Playing Catch-up

We had our ward Christmas party this past weekend and instead of having a Santa Claus they decided to have the three kings instead and they passed out treasure treats to the kids. They called us last minute to see if Josh could do it. We had nothing for him to wear so we wrapped a blacket over him and tied a belt around his waste. It was pretty getto. But Arlie sure enjoyed the candy.




We put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving. I bought it that day at 5:00 am at JCPenney. I was a little excited for the day after thanksgiving shopping. I got a pretty good deal on it. It wasn't the one that they were promoting. That one was sold out by 4:30am. Crazy! But it is nice and so easy to put up. I was having fun taking pictures of the tree and the ornaments and the gifts so I thought that I would share. We are going to celebrate our Christmas together as a family tomorrow. We are leaving on wednesday to go to Idaho. Yeah!!! We are so excited.

So I have had all these pictures that I wanted to post on the blog now for a while and haven't done anything with them. So today I finally had some time to go through them and add the ones I wanted to. It snowed here for the first time a couple of weeks ago. We got a few inches and they closed the schools down and everything just for a couple of inches. It was crazy. They really aren't used to snow like we are I guess. So it was exciting because Arlie was too young to understand what snow was last year and so this year I took her outside to see what she thought. You could tell by the look on her face that she was wondering what happened. And then I let her touch it. At first she didn't want to because it was cold but then she had fun smashing it in her fingers. All kids like to eat snow so I couldn't not let her try that out. She that it was pretty good and was stuffing her face full.

18 Months Old!

Arlie just turned 18 months old yesterday. I can't believe how fast time goes by. It seems like just a few months ago that she was my sweet little baby so sweet and soft. Now she has all of a sudden turned into quite the little toddler. And I am constantly chasing after her. It is a challenge some days but for the most part I love being a mom.
Josh got a new truck yesterday. Well new to us I should say. It is a 2004 Ford Ranger. The car that we just bought about a month ago broke down like two weeks after we got it. It was a 1990 Honda Accord so we should have expected it to I guess. So after trying to fix it, he gave up on putting money into it and decided it would be better to get something that he didn't have to worry about breaking down. It is a really nice truck in excellent condition. Perfect for running to work and back.
That is about all from here. I am still staying busy with all my jobs I am doing and ejoying it. We are looking forward to coming home in a week and a half though. I can't believe it is almost that time already. crazy!

Happy Holidays

Sorry it seems as though I have dropped off the face of cyber space. I have been crazy busy lately. I have taken on two babysitting jobs and I have my side photography business that has really taken off lately so I have stayed super busy. All is well here though. Thanks to everyone who posted comments on my Tag blog. It sure makes me feel good to know that I'm not the only one who feels that way. And also to know that people actually read this stuff. We are adjusting pretty well here now at Fort Meade. I am finally finding my place here and it is getting easier. We are going home for Christmas this year and are looking forward to spending time with family and friends back home. It will be nice to see everyone. Although it does seem like I was just there. I can't say that Arlie has changed too much from the last time we were home. She looks the same. The only difference is that she is talking a lot more. It is so much fun to see what word she will discover next. Her most recent words are cracker, butterfly, Nemo, fish, duck, poo poo, and stinky. She tells us now when she has pooped. She says poo poo and pats her bum. And then she says stinky. She loves Finding Nemo. I think it is probably the only show that has ever kept her attention. Whenever we watch it, she gets all excited.
We had a great Thanksgiving this year. We had a couple families over at our house for dinner and we ended up with more than enough food. We had two turkeys and a ham so there were plenty of leftovers. It was a great day. Anyway, that is pretty much all that has been going on here. Hope you all are doing great and would love to hear from you. Happy Holidays!

I've been tagged!

So thanks to my friends Amy and Sarah Galan, I have been tagged. So I figured I might as well keep it going plus I have decided I don't write much about myself on my blog so this gives me an opportunity to share with all of you something about me that maybe you didn't know.

Jobs I've had:
Runner for a Law firm
Nanny in Hawaii
Secretary for a Sleep Institute
Afterschool program advisor at a Montesory
Surgical Technologist
CDC childcare provider
Sales Clerk at a Craft store
Japanese Kindergarten english teacher

Places I've lived:
Idaho
Utah
Hawaii
Texas
Japan
Maryland

Shows I enjoy:
Dancing with the stars
The Office
Greys Anatomy
Desperate Housewives
America's Next Top Model
These are all the shows I DVR.

Four Things About Me:

1. If you don't know this already I am totally into photography. I love to take pictures and am constantly scanning my surroundings everywhere I go looking for beautiful places or things to take pictures of. It is constantly in the back of my mind. I love to put picture collages together as well as digital scrapbooks. I love taking peoples pictures and enhancing them on the computer and seeing the end result. Totally love it! It is my passion.

2. I love to shop!! But what girl doesn't? I love to shop for things for my house and I also have a slight obsession for clothes for me and Arlie. I love cute little country craft stores and I would say my favorite store for shopping for things for the house is Tai Pan's all the way. I wish I had the money to decorate my whole house from Pottery Barn. The majority of clothes that I buy come from Old Navy. Mostly because that is all I can afford. If I had the money I would shop somewhere like Ann Taylor, J. Crew, Banana Republic. Then again, I never dress up anymore so whats the point.

3. My favorite book right now is the Twilight series. Totally love it. I read all three books in about a two week period while I was home visiting family back in September. I can't wait for the next one to come out. After reading it, I had a total crush on Edward. I am not much of a reader normally but after reading this I realized I could totally have a passion for reading. I just need a really good book so if you have any suggestions I would love to hear them.

4. If you don't know this already, I am kind of shy. When I get in a big group of people I would rather sit back and listen and observe. I am not one to talk just for the sake of talking. I do much better one on one or maybe two. I have struggled with it my whole life. I probably care too much about what other people might think of me. Most people would probably be surprised to hear that I was a cheerleader all through high school. That is yet another thing that I don't share with too many people just because I worry what people might think.

Some other little facts about me are:
I am a risk taker- I used to cliff jump off 70 foot cliffs when I was younger.
I love to snowboard, golf, surf, wakeboard, and do pretty much anything active.
I enjoy a good run. I like to camp, hike and enjoy nature.

This was kindof interesting for me to write this. It was good for me to kindof look inside myself and remember who I am. Lately I have been feeling like I have been losing my identity. Now that I am a mom I feel like that has pretty much taken over my whole life and I have lost myself in the process. Kindof depressing. It has been a struggle for me. But I do love being a mom to such a beautiful little girl. She has brought so much joy and happiness into my life at the same time. And I feel so blessed to have such a great husband. I am one lucky girl!

I am tagging Liz, and Rachel.

Halloween

We had a great Halloween. Arlie loved dressing up and getting candy. After going trick or treating we came back to the house and she dug into the candy. She ate so much sugar that she was all hopped up. She was so hyper we couldn't get her to go to bed till after nine. Oh well it only happens once a year.

Sittin in the Sink

Shoe Fettish

Arlie has a shoe fettish. She is obsessed with wearing our shoes around the house. As soon as the closet door opens in my bedroom she is in there like flash grabbing shoes. It is so cute to see her try to walk around the house in them though. It keeps her entertained for quite a while.

Bath Tub Buddies: Arlie, Hunter, and MaKenzee

While we were home Arlie and I had the opportunity to see the Hartvigsen's! They are our good friends from Misawa, Japan. They are now stationed at Hill AFB so when we flew into SLC we stayed the night with them and then Melissa drove me home to IF and stayed the night with me at my parents house. It was so good to see her and her family. The kids have grown up so fast! I love their family and we miss them so much. Arlie had a great time playing with MaKenzee and Hunter. Thanks Melissa for all you did for us. We think about you guys often.

Apples and Pumpkins

Fall Harvest

This past saturday we went with our neighbors to a farm where you can pick your own fruits and vegitables. It was a lot of fun. The drive out there was maybe around 40 minutes and it was a beautiful drive. The fall colors are starting to show but I guess it is not as good this year as usual since we haven't gotten much rain. All the leaves are just dying. But it was so nice to see some countryside. There were lots of beautiful rolling hills and huge mansion houses. I would love to live somewhere like that. This farm has all different kinds of fruits and vegies that you can come and pick during the season of the type of fruit you want. We went to pick apples and pumpkins. It was a really fun experience. They have hay rides and fresh apple cider too. When we went to ring up our pumpkins, Josh about had a heart attack when they said $20.00 for two pumpkins. I guess we just payed for the experience. Arlie was not in the best of moods. She is teething pretty bad right now. So there was no way I was going to get her to smile for any picture.
The weather here has been crazy! Like high 80s to low 90s. I wonder when it is going to feel like fall? Oh well I won't complain. It feels pretty great. Hope you all are doing well. Love ya!

Spending Time at Grandma & Grandpa Yost's

We had a great time at grandma & grandpa Yosts house. Sorry Lori I didn't get a picture of you and Arlie this time. We will have to get some at Christmas.

Feeding ducks and playing around with Grandma & Grandpa Ford

We had a great time feeding the ducks with Grandma Ford. I think Arlie ate just about as much bread as the ducks did that day. She kept stuffing her mouth full. She had fun chasing them around. She made a couple of friends there that were feeding the ducks too. There was a mud puddle near by and both girls slipped and fell in the mud. Not together. It was pretty funny.

New Hair

So while I was home visiting family, I got a wild hair and decided to dye my hair dark. So far I really like it. It is a nice change. I will probably go back blonde eventually but for now it is fun to have something different. It turned out to be a little more red than I planned but that is ok. I like the color. Thanks Michelle for doing it for me! YOu did a great job. I would love to hear what everyone else thinks about it.

Having fun in Idaho

Here are just a few of the pictures I took of Arlie while we were home visiting family in Idaho. We had a good time seeing everyone that we got to see and spending time together. Thanks Dad and Lori for letting us stay at your place.

Arlie

Hawaii was a Bust!!!

So our trip to Hawaii never happened. Total Bummer!! We were going to Hawaii on these buddy passes that my brother got for all of us to use and the guy that got them for us was supposed to be setting up the flights. We had planned to leave on friday the 7th of September and didn't get out and we waited around all weekend and the guy couldn't get us flights out so we gave up on going by Sunday. My brothers ended up getting out on tuesday but got stuck in Vegas one night and finally made it out with only a few days left of the vacation and then they got stuck out there a couple days longer than planned. So I am glad we didn't go and get stuck out there. So I was really bummed about not being able to go to Hawaii so I came home on the buddy pass to spend time with my family. It was a good time and it was nice for Arlie to spend time with grandparents and family. Well I was supposed to get out on the buddy pass. I had my flight confirmed and I went to the airport and they pulled up my flight info and it said that the ticket wasn't paid for. So I called the guy and he said to pay for it and that I would get reimbursed. So I paid for it. And then I was supposed to leave last monday to come back but I think they were avoiding me and they never got me a flight scheduled so my dad paid for me to come back yesterday. They have been completely avoiding me about getting my reimbursement too so I guess I will take this as a lesson learned. I am never going to do that again. The flight out there was Miserable!!! Traveling with Arlie at this age is crazy! She rode on my lap and was so wiggly and squirmy. And she would scream this blood curdling scream and I felt bad for everyone around me. I was exhausted by the time we finally got there. But luckily thanks to Melatonin and my dad buying a seat for Arlie, we had a great trip back. She pretty much slept the whole way. It was great!

Our day at Six Flags

Labor Day Vacation

We had a really nice labor day weekend. Well at first it didn't start out that nice. Josh had friday off and I had already committed to babysitting a friend's three kids for 11 hours to earn some extra money for our trip to Hawaii. Luckily I had Josh there to help me but it still was not fun. The kids were good kids but it was a lot of work and it makes me think I have it easy and maybe I don't want to have four kids. But I just keep having to tell myself that it is different when it is your own and also that it doesn't happen over night. You have time to gradually get used to all the little changes. But still it definatly doesn't make me look forward to my future life. But we made it through that day and ended up having a great weekend. Saturday we went to the Baysox minor league baseball game. I was surprised that Arlie was so good the whole time. But every time the big screen would come up with the crowd to make noise and get loud, these little girls behind us would scream a blood curdling scream at the top of their lungs and Arlie would jump into my arms and hold on tight. It scared her every time. But after the game was over they had a really nice fire work show. It was so fun to see Arlie enjoying them. She just layed her head back on Daddy's shoulder and watched the whole thing.
On Monday we went to six flags with our neighbor and her kids. We had a blast. We just went to the waterpark and they had a really nice waterpark for toddlers. It had lots of little slides and fun things to climb on and water spray. Arlie had a blast. She was grinning from ear to ear the entire time. She loved going down the water slide. We are going to get a season pass for next year. They are only like fifty bucks a peice. It is only 20 minutes away from where we live so we will have plenty of opportunities to enjoy it. We ended the day with a fun BBQ at a friends house. Now we are looking forward to our trip to Hawaii. We leave on friday. We can't wait. I bought tickets for us to go with my brothers for Josh's birthday. His birthday is on the 9th of September this Sunday so we will be celebrating it together in Hawaii.

Driving in the Car

Bath Time

Well we finally figured out how to get the video on here so now you will be seeing plenty of clips. This video was taken last week. Nothing too exciting going on here to report. Arlie and I have been spending a lot of time at the neighborhood pool lateley since it closes next week. It is still hot as ever here and doesn't seem to be letting up any time soon. Hope you all enjoy your Labor Day weekend.

Tub Time

Dressing up

Here is a picture of Arlie in her ballerina outfit. She loves wearing it around the house.

Arlie's 1st Birthday

more scrapbook pages

Here are some more pages.

Most recent Scrapbook pages

Here are my most recent scrapbook pages that I made for Arlie's Scrapbook. Just thought I would share them with you. She is such a cutie!