March 28, 2012

Elephant Fetish!!

Those who know me well know that I love elephants...not just love...but LOVE LOVE LOVE elephants! They're so stinking cute and I love to use them as decor. I also love to ride them; yes, I've ridden them. Loved it and would have one as a pet if I could! Might get a little messy...but oh well! (Ryan thinks it's hilarious that I love elephants as much as I do)

My sister-in-law Becki and I on our "Elephant Safari" in Thailand. This is Owen, our ride for the trip. 
I love Thailand...it' full of elephant stuff!
Awesome elephant chair at our hotel in Thailand.
I made the mistake of going to the fabric store today to find some fabric to make a valance for Shelby's window in her bedroom. I came across not one, but TWO elephant fabrics that I fell in love with along with another fabric pattern that went right along with the elephant patterns. I have the fabrics...now I just gotta do something with them!

Elephants everywhere!
And...I just gotta put this picture in here because this is the cutie patootie that I'm going to be using all this fun fabric for!

"Do a little dance...get down tonight!"

White Pass trip

I mentioned earlier that my family got the chance to go snowboarding for a day up at White Pass in Washington. Here are a few pics I forgot to upload into the last blog about that. We had so much fun and it was a beautiful day for the mountain!



Dad & Kaeli are the couple in the middle of this pic. They were a LONG ways away. Ryan and I spotted them from the top of our run. Yay for zoom! 
Stopping on the way down for a picture. After you take your goggles off you're pretty much blinded cause the sun makes the snow crazy bright! Hence the squinting. :) 
We couldn't help but take a picture of this. Perfect place for a bathroom break maybe? Hehe...
That was our snow trip! Can't wait for the next one!

March 27, 2012

17 Weeks Young

Our little Shelby turned 17 weeks young (she's not old, lol) today! I can't believe we've already had her for almost 4 months. My goodness how time flies! She is just over 12 pounds and is about 25 inches long. She's a tall skinny drink of water and is just as happy as can be! We love her dearly and look forward to all of her new milestones as she continues to grow and capture our hearts day after day.

Our little Shel-belle as happy as can be!

She loves her picture being taken

"Do a little dance - get down tonight"
Ryan and Shelby came over to my office last week to visit me while I had some down time and this is what showed up at my door. Haha!! I LOVE the expression on their faces. I laughed pretty hard! Ryan was so proud of that faux-hawk!
Guess who did Shelby's hair today?!

Weekends with Mima and Pops

Ryan graduated Chiropractic school back in December so for the last 3.5 months he's been busy trying to find an office in Washington to become an associate with. He finally found a doctor who was excited to hire him and it made it even more exciting for us because he was actually going to pay Ryan good money for this job! Woohoo! Some of the other chiropractors he interviewed with were only going to offer him $1500 up to $2000 a month...serious?! Ryan's new boss offered him over twice as much per month than the other chiropractors did...so we took it!

Ryan has been shadowing and training every Friday and Saturday with Dr. Romero and his other associates for the past month now so we leave Portland every Thursday afternoon when I'm done with work and head up to my parents house in Chehalis, WA. We stay the weekends with them then come home Sunday evening and do it all over again. We have two to three more weeks of this before we move to Renton, WA and Ryan officially starts his new job! He will be covering offices for Dr. Romero in Bellevue and Kent. We will be living right in between the two cities so Ryan's daily commute won't be so bad. We are pretty dang excited to get moved and to start a new chapter in our life!

We get to do a lot of fun things on the weekends when we're at "Mima and Pops" house. (that's what they preferred to be called instead of Grandma and Grandpa...I like it a lot better too) Here are a few things we've gotten to enjoy while on our mini vacations each weekend.

Kaeli and Shelby love to watch blues clues and little einsteins

My little giraffe

Shelby and Auntie Kaeli having snuggle time
We also got to spend Shelby's first St. Patricks Day up there!

Fancy outfit!
St Patty's Day was fun but we were thankful to leave it "behind" for the year. Hehe!
My mom and I would run errands and go shopping every once in a while and this is how Shelby ended up the entire afternoon while we were out. She would NOT let go of that little puppy. It was sooo cute!

Puppy love!
A couple weekends ago we all went up to White Pass to go snowboarding. This is a picture of the beauty we were surrounded by on the way up. It was a beautiful day!
Road to White Pass, WA
We also attended a local city auction that is held every year in Chehalis at the fairgrounds. Kaeli discovered how much fun it is to bid on items in the silent auction portion. Unbeknownst to everyone else she was raising the bid on everything she liked if her bidding number wasn't the last one on the list. Sooo...she won this lovely cake...for $50!! Haha! We all got a pretty good laugh out of it. She said she bid on it because "It's carrot cake and it's Nini's favorite!" Well...I don't like cake so I'm not sure where she came up with that. Too funny! Guess we'll have to keep a leash on her the next time we go to an auction like this!

Kaeli and her winnings!
My family is known for our love of clam digging. Last weekend they went clam digging and I guess there was a pretty crazy storm that came through a few days before. Now we've been to this beach a million times for clam digging and it's just not known for shells...until this trip!

A full gallon of shells!!
My parents and Kaeli FILLED an entire gallon bucket with shells they found on the beach. They said it took about 5-10 minutes to find this many and that there were thousands more out there that could be seen. We washed the shells that evening, let them dry over night then Kaeli and I purchased a large decorative glass vase to display them all in.

This is the style of vase we used for the shells. We had the taller one.

It was pretty fun seeing all the different colored shells. Wish I coulda gone too but 6 am digs are a bit too early for Shelby and I. Ryan had to shadow/train that day so he couldn't go either. Bummer!

We love our weekends at Mima and Pops house and look forward to the next!

Crafts Complete! (for now)

A couple posts ago I mentioned that I was starting a project for Shelby's new room for when we finally get moved. Well...they're done! For now anyways...I still have a couple of things I want to do but the main project I was working on is complete!



I'm going to hang these on a white wooden curtain rod above her crib area so that they aren't flush against the wall. I have to give my mom props for that. She's the one who gave me that idea. Thanks Mima!


The elephant is going...somewhere. I'm not sure where but when I saw it at Michaels I HAD to have it. My mom also gave me the idea of adding a little color to it so I bought some ribbon that would go with the rest of Shelby's room decor and I created a little bow to put on the elephant. I love how it looks and I'm so excited to get her nursery/room together!!

March 6, 2012

14 weeks old today!!

Our little Shelby is 14 weeks old today. She's still as happy as could be and even slept a lovely 8.5 hours last night...like normal. I could get use to this if all our kids were going to be this way! And when I say "all" I mean 2. Hehe.

Here's our little lady showing off her toothless grin! She's soooo pretty and happy!!

Couponing, crafts and cuisine!

I'm going to take a minute to brag about my awesome couponing deals I've gotten this week. Couponing to me is a like a game...and I like to win! I love looking at my receipts to see how much I've saved. But most of all I love looking at my receipts seeing how much I've gotten for FREE! On Monday we went to Kmart because they had their massive containers of tide on sale. With their sale price and doubling of coupons all this week we were able to score 3 containers of tide for only $13 a piece. If you buy the massive containers of tide you know how good of a deal that is!



Today we went to Target to score some Kellogg's cereal. With their sale and offer of a $5 gift card with the purchase of 5 boxes...we bought 10 boxes! With my $4 off 4 boxes of cereal coupon, my $1 off 3 boxes and another .70 cents off 1 box we got our 10 boxes for $15.44. So...if you count the $10 gift card the boxes were only .54 cents a piece in reality...awesome! We used the gift cards to buy 2 diaper pail bag refills and only paid $2.99 for them.

Our awesome deal from Target

We also went to Joann Fabrics and purchased some fabric for a project I'm starting for Shelby. Everything was on sale and I had 40% off coupons. My fabric was only .69 cents per cut. I'm going to wrap wooden letters with this fabric.



I'll look a little something like this...but only in the fabrics I chose. (duh) I'll use ribbon to hang them from the wall above her crib once we move to our new apartment and she gets her own room. I'm excited to see how it turns out.


After our shopping adventure today, which I'm sure Ryan loved, we decided to go to Dickey's Barbecue Pit for a buy 1 get 1 free deal on their pulled pork sandwiches. We've never been there so thought we'd give it a try for a cheap dinner.

Soooo yummy!!!

It was SOOOOOO GOOOOD! We totally wanted another sandwich after we finished our first ones. I have to say their bbq sauce was some of the best I've ever tasted. So yummy!!! You've gotta try em out if you have one close by.

Today was a good day!!!

March 1, 2012

Remember when...

I was roaming through some pictures from a while ago before Ryan and I were married and just after we were married. I know it's only been 21 months since we've been married, but I love looking back at these pictures to remember the fun times we had. I'm sure there will be many more to come!

These pics are what got Ryan "hooked".
Riding and shooting!


Don't forget the fishing!
He was there when I caught my first steelhead...actually first 3 in one day!
Craziness at the supercross in Seattle.
Hiking and camping in White Pass, WA.
Skydiving on our honeymoon!
There were definitely some great times together and I can't wait to make more fun memories now that we have little Shelby. She is 3 months old now...here is the latest and greatest of our little princess!

3 months old!

My sunset addiction


I love to take pictures, especially of sunsets. I hope to someday have an awesome camera to go along with some of these awesome sunsets I get to see.

Here are some of my most favorite sunset pics I've taken over the last few years.

Taken in Clackamas, OR

Taken at Utah Lake State Park
Taken at Utah Lake State Park
Taken in Oahu, HI
Taken in Chehalis, WA