Holiday Craziness

This holiday season was so busy for our family. We had 6 Christmas'! Crazy. But, we got through them all without any bruises or scrapes....just incredibly awesome Christmas Presents! Ivy definitely got her practice of unwrapping presents! Christmas morning was just the four of us, and it was so calm and peaceful. The sun shining bright, Johnny Cash playing softly in the background, TJ's insanely potent morning breath! It was great.

Ivy had fun with the box to her Little People Town that my mom and Glenn got her.


And, she is totally in love with her Uncle Jeshua! He is staying with us at our house for a while, and she doesn't leave him alone! She'll bring all her toys to him and when he gets up, a HUGE amount of toys fall off from around him.I forgot a bib for Ivy when it came time to eat dinner at my Mom's Christmas. And, of course I didn't want to get her new outfit all messy, so we just took her shirt off and I caught her diggin in to Jeshua's bread!Besides her love of books and singing, Ivy is totally into coloring and drawing. For Christmas she got this doodle thing, and TJ's parents got her an awesome art easel with a chalkboard and dry erase, so she is totally set.

Christmas was just simply amazing this year. Ivy had a blast. Elouise was so good at all 6 Christmas'. And to top it all off......TJ and I got Wii Fit and an awesome camcorder!! AMAZING! I'm so grateful for all our family and all the gifts. I'm so grateful that my family and good friends could make it to Des Moines to visit. And I'm so grateful that it's finally all over with!!

HOLY CRAP!!

Christmas with my mom and brother is tomorrow and I still haven't finished making my mom's present!!!! I have to make it to that paper store on 5th street and then I can easily finish. Oh crap...and I have to stop by Walgreens, then take my brother to find some shoes. Whatever, it's just 30 degrees out and I'll be hauling 2 babies around. At least my brother is there to carry Ivy for me!

Okay, so here are a couple pics of some of my favorite ornaments on my tree....my poor, sad, crooked Christmas tree!

It's family time...whoa oh ohohoh...

These past couple weeks have been busy! My huge family Christmas was this past weekend. It was awesome. I love my family so much, and it was great to see everyone. I only remembered to take pictures one day of the whole weekend! Here are a few.
My cousin's husband, Josh, holding little Josh. And there's my main squeeze, TJ, with Elouise. Elouise and Joshie are only 3 weeks apart, so they will have eachother to beat up at future family get togethers!

And here's Ivy and Faith opening their PlayDoh! Ivy looks a bit discouraged with the whole wrapping paper thing. But loves her PlayDoh.

Whenever I ask TJ to at least pretend he's enjoying himself in a picture he gives me this SAME face! I have so many of him with Ivy like that, and now I'm stockin up on the ones with Elouise! It's hilarious.

Ivy was soooo crazy with excitment that I could barely capture a good picture of her! This is the best one I got! Her cousin Jourdan had to hold her still! She had a blast with everyone there. So did I. I can't wait until we see them all again!

And, my mom finished Elouise's baby blanket. She made one for Ivy when she was born, too. I just picked out the colors, and my mom did all the work! Next on her list...making me one!

My girls are insanely cute together. At least.....I think they are! I have so much fun just sitting and watching them interact with eachother. Ivy is starting to think Elouise is hilarious. Because Elouise is more active now, ya know, and when she does things Ivy just laughs at her! The other day, for example, Ivy and Elouise were laying next to eachother on our couch. All of a sudden, Elouise lets out a squak, and Ivy looks over at her really fast, laughs, and says to me "Elouise crazy"!

Ivy is also fascinated when Elouise sits next to her. She thinks it's the coolest thing. And, Elouise is so laid back, she's totally entertained by Ivy's rambling spoken thoughts.

Ivy loves to read, and recently, has loved reading to Elouise. Here's a pic I took after bathtime the other day.

Getting the season started of right!

Okay, so tonight TJ is putting up our Christmas tree, and what does he find in the bag with all the tree limbs? A more than half drinken plastic bottle of Jim Beam Whiskey! Hilarious! I have no idea why it is in there, and TJ claims to not remember!

Trees and Zombies

Thanksgiving is over. It's time to put up the tree.

I've never really been into decorating for Christmas until I had Ivy. And now that she's almost 2yrs old (in Jan!) celebrating the holidays is totally fun. So, I've rearranged my livingroom to make room for our Christmas tree. Fake tree. I'm not a "real" Christmas tree kind of girl, I never have been. And, I totally agree with the Jim Gaffigan skit when he refers to chopping down a tree and putting it in your house "sounds like the behavior of a drunk man". Hilarious skit. Click the link below and you'll find out what I'm talking about...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjJCIbC9sxA

I've been "crafting" a lot. It's so theraputic to make things. It's my "me time". Watch out friends and family....you're getting homemade presents! I've posted some more things on my Etsy site, so you should go check it out. Just click HERE!

I've been totally craving watching "28 Days Later" and so we are going to watch in a few minutes. It's been so long since I've seen it, and now that my bro is in town I have someone to watch it with at 1:00am. The ONLY time I really can ever enjoy a good zombie movie. Tj's too tired to stay up that late. So, I'm chugging this coffee and I'm off to watch some zombies.

Best Quote Ever!

" Love is not pretty, it's just a long line of poop jokes and cheap beer." - Sarah Hedlund

Courtesy of Jo's friend Sarah.

Coffee and Decoupage....

Man...it's 8am and I am drinking a can of Mt. Dew. It's very bad and very scarey! Because not only am I drinking soda in the morning, but it's also something my mom would totally do! Oh well. I would be drinking my good 'ol coffee with my french vanilla creamer, but I'm out of coffee filters! I forgot to grab some while at the store last night. It's very sad. Coffee is my drug of choice! Trying to keep going with the girls, man, I gotta have my coffee!Thanksgiving is tomorrow......and I have to make enought mashed potatoes for 10 adults, 2 tweens, and 2 toddlers! Okay, so the toddlers don't really count! T-day is at TJ's family's house this year. My mom will be in Kansas City with some family, so we're doing a dinner later this weekend. My brother is hopefully going to be staying with me tomorrow through Sunday. I don't get to see him often since he lives in Iowa City and is a 20yr old guy! So it'll be nice to have him around.

I've been working on my favorite thing....decoupage! It's the best thing ever. Decoupage make MY world go 'round. Here's a pic of a key/jewelry holder I finished:

My mom surprises me at times. Recently, she scored me an awesome garage sale find. A plasic, three drawer dresser full of tons of different laces and ribbons and strings. Most of the lace is vintage, it's great! And when I see vintage lace paired with scarey skulls, my heart melts with happiness! I decided to share my happiness with others and make some keychains/zipper pulls.

Snow

It snowed today. Ivy was so cute leaning her face on the window and repeatedly yelling, "It's snowing, mommy, it's snowing!". So, of course, we had to venture out into the white coldness. She had fun and her curiousity was out of control!




I added a few more items to my Etsy shop. There is still a ton more to come, just figuring out the time to finish stuff between our snow adventures, cheerio incidents, and story time!

It's here...

So, I have opened my Etsy shop. It's totally new and not even close to everything is up. I just wanted to get it started and get some stuff up. I'm unsure on how I want to price things. I don't want people to think I'm charging too much for crap they could make themselves! But at the same time, I don't want to charge too little because then it's really just not worth it, ya know. Any way it's up. All I have up are some gift tags. I have much more that I am working on....I just want to stress that. If you think it's crap or don't like it....I don't care! I'm just trying to do stuff. Here's an example of my favorite gift tags that I'll be making more similar ones of soon.

I guess the basis of most of my items would be comics. I've collected numerous older comic books over the past years and thought it'd be cool to incorporate that. I'm also making key holders and wall decor and maybe some greeting cards. I'm just making stuff that I personally would probably buy or be interested it. I'm not sure how far I will be taking these things, but this is only the beginning so we'll see.

The Hat.

The weather sucks. I totally wasn't prepared! It's cold and windy, and all I have is my big 'ol black hoodie to hide under! I'll be going winter coat shopping soon, and hope I find one. It's hard to find an inexpensive yet cute coat that is big enough for "my girls"! And also, I get to buy a new hat this year. TJ and I made an agreement. He started working a part time job on top of his full time job so we can make ends meet. Me working full time is kinda out of the question when you consider how much daycare would run us for two kids. And, the Grandma's ( or WahWah's as Ivy would say! ) are both working during the week, so no more free daycare! Therefore, I am only working part time. Anyway, back to mine and TJ's agreement! SO, his first day off in like 2 weeks and he was invited the night before to the last Iowa Hawkeyes Football game. For free. Yes, a really big deal to him. I've never been interested in sports. Even in highschool I think I only went to like one football game and was totally bored. It's just not my thing. I liked going to my brother's soccor games, but that's about it. So, here's TJ looking at me with his big blue eyes, hoping that I won't be too sad that we can't have a family day, and that I'll say "okay, go!". Of course I was going to let him go, but guess what I got out of it? A HAT! So, now I'm just debating on what color I am going for. Give me your input, please.

Here are my options:
BLUE
RUST

I'm leaning more towards the Blue. I'm always in all black, so I thought the Blue would be cool.

Another day....

So, there's lots of reasons why I started this blog. My main reason is i need to get my creative juices flowing. I'm finally getting into somewhat of a groove with my girls, so I need to finish projects that I have started. I wish I lived close to Jo and could partake in her craft night. Oh well. I WILL get things done.....soon. I totally want to open my Etsy shop. Another reason is just so all my good friends and family that aren't close by can see what I'm up to.

In other news, Elouise will be 2 months in a few days, and she's already sleeping at least 6 hrs straight a night. It's amazing. Last night she slept from midnight until a little before ten this morning. I feel more human when I get more sleep, so I'm happy she's in this routine so soon. She's so freakin pretty, I love her! She's so happy, too! .....most of the time!


And, Ivy is such a smarty pants. Her vocabulary amazes me and she has a such an imagination. She's also very girly! This morning, she let me paint her nails. She just sat there the whole time, and helped me blow on her nails til they were dry. She does this weird thing with her shirts.....she'll put one of her arms through the neck of the shirt along with her head. Like tonight, I put her in an old school Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sweatshirt (an awesome Goodwill find that TJ brought home when he used to work there like 5 yrs ago) that is huge on her but totally comfy. Here's what happened....

This guy....

There's this guy TJ that I've been hangin out with for awhile now! We became a couple in highschool. I was a senior and he was a junior. He was my first real relationship. I moved to Iowa from Arizona my junior year of highschool, and became good friends with a handful of people. That's how I met TJ. He was in a band and wrote a song about me....sweet, I know. That was about 8 years ago. We broke up for a couple years to explore life on our own, and here we are back together again. Two kids and a house later. He's the funniest person I know.

Here's us like a year after Highschool.

And here is TJ about a year ago.

Inspiration.

Here are my awesome girls! Ivy Jane and Elouise Mae! They are my life. I love them more than I knew I could ever love. Ivy will be 2 years old in January, and Elouise is 8 weeks old. They are so cute together.

Ready, Set.......

Yes, that's right, I started a blog.