2 years down...a lot more to go

Our wedding anniversary was Sept 15th. We decided we would keep with the tradition and go to breakfast at the place where we ate with our families the morning before we got married. Its a little bakery in Black Diamond and its delicious! We dropped Ella off to my mom and went to celebrate.

After we ate we picked up Ella and went to the fair. This is also a tradition. After we got married and went on our honeymoon we stopped at the fair on the way home so the fair now reminds me of being newly married. I am not sure if its because we went to Disneyland, Universal Studios, Arizona, Silverwood, the zoo etc this year but I was a little 'faired' out. Ella enjoyed seeing the animals, it was such a beautiful day out and it was wonderful spending the day together.

The plan was for Cirdan and I to go to dinner but after the breakfast, a big burger, fries and ice cream that we ate our tummies weren't feeling to great. We came home, hung out and watched shows on our DVR. I am so thankful that Cirdan and I were married 2 years ago. I will never forget the day that we met in the singles ward 4 1/2 years ago (thanks to my cousin JJ). Cirdan's a wonderful father and I am so thankful for all that he does for me and our family.

Our marriage has been exciting and busy these past 2 years. We were talking about all the stuff that has happened. Being pregnant with Ella, having a baby, Kaiya being a kindergartner and now in 2nd grade, getting laid off from our jobs, starting our own company, going through court stuff with Ava and now being able to see her and the vacations we have been able to take. So thankful for it all.

Happy Birthday Amy

We celebrated Amy's birthday over at my parents house and ate scones and cake. YUM. It was fun to visit everyone. Baby Emma is growing up so fast and every time we see her she changes. Ella enjoyed playing with Casey and Kaiya got a drum lesson from Papa. They forgot to buy candles so she got 1 big one. Hope you had a wonderful birthday Amy!

My mom wanted a nice picture of the grand kids. What do you think?

School has begun

Kaiya was reluctant to start school this year. She had fun playing during the summer and didn't want to have to go back to the 830-3 schedule. I remember being so nervous for the 1st day of school but Kaiya wasn't nervous at all. I'm glad that she is more outgoing.
I told Kaiya that she could have whatever she wanted for breakfast on the 1st day of school. I mentioned waffles, pancakes, toast...anything she wanted and she chose bacon and a pear (just recently she has had a thing for bacon)




She was really excited to have found a pink Seahawks bag for school. The one thing she was looking forward to was using her new bag.




Kaiya was lucky to have her friend from last year sitting next to her. When I turned to leave I looked back and noticed that Kaiya and her friend already chatting away.

Cirdan had the camera waiting when she walked out of her class when school was over. I think she was kind of embarrassed :)

Emma's Blessing

Baby Emma was blessed a couple weekends ago. Nathan gave a beautiful blessing. Afterwards we were going to meet at the gazebo across from my Grandma's but it decided to have a down pour of rain so we all met at Gramee's house for some food and cake.




All of these little munchkins are within 2 months apart from eachother. It was hard to try to get a picture with all of them trying to get away.




Since Amy's birthday was that following week and her parents and sister's family was in town we sang happy birthday to her.

They REALLY do love eachother...

Just call me Homemaker Heidi

I was in the workforce since I was 16 and I feel like I have missed out on a lot of other opportunities. Now that I don't work anymore I have made it a goal to do all the "homemaker-ish" things that I can think of. Summer started soon after my last day so I decided not to start these projects until after taking the my 1st summer break since I was about 14. I started working at CE at 16 and before that I babysat everyday during the summer so this break was much needed!!

1st project - paint the kitchen

I really wanted to do a yellow color. I have learned that people either love yellow or hate it. Cirdan and I went to the paint store and after going back and forth for about 30 minutes Cirdan won and we got the paint he wanted. Even though if you ask him it was my choice. When we got home I immediately started to paint and learned pretty quickly that it was not what we had wanted. Example...

It was too bright and looked like a nursery. The picture doesn't really show how bright it was in real life. Since I was pretty bummed that I couldn't start painting that night Cirdan told me that he would wake up first thing to go back to Home Depot to see if they could lighten the paint. The paint the he brought home was much lighter but I like it. You can hardly tell that the walls are painted but its just enough to warm up the house. For some reason I haven't taken an 'after' shot. Guess I have been a little busy.

2nd project - Canning fruit

When I was young I remember every year my mom canning fruit or green beans (I'm sure she did more but I cant remember). I think watching her every year it made me think that all moms that stay home with their kids did that. I got the opportunity to buy a bunch of fruit so I jumped on it and thankfully my mom agreed to teach me. We first made peaches which were super easy...I was surprised how easy it was. Then we did pears. Not as easy but still not as hard as I had thought. Then we bought some boxes of apples to do apple pie filling...YUM! I also learned and made pear, peach, raspberry and strawberry jam. I have been busy canning all week (my house shows it) and am so excited about my family being able to enjoy the fruits of my no pun intended...lol....in the months and years to come.

The night that we canned the apples we ended up with some extra so it was only obvious that we had to make a pie. Cirdan made the crust from scratch and the pie turned out to be one of the best I have ever had.

My not so helper helper...Ella...

My friend Kristel wanted to learn how to can also so last week she came over to learn how to do peaches.