Failed gardening...

For all who are interested in knowing, my first attempt at gardening was a bit of a failure, but I am by no means defeated. I have every intention of trying again and learning from my mistakes, one of which was over watering and not having a pot that drains properly. If anyone happens to possess a map that has dates of when you can plant things in Texas that would be great.

Pumpkin Carving

Saturday night JD and I carved pumpkins...and no we did not invite Cami because it was her bed time and I don't think she would allow just us to have the knives. Lets see if you can guess which pumpkin is JD's and which is mine???

 Some with the lights off :)

Picking Pumpkins and a Makeover

We went pumpkin shopping this Thursday, but Cami was a bit tired and it was a little cold, so we got some grumpy faces when we tried to photoshoot.

 My project of last week was to makeover Cami's room, unfortunately the "before" picture is after the "after" picture so you are just going to have to bear with me!

 I am proud I kept with my budget and I am pleased with the result. Cami seems to enjoy the decorations and points to them every time we go in her room. When I was putting up the tissue paper flowers she kept pointing and saying wow! It was fun.

 Here is the before picture!

 Just some fun pictures from the other day. We were getting ready and Cami wanted to head out the door and she came into our room all ready to go with her purse and of course something to stick in her mouth and play with!

Halloween!!!

Ok so this is not a Halloween picture but it is a project I just finished for Cami. It was a remodel of a previous very funky looking blanket I had made for her that was not only not very attractive, but also not very functional since I had tried to remedy a sewing mishap with a large knit flower that was right in the middle of the blanket... glad we could fix that mess and here is how it turned out! I rather like it, and Cami loves to snuggle with it!

 Here are the Halloween snapshots... I want to get some cuter ones, but we will see how ambitious I get...

We had our ward Halloween party on Saturday which was fun to see everyone dress up and fun to have a trunk or treat!

 "We're the Flintstones"

 Our trunk!

 Cami running away... as usual!

 I decided to invest in a pizza stone and I love it already! It bakes so evenly and I am a fan... I just hope going cheap doesn't come back to bite me later.

Cami and I went to story time today and after a phenomenal time wrestling with her a father comes up to me after and says" I think you won the wrangling parent award today!" I should say so! Granted she was tired because she woke up a bunch last night and when she is tired she is a bit wild, but still, she is one super energetic and curious child. I am excited we will get to go home for Christmas, but needless to say, I am a little fearful of the flight with that wiggly little sweetheart~! 

Lucky Me

I came home on Tuesday morning after work and this is the sweet sight that greeted me!

I am so grateful for my little family. 

JD has been so sweet and patient with me starting back to work and has been so helpful. He is working hard at the moment getting ready for finals which start a week from Monday. It is a little nerve racking since he doesn't know what to expect from law school finals and pretty much your whole grade depends on your final. So to help out I didn't really work this week except Monday night and I don't work till next Friday so I can hangout at home and not be grumpy from lack of sleep. I feel pretty spoiled!

 Cami and I have been having lots of fun and I was able to do a couple things I wanted like get some muffins in the freezer for quick breakfasts and made some pizza crusts from a recipe I found here. It was yummy crust and if you make smaller crusts and half bake them  and then freeze them, you can have personal pan pizzas for a quick dinner. I loved the idea that a friend of mine had for this so I thought I would share.
 I have come the the realization that I need to get better at budgeting. With JD being in law school and me just working PRN (or as needed) with no guaranteed hours, we will have a lot less income then we are used to and to avoid extra loans, I have decided that I need to be more frugal and better at budgeting. I am learning slowly, but if you have any good tips or ideas that you have found it would be helpful, or any good books on the subject...
Besides that I decided to try a free photo editing program that perhaps you have heard of called GIMP. I am doing this in a effort to expand my skills in photography without paying for Photoshop, which in all reality we can't afford at the moment. It has a bit of a learning curve to it, so if you are familiar with it, any help in that area would be helpful as well.

Play Dough and other such fun

This past week has been a little busy as well here are some highlights:

1. Went to the temple... which is wonderful but makes for a long trip as we go with a few couples and part go to one then switch and babysit kids while the other set goes through a session.

2. Cami learned to say "shos" which she says when she wants to go outside and then runs in her room and points at the drawer where her shoes are.

3. Cami learned how to climb on the table and couches and in general make lots of havoc, but is a cute and fun as ever.

4. I worked a couple shifts and it was much better than last week because my wonderful sweet husband was here to let me sleep for a bit each day. 

5. JD is getting ready for finals and has bunches and bunches of studying to do!

6. I made some peanut butter playdough... the recipe is off the make and takes blog I got the finger paint idea from- I discovered that Cami just wanted to eat it and didn't know how to play with it very well...once again I am a bit early with that one, but it is a good idea to save for later I made all the shapes in case you are wondering.

At the playground while the Farley's did the second session. We are here with the Ellsworth's.

Eli.. he just kept giving me that sweet smile and so I had to snap a picture 

Cami is discovering the joy of climbing on the table and found the bowl of cheese that we put there to go with our fajitas for dinner and she helped herself... mama's girl!!

Well I guess thats all for this week! Hope you are enjoying October!

In the which I start work and get very busy...

It has been a busy week at our home, I started working on the unit on Saturday and Sunday, so I missed conference, but have been catching up on it this week, when I can find the time. I love being able to work with the tiny babies again. They have such sweet innocent spirits and I just love being able to help them. It is stressful to feel like I know nothing again, and a little intimidating to see how differently they do things. I can't imagine how overwhelmed I would be if I ended up in a different unit entirely. It will take a bit to get used to how they do things, but I am liking the people I work with already, they are helpful and open and kind, so I really couldn't ask for more. 

I will just give you some highlights of our week we went to the zoo, museum, park, and library, plus played with lots of friends. Cami probably believes that she needs to go somewhere everyday, and frequently when she is bored, goes up to the front door and starts knocking and wanting to go somewhere. I feel bad, but pretty much most of her naps start on the way home from somewhere and she falls asleep in the car. I did my first night shift without a babysitter, and it was very hard. I am not sure if my brilliant plan is going to work out. Since I don't get home till 7:30 Cami is already awake for the day so I don't get any sleep till her nap, which is erratic at best for length and time. On Thursday she slept for only a little over an hour, which was not ok since I had had no sleep for 2 days minus the 2 hour nap I got in on Wednesday before work. Well I guess we will just have to see how the next night shift goes and if not we will have to see what we can do. I feel badly, because I am not the only one who suffers, Cami gets the short end of the stick on that one too.

Today we went to the park with some ladies from the ward and here was the photo shoot I did before most of them got there.

I love this one because you can see the cute curls she has in the back, now just for some more hair on the top! She is really such a happy sweet baby. She started saying yes and can now climb on our piano, side table, fireplace, and couch! She is starting to be a little monkey and has no fear whatsoever. It scares me a lot but I knew she would learn sooner or later. Another piece of good news is that I was able to get her to take a sippy cup with juice, now just to get her to take it with milk so I can get rid of the bottles which she is learning to empty by banging on the floor and getting milk everywhere!