Adios

It's been 1 day shy of a week now that all of our belongings were loaded up on to a moving truck and hauled away. The apartment where we spent our first 2 1/2 years of marriage is now barren. It was harder on both of us than we anticipated. We both had our fair share of tears leaving the city and people we have come to love so so dearly.

Now we're soaking up family time in Clovis while our stuff is being transported. Ev is receiving more adoration than Santa Claus on Christmas morning. Anytime, anywhere she has someone ready to smile, coo, tickle or hug her. This is good. We've kept ourselves busy by lounging poolside, riding trains, wakeboarding and visiting our favorite Fresno foodspots [i.e. Arsenio's, Pearl Tea House, Red Robin, Rocky Mountain and mom's homemade cookin]. We had our second date night ever without Ev. We saw "Captain America" and walked around Edwards like we would when we were 15. On the drive back I even lifted up the armrest so I could cuddle up to my JO like back in the dating days. Remember those times when you so secretly wished for a handhold all the way home? Life was good.

So while we've left our beachside home, we haven't fully made our plunge in to the unknown and reality has yet to hit. To make sure we never forget our time in Santa Monica, I had my fabulous friend Amy take our family pictures on the most iconic landmark - the Pier. I fell in love with the pictures and all that they captured. Thanks Amy for giving my family this little piece to always take with us!

love/hate relationship

I like pinterest. I really do. It is such a fantastic venue for me to organize all the wonderful things on the web. However, I cannot think of something I despise more than pinterest right now. Let's name the reasons why, shall we:

1. waste of too much precious time. When Evelyn is awake I think of all the things that I need to get done but the moment she goes down I find myself plopped in front of the screen, scrolling through people's pins.

2. diminished self-worth. Do you know how emotionally taxing it is to see so much talent in one place to remind you that you don't have that crafting ability, that artistic knack, that fashion style, etc? It can make one want to cut her hand off and maybe set herself on fire [Harold and Maude reference].

3. creativity stealer. I feel like my brain doesn't have to be creative anymore because pinterest does the thinking for me. I liked when my brain was my center for innovation, not my pinboard.

4. uniquely un-unique. An idea that was once an original is now reproduced by the masses. I bet if you walked in to any given house you would find chevron print on pillows, rugs, curtains, lampshades, dogs. Everyone on pinterest is obsessed with chevron. Nothing is unique anymore. If I see someone walking down the street with a braid running around the back of her head I won't think "Wow, that's a neat way to style your hair." Instead I'll think "Sucka! You didn't come up with that. That's a pin job all the way." Rude, I know.

5. re-pinning. I re-pin. I think there are so many things out there that people do that I would never think of - things that would be helpful for me or interest me in the future. But with that re-pinning comes an endless list of things that I need "to do." For me, the more I pin the more overwhelmed I get. I guess I just need to give myself some perspective and not use pinterest as my dreamboat and pin every JCrew shirt and Anthropolgie chair.

With all that being said, I love pinterest. I will probably never make it go away. You will probably find Chevron print in my house, the craze of smores bars baking in my oven, and my hair twisted in 3 small buns. Because other people do have awesome ideas. and I'm probably just jealous I didn't think of it first.

happy + blog banner tutorial

 Can you guess why we're both so happy? Perhaps it has to do something with the fact that a little baby has given her parents 12 hours of sleep for the past 2 nights! 8pm-8am. Not easy folks. Not easy. We took people's suggestions of letting her sleep on her tummy and that seemed to help. The problem before was she would roll over in her sleep and wake herself up 5 times a night. Now we just cut that problem by laying her on her stomach from the getgo.

I've had some people ask me about my blog banners and how I make them. I've been constructing them in Photoshop, but I understand that most don't have that program seeing that it is a gabillion dollars [Jared got a student discount 80% off, or else we wouldn't have it either :)]. BUT there is a FREE program called GIMP that is the cheaper version of photoshop that is just as suitable for creating a banner. I suggest you download it. Then, click HERE for a full tutorial written by yours truly. Hope it helps! Also, if you don't feel like your creative juices are flowing, you just don't have time to do it yourself or want a whole blog lift, I would gladly be willing to help out! On the left there is a link to BLOG DESIGN which will take you to a contact form where you can outline more specifically what you are looking for :) Happy Banner-ing...???

victim of sleep training

Britney Spears' song "Womanizer" has been in my head lately, but I've changed the lyrics to fit my situation at the moment:

womanizer, womanizer, womanizer Sleep depriver, sleep depriver, sleep depriver    
Boy don't try to front Ev don't try to front 
I, I know just-just what you are, are, are
Oh, womanizer, oh you're a womanizer, baby Oh, sleep depriver, oh you're a sleep depriver, baby

No matter how many hours of sleep she steals away from me in the night, come morning Ev tries to front like "oh hey mom, i'm all smiley even though i cried for 2 hours straight starting at 3:30am and you're still going to love me anyway, i know it, so here's to a new day where you're tuckered out and i'm ready to roll." And she's right. I do love her come morning. But I've also come to hate not getting more than 3 hours of sleep straight a night.

People swear by BabyWise. We've had Evelyn on a flexible schedule since she was born, but I've never let her cry it out during the MIDDLE of the night. Well, after giving it some very deep thought and re-reading BabyWise I decided that it was time to let her cry when she would wake up at 12, 2, 3am or whatever and put herself back to sleep. It would be good for her, right? We started on Tuesday. She woke first at 2am. Jared and I laid still in bed as we listened to her cry for 10 min. And then that was it. She fell asleep! We actually highfived each other we felt so proud [I think we highfived it, maybe in my delirious state I thought we did but I know we were proud of ourselves]. The next night we thought would be much better. BabyWise says that with 3-5 nights you should be cured, so it could only go uphill with each night, right? Night #2 - Woke twice at 11 and 3 and cried for 45min both times. Night #3 - woke at 3:30 and cried for 2 HOURS!!! She finally fell asleep at 5:30 and I had to wake her up at 6:30 to keep her on schedule. I feel like a veggie right now. This is exhausting. Wish me luck on night #4.... oh, but Ev's still my sunshine.

....and I can't wait to see THIS Feb '12. Only because it's Rachel McAdams. And she's my girl crush.

Vacation Storyboard

While traveling with a baby is the MOST exhausting undertaking, we'd do it again in a heartbeat.

We kinda fell in love with Salt Lake.

If SLC ever relocates to outside of Utah, we'll move there lickity-split :)

Happy 4th

Yesterday Jared and I had the opportunity to attend Music and the Spoken Word. The MoTab sang all the patriotic songs with such power; it was truly amazing. They ended with "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Even JO had a tear in his eye. Being a history major, I have become rather fond of this nation and it's glorious past. I am so looking forward to being at the heart of this country in 21 days! Next year's fireworks on the mall will for sure bring about goosebumps.