Friday, July 29, 2011

A Day in the Life of P-Cakes

Here's what Miss P-Cakes day consists of:

After breakfast, a little dress up is nice. 
 Make sure all my toys are there so I can play with all of them!
 Mom, really, enough of the pictures!
 Don't forget the fussing! I have to do that a little bit throughout the day. But I'm sure cute while I do!
 Up next, Lunch time! Mmm... I love me some mac and cheese with peas!
 I'm not so great about using a spoon though.
 A little more dress up! (She started putting them over her head, I just helped her with proper placement.) :)


Finally, it's bed time!
We went to check on her last night because she was breathing kind of funny. So this is what we saw. What a goofy sleeper! But she was comfortable, enough where she didn't wake when we took this pic!
So that's a day in the life of P-Cakes. Full of fun and adventures!

On another note, Tropical Storm Don has graced us with its presence. Luckily we won't get the brunt of it, just the side storms.

Welcome to Texas!

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

A couple days ago, P-cakes was gifted a hand-me-down play kitchen, art desk, and plastic toy chest. They were from one of the houses that Jordin is working on but they didn't need/want anymore.

While I thought this was fun, they were pretty disgusting and dirty.

So yesterday in the blistering, sweltering weather, P-Cakes and I decided to get our suits on and go hose the toys off and play in the water.

Here are some pics.

 This one is funny because there is a "sink" right where P-Cakes is looking. She would have me fill it up and then she could stick her face in the puddle of water.

Over. and. over. again.

 This is how P-Cakes poses for pictures nowadays. I don't know what started it, but she squats then leans forward and gives a big goofy grin.


 I LOVE this next photo!

She has been making this face since she was five or six months old. But the face keeps getting funnier and funnier!
It was SO nice to play in the water. There was a 'mist' option on the hose nozzle and it was perfect to keep us cool. If it hadn't of been for this nasty black wasp that kept hanging around we probably could have played out there all day.

I've got to tell you what I had for dinner last night too. I've discovered this awesome blog called Eighty Twenty. (Eat8020.com) It is a woman that gives recipes that are healthy (the eighty percent of what your diet should be) and no-so-healthy recipes (the other twenty percent of your diet).

Anyway, so for dinner last night I made her Banana Oat Cakes. They were delicious. It was oatmeal, in the shape of a pancake!

I really enjoy oatmeal but typically dislike most things about pancakes, and my husband is just opposite. So this was a happy medium.

Here is the link if you're interested:
http://www.eat8020.com/2011/01/80-banana-oat-cakes.html

I added water and light sour cream to make the batter just a bit thinner. And we did peaches and pineapple with the bananas.

Okay, well miss P-Cakes just woke after only 30 minutes of sleeping... Gotta go!

Monday, July 25, 2011

Random Bits of Thoughts of Life

Hey Ya'll!

Okay, yeah, that is the most that I plan on letting my English slip into a southern drawl. And even then, it's just not natural for my mouth to slir those words together.

That's okay with me, but I do get little giggles of delight in my heart when I hear someone else say "ya'll" or pronounce July as "Jew-lye".

Ahhh. There is just a charm here that I don't think I've ever felt about a place before.

Ya know what it is, it's Pride.

Not the bad: I-am-better-than-you-and-have-everything-that-I-could-possibly-ever-want kind of pride. Whew, hyphens.

It's the real: I love what I have and where I am and what I've been given-type pride. (Hyphens omitted due to laziness.)

One of the first Fridays that we got here, we went to the Boardwalk in Kemah and watched the Fireworks that they do in "Jew-lye". They played patriotic music and EVERYONE that was there stopped what they were doing, turned towards the lights, and basked in the unity and patriotism that surrounded us.

This may sound bad, but I've never really considered myself very patriotic. I love my country and I am glad I have been given the freedoms that I have but I've never been the kind to get together and really bask in that pride of our nation.

Well,

When we were on that boardwalk, I felt the pride of everyone around me. And ever since then, I have really felt so happy to be where we are. These are a prideful people, but the good kind. :) I never had pride in Idaho or Utah or Colorado (Jordin has massive amounts of Colorado-ian pride, I'm sure he'd want me to make that clear.) And I've just moved here so it's not like I am overwhelmed with pride about Texas, but I can see myself getting that way.

Jordin and I moving here was definitely a risk and a chance. But we took it. We really love it here and we know this is where we are supposed to be.

We've even got the bugs under control so I don't really even worry too much about that.

AND we went to IKEA, the blessed store that it is, to look for couches and we found some that are B-E-A-utiful! We haven't bought them yet, but when we do our living room will finally have more than just a desk and TV.

Here is a screen shot of it off of IKEA's website. The fabric is so soft.... Mmm.... We'll get the love seat too that will be just a bit smaller than this sofa.
 In the mean time, we watch movies on the hard, UGLY carpet. Oh well. Soon we'll have these babies.

And I plan on repainting the WHOLE house, overtime. And I'm working on a color scheme so it all blends beautifully. I am so excited. I'll keep you updated on the work. But that'll probably be a ways down the road.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Random Picture Update

So much has been going on that I need to update this little blog of ours. Here are some pictures. These first ones are from when we came to Texas to check it out. We went to what is called the Kemah Boardwalk. It's a fun place to go and the view was spectacular!

This is the ride that you can go up and it slowly spins around so you can see the whole bay.

Look at my handsome husband!

This is kinda cheesy but it's one of the few good ones from that trip of us together. :)

This is so you can see the size of the pelicans. They are huge! But I love them. We watched them for about and hour....

They fly over the water...

Then dive right into it and come up with a mouth/gull FULL of water and fish! They drain the water out and they are left with all the little fish. It was so fun to watch!

Those are catfish in the water. SO many of them!

This is us in our rental car. It was a Black Dodge Caliber named Steven. Jordin didn't really like him, but I let him pick and it was either this or an ugly Nissan Sentra. (No offense if you have a Sentra- just not our cup of tea.) :)

This was so funny to me, we pulled over in the church parking lot and walked over to this sign to take a picture. You know you are out of the bubble when you see a sign announcing a church coming up.

Okay, this is when we were back in Utah. Jordin's mom came into town and we went swimming at their hotel pool. Look at little miss P-Cakes!

Moving right along, This is now in Colorado on the fourth of July. Jordin's cousin, Tyler, gave us one of these things that you can light and it rises into the air. Have you seen Tangled, it's like that. Eventually it'll burn up and all that comes down is a little wire. It was so SO cool!

I must admit, once Jordin got the bottom igniter lit, all of us (Jordin, his parents, and I) at the same time thought "We just let a flaming balloon-type thing go into the air with no way of controlling where it goes. This could be bad!" Haha! Hindsight, eh?

But it went up, up, and away!

And we watched it sail away until it was a tiny dot and then it burnt itself out. It was WAY cool!
 Alright Fast Forward to this week. We're now in Texas. We found a house that we are renting for a year and we are really liking our decision to move here. Jordin really is loving his job. The people are great and the work he is doing really satisfies him. The social life is still lacking, but the ward looks like it's gonna be good and we're still new, so there's time. :)
P-Cakes was looking particularly adorable a couple days ago and so we played together with the camera.

She's so big! I can't believe it.


Rwarr. She's gonna eat you!

She was so infatuated with the mirror. She's cute and she knows it!


Add caption
Well, I don't know how much of an actual update those pictures were, but those are all I've taken that can show what's been going on.

Oh! A very important update is that we FINALLY got to see Harry Potter 7.2! We have gone to all the other ones when they open at midnight, but because we are new here we didn't have a babysitter. So today I went to the matinee and Jordin went to the evening one. He's still there in fact. It was SO good! I cried like a baby. Kind of a random way to go see it, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. ;)

Anyway, we're all happy and well. We miss all our friends and family (I especially miss my sister as she went to Burley this week and we're here instead. :( ....Hi, Meg!)

But all is well. Love you all!

Monday, July 4, 2011

Hey ya'll, we're moving to Texas!

It has been the most hectic and crazy last couple of weeks EVER! Talk about a whirlwind!

First, Jordin and I asked our landlord if we could get out of our 1 yr contract if we found someone else to take over for us. He said yes only if we could find someone to rent it for $1200 a month. We thought that NO ONE would rent it for that price, then a lady called about 3 weeks after we put it up and said that her house had burnt down and she was looking for a place with a 6 month contract. After talking it over with our landlord he agreed and we had three days to get out of there. Where do we go? Do we find another place that is cheaper? Do we look for month -to- month contracts?

Then, out of nowhere Jordin gets a promising call from a home-builder in Texas that is ready for him to come look at a job possibility down there. We had had quite a bit of contact with the company but it was still a waiting game until they were ready for us. In the meantime, our good friends, Katie and Austin just barely moved out of their town home into a much larger house in Eagle Mountain. So I called Katie up and she was more than wonderful and let us crash at her house while we sort out if we want to move to Texas or not. So we move to her house and Pailey has a blast playing with her three kiddies.

The very next weekend, Jordin and I travel to Texas to check out the job and the area. (Pailey spent the weekend with Nana and Papa Miller.) I had a very stereotypical idea of what Texas would be like and I didn't know if I would like it or not! But we went and we loved it! The community was great. It was outside of the bubble which Jordin and I have longed for and the job itself was a PERFECT fit for Jordin. The job, DSW Homes, has there office on Galveston Island and the coast was just beautiful. The food was spicy and it was hot but there was a perfect combination of humidity and breeze that cools you down. Mmm.  We didn't expect that we would make a decision during the three days that we were there but by the time we left on Sunday we knew that Texas is where we were supposed to be! So, this last week we have been trying to get everything sorted out to drive the 24 hour drive from Utah to League City, Texas.

On Saturday, we made the 4 1/2 hr drive to Jordin's parents house to spend the fourth with them. Unluckily, I was super sick yesterday with sinus yuckiness that I didn't really do anything but today we are ready to celebrate the fourth in style with BBQ and fireworks! Now, the plan is to leave Tuesday morning with two stops along the way and get there Thursday afternoon.

We are so excited and feel so blessed for this opportunity. We really can't believe our luck and we're so ready for this new adventure.

It's been a while...

Hello! It's only been over 2 1/2 years since I last posted. Nothing really has changed between then and now... except most everything! :...