Say "Cheese!!"

I didn't want to teach TJ "Cheese!" but it happened anyway. I don't hold up the camera and say, "Say, 'Cheese!'" I count to 3 and then take the picture. When I get to three, this is beginning to be the face he pulls:

It's a cute face, but I want to have pictures of his normal smile too! It's funny to that he will hear the camera focus and see the orange light for red eye and he'll look at the camera and freeze........until he sees the flash and then he'll go about his business. I've trained this kid since he was newborn to know what cameras do and how to act in front of them, without even TRYING! It's amazing what kids can pick up on.

Here are some other pictures I took that day:

"Look mom! I'm pulling my own finger!"

There you are!

He loved playing with those handles.

"Ready........DRAW!!"

Loves his stuffed animals

"Only YOU can prevent forest fires!"

And a Brighter Easter Beam...

 This is our family picture on Easter this year. We looked so cute going to church. I wish we would've had time to take a better picture. Maybe I'll make everyone get dressed in the same clothes and do a proper photoshoot. :)

Here's a cute picture of TJ on our way to church. It was a nice day so we could walk. I know his collar needs to be pulled out. I did that once we got to church.

We didn't do much of the traditional Easter festivities. TJ got two Easter baskets though. One from G&G Laney when they came for conference and then one from my Aunt Cari. We went to my G&G Taylor's house of Easter dinner and enjoyed family. We took a lot of leftovers home too, which was a definite plus. We bought Easter candy on Monday pretty cheap so that was nice.

The Easter talks in our ward were really good. Thais, our good friend from Brazil, spoke. She asked us why we celebrate Christ's resurrection with the Easter bunny. With Christmas and Santa we see a correlation in that Santa gives gifts and Christ was our greatest gift. She told this story about one Easter where she was over at a family friend's house. That year the parents bought the kids bunnies. Thais went over and they had about two dozen new bunnies hopping around in just a few weeks. One kid exclaimed, "It's like it never ends!!" She's never forgotten that statement. It is like it never ends. Christ died, but He was resurrected and every human being will be resurrected and we will never end. Life doesn't end. It was a cool talk and now I will remember it forever.

This New Year I made a goal to read the four gospels by Easter. Mary Ann Steed (the mom in The Work and The Glory) made that goal as well and Easter morning she was reading in John where Mary found the empty tomb. That sounded so cool that I decided to do that this year. I did and I read all of the Joseph Smith Translations too. It makes so much more sense with those in place.

I finished the four gospels and feel so much closer to Jesus Christ. I feel as though I know Him. I feel as though I know Him as my Elder Brother, my Savior, my Redeemer and my Advocate with the Father, because both justice and mercy must be satisfied. I love the works He performed, how He served, and how He declared the truth in every way possible. I love Him.

He is risen! He is risen!

Tell it out with joyful voice.

He has burst his three days’ prison;

Let the whole wide earth rejoice.

Death is conquered; man is free.
Christ has won the victory.

Come with high and holy hymning;

Chant our Lord’s triumphant lay.

Not one darksome cloud is dimming

Yonder glorious morning ray,

Breaking o’er the purple east,

Symbol of our Easter feast.

He is risen! He is risen!

He hath opened heaven’s gate.

We are free from sin’s dark prison,

Risen to a holier state.

And a brighter Easter beam

On our longing eyes shall stream.

Dave Ramsey

I just finished reading The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. He's amazing and his plan is perfect! I would suggest this book to anyone. It's more geared to those in debt, using credit cards like nobody's business and feeling out of control of their money. But it's good for everyone to read (even newly married couples, or empty nesters) and understand those principles and the myths that he busts. It's a book on how to get control of your life and build wealth.

He uses the motto: If you will live like no one else, later you can live like no one else.

He takes you through "baby steps" like on What About Bob? You must do them in order and you must be completely committed to the whole program!

Anyway, I got these off his website.

"Baby Step 1

$1,000 to start an Emergency Fund

An emergency fund is for those unexpected events in life that you can’t plan for: the loss of a job, an unexpected pregnancy, a faulty car transmission, and the list goes on and on. It’s not a matter of if these events will happen; it’s simply a matter of when they will happen.
Baby Step 2

Pay off all debt using the Debt Snowball

List your debts, excluding the house, in order. The smallest balance should be your number one priority. Don’t worry about interest rates unless two debts have similar payoffs. If that’s the case, then list the higher interest rate debt first.

Baby Step 3

3 to 6 months of expenses in savings

Once you complete the first two baby steps, you will have built serious momentum. But don’t start throwing all your “extra” money into investments quite yet. It’s time to build your full emergency fund.

Baby Step 4

Invest 15% of household income into Roth IRAs and pre-tax retirement

When you reach this step, you’ll have no payments—except the house—and a fully funded emergency fund. Now it’s time to get serious about building wealth.

Baby Step 5

College funding for children

By this point, you should have already started Baby Step 4—investing 15% of your income—before saving for college. Whether you are saving for you or your child to go to college, you need to start now.

Baby Step 6

Pay off home early

Now it’s time to begin chunking all of your extra money toward the mortgage. You are getting closer to realizing the dream of a life with no house payments.
Baby Step 7

Build wealth and give!

It’s time to build wealth and give like never before. Leave an inheritance for future generations, and bless others now with your excess. It's really the only way to live!"
Anyway, it's great and Todd and I will be starting on Baby Step 1 once we get to Texas or get our tax refund back, whichever comes first.

Teething TJ

Poor poor TJ. He's teething. He's getting the two middle bottom teeth.

It all started Friday morning. Todd and I had a church activity to go to and needed to find a babysitter. My old roommate Brooke stepped in to help and her boyfriend Travis came too. I almost decided not to go to the activity because TJ was fussy and had a runny nose and all that bit. Brooke assured me that she had babysat since she was eight and she would be ok. Plus we were only 2 blocks and a phone call away.

It ended up being a good night with spaghetti and live entertainment. An older woman in our ward sang a bunch of songs for "our generation" and I had only heard of one. And then we have a professional opera singer sing a few Easter songs. He was amazingly good! I could listen to male singing voices all day long.

The first two days of teething were pretty bad. He wasn't very fussy but compared to how he usually is, it was bad! If I complained to any parent about how fussy TJ was being, they would look at me like, "WHAT!? THIS is fussy???" He's such a good kid.

The rest of the weekend the symptoms died down and he seemed pretty normal except for the nose.

But this morning he wasn't doing well. He was moaning and whimpering and super cuddly (he's not a cuddly baby). He couldn't get comfortable and would just veg, zone out and cry. He wasn't eating anything, not even breastmilk. He's just wanted to sleep most of the day. After some Tylenol, he got a little better and more like himself, but after that wore off, he was a mess again. I hope those teeth break through soon. Here are a few pictures I took on my phone today.

Cutest personality and such an explorer

He loves being thrown in the air. He always smiles and sometimes laughs.



Classic! Probably a wedding video pic. He always cocks his head like that.

I see a lot of my dad in this picture. Wasn't my dad such a cute baby?



Funny that his shirt says, "Born to Explore"

His new favorite thing to crawl to, the chair legs! He smells like metal when I pick him up.

Definitely getting ready to crawl, easily gets on all fours

Pico de Gallo

Todd and I have made two batches of pico in the past week. This batch was for a big party we had with his accounting friends and their wives from school. This is a large mixing bowl it is in.

Perfect proportions of everything

We used Calista's recipe and it always tastes so good.

Here it is so everyone can enjoy this salsa!

4-6 roma tomatoes

1/2 onion

1 green pepper

1 jalepeno, without seeds unless you want spicy

1/2 bunch of cilantro

~1 T vinegar

Lime juice to taste

Salt to taste

Cut everything super fine, as small as you can. Add the vinegar, lime juice, and lots of salt. It won't be very juicy but you just need to let it sit. The acid in the vinegar and lime will bring out the natural juices of the veggies for a great juicy mixture. Eat with yummy chips and enjoy!

Birthday Cakes

I've always enjoyed decorating cakes for mine and Todd's birthdays. My mom always did really great cakes for us kids growing up. She did Spongebob, a fighter jet, TMNT, My Little Ponies, a dinosaur, etc. Really great cakes.

But ever since Kristin started being interested in cake decorating as a cluster for school, I've been more interested in it too. Kristin and my mom took a cake decorating class in the community and did all sorts of fun cupcakes while I was there.

It would be fun if Kristin moved down to Texas with us and we could do a wedding package with me doing the flowers, and Kristin doing the cake and we are both amateur photographers so we could maybe do that too!

Anyway, my past cakes haven't been very eleborate or creative like this one I did for Todd's 25th birthday, this last August. It's cute but didn't take much skill.

So Todd's grandpa's birthday and his dad's birthday were both in the beginning of April. They were both going to be down here for different reasons and I wanted to make birthday cakes for them.

This is the one I did for Todd's grandpa. He really likes golfing.

Then I couldn't think of anything super special for Todd's dad. He likes motorcycling and snow skiing but doing either of those would be really hard. Calista came up with the idea to do a Speed Limit sign with a "no" symbol over it. He turned 55 so this is what I came up with.

Pretending to blow out 55 candles since we didn't have any.

I'll keep working on them and I'm excited to do TJ's 1st cake in September. It'll come sooner than I think!

March - Part 3

It was a very busy month and it went by really slow. But that's a good thing because lately my life has been on fast forward. TJ is 7 months old!! Wow. That's hard to believe.

Spring Break - March 17th-27th

The morning before we left for Boise, TJ had a doctor's appointment. His 6 month one. We went in because he was sick around 5 months and they weighed him then. He didn't gain anything between the two visits. That was a little disconcerting. The doctor said that maybe it's nothing, but maybe him just telling us he's ready for supplemental foods. Time to start veggies. He's gone through carrots, squash, sweet potatoes, and peas. He's liking each of them more and more as we go. I was worried he wouldn't like the peas but he gobbles them down.

We saw my family first. My dad hadn't seen TJ since Christmas and he's not even the same kid so he really enjoyed playing with him and watching him play.

I wish I would've gotten pictures of TJ with Jason, Grace, Kristin and Tyler but I didn't. :( Next time I see them though, that will be a priority. My mom adores TJ and loves helping, feeding and hugging him.

He was a little squash drunk in this picture.

TJ loves mirrors. He knows exactly where they are in our house and loves seeing the baby in the mirror. He's a fun companion and they keep eachother occupied. :) He got even more obsessed with them since we got back from Texas and he had a real companion to play with.

Then after spending most of the time with my family we headed over to the Laney's. Gary and Calista were in Aruba as a Christmas gift for a week and we got over there after they came home. They also love being grandparents and love seeing TJ. TJ loves the time he gets with them too.

Abby made sure she got her fair share of TJ too! She kept giving him kisses and he was a little worried about that. :)

Both grandmas this trip sat at the piano with TJ and let him pound on the keys. Now I can't walk past our piano without him leaning and reaching for the keys. Not like that's a bad thing.

Todd helped his mom split up the ground beef we bought and put on an apron to do it. He looked like Mrs. Doubtfire to me!! Haha

Whenever we go to Grandma Caca's house, TJ gets to learn in the walker. He's not super good at it, but accidentally moves around a little. I just LOVE this face he made.

 He puts his hands above his head to be picked up, or to stretch or to do "So big!" and almost all the time he cocks his head to the side. It's cute.

 He got new binkies from Grandma and put it in his mouth all by himself, as you can probably tell.

 Overall, it was a really great trip and a nice break for Todd from school. The next time we go to Boise will be in May for the show WICKED!! I've been wanting to see Wicked since freshman year of high school. I don't know the story line; I only know what I've picked up from the soundtrack. I'm excited to see it all come together. Then we will be off to Texas!!