Christmas is Coming!

I know, Thanksgiving hasn't even come yet, but I just finished making Christmas tags for a swap I'm doing on a message board, and seeing them finished gave me not only a sense of acomplishment, but excitement too for Christmas!

This year is extra special to me because not only is it Ruthie's first Christmas, it's also the first Christmas we'll have a real Christmas tree!  Last year we just had a small tree thing that was made out of cardboard and tensil -it was loaned to us by Jeff's Grandma- and I'm so grateful that I was finally able to purchase a real tree this year.  And I almost didn't get it because it was shipped to the wrong place -the Overstock.com warehouse in West Valley out of all places- and was rather upset because the UPS folks said they sent someone out to get it, but it was missing.. lo and behold it showed up about 5 days later!  So I'm now the excited owner of a 7.5 foot tall, prelit Christmas tree!

Then I came to a delemia.. how to decorate it?  I'm not a fan of the 'traditional' red and green for Christmas.. well not for a tree anyways- and I thought about it for a while, and then we went to Roberts one evening and I was able to decide on a color motif; pale pink and gold!  I'm not a huge fan of yellow gold at ALL when it comes to jewelry, but I love it for Christmas!  Anyway, since Robert's prints out a weekly coupon, I've decided instead of getting all the ornaments at once, I'm going to use a coupon once or twice a week until I get enough boxes!  Yay for 40% and 50% off coupons.  Anyway, here are the boxes I've bought so far; I plan on getting two more boxes of each box to have 96 ornaments total.

 

 (Ignore the mess on my crafting table please) 

I'm thinking to get two dozen icicles as well, but I haven't seen them yet, and I may not depending on what is available.  Jeff and I also decided we're going to get a star and not an angel, because we want to avoid Zoe screaming at us to let her play with the 'doll' on top of the Christmas tree.

The biggest debate now for me is do I make a skirt or do I just buy one?  I could make one no problem, and it'll give me greater flexibility in terms of fabrics and design, but on the other hand, Sewing for me lately has become a huge hassle, and that's something I'm wanting to avoid.  But I need to find a skirt that matches my ornaments, and one that's within a reasonable price range, but that may not be possible.

Well, there's slightly just two months before Christmas and at least 4 weeks until I put my tree up -I'm going to put it up sometime after Zoe's birthday and the first week of December- so I have time.  I can't believe how fast this year has blown by!

And can I just say, I'm EXCITED for tomorrow?  I just hope the forecast for rain is incorrect, and we'll just be passed over!

Trunk or Treat!

It went really well!  Zoe didn't get a ton of candy but that's okay, Halloween is next week and she'll get WAY more.. and according to my friend, in her neighborhood they give out BIG candy bars, so it's all good..  anyway here are some pictures.. more of Ruthie but Zoe's not inclinded to be photographed these days.

 

 This picture is classic.. it says "WHY AM I WEARING THIS RIDICULOUS OUTFIT??"   You can tell she's kind of peeved.  It might be the stroller more than anything else though.

 

 I love this picture of Ruthie!  She's kind of leaning back a bit and looking over her shoulder, which is so adorable!

 

 And here's Zoe in her costume giving a crazy face!

In case you can't tell they are both little skunks.  Anyway, that's all.. I will post more pictures after Halloween gets here!

Eight Times Five Tag & Extra

I got tagged by Linda, and I'm finally getting around to answering the questions!


Eight TV Shows that I LOVE to watch:
*I should add I do not watch TV anymore but the shows I'd like to watch are:

1. Cold Case Files
2. Days of Our Lives
3. Mythbusters
4. What Not to Wear
5. Trading Places
6. Diagnosis X
7. Extreme Home Makeover (my guilty favorite)
8. Mystery Diagnosis

Eight things I did yesterday: (not in any specific order)

1.  Got up out of bed.
2. Played World of Warcraft.
3. Sat on the phone for 25 minutes with Toys R Us customer service.
4. Went to Robert's Arts & Crafts.
5. Cooked dinner.
6. Played with Zoe.
7. Breastfed Ruthie.
8. Went to bed.
   

Eight Favorite Places to eat:

1. Souper Salad
2. Wendy's
3. Lonestar Steakhouse
4. Blimpie's
5. Subway's
6. Carl Jr's
7. Crown Burger
8. Tres Hombres

Eight Things I'm looking Forward to:

1. Putting up our first real family Christmas tree!
2. Finish buying ornaments for said Christmas tree!
3. Zoe's third birthday.
4. Ruthie's First Christmas.
5. Getting my new Cricut Machine.
6. Seeing the girls in their matching Halloween costumes.
7. Wrath of the Lich King Expansion release next month!
8. Getting my Christmas shopping and Zoe's birthday shopping done early!

Eight Things on my wishlist:

1. My new cricut to get here safe and sound.
2. Saving up enough money to buy a house.
3. My dad coming out for Thanksgiving or Christmas.
   
4. My mom & brother coming out for Christmas.
5. My sister moving out here next year.
6. Getting a good deal on a new TV since ours is going out.
7. Paying our car off early next year.
8. Being able to take a trip to Virginia in 2010!

And I got a request from my dear cousin Liz to post more pictures of the girls and of us.. and I will since tonight is the Trunk or Treat at Jeff's parents' ward!  I'm excited to get pictures of the girls in their matching costumes... speaking of which, I need to get ready for that!

And I only have  Valerie to tag.. so Valerie, you're it! to do the tag that is.. hehe.

Vandalism or Art?

Zoe LOVES to color.  Unfortunately, we haven't had the foresight to buy her any coloring books or any new crayons or colored pencils lately since she breaks the crayons everytime we give them to her.  She took my prismacolor colored pencils a while ago and was intent on coloring with them, and after we firmly told her to give them to me, the face she pulled was HEARTBREAKING.  She was just so sad and upset I teared up looking at her.  So I've been letting her play with my stamps and she's pretty good about keeping them in one place and not getting ink all over the place.  She also wanted to color the stamped images she did so I found some broken crayons in various places and gave them to her.  And well, last week when I wasn't looking she colored all over the blinds leading out to the patio.  I caught her again doing it and after telling her not to do it, she got the same look on her face, which has strengthen my resolve to get her some type of coloring book or something next time we're at the store.  Anyway, Zoe decided to take pictures of her 'artwork'.

 

Here's a zoom out of what she did.  I should mention she somehow marked ALL of the blinds.  I should mention that ZOE took this picture as well as the one below!

 

 And here's a closeup.  I know I need to clean it off, but at the same time, I don't have the heart to.  I'm a weird person like that.

I should also announce that Ruthie now has TWO TEETH!  The first one broke out around August 26th, and the second broke out between Sunday, September 14th, and Monday, September 15th.  She was EXTREMELY cranky that night and by the morning her tooth was poking out.  Here's the first picture of her with just one tooth.

 

What a pretty smile!  She was so happy since this was the first picture.  I tried a few more, but she kept getting grumpier and grumpier everytime that flash went off.

 

This one was just taken a few minutes ago while Jeff and Zoe were at Hollywood getting some new movies.  You can see her two teeth easily!

And I don't know if you can tell in these pictures, but her hair has really lightened up since she was born.  She's also got a good head of fuzzy hair, which is WAY more than Zoe did at this age. Zoe was still a baldie until after her first birthday.  We're not sure what color Ruthie's hair will be a this point, but it's pretty obvious it's not black, but it's not blonde either. It's taking on a reddish hue so who knows.. I may get my red headed baby after all!

Unfortunately, I don't have any recent pictures of Zoe since she likes to take pictures versus having pictures taken of her.  However here are two that have been taken in the last month or so.

 

Here's one she took of her feet.  Zoe has an unusual talent with taking pictures of random stuff and them coming out well.  I guess she wanted a picture of her pink toenails.  She's extremely obsessed with toenail polish and fingernail polish; if it's chipped she freaks out and wants me to reapply polish for her.

 

Here's one of Zoe vegging out in front of the TV.  I'm not sure what she's watching, but I love how she's munching on shredded carrots.  She'll go into the fridge, get something out and eat it.  I usually have to remind her to put it back when she's done though, but she LOVES when we have fruit and stuff for her to eat.  She'll request candy if we have it but usually it's fruit or veggies of some type.  Zoe has a well balanced diet; people are completely amazed at what she'll eat especially when their kids eat very little stuff or are just stuck on the good ole "chicken nuggets and cheetos with juice" diet.

Checkup Time!

Ruthie was supposed to have her 6 month check up about two weeks ago, but the Pediatrician had to go out of town so it got rescheduled to today.

She wouldn't lie still on the scale, so I had to sit her up, which she liked.  she weighed in at 16 pounds, 15.4 ounces.  Then we laid her down on the examination table and she was measured at 27.67 inches long!  Dr. A commented on how big she is; he said she's about the size of a 9 month old!  What a BIG GIRL!  She's sitting up on her own now -we have to put her into a sitting position since she can't get herself sitting yet- and last week she started saying MAMA!!  Of course, she usually says it when she's mad, but sometimes she'll randomly say it.  And when I look at her she smiles and giggles.  She's not saying it all the time, but that's still exciting.  Anyway here's some pictures of the girls.

This is Zoe at the park by Jeff's parents' house on Sunday, August 17th.  She's going up the playground equipment on her own; Jeff's off camera though waiting at the top.  I just love how she's climbing with confidence.

 Here's Zoe on the swing.  After a bad incident last fall before Ruthie was born, she seems to have forgotten about nearly falling out of the swing and having a blast.

Here's Ruthie sitting up big on Jeff's parents' front lawn, she's looking off camera at Wendy.  I love when small babies look at the camera, but some of the better pictures are when they are looking off camera.

This is just adorable.  I finally got Ruthie to look at the camera and she's scowling at me.

And here's Ruthie and Jeff having a moment!  I'm glad I was able to capture a real moment, not a created one.

Financial Goals

Jeff and I have been married for over three years now, and we've talked about owning our own home.. what we want in a home, where we would want to live; that type of thing.  Well, for the first time, we're actually planning ahead for our future home!  We finally decided it was time we started to get serious about saving and we've made a goal.  We want $10,000 in savings by December 31, 2009.  I'm sure we could have much more by then if we really tried, but I think with all other things, we need to take baby steps.  So, what I'm doing now is taking 8% out of every paycheck and putting that into savings.  Jeff also gets alot of mini bonuses once a month, so I plan on taking 20% of those and putting it into savings.  I'm going to do this and see how well it works, and if it works out, then I'll up it from 8% to 10% and 20% to 25% respectively.

Our other goal is paying our car off.  We got a five year loan for it in September of 2005, so if we continue paying the due payment, it'll be paid off in 25 months.  While it's only an $80 a month payment, we'd rather not be tied down with a monthly payment.  The payoff amount is $1,800, but if we continue on with the payment plan, we'd wind up paying a total of $2000.  Thats a savings of $200; and therefore that's $200 more that can go into savings!  So our short term goal is to have the car paid off by March 1st, 2009.  We'll pay extra on the car loan, and then whatever balance is left over when we file taxes, we pay it off and then put the rest of our tax return into savings.

What's nice is that we don't really need to budget, scrimp and do extra savings.  We still have a lot of flexibility within our lifestyle which is great.  I'm just glad we don't have a money monkey on our shoulder.

I Need to Update More.

Seriously, I do. It's been a very long time since I updated my blog. Jeff banged his toe and he's now only got nine toenails.. he went fishing last weekend and hit his toe on the boat while trying to unstick his foot from a ton of mud. And it resulted in him going to the doctor and having his toenail removed. I'll be kind and not post pictures.. we haven't even taken pictures! Um, anyway moving on.

We got a new couch last month after the 4th. I was bored so I decided to go and look at the classifieds to see what there was to see in the way of good deals on scrapbooking stuff. Well, there wasn't so I decided to go look in the furniture stuff and there was a sectional couch for sale! It was less than a week old, and the people were selling it for $300 instead of the original $900 they paid for it. I guess they were foreclosing or having to do a short sale on their home because they were having to move into an apartment and sell of most of their possessions. Why they didn't take the couch back to IKEA is beyond me.. they could have returned it with probably very little hassle. I'm not complaining though, I got an awesome sectional for a third of the price. It even still smelled new.

We put it in the same spot that the two love seats were at, but we're planning to switch the furniture around and have the TV on the opposite wall so we can have the couch at a better angle. It's a sectional with chaise and instead of having the chaise on the wall, we want that sticking out in the open. We're also planning on getting another section to have it fit more people.

Anyway, Zoe and Ruthie are doing well. We've sort of started Zoe on potty training, but she likes to play in the bathroom, so our effort isn't as diligent as it could be. She also stuck the seat on her head and got it stuck so... I don't know how serious she actually is about learning how to use the potty.

Ruthie just hit her 6 month mark this past Saturday, and it's so sweet! She's growing so fast, and it's awesome. She's got a cute little personality, but if she's tired she gets MAD. We also finally got her out of our bed and into her crib, which was surprisingly an easy transition. Zoe disliked it and we had many nights of her crying and screaming before she got used to the idea. I think Ruthie likes to roll around in her crib without bumping into people. She will also scoot if she's in the right mood too. I can't really call it crawling because she's not really doing it with the intent of moving from one place to another. We won't know how big she is until her appointment later on this month. I think it was supposed to be sometime this week, but something happened, and my pediatrician had to go out of town.

Here's some pictures of the last month or so!

We were able to watch fireworks two days in a row, both on the third and the fourth of July. Anyway, this I think is my favorite picture that was taken this year. My inlaws live up higher in the Salt Lake valley and this is a picture of two different fireworks shows going on at once. I didn't see this picture until I was going through my pictures on the computer and saw this. I must have captured it at a very precise moment, because it looks like a Supernova or something. I love it.


Then, on July 19th, we went to the COOLEST thing on earth: LLAMA FEST!!! I heard about it in 2004, and I've wanted to go every year since then, but we weren't able to make time to go until this year. It's so awesome! It's held down in Spanish Fork which is in the southern part of Utah Valley, past Provo. We didn't realize how big it actually is until we went.

This is the place that llama fest is held at every year, it's a Krishna temple that's in Spanish fork for Hindus. The building is pretty big.. and beautiful. And trust me, you can't miss it from the road since it sits on top of this hill.

This is a picture of a VERY CUTE little baby llama, also known a cría. I love llamas and this just reinforces my desire to have a llama farm someday.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen is llama racing. And if you can't tell already; if a llama doesn't want to race; it's not going to.

And last but not least, here's a cute picture of the girls playing with Jeff on the couch that was taken sometime in the last month. I love it!

I really need to focus on updating my blog more. Hope you enjoy that update!