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!

June 17th- June 22nd

Well, my Dad came and went. Jeff went and came. Overall it was a really filled week.

Tuesday the 17th, is when my Dad flew into town. We didn't do anything that day because we didn't realize all 5 of us would fit into the car. Then Wednesday morning, Jeff got picked up by his old supervisor -who was 15 minutes late- and he left to Chicago. And while he was up in the air and flying, my dad and I took the girls and went down south to Lehi to visit an outdoor sportstore called Cabela's. If you have never been to Cabela's, you're seriously missing out. It's an awesome store that sells EVERYTHING for enjoying the outdoors. Fishing rods, hiking boots, dog collars with radios attached to them, swimming stuff... they have it all. There's also a little eatery place, and they've also got fish aquariums and even a museum type room as well... called the game room; its got stuffed game like deer and whatnot. I took some pictures while we were there.

Here's a catfish. Yes it's white, but it's not albino. I wasn't able to get a good picture, but the catfish has regular colored eyes. Instead it has a condition called Leucism, which is REDUCED pigmentation, not LACK OF pigmentation. It was fascinating.






Here is a spawning trout of some kind. You can't tell very well since I didn't have the flash on, and therefore the picture came out super dark, but it's got brighter scaled and the mouth is a bit hooked, which is what happens when they spawn. Anyway, this one was a HUGE fish, had to be at least two feet long.

Here is a display thing that was in the middle of the store. It was HUGE and it's only the center half of it. What's crazy is that my Dad's been to a few other Cabela's, and he said we have the smallest store he's been to. It's nuts knowing that there's stores bigger than ours.





Anyway, after going to Cabela's we decided to head further south into Orem since I wanted to check out a scrapbooking store called Archivers. It's the only one in the state and the next closest one is in Denver, Colorado. I was extremely surprised it was actually in University Mall. I went into the store, got some stuff and then we mosied around the rest of the mall, and got some smoothies from Orange Julius. At that point the girls were getting grumpy so we headed home. We had left around 11:30, and didn't get home until after 6:00. I tell you they are NOT used to being out and about all day like that. I also got a really cute video of Ruthie trying out Butternut Squash for the first time! I don't think she liked it very much, but we can try again later!

The next day on Thursday, we went to IKEA. We ate in the cafe -I had the meatballs and mashed potatoes with lingonberries and my dad had the salmon- and I bought a little highchair with the tray and an inflatable support for smaller babies, a package of paper for Zoe to color on, and some cardboard storage boxes. Ruthie is no longer in 0-3 month clothing, so we're at the point now that we can start packing the smaller stuff away. Then afterward, we went to Old Navy since Zoe needed a new swimsuit, and I also had a "10 bucks back" coupon from using my store card and earning points. I also got Zoe a pair of shorts and two shirts, and Ruthie got a cute little spagetti top bubble shaped one piece suit, and she also got a pair of shorts and a top. It cost me around $30, but I saved about $65 between the $10 off coupon and the fact I got everything off the clearance rack.

After going home and resting for a while, we went back out to eat dinner at Tres Hombres. And unfortunately, the food wasn't all that great on Thursday for some reason. I actually got really sick from it, which is a first. Then after Tres Hombres, we went to Robert's Arts & Crafts, but they didn't have what I was looking for, so we had to drive to Michael's. I found what I was looking for there, and we went home.

On Friday, we attempted to take the girls to the Zoo. I say attempted because one or both of them were crying the whole time we were there. We did spend maybe an hour there, 1.5 hours tops. Zoe did like looking around at the animals, but she eventually got too hot and cranky so we left before seeing the whole Zoo. I don't plan on ever taking them back again in the middle of the summer. And besides, it was packed to the gills, we were SO lucky to get a reasonably close parking space. I did however mange to take some pictures!

This elephant must have been really bored because she -all of the zoo's elephants are females- was pulling the wood off of the enclosure and started tossing the wood around. It was making a lot of noise and Zoe started freaking out, so my dad said "We better leave before somebody gets killed." Leave as in the elephant area, not the whole zoo.


So, this alligator is on loan until around September first. And again, it's not albino, but leucistic. It was really boring and just laid there, but it gave a good photo opportunity. I was surprised at how small it was too. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get the whole head into the picture, Zoe wasn't feeling like cooperating with me, since she was crabby from the heat.

After going home and resting, we went to Jeff's parents house to visit and ate pizza for dinner. Wendy was watching my BIL Andy's kids, and Melissa and Devin showed up with their son, so we had a full house with all 7 grandkids. It was nice, and my Dad and John had fun going back from the current War to Iraq and back in America's warfare history. Thankfully, I was able to cut them off before they started talking about the Korean War.

Then on Saturday, we went to Fashion Place mall, and I went into Nordstrom's to buy some BareMinerals makeup. We ate lunch, walked around and then went home for a while. Then we finally decided it was time to go swimming! So I strapped Zoe into her new bathing suit, and put Ruthie in Zoe's old one and we went out. Zoe clung on me for dear life the whole time, mostly crying "Mama hold Zoe." and "Want Dora Towel." and "Zoe sit down." while she was pointing to the chairs. My dad swam around with Ruthie who actually fell asleep! Unfortunately, we forgot to put sunscreen on the girls and Ruthie got sunburned a bit. But she's fine now. Zoe did however warm up to the idea of the swimming pool which is good. We'll have to take her out there more so she can get used to the idea of swimming. After drying off and whatnot, we went to Walmart, where my dad bought some stuff to Grill. We had chicken drumsticks and some Pork ribs, which came out great. Zoe finally got some large legos and she was having a blast with those; they even had them in pinks and pastel blue for little girls.

Sunday was when Jeff came home! It was so nice to have him back. Because we were so busy, I didn't really miss him too much, but it did get lonely at night, not having him in the bed with me. My dad drove to the airport to pick him up of course, and I stayed home with the girls. Zoe was really surprised to see him; I can't really say she was super excited to see him because she didn't at once ask where he was or anything, but she did hug him and sit on his lap. Funnily enough, she didn't show any interest in him until he said "Zoe, I got you something." then that's when she came running over. After that, we went to dinner at Jeff's parents' house for our customary Sunday dinner, and we played a bit of Wii and just sat around and talked some more. I got a super cute picture of Ruthie and my dad; seeing how she was the only one of the two that let him touch her. Zoe never really did warm up to my Dad, which I know bothered him.

There's really strong family resemblance here!

There's more to the week, but I'd rather get Jeff's narration for Monday's fishing adventure! It was exciting I can tell you that, but I'm really glad I didn't go.

It's JUNE!!

Lots of things are happening this month for our family! First and biggest thing is that Jeff will be traveling away from us for a few days to Chicago to eBay Live! In case you don't know what that is, it's a huge convention that eBay does every year for their users. We're sad that we're going to be away from each other for a few days, but I'm so pleased at the same time beacuse this shows that Jeff is highly respected for what he does at work, to be asked to represent your department is no small honor! Of course, he's the only one qualified -in terms of knowledge- in his department to go, but still. And my buying sprees on eBay helped since you have to have a minimum of 25 positive feedback, and we're around 30 right now. Heehee. However the good news that's coming from all of this is that my Dad is coming out to visit while Jeff's gone! I'm so excited to be able to see my dad again, he was able to come last Thanksgiving and be here for Zoe's birthday, which was great! This will be his first time seeing his other grand-baby Ruthie so we're all pretty excited about that too. Ruthie's at the perfect age now where she's not just a lump on a log anymore, she smiles and babbles and blows raspberries at people.

With that said, here are some new pictures!

Here's Ruthie eating cereal. You can't tell but she LOVES eating rice cereal. If I don't feed her fast enough and she knows there's more, she starts screeching and grabs at the spoon. She'll even growl at it a bit too! So cute!
Here's a better view of Zoe's haircut. The expression on her face is a bit funny looking since she's not looking right at the camera but it's still a good view. I think she looks so grown up and pretty with her hair like this.
This probably one of my favorite pictures of Ruthie to date. She chews and sucks on her fingers and is quite partial to her right index finger. She fell asleep with her finger in her mouth and I JUST had to take a picture of it!

This is a focal picture on her foot sticking out from her blanket. I the color by first applying grey tone to the picture and then I did a slight purple tint on it and then blurred the edges. I love how this came out and I think I did a good job on the angle, and really capturing her foot as the focal.

I think this really captures Zoe's resourcefulness and ingenuity. She wanted to 'play outside' and since we have a very large balcony we often let her play on it so she can get her outside wiggles out. We do take her to the park and stuff, but as you can tell it was getting dark so we just opened up the patio door so she could play outside. It was a bit chilly; as a result you can see Zoe's solution to the problem. A pair of shoes -she even managed to get them on the right feet this time- a hat and two mis-matched mittens. It totally cracks me up that she forgot the most important piece of clothing; that is to say PANTS.

I've Been Tagged.

Got tagged by Linda Butler. YAY! Or something. Anyway here it goes.

The Rules:

1. Each player/person starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People that are tagged write a blog about their own 8 random things and post these rules.
3. At the end of of your post don't forget to tag 8 people and include their names. Don't forget to leave leave them a comment to tell them they've been tagged, and to comment back and read your blog for the whole story.

My 8 random facts:

1. One of my deepest desires is to be in a fantasy movie in a setting not unlike 'Dungeons and Dragons' and play either a Bard or Roguish character.
2. I've always wanted to write a book; however the subject keeps changing.
3. I dislike people who mooch off of government assistance and then complain about being poor when they are too lazy to work full time jobs.
4. I love popping Jeff's pimples.
5. I'm obsessive about photo-shopping blemishes and whitening teeth in pictures. I love doing stuff in Photoshop altogether and will look up tutorials on new things when I'm bored.
6. I hope to get my Driver's License someday.
7. I enjoy scrapbooking.
8. I love sleeping, but I hate going to bed.

I tag:

No one because the people who I have contact with on here have already been tagged. So the cycle or at least my part ends here. Ending internet spam FTW!

Zoe's new 'do.

Zoe's hair had been getting long, and because of her weird hair growth pattern, It hasn't been growing evenly.. like a middle layer will grow slower than the other layers, that sort of thing. Anyway, her bangs have been getting long as well so I decided after giving her a shower on Monday to go ahead and trim her hair. It was going along fine until she jerked and I accidentally cut off way more than I wanted to, so she now has a bob. I was planning to only take off 1 inch but wound up taking two off. Either way it looks cute!
Here's Zoe's haircut BEFORE. This was taken about three or so weeks ago, I'm not sure of the exact date. You can tell how the layers are all uneven and whatnot. nothing I could really do about this, it's how her hair grew in and how it sits on her head. Her bangs are also really long as well.







Here's her hair AFTER. She's facing the other way but you can get the idea. Her hair isn't laying flat down properly, but the cut is much neater on her and I personally think it's cute and spunky! I wish I had more pictures, but these are the only ones I have.