And all that Jazz...

Okay, so it's been a while again. I'm pretty sure there are like 3 people that actually read this blog, but those 3 people seem to really care that I'm never on top of my blogging. So to my faithful trio of readers, here you go...

This is a large smattering of random events that have gone on. I'll be brief!! But everything's out of order because I'm too lazy to change the pictures around and this is the order I uploaded them in.

Evan turned 1 on November 1st. We didn't make a huge deal out of it because hey, he's 1! One day he'll look back at the 4 pictures that I took of his "birthday party" and hate me!

This was Evan with his special little cake I made, just for him.

These are Evan's cakes. I made a big one for everyone else and a small one for Evan. There's a big ugly star on the big one because it was Evan's star birthday. Poor guy won't even remember! The colors didn't turn out right and I tried this new frosting that didn't work well for decorating, so it's pretty much an ugly cake, but it tasted divine!!
Then there was Halloween (the day before Evan's birthday!). Ryan dressed up as Mario last year, so we decided he would do that again and make it a family theme. Evan was Luigi. I could not find a green hat or a green shirt that would fit him, so his shirt is huge and he has a beanie Luigi hat. He's a gangsta Luigi! Oh well, he still got lots of candy...
Bella was Princess Peach. I decided a week before Halloween that I wanted to do this, so I went out and bought all the stuff and made her dress. I thought it turned out pretty well. It's a little big, so it'll be perfect for her to be next year too! I just hope we live in a different neighborhood by then.
The whole crew
If any of you are wondering where I am, I will just say, I don't do Halloween. Totally okay with making the kid's costumes and running all over high heaven to get everything we need, but I don't do it for myself! Besides, the only characters left were like Bowser and Toad, so....

This is a few days before Halloween. I bought a blonde wig for Bella to be Princess Peach, but she refused to wear it. Evan wasn't too thrilled about it either! I'm such a mean mommy!!
This is random, but I put it in here cause I think it's hilarious! I love these two kiddos. They seriously get me through every day! They're just so stinkin' funny!
Also a random picture, but it needed to be posted. Things like this need to be seen by the world! We went down to Hurricane like the first weekend of October for my niece's baptism. When we walked into our hotel room, this is what we found. It was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!! If you can't tell by the picture, it's huge! We ended up taking a family bath in our swimsuits and the kids loved it! Too bad it was a family vacation, instead of a just me & Ryan vacation!
So, I had a request to post these pictures. Back in September, Ryan's brother got married. They decided to do it in San Diego with just immediate family and a few close friends. We went down on Thursday, spent Friday at Disneyland, Saturday doing the wedding, and came home Sunday. It ended up being an awesome trip and we all had a really good time. The wedding was beautiful. I only wish we had left our kids at home so we could have enjoyed some of it more. They got married in the San Diego temple in the afternoon. That evening, we all got to go on a boat where with dinner and dancing. Since Kristina is the only member in her family, they did a whole ring ceremony on the deck of the boat before the little cruise started. It was all at sunset and it was really just perfect! This is from the ring ceremony...
This is the boat we were on...
This is at the temple. Kaelee (Ryan's niece) and Bella just have a blast when they get together. They are so cute together and they look like they could be sisters. They were just so cute marching down the sidewalk holding hands...
Ryan was VERY happy to be there!
The happy little family!
This was from the day before at Disneyland. Lara went to buy them the Just Married Mickey ears, but they were all out of the groom ones, so Brad got a pirate hat instead!
While we were at Disneyland, we stood in line at that new thing to meet Tinker Bell. Bella was absolutely speechless! She just sat there for like 2 or 3 minutes stroking Tinker Bell's arm while Tinker Bell asked a bunch of unanswered questions! She still talks about when she got to meet Tinker Bell.
I love this look! "Mom, are you getting this? I'm actually talking to Tinker Bell!"
So that's it. Hope it wasn't too long!

Happy Birthday Bella!

Happy Birthday to my most fabulous little Bella! For those of you who keep up on my kid's birthdays, (none of you :)) it is not actually Bella's birthday yet. But with Ryan working two jobs and only home on the weekends, we thought we'd pick one of the Saturdays around her birthday and tell her that was the day. It's not much of a fun birthday spending the day at home with mom as usual. So we did her little paper chain countdown up to Saturday and declared that the big day! She was sooooo excited for her birthday to come. We wanted to make it a really fun day for her, so we started out swimming, one of Bella's favorite things to do. My sister, Stefanie, her husband, Travis, and their kids came. My brother, David, came, along with Ryan's parents and his brother and sister, Paul and Lara. We had a blast swimming for a couple of hours.

We put a life jacket on Evan and Ryan just laid him in the water and he floated around like this almost the entire time. It was pretty hilarious! He was so chill and we just pushed him around the pool. He barely even moved!

This is Bella's cake. It's simple, because I haven't decorated a cake for quite a while! I did a small round with some cupcakes to go with it. I was trying to go for the TinkerBell theme, because most of the gifts that we got her were TinkerBell, but Bella pitched a fit in the store and wanted Ariel, and it was for her birthday, so.... I caved! Ariel it was!

After swimming, we went back to my parent's house and had pizza and cake and ice cream. My brother, Ryan and his wife Sarah came over too.

All the cake for me!

Bella blowing out her candles.

My mom got some fun stuff at the dollar store to entertain Bella with! She got some wings, a hat, and a little skirt. They had gone to have fun at the dollar store the night before with my sister. Her real gift was a princess game book with cool little princess magnets and stuff, which I neglected to take a picture of! But I think Bella may have liked the wings better than anything all day!

My mom also found a big giant gift bag at the dollar store that she gave Bella her presents in. After she had opened everything, she loaded everything into her bag and lugged it around. It was kind of funny to watch!

Grandma and Grandpa Jubber got Bella a couple of new movies, some crayons and markers, paper, and scissors so she could have some coloring fun. Ryan and I also got her a couple of movies, including the Tinker Bell movie, and a Tinker Bell sticker book. I also made her some Tinker Bell pajama pants and a Tinker Bell quilt. She's been really into Tinker Bell lately, if you couldn't tell! I think overall, she brought in a pretty good haul for her birthday. I also got her a few mylar princess balloons because that was what she requested several weeks ago for her birthday. I got Ariel, Tinker Bell, and a castle one with all the princesses in the windows.

So needless to say, we have a little girl that loves princesses!! And it's so much fun!

Now, some of you may be wondering if it was wise for me to go all out like this when we're dirt poor, so I will justify myself! Ryan and I have been a little blue lately, just dealing with the stress of our situation and feeling very pressured about what to do in the future. We've had a lot on our minds and I hate to admit it, but I don't think we've been very fun parents :( So, when Bella was so excited about her birthday, we decided that we were gonna take a reason to celebrate and run with it. So we did. And I have to say, it was kind of worth it! We had such a great day and Bella was so happy. And I still feel good. I had one of the best days today than I've had in a while. Chalk it up to an awesome princess birthday party! And I have to admit, I'm kind of excited to top it next year!

But why?

Damn Pinocchio! Yup, I did it. I swore on my blog :) So, Bella got on this kick to watch Pinocchio, and after watching it with her a couple times, I was like, okay, this movie's kinda cute. Not so bad. Until she started picking up lines from it. Near the beginning, when he's turned into a real boy, they go to bed. Geppetto tells Pinocchio to go to sleep, and Pinocchio asks, "but why?" And then it began. EVERYTHING I say to Bella is followed by "but why?". Cute for a while. But it's been longer than a while. BECAUSE I SAID SO!! Okay, I'm not really that annoyed by it! It would actually be fun if she was old enough to explain things to, but she's not. So I'll try to answer her question, and it's followed by another "but why?". What am I gonna do with this girl???

On a happier note, we got family pictures a few weeks ago and they turned out really cute. I was happy to get outside, out of a studio, and just kind of have some fun. Bella was a stinker, isn't much for posing for the camera lately, but Evan was having a blast hamming it up every chance he got.

I love my babies and they're just so stinkin' cute all the time! Other than family pictures, we haven't had a lot going on. We just keep working and hoping for a better job for Ryan. The usual...

I'll post again shortly, probably, because Bella and Evan both have birthdays coming up soon. I hope Bella's comes soon, because somebody got the idea in her head that it's almost her birthday, and I've heard of nothing else since. She doesn't even know what it means, but she's excited for it! We have a paper chain for it, and she gets to pull one off each morning. I'm hoping this will help her understand days and stuff. So far, she just calls the paper chain her birthday and wonders why we're pulling her birthday apart! Oh well!

Fantastic!

Haha, this is the coolest, most fan-freakin-tastic background they ever came up with!! Who's with me??

Top Twelve...

So, I haven't posted for a really long time, which for those of you that know me, is nothing new. But I mostly haven't posted anything because we've just been kind of busy, so I have arranged the top 12 (I couldn't pick just 10!) things that have happened since my last post. I hope this doesn't get too lengthy!! Here we go (in no particular order)...

1. We went to Disneyland the last week of April/first week of May. It was really last minute, but we had a fabulous time. Bella had a hard time with it at first - it took a while to figure out that you have to get OFF the ride and stand in line again. You don't get to just sit there and ride over and over. When she finally figured that out, she was pretty good. We spent 4 days at Disneyland, a day at SeaWorld, a day at the beach, and a couple of evenings in Old Town San Diego.

I took this picture and originally Bella was in it at their feet. I cropped her out to show the creepiness that these two were! They never even paid attention to the kids in the picture with them, this was their consistent pose. It was hilarious!

Evan was, as usual, very chill for the entire trip!

2. Ryan took his 3rd actuarial exam. Hi studies his tail off for these and finally took it on May 13th. Things are always tense a couple weeks before, so it's always nice to have them over with. Scores take 6-8 weeks, so we're still waiting to find out how it went. Should be soon though. So, onto the next one, I guess!

3. Ryan's sister, Jenna, got married on May 22 to Alan Colver. We had a fun time with their wedding, and with my brother's wedding just around the corner, it was a crazy couple of weeks. Both had planned to have their receptions in the Jubber's backyard, so we spent hours and hours and hours cleaning it up and making it look acceptable. And then the weather was bad for both of them, so no weddings outside! They both turned out really great anyway. I didn't take very many pictures (shame on me!) but here's a couple.

My mom made their wedding cake. Props to her cause it looked awesome!

4. My brother, Ryan, got married on May 28th to Sarah. I was a lot more involved in the planning of this one, so I made sure I got pictures of all the decorations!

The candy bar

The centerpieces

The cake... again, props to my mom! One day she's going to pass this skill along to me.

Terra caught the bouquet, so she and Sarah posed together!

Gettin' a little loopy late that night while cleaning up...

5. Evan learned to sit up and crawl. Yay! Now he's all over the place, and don't we just love that! Oh, and I'm learning just how dirty my floors are! He's such a cute little bugger though and I love watching babies learn how to do new things. It never ceases to amaze me.

He even practices in his sleep!

He also accomplished all this right on schedule with anemia. Bella had it as well, and it really stunted her progress. Evan didn't seem to even notice. When we went in to his 6 month appt., the doctor tested him just to be sure since Bella was anemic, and lo and behold, poor Evan was low. I was surprised because he had been doing such a good job with the crawling and growing teeth and stuff. But we started him on some iron so he should be doing even more soon.

6. I have a newfound love for Call of Duty.

I know, I know, that's not usually what girls do. But they needed a fourth player one night, so I started playing and I found it to be kind of fun. I think about it a lot now. :) I need to get the Call of Duty out!

7. Bella has finally decided that she wants to learn. I know, this doesn't sound like much, but Bella has never really liked learning stuff. Oh, except for memorizing half the lines and all the songs from her favorite Disney flicks! But she now says most of the ABC song, counts to ten, and knows most of her colors. It may be an accomplishment late in coming, but I've come to learn that I have to celebrate whatever she decides to do because it doesn't come around very often!

8. Father's Day came and went again. Since we're a little bit broke, we didn't do much, but I got Ryan a few of his favorite treats and he didn't have to share them at all!! My mom and all my siblings pitched in to get my dad the Spanish Rosetta Stone. He's been wanting it forever so that was really fun. We went down to the British Import store and got Ryan's dad some of his favorite treats from there. It was a fun day.

9. I had another birthday! And I must say, it was one of the better birthdays. Which isn't saying much. It's just that Ryan has worked nights since we got married, and it's hard for him to get time off. So I usually spend the eve of my birthday by myself, putting kids to bed and stuff. Last year, I even made my own cake! This year, Ryan brought me some beautiful flowers (a day early just to make it a surprise!). Then he made me a cake all by himself. I couldn't have been more proud. He went shoe shopping to get me shoes for my present. Then we went and saw Toy Story 3 with my family.

The guys at work are sent home by seniority when it gets slow, and Ryan is second in line for that. So, when they went to send someone home, the guy who usually gets to go first let Ryan go because Ryan had told him it was my birthday. So he got to come home early and was home by 7:30. So we spent the evening together and just sort of hung out. I know these things don't sound like much, but I am usually the queen of crappy birthdays! I know that sounds like I'm whining, but it's true! Plus, since things have been kind of rough for us lately, it was really sweet for Ryan to go so far out of his way to make it a good day.

10. Bella started potty training!

So, this really is exciting! I put a picture of Tinker Bell because her panties are all Tinker Bell. It didn't feel quite appropriate to take a picture of her in her panties and post it all over the internet (!!), so this will do! She was getting into this pattern that every time her diaper was wet, she wanted a diaper change. She would follow me around the house telling me so until I did it! Well, this got annoying, so about a week and a half ago, I asked her if she'd like to just wear panties and not have to be wet anymore. She said yes, so I put some on her. We've tried days with panties before and it hasn't gone so well, so we've gone back to diapers. I figured this would be the same sort of thing but I thought I'd go for it anyway. And she's done so awesome! She's had a couple of accidents, which is to be expected, but overall, I think she's totally ready. And hooray for us, only one kid in diapers right now! Perhaps it's time to have another...

11. My projects

This is the quilt I made for my cousin for her new little baby girl. I made another one for a girl in my ward with exactly the same pattern, just different fabrics. I've always really enjoyed making quilts, and I'm currently working on expanding my sewing abilities. I'm working on another quilt for Evan, some bumper pads for his crib, a skirt, and a new dress. We'll see how they turn out! If they are acceptable, they'll probably show up on another post.

12. I joined Weight Watchers! I probably shouldn't share this with the world, but I'm kind of excited about it. Ryan's mom has been doing it for like 3 years and it's really worked for her, so that was kind of my birthday present from her. It's been all right so far. I gotta say, it's amazing how much I was overeating!! I LOVE FOOD. Yikes, this is gonna be so hard, but I'm really determined. I don't have a ton of weight to lose, but I do have some that I would love to get rid of! I'm already figuring out a lot about my bad food choices! I've never had a problem with the working out end. I think I do that more than enough. So it was always a mystery why I couldn't lose the weight. Now I know. Food is an amazing part of it! So, hopefully over my next few blog posts, I'll be able to report some good numbers!

Well, that's all. If you've stuck around for all this, congratulations. And as I always say, hopefully I'll get better at being consistent with this!