My little Turkey

Thanksgiving was wonderful! We were able to spend time with family that we love and to reflect on the things we are most grateful for in life. Jeremiah helped me make this little halloween decoration for our fridge; all of the feathers are cut-outs of Jeremiah's little hands.

This time last year I was holding a little Jeremiah in my arms.  I went into labor Thanksgiving night and gave birth about 21 hours later. Jeremiah will always be my little Turkey. He reminds me of the wonderful things in life. 

We celebrated Jeremiah's 1st birthday on Saturday. I still can't believe it! He doesn't even know that he's 1 or what a birthday is but he sure enjoyed his birthday cake and loves playing with all of his new toys and gifts.

Celebration and Trouble

CELEBRATIONS

Grandpa Clark came to visit this past week. SO FUN! We love seeing him and spending time with him. While he was here we had a large party at Grandma Christensen's home (the home of all partying) to celebrate November family birthdays. Little Jeremiah, his wonderful grandpa, Kofi (11.11.11.   So Cool!)  and Christina Myers all blew out candles. It was so nice to be with everyone and spend time eating, talking, playing games and more than anything, just being around each other. 

Although, it is not quite Jeremiah's birthday he was able to open a gift from G&G Christensen. He got 3 little stackable, noisy cars that he LOVES. 

TROUBLE

Lately, Jeremiah has been getting into all kinds of trouble; he pulls everything off of the tables, all the books off the shelves, all the food out of the fridge, sticks everything in the trash, pushes all the buttons he can find, touches every knob, heads straight for the plunger every time the bathroom door opens, and escapes the house anytime someone opens the door. Some days I think I'm going to lose my mind trying to take care of him. It's a good thing he's so darn cute.

Sweet Moments

Every day of my life is full of sweet little moments. One of my sweet little moments of today happened when Chris came home during lunch and literally swept me off my feet. With a handsome smile on his face he took me in his arms and began dancing with me in the living room. Only seconds later, we felt tugging at our legs. Apparently, Jeremiah didn't want to miss out on all the fun. So, the three of us slow danced around the living room together while we listened to Brett Raymond. 

Another sweet moment took place when I took Jeremiah out for a walk. He laughed as he did his "waddle run" down the sidewalk, throwing leaves up in the air. He turned back to look at me, gave me a big smile and then waited for me to catch up with him so I could see a pretty leaf he found. He pointed at the leaf and said, "huh?". I never know what "huh?" means so I just told him that the leaf was red. He looked at me, said, "ehhhdah" and then clapped his hands.

What would life be without the people I love most? As I think back on all of the "sweet moments" in my life I am unable to say that a single one of them didn't include someone that I loved ,whether, in spirit, thought or physical presence.

I am so blessed by each person in my life. All contribute to my happiness and "sweet moments".

Thrifty & Nifty

About a week ago I ran out of diapers for Jeremiah. As I was contemplating buying and searching for good deals I was so sickened by a realization that I had. I spend way too much money on something that my baby poops on!!! In an effort to save money and make myself feel better, I searched for a good "not too expensive" cloth diaper. I read a lot of reviews and talked to a lot of moms and found that I could get the best deal for cloth diapers on Ebay. Initially, cloth diapers can appear to cost more money because a cloth diaper costs anywhere between 4$ - 20$ a piece and a disposable diaper are about 20 - 40 cents a piece. However, when I calculated all of my costs over a two year period (including water and electricity for cloth) I saw a clear winner. Cloth diapers (all expenses included) cost about 1/5th of the money spent on disposable diapers. I wish I would have switched to cloth diapers earlier!

Now, you do have decide whether the money is worth not having to deal with more hands-on "stinky diaper time" or if you feel like you can go a little more green and save yourself some green. I was definitely worried about dealing with the diapers but, I have found that it's much simpler than I anticipated. You just need to get a good system going that works for you. And...if you're dealing with poop anyway, what's one more step?

One downer about cloth diapers is they take up a lot more space. I couldn't put all the cloth diapers in my diaper bag without having to sacrifice something else I needed like: a change of clothes, wash cloths, medicine, water, snacks, my wallet, toys or baby blanket. When I searched online for diaper bags I was unsatisfied with either, the price or the size of the bag. I found a bag that I really liked, made by Petunia Pickle Bottom, and guess what the price tag revealed?!? A whopping $160! WHAT? So, I thought to myself..."Hey, self. You can make one of those!" And, that's exactly what I did!

I picked myself up some supplies from JoAnns for just over $15 and made myself a cute, spacious, multi-pocketed, multifunctional, custom "AriAnn" bag! Check it out.

I am proud of myself for being able to save some money by just putting forth a little effort.

You too, can save a lot of money by researching and thinking about ways/alternatives to things that you buy and use everyday. Give it a whirl! :)  I'm sure you'll come up with a lot of great ideas and probably much more quickly than I did.

Create

I love creating things! My favorite things to do include: drawing, cooking, painting, sewing, paper crafting, writing music, taking pictures...anything.

Eventually, I hope that I can earn income for my family by doing some of the things that I love.

Over the past two weeks I have been fiddling around with a new camera and have already taken over 1000 pictures of Jeremiah(my favorite subject). :)