Luv Its frozen custard after we got done and boy howdy was it good. If you are ever in the down town area it is the best custard in Las Vegas, it is off oaky and Las Vegas Blvd.

It is such a fun evening, but definitely not for the conservative person :)

Relief Society Activity

My Relief society asked me to paint a picture of a light house for their activity so I got some mat board since I needed it pretty big. Also they wanted me to put a little fish for each woman in our ward. So this is the finished painting and then I printed out little fish with the names on them and stuck them on in the water, but I didn't take a photo of it with the fish. It was lots of fun working on a painting and I was pretty happy with how it came out.

Icky Throw up days

Ella has been wanting to wanting to eat solid food lately so on wednesday I gave her a little hotdog, mozzarella cheese and some carrots. She didn't like the hotdog much so I ended up eating like 1 and a 1/2 hotdogs. Warren came home and we went to costco. I wasn't feeling too good so I thought some chocolate milk would help, then I tried some broccoli salad and some shrimp soup. I was feeling pretty lousy by the time we got home. I was putting Ella to bed and luckily got her into bed before rushing to the bathroom and throwing up. Went to R.S. activity, came home and threw up. Tried to sleep, but my stomach hurt. Ella woke up and wanted to feed but as I picked her up I knew I needed to get to the bathroom so I dropped her in bed with Warren and high tailed it in to upchuck again. At this point I'm like, there's nothing left, why am I still hurling? Poor Ella was screaming because she wanted to be fed, not hang out with Dad. Got her fed and back to bed, me back to bed. I woke up again at like 1:30 AM and had to hurl again. Luckily that was the last. Thursday I woke up feeling really gross. Warren had meetings so he couldn't stay home so I gave my mom a call. She was sweet enough to take the day off and come over to take care of me and Ella. Aren't moms great? Moms make everything better. I ate two pieces of toast on thursday and drank so chicken broth in the evening and that was about it. Woke up today and I feel much better but I'm still taking it easy on the food, mostly bread and liquids.

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.