Random

It has been a long week and I still have 2 days to go till my weekend; It's ok though because tomorrow Derek and I get to have a date night :)

At work we have a Fall Film Festival, I think they also have one in either Spring or Summer. So what they do is they rent out some of the theater rooms within a theater only for us and we get a certain amount of tickets and we can choose which movies we want to go to. The three movies they were doing were Wreck it Ralph, Breaking Dawn, and The Hobbit. I got 4 tickets and picked 2 for Breaking Dawn and 2 for The Hobbit. We get the tickets, a gift card to buy snacks and free popcorn :) The Breaking Dawn showings are for today, tomorrow, and Saturday; I should have gone today but I wanted to go Friday since it is closer to my weekend, lately I don't go out anywhere late since I have to wake up at 4:30am in the morning for work. The Hobbit doesn't come out till December, but I'm excited for that too. I am excited to see Breaking Dawn but at the same time I thought the book sucked so mostly it's just because I've committed so much time reading the books and watching the movies that I am excited. The other cool thing is that I got 2 extra tickets for Breaking Dawn because I submitted some pictures on our work instagram page :) Derek invited his coworker and his wife to come with us. I haven't been on a double date forever so that's kind of weird lol

On another note, I can't believe Alexis is 1 1/2! Alexis has her 18 month appt with her pedi this month. We have been to her doctor twice since her last visit because she got sick so her weight won't be a real surprise, because they did weigh her both times we went in. I am excited to find out how she is doing with everything else, developmentally. Now that Alexis is 1 year and 6 months I am starting to get ideas for her 2nd birthday lol I know Derek looked at me like I was crazy, which I probably am, but I am just so excited to plan her 2nd birthday. Plus this time we will hopefully be in our home and hopefully have a big enough backyard to be able to have it there :)

I am sooooooooo looking forward to the end of the month! We are going to finish up our Christmas shopping, for the most part. We bought Alexis her activity cube already, it was on sale at Target and we were going to get it for her anyway so it made sense. I ordered Alexis her stocking, one that she will have for years to come. I also ordered Alexis an ornament and a doll for her stocking. Pottery Barn had the stocking on sale and I won a $50 gift card at work because my team won the October challenge :) so I used that to get her stuff. I got Alexis the cutest ballerina stocking, it is huge! I thought it would be smaller but it is seriously huge. To go with her stocking I got Alexis a ballerina doll to put in her stocking. As you can see there is a ballerina theme here ;) We are putting Alexis in mommy and me baby ballet classes through SLC ballet for the Spring. I also got Alexis her ornament for this year, it's a glittery block ornament to signify the end of her baby years. I want to have a tradition of buying a new ornament every year for something new that has happened within the year :)

Excited for Breaking Dawn, Thanksgiving, and Christmas shopping!

October Fun!

I decided to post about Alexis' costume separately, otherwise this would have turned out to be a very long blog post.

This month has been pretty busy. Alexis had an ear infection about 3 weeks ago, so I had to miss work to take her to the doctor, then 2 weeks later she broke out in a rash and daycare told us we couldn't bring her in because they didn't know if it was contagious, so I had to miss work again to take her to the doctor and it turned out she had a reaction to the antibiotics she was taking for her ear infection, so again I had to miss work. I'm hoping Alexis won't be needing anymore doctor's visits at least not until her 18 month well visit.

I spent a lot of the month making Alexis' Halloween costume, so of course I was excited to show it off :) In October we went to a pumpkin patch, my work Trunk or Treat, and went Trick or Treating for Halloween.

On the 29th we went to Cornbelly's at Thanksgiving Point. It isn't exactly a Pumpkin Patch it's more like a ton of games and corn mazes and things like that. We put Alexis in her cute little outfit we bought her for the Pumpkin Patch. We took a ton of cute pictures and picked out the perfect pumpkin! She loved seeing all the kids there :) Here are some pics.

The day after Cornbelly's was my work Trunk or Treat, which was also at Thanksgiving Point at their barn. I had finished Alexis' costume and was super excited to show it off. At the Trunk or Treat they were taking pictures of the kids in costumes for a costume contest; I think the winner gets a gift card or something. I was excited to have them take a picture of Alexis and hopefully win the contest. Everyone loved her Boo costume. Apparently it was going around like wildfire because everywhere we went people were like "Hey someone told me about the Boo costume" lol we even had someone ask to get a picture of her. I will upload the professional picture as soon as they send them out at work and hopefully will win the contest :) for now here are some pictures.

On Halloween I had to work, but it wasn't too bad. We had this contest within our team all month, we got split into 4 mini teams and I was the leader for our team. We tried super hard and have been ahead the whole month and it got pretty close the last day so we don't know yet but hopefully we pulled through, there is a $50 gift card for each person on the team that wins, so I definitely want that :) Alexis wore her cute outfit to daycare she had worn to the pumpkin patch and they gave her a glow stick for Halloween, she also made some cute little crafts with her footprint and paint that they sent home with her, they are too cute. We went out Trick or Treating that night, I had originally planned to just take her around in the stroller and have her look at all the little kids in their costumes, she wasn't going to eat any candy anyway so I figured it wouldn't matter, but we ended up going with Derek's uncle and his kids; Derek didn't feel well so he didn't come out with us. Alexis was so excited, she was shrieking and running around and just so happy to be going around door to door. Here are some pictures from the night.

My little Boo was so cute. October was an amazing month with lots of fun memories :) I am so excited for the Holidays, mostly Christmas. Enjoy <3 \

P.S. Alexis has been giving kisses for a while now, but stopped for a bit and now she is giving them like crazy, leaning in and giving me kisses and shaking like crazy from excitement lol I love her so much <3

How To Make A Monsters Inc Boo Costume :)

So I decided to post a blog specifically on how I made the Monster's Inc Boo Costume. First let's talk about how this even came to be, making the costume and all. I was going to have Alexis be a bumble bee or ladybug, but everyone kept telling us she looked like boo, so I decided to just make the costume :)

So my background in sewing was limited to a class I took my freshman year in high school. I made 2 quilts with different fabric and sewing patterns, a pair of shorts, a shirt, and a purse. I got an A in the class so I guess it wasn't too bad. So I searched the internet to see if I could find a tutorial on how to make the costume. I found this website. I followed this for the most part except for using a different purple fabric, making an undershirt, and I didn't make the hood as big. When I started this project, I thought that I would do my best and hopefully it would turn out ok, but I definitely surprised myself with how great it turned out :)

Here is how I did it:

First I bought the fabric, I went off of what I saw on the website, aside from choosing different fabric for the suit and the fabric for the shirt. The Fabric total as well as safety pins, velcro, pipe cleaners, styrofoam and thread came out to about $38.

There weren't any specific measurements for everything on the site so I measured Alexis and went off of that. I started with the fabric I measured out and pinned it into a rectangle with the batting and sewed around the edges. Then sewed 3 lines across the fabric to make the shape of the outfit. I cut arm circles into the fabric, I think I may have made them a little to big but I was winging it, it ended up working out fine. I also added the teeth to the body. Finally I added the velcro to keep the costume together.

After the body I made a shirt and pants. I just took one of Alexis' shirts and her pants an cut out a pattern. I ended up not using the paints, the body was long enough so that I didn't need them.

After being done with all that, which I did feel was the easiest part It took me a couple of days to get started on what I would call the "hood". I didn't want to make it too big or too small. I didn't want it to cover her face, I wanted it to just rest right above her forehead. So I measured her head across and went a couple of inches out. I cut the fabric in a crescent shape and stuffed it with some batting and sewed around the edges and sewed the teeth on. I wanted to stay as true to Boo so I made sure she had the right amount of teeth on there.

I took the styrofoam balls and using a sharpie colored in half of the "eye" and colored in circles for the pupils. I took 2 pipe cleaners,for each eye, and twisted them together and stuck it in the back of the "eye". I then took my dollar tree mop and used the mop hair for the hood. I sewed it on by hand, I wanted to put enough of it on the hood but not too much. After I finished the "hair" I sewed the pipe cleaners onto the hood, which was not easy, you can't really sew through the pipe cleaners, so what I did was sew the "hair" really tight around them and it worked :)

Finally I used elastic to sew the hood onto the body and it was done!

I had to use some safety pins; I had sewn the elastic a little too high so I used a couple of safety pins in the back to hold it down better. Here is Alexis at my work Trunk or Treat on the 30th. She was a hit!

Excited For 2013

This year has gone by so fast; I know that 2013 will be here before we know it!

I figured it was time for an update. I was going to blog on one of my days off but I just never got around to it. So I've been working my new work schedule for almost 2 weeks and I love it! It's so nice to have 3 days in a row off and work the other 4; Don't get me wrong, it is difficult at times to work 10 hours straight, the last 2 hours are the hardest, but it is so worth it. It's nice to have team meetings and things like that through out my day to break up my 10 hours, so on those days I am very appreciative :) The 10 hours, I'm sure, are made more difficult because of the no carb thing lol. (I am thinking about working towards becoming an at home agent ;))

Speaking of no carb. So when I first decided to go on this "diet" I was going to do completely no carb, but as I went along I decided that I would do more of a low carb thing. Most of my day is made up of no carb, from 5am to about 5pm I have no carbs, work makes it really easy for me to do that. At work I have a banana in the morning, for my first break I have a ton of fruit, lunch I have chicken, salmon or salad, for my second break I have an apple or pear and that's about it till I'm off work. I have lots of water throughout the day as well.

I'm doing a low carb diet over a no carb because I have some exceptions for carbs that I am eating. I do eat croutons with my salad, because I love them and can't imagine eating a salad without them, for the most part ;) I'm eating black beans and brown rice which are considered complex carbohydrates and they have a lot of protein so that's still staying on the more healthy side.

It's been a little over a week and the first week was so hard. I had a massive headache almost everyday but now I think my body is getting used to it. Also, I am not drinking soda so I'm sure that contributes to the headaches, I am by no means addicted to soda, I would drink very little when I did. It feels good to be eating well and working out. I can't wait to see some results :)

I am so excited for Halloween, Thanksgiving (not as much), and Christmas! Next week I am going to go buy the stuff to make Alexis' Boo costume. We were watching Monsters Inc last night for some inspiration :) Alexis is going to be so cute in her costume. I hope I can do a really good job. We are planning on going to a pumpkin patch at Thanksgiving Point, not this weekend but next to get some pumpkins and have a fun family outing :) For work we have several cool stuff going on this month. The one I am looking forward to the most is our "Trunk or Treat", which is at Thanksgiving point they are going to have different little areas with candy, games, and costume contest for the kids :) that is on the 30th and then on Halloween we will just be taking Alexis for a stroll around the neighborhood to look at all the other kids in their costumes and to show off hers ;) Alexis loves kids and I know she will have a blast looking at their costumes.

For Thanksgiving we plan on just spending time as a family the three of us :) It'll be nice to just have some time away to be together as a family.

For Christmas we are planning on going to San Diego and doing the Zoo, Wild Animal Park, and Sea World thing. I am really excited about that, I did get the time off work so I can't wait. I also can't wait to buy presents and decorate and bake :) Depending on how far I get on my diet I may make some exceptions for holiday baking ;)

I am really excited for next year. Derek and I are planning to buy a house, I know I blogged about this before. I wanted to just get into a new construction home and not have to worry about doing any work but Derek has convinced me about a remodel. We can get an older home for a lower price and make whatever updates we want, at least on the inside. The more I thought about it, and the more he convinced me, the more I realized that buying a new home is definitely not going to have all of the things I want so from there the choice was clear. We have been doing some research online on some older homes and it looks promising.

My big requirements are 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, I know for a starter home 4 bedrooms may seem like much, but we live in Utah 4 bedrooms is not to unattainable. Plus I would like for us to have an office, if i do want to work from home and if Derek and I go back to school that is going to really come in handy. I do want to have a decent sized backyard, keeping Alexis' 2nd birthday in mind. I want a big kitchen with an open floorplan, so definitely being able to buy a home and gut it and do what we want with it, is the answer. Derek has been talking to a ton of guys that he works with that have recently purchased a home and that have experience with construction so he has guys that totally want to help him out once we buy our home so that is going to help us out a lot :) My biggest thing is our kitchen I want a gourmet style kitchen with nice appliances and all of that and doing a remodel is going to give me the freedom to pretty put together the kitchen I want. I have been pinning like crazy on Pinterest all my ideas ;) We get a corprate discount at Sears on appliances for people remodeling, building, or moving, so it'll be awesome to save money on appliances being able to use the discount.

Derek and I have been paying things down and working on getting all our debt payed off before next year so we are in a good position, though I don't imagine it will be a problem. So these next few months we are going to balance paying things down and enjoying the holidays :) I am so excited to work towards getting into our new home. Even though getting into an older home and remodeling is not ideal, it'll give us the most return on our money for when we are ready to move back to California in a couple of years.

Anyway, on to my baby girl. Alexis is such a ball of energy, she is always moving. I had to take her to her pediatrician on Tuesday to get a dose for one of her vaccinations that daycare said she needed or she wouldn't be able to continue, Utah seems to require different vaccinations than California. She was such a trooper though, she got the shot and cried for maybe a minute and then got happy staring at the murals on the wall :) She is doing amazing at daycare :) She did fall at daycare the other day and had her first "ouch" report, is what they call it lol, she just bumped her head but was ok. Alexis is looking older and older everyday especially with the new clothes that I bought her. Alexis also has a new tooth that has come in I believe it's her 13th or 14th have to check her tooth chart. She also loves when I brush her teeth, she has her little toothbrush and toothpaste and is such a big girl, letting me brush her teeth at night and in the morning.

Random: Alexis loves pickles! This makes me really excited only because Derek doesn't like pickles, so I'm so happy that Alexis will partake of them with me :)

I am trying to think of what else is new. I am finally going to get Alexis her stroller. I had originally wanted to get the Quinny Buzz 3, but they never have the color that I want :( I thought about getting a baby trend.

But I don't really like it that much. I feel like it's too big and bulky. My brother has one and he said it's really big and heavy to carry around. Plus I think the speaker thing on there is kind of weird and don't care for it. Plus apparently the Britax stroller is good for jogging as well. My good friend Amandalyn has the Britax B-Agile.

When we went shopping I got to see it in action and I like it because it's a more similar style as the Quinny, more sleek and lightweight; I found a really good deal on it as well, I'm excited to get this at the end of the month :)

I think that's all I have for now :)

Oh Fall, How I Have Missed You So!

Fall is absolutely my favorite season :) November is my favorite month and Christmas is my favorite holiday! I love the cold, the beautiful colors, and the amazing warm feeling I get when I think of the holidays.

I have already started a Christmas list for Alexis :) Last year we didn't get her a ton of stuff, but this year i am definitely making up for it, not going crazy, but definitely she is going to have some cool stuff.

I am in love with this ballerina stocking I saw today and it got me all excited so I decided to make a potential Christmas list. I love that Alexis will have all of this to look back on. I love thinking that some day she will have this blog to read [I do plan on printing this out and making a book for her in the future] and see how much Derek and I love her and want to make the holidays special for her :)

Ok so this was just a short rant on how much I love Fall.

Oh ya I got my schedule change approved. I will be working 4, 10 hour days, Wednesday-Saturday 6am-2:30pm. So excited to be able to have Alexis home with me one more day of the week and also excited to save that money since she will be in daycare one less day.

That is all :)

P.S. I have the coolest little girl ever. She is a rockstar in the making ;)

Our Week In Southern California

I started writing this last night and didn't finish because of the game last night. Before I go back to finishing this blog I must say how pissed/disappointed/frustrated so many other words I could use to describe how I feel about the Green Bay-Seattle game last night. The call was bullshit and everyone knows it. The NFL needs to take their heads out of their asses. These refs cost us the game and that is not ok. Rant over.

So...

It is so hard to come back after a week off. It was really nice for Derek and I to have a break from work, even though he was working that whole week, and it was nice for Alexis to have a break from daycare and spend all her time with us and my family and friends.

So I got off work early last Saturday so we left at around 2:30pm and got to Southern California at around 11:30pm. Alexis was asleep when we got there so we put her right to bed and stayed up for a little bit and hung out. I didn't get to see my niece very much when we first got there because she was asleep, but we got to hang out with my brothers, it was nice seeing them.

On Sunday we went to see my mom and my other brothers and they were so happy to see Alexis. Alexis was walking all over, no more crawling for her. My mom and brothers were so happy they got to see her walking. After visiting with my mom, Alex and baby came with us to my dad's shop because he was going to change our brakes and change our oil. It was so nice to get those things taken care of and really nice to see my dad again. Alexis did not like all the noise from my dad changing our brakes lol but she liked walking around the shop.

After we got done with that we went to the West Covina Westfield mall and finally got Alexis' ears pierced :) She was such a trooper, we gave her some Tylenol right before and she cried for maybe a minute and then was perfectly fine. I am so glad we went to Piercing Pagoda instead of Claire's, because I heard horror stories about them and had heard great things about Piercing Pagoda. The only thing that was not so great about her ear piercing was that we had picked out specific earrings, they were 14k white gold with little cubic zirconium and when the girl put the first earring in, they do it with a gun, it turns out the gun had the wrong earring! I was holding Alexis and the second the girl pierced her left ear she was crying and the girl asked me if I wanted her to re-pierce with the right earring. I was worried about Alexis being in more pain so I said no. She finished piercing her ears and told me that the company kept sending them the wrong earrings prepackaged in the guns and she kept apologizing; I know she felt really bad. In any other situation I would have complained and asked for my money back but all I cared about was Alexis not being in more pain and the earrings that she got actually cost more than what we paid, but I still don't really like them. They are 14k gold but they are yellow gold, which I don't really care for, and are in a butterfly shape with cubic zirconium. Alexis has to have these in for at least 6 weeks without taking them out and then I can put different ones in so it's not so bad, all that matters is that they are 14k gold to prevent any irritation. It has been really easy cleaning her ears, I do it when she's asleep in the morning and at night and even have done it when she is awake and she doesn't fight me. She also does not play with them or pull at them or anything, so it makes it that much easier. Here is my cutie with her earrings.

From Sunday afternoon till about Thursday I really did nothing lol, which really was the best part of my whole vacation. I got to sleep in and hang out and do absolutely nothing. I did go to the store with my mom and had lunch with my dad and things like that, but for the most part did nothing until Friday. Well I did spend a lot of time, as much as I could, with my little niece Harlow :) She was so precious and Alexis loved her, she was hugging on her and touching her hair. Here are some pictures.

Friday was a busy busy day. Derek and I went out and bought some baby gifts for the 3 newest baby girls in my life :) in the afternoon Amandalyn and I went baby clothes shopping so I finally got to meet little Aubrey and gave Amandalyn her gift :) I bought a ton of cute things for Alexis. She needed more clothes because she was pretty much all grown out of her clothes and needed some warmer clothes anyway. Here are some pictures of what I bought her.

I am so in love with the red coat and the brown boots. After shopping Derek, Alexis, and myself meet up with Magaly and Kathy for dinner. I missed my best friends so much so it was nice to see them again and Alexis loved spending time with them. We had fun catching up. Never a dull moment with Magaly and Kathy. Sadly I wasn't able to see Tabby, Sammy Bear or Rachel on this trip but we will be back down there for Christmas for sure, maybe for Thanksgiving.

So we were originally going to leave Sunday morning, but decided to leave Saturday in the early afternoon and cut the trip in half. The cruise control on Derek's car, for some reason has not been working for the last couple of weeks so he really needed a break. We stopped in Mesquite and stayed at the Virgin River hotel. It was nice to be able to cut the trip in half. We ate some food and hung out in the room, Alexis was walking all over, and we decided to go to the arcade and play some games an called it a night. We got Alexis some fun stuff with all the tickets we got :)

Well now that we are back from our trip I thought it would be harder to get back into the groove, but work was awesome today, especially because I got a raise :) So that was definitely something to look forward to. Also I sent a schedule change request. I currently work 8 hour days 5 days a week, usually more than that because I am always picking up extra hours. Well I really want to work 4 10 hour days so I put in a request to have Tuesdays off [I already have Sunday and Monday off] and work 10 hour days Wednesday-Saturday, so hopefully they approve it; I don't really care if it's Tuesday that I have off but it would be nice to have the 3 days off in row. I really want to be able to have Alexis home from daycare one more day of the week, right now she is going Tuesday-Friday so it would be nice to bring her down to 3 days which would save on daycare cost and would mean we get to spend more time together.

Well that is it for now, Enjoy :)

What's New?

So we have been so busy with work and sleep lol that I just realized today that I really need to blog. I was going to wait till tomorrow or Sunday but I won't be going to bed for another 20 minutes so I figured I would do it now. There is a ton I need to update on.

Work: I have been working a lot and picking up extra hours almost everyday, which is exhausting, but totally worth it. I go in at 6am and usually don't leave till 4pm. I have been thinking about putting in a schedule change request to work 4 ten hour days but there are a ton of extra hours that it would be harder to pick up hours if I was already working 10 hour days, that would probably be mentally impossible lol. Well, a workforce coordinator position opened up at work and I submitted my application. It's more towards what I want to move into like HR and all that so I have an interview for it on Monday :) I am excited and really hope I get it!

Fitness: I have started working out at the gym at work. I started working out at home on the bike, but being able to work out at the gym has been amazing. I usually pick up an hour or 2 and work out for an hour afterwards. I missed working out so I love it! I have been trying to be good with what I'm eating too :)

Alexis: My little Lexi is fabulous :) She is getting so big. She apparently is walking at daycare all the time. At home she will do it sometimes but it's like she doesn't like doing it; She can but just won't do it. She stands there and squats and stands back up but when it comes to walking she will just kneel and crawl.

Alexis had her first dentist appointment this past Wednesday! I made an appointment at My Kids Dentist, they are the cutest place ever. They are decorated with tons of kid stuff and is just super cute. The dentist was super nice. They cleaned Alexis teeth and he just talked to use about what she should and shouldn't be eating, which we already don't give her sweets or any of that. After the appointment they gave Alexis a free electric toothbrush lol which is like this Cinderella toothbrush for like 3 year olds and up; So she definitely won't be using it anytime soon. They also gave Alexis this cute little shirt, it's too big for her right now, it's cute though. This is the toothbrush Alexis is using right now :)

The toothpaste we had bought for Alexis was Fluoride free but the dentist told us we should buy some with fluoride. Alexis doesn't have to go back to see him till she's 2 1/2 so that's nice :)

At daycare, Alexis was supposed to be moved up to the next room but they put her in there one day and told us they were moving her but then they didn't. Well they told me yesterday that they will be sending us a letter letting us know that she is being moved to the next room on Tuesday :) One of the other girls is also moving up to the next room with her. They said Alexis did amazing in the other room with the older kids, so I am really excited for her. I know she'll love being outside more and will love playing with all the bigger and better toys they have in there.

Alexis is showing off her little personality more and more everyday. She does the cutest things. Sometimes when I talk, I move my hands around a lot and she will mimic me and wave her hands around. She laughs so much, like rolling giggles and I love it.

Oh ya, we bought some Piggy Paint and Alexis loves it. It came in pink and like a turquoise/teal color. Alexis wanted to try pink first, I did have to wait to paint her toenails till she went down for a nap ;) she loves it. She plays with her feet and just stares. She looks so girly with her toes painted, I love it!

Our Trip: One week from tomorrow is our trip to Southern California. I am so very excited to have 10 days off. Yay for paid time off! I will be sure to post about our trip once we get back. I probably will not be posting this next week or during our vacay :)

That is all for now :) Enjoy.