jessica and todd's family blog

Bun in the Perkins Oven!

2012-01-12T20:51:00.000-08:00

Aye aye aye! These past couple months have been insane! In November we found out we are expecting another Perkins! It's very exciting, but MAN I forgot how much pregnancy hates the crap out of me! Anyway, now that I am starting to kinda feel a teensy bit better I'm going to try to be better about keeping everyone updated on our lives.

We went to the doctor today and in the first couple months there is no fun news to share (I guess, other than the fact that there is a person living inside of me!). Anyway, so here's the update from the doctor : You've gained 8 lbs since you got pregnant. Well that's great! Considering the baby weighs an ounce and a half right now, I'd say I'm right on track.... to weigh 300 pounds when I give birth!

I don't have a 'bump' picture yet, but you can totally see it here, so enjoy! Yum!

I don't care that much, but what I do care about is that this pregnancy has ruined food for me. I have to eat so much so often to keep from getting sick that I am sick of every food on the planet. When you eat two of every meal every day there's not much left that you haven't eaten.

My majorly notable craving in the beginning was pastrami sandwiches. Mmmmmm....I could still go for a reeaaally good pastrami sandwich. Since the only quick and cheapish place we have around here as far as pastrami goes is Wienerschnitzel, I was cured of that craving pretty quick. (No offense Wienerschnitzel, but you don't understand pastrami)

Now my favorite thing ever that I could drink a million times a day is Naked Juice, specifically the Green Machine flavor. Mmmmm. Why do my cravings have to be so inaccessible/expensive?

Anyway, moral of the story, we're having a baby in July and we are really happy about it! Stay tuned!

EB Awareness Week

2011-10-27T22:30:00.000-07:00

This isn't a fun craft or a cute story, but I hope you will continue reading.

About two years ago I came to learn of a sweet baby boy with a very rare disease. It is called Epidermolysis Bullosa, or EB for short. It is a genetic skin disease that causes the skin to be so fragile that the slightest touch causes severe blistering inside and outside the body.

You have probably never heard of EB because most babies who are born with it die in early infancy. For two years I have been following the life of a Mr. Baby Daylon. He was born with EB and has had a bone marrow transplant to try to cure it. He has been through some rough stuff for such a little man, but some of the worst that he goes through just comes from a lack of awareness of the disease.

I beg, beg, beg you to go to little Daylon's blog and just read the past few entries. It will help you understand why it is so important to raise awareness about EB. Then if you want to learn more you can go to this site. It is so important to these sweet families who have to cope with this heart breaking disease that people understand or at least know about what they are going through.

That's a lot to ask, but if you do learn a little more about EB from your readings then share some of what you know with someone so the awareness spreads. Thanks!

My First Cake Pops!

2011-10-25T23:18:00.000-07:00

I have been wanting to make cake pops for a long time. I'm sure you've heard of cake pops, but if not check out this site and let your mind be BLOWN!

I think everything Bakerella makes is adorable! But when I saw the cute owl cake pops I knew that I wanted these to be my first attempt. If you want to know how to make a cake pop you can find out all about it here.

Okay, in all honesty, these things were a LOT of work! I don't think I will ever make them again unless I really have a totally free Saturday with absolutely nothing to do (which never happens of course) but they were mighty delicious. And I will totally make them again just round and dipped in chocolate, because that would be easy, delicious and still pretty cute.

I wrapped these babies up and tied them with a bow to give to some of the young women at church. Another great thing about cake pops is that they can really easily be made gluten-free. I have 2 young women with Celiac disease and it was nice to have something to bake for them that didn't taste horrible. (No offense to all the rest of the gluten-free baked goods out there, but you are terrible tasting!)

Luke really liked them too, which makes the hard work *almost* worth it. Also, he refused to bite them. Maybe he felt like he was really biting into a cute innocent owl. Who knows, but he didn't get very far licking it!!!

P.S. Because I could not find ANYWHERE what the candies were that were used as the facial features here's what I did:

The eyes: White chocolate chips with chocolate dots.
The beak: a mini M&M inserted sideways
The wings: Regular M&Ms
The feet: Flower shaped sprinkles
The ears: Chocolate chips put upside down before dipping in the chocolate

Potty Training Log: Day 6

2011-10-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Ugggghhhhhh.........

Before I start complaining I guess I should point out the good part. Luke (when he is awake) is totally pee potty trained!!! He hasn't had a pee accident for 3 days straight! Yay!!!

That being said, he is totally NOT poop potty trained and I am getting sick of cleaning up poopy undies. He is also wetting the bed every nap time and every night.

I'm reeeeeaaaallly feeling like giving up on the whole thing right about now. Ugh.

Potty Training Log (pardon the pun) Day 1

2011-09-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

I have been dreading potty training. I mean DREADING it. Even now that I have experienced it for a day, I am not looking forward to waking up tomorrow. But I wanted to put the stats out there of how Luke has been doing today. Here's what our day looked like:

Put undies on Luke

10am peed on the treadmill (Thank you Luke for making it a wipeable surface!!!)

10:30 peed on the treadmill again (Thanks again, seriously)

11:00 peed on the carpet (WHAT??? I thought we had an understanding!)

11:30 said "mommy I have to poop" and peed IN THE POTTY-YAY!!! (doesn't quite understand the difference between pee and poop yet)

For the rest of the day he did not pee in his underwear. He told me 5 more times and went in the potty 5 more times!!!

Oh wait, there's naptime. That's where you mommies come in. He peed during naptime. I don't know how to train him not to because he is asleep!!! Does anyone know how to help him wake up if he has to go during his (3 hour) nap?

Anyway, I will let you know how tomorrow goes. Sorry, I know there are A LOT of people who don't give a crap (ha ha) about my child's bodily functions. But once this is over it will be my greatest achievement of the year. So I have to brag/vent!

Oh, also I am using this system called 3 day potty training. I am loving it so far! I'll let you know after the 3 days is over how I feel about it. But as of right now I would recommend it.

Count your many blessings

2011-09-25T22:13:00.000-07:00

My friends, it has been waaaaay too long. I have been timid to blog because of how much has gone on in the past few months, and my inability to put into words how I feel about it all. I want to just skip over it and move on, but at the same time the things that happened were so important in shaping me and my love for my Heavenly Father that I feel like if I don't share my story in some small way I am being selfish.

So, in early July we found out we were expecting our second baby. We were super excited! It was a busy time with two different week-long family vacations and a cold that started before I even got pregnant and lasted for a month and a half. Life was busy, and although we were beyond excited about our upcoming addition, we really didn't have much time to think about it or process it.

Then in early August we had a long trip to the ER that ended in us being told that we were losing our baby. It was sad and disappointing. But there was so little time to be sad about it because immediately we were aware of countless reasons why we were so blessed, why this experience could be seen as a blessing in disguise, and reminded that Heavenly Father is watching over everything.

I know know know that He had his hand in everything that happened. I could list every reason why I was overwhelmed with faith during this time, but there are literally dozens of them and they are personal and special to me. But I just need to say that I have absolutely no doubt that our Father has his hand in every aspect of our lives and even in our times of sadness He is making little miracles happen to help ease our pain and remind us how much He loves us.

We were also so loved by our friends and family. We had friends bring us dinner all week and I would get calls and messages from people begging me to let them bring me ice cream, or a soda or anything that could help in any way. We are so blessed to have the people we have in our lives.

Life is good!

Guest Blogging at Radmegan

2011-06-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

Hey friends! Today I got asked to write a guest post for my friend Megan's awesome blog. Check it out here:

http://radmegan.blogspot.com/2011/06/guest-blogger-thursday-coconut-candy.html

I'm teaching how to make this tasty coconut treat from Hawaii!

Check out the rest of the blog too! It's amazing!

Kids Crafts: Egg Carton Caterpillar

2011-05-18T09:33:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been trying to do things with Luke other than watch TV and play with toys all day. I'm not creative at all, so when I need a craft idea I just google it! Ah, Google, where would we be without you??? Anyway, this cute egg carton caterpillar was one of the first things that came up.

I loved it because it was beyond easy and I happened to have all the stuff on hand. Here's what you'll need:

Half of an egg carton

Paint

Googley Eyes

Marker

Straws or Pipe Cleaners

All you do is cut one row off of the egg carton, paint it, glue eyes and antenna on, and draw a happy face on him. We painted ours and then read The Very Hungary Caterpillar while the paint was drying.

I will keep posting the crafts that Luke and I do together so maybe I can save someone the hassle of having to google 'kids craft ideas' like I did!

Happy Spring!

2011-04-27T09:55:00.000-07:00

Is it too late to say Happy Easter? I would rather say that.

Winter has been a beast. We traded colds around our house for 4 months straight. So I am excited that the weather is warming up and the crap is all starting to bloom again. I took some pictures on Easter, but the kids were not very cooperative. This is literally the best of all the shots I took.

Then I was going through past Easter pictures and it was so cute to see how the kids have grown!

I am excited to be healthy (hopefully) for the next 5 months and I promise I'll be blogging a lot more. Promise.

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!

2011-03-02T09:54:00.000-08:00

I LOVE Dr. Seuss books. There are books that I dread reading to Luke and books that I look forward to reading to him. And Dr. Seuss books are always in the latter category!

Just wanted to say that today at Walmart.com there are hundreds of Dr. Seuss books for 40% off. This makes me happy because I am trying to build up our Dr. Seuss library and I rarely find sales on Dr. Seuss books. Sometimes Amazon.com will have a buy 3 get 1 free promotion, but the Walmart deal is still better. Also the shipping is free!

Check out the sale here!

Also, there is a free Dr. Seuss printable that you can download here.

I think this is so cute. It could be framed and hung in a kids room, a playroom, or a library. (Although I'm pretty sure I don't know anyone blingin' enough to have a whole room in their house dedicated as a place to house their books.) I found the link to the printable at ishare printables- check this site out and see what other cute printables they have for St. Patrick's day and Easter.

My Frugal Adventures

2011-02-26T20:48:00.000-08:00

To wrap up my ramblings on saving money and stuff, I wanted to send you over to My Frugal Adventures. This blog is great. She keeps you in the loop on all the deals at every store you could imagine. Just this week I saved bunches of money from just reading this blog and doing what she says.

For example: There was a coupon on target.com for $5 off any women's denim. I didn't print it because I didn't think $5 off was that great of a deal and I wasn't really in the market for denim. But then I read on My Frugal Adventures that a lot of jeans were on clearance at Target 75% off. I printed the coupon and went to Target and found a cute pair of skinny jeans. They were $6.24 so after the coupon I got them for $1.24!!!

This blog makes finding these deals really easy, so you don't have to keep track of all the sales and coupons yourself. If you are interested in getting into the whole world of couponing this is the best place to start!

Target Love

2011-02-23T15:24:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I talked about some basics of money saving. Today I wanted to get into it a little more, and be a bit more specific.

I love Target! We are lucky enough to have a Super Target, and it just happens to be the closest store to our house so I get to go there a lot.

Target is an amazing place to shop if you are trying to save some money. If you don't have a Target close by then I pity you, aaaaaaaannnd also you might not find this post very exciting.

There are a couple ways to save lotslotslots of money at Target:

Coupons: Did you know that Target will take a Manufacturer's coupon and a Target coupon for the same item? It's true! You can tell whether it is a store coupon or a manufacturer's coupon by looking at the top.

So if you had a Target coupon for $1 off Colgate toothpaste and a manufacturer coupon for $1 off Colgate toothpaste then you would totally get $2 off the toothpaste! This adds a whole notha' dimension to the money saving thing because you can do Sale + Target Coupon + Manufacturer's Coupon! You can get Target coupons a whole slew of places. Sometimes they'll mail you some, sometimes they print out with your receipt after you shop there, but the best place to get them is coupons.target.com. They put out new web coupons every Sunday (same day the ad comes out).

*** Something I should have mentioned yesterday is if you see a coupon for something you'll buy, print it right away. Some coupons are up for a certain amount of time, and some are up for a certain amount of prints (meaning if they set the print limit at 500 and 500 people print the coupon then it's gone). Another thing that I should have mentioned is that you can usually print each coupon twice, both at target.com and coupons.com***

Clearance: Target has some wicked clearance sales. You can expect things to go on clearance after any holiday. But there are random things on clearance all the time. Here is a list of some of the clearance sales I have seen in our store:

Christmas, Valentine's Day, Easter, Halloween, etc: These items start to go on clearance the day after the holiday.

Got these for .19 each this week. Luke loves pez so I am now equipped with a powerful bargaining tool!

Dollar spot: Have you seen the dollar section at the front of your Target store? Before they move in a new batch of dollar stuff they usually put the old stuff on clearance. I have bought sticker sheets, books, and crayons for .25 each when these things go on sale.

Toys: A couple times a year Target has a massive clearance on toys. This year they had one right after Christmas. Last year they had one in July and we got tons of good stuff for Luke's Christmas and Birthday presents for soooooo cheap.

Clothes & Shoes: I am always checking out the clearance section for toddler clothes and shoes (although they have clearance for normal people clothes and shoes too). Clothes will start to go on clearance when the season changes to make room for their new inventory. Sometimes I buy things the next size up for the next year. I actually just broke out a pair of shoes that I got on clearance for $3.24. I bought them and stored them away. So last night when I put Luke's shoes on him and realized that his poor little toes were all scrunched up, I just went to the drawer got out the next size up and slipped them on him.

Don't know if you can see the pricetag but this whole outfit was less than 6 bucks. 75% off!

I never wanted to shop clearance because I figured the reason it was on clearance was because nobody else wanted it, so why would I buy it? But that isn't always the case, a lot of the time they are just trying to get it sold to make room for new products.

Target clearance usually starts out around 30% off. The longer the item sits there, the higher the percentage off will get. Seeing something for 75% off is not rare. I usually look at the clearance when it's 30% off and decide if it's something I really want, or if I can wait to see if it is still there by the time it gets to 75% off.

So I hope you have found a new appreciation for the wonderful entity that is Target. And I hope these tips can save you some money!

Frugalicious February

2011-02-22T18:41:00.000-08:00

Not much exciting is going on in life right now, so I figured it was the perfect time to blog about one of my favorite topics: frugality(yay!). I know there are many blogs out there that teach you how to be frugal. But for me, none of those things helped at all until I understood the basics of it by someone who had been on the front lines of money saving. Which is why I am writing this rather than sending you off to a different blog.

Do you know people who go on shopping trips and get everything for free or for ridiculous prices and you wonder "How on earth do they do that??? When I use coupons they are for .50 off of a $5 product and I usually forget to use them anyway."? This was me (and still is sometimes).

And don't get me wrong, even those coupons for .50 add up. I usually head to the store once a week with around $3 worth of coupons (varying from .50 to $1 off) for a grocery trip that is costing me 80 bucks. But they are coupons for things I was going to buy anyway, so that ends up saving me about 150 bucks a year, which is great!

The aforementioned P&G coupon book finally came! Woop!

But the whole extreme money saving thing made sense for me when a seasoned veteran said something like this:

Coupon + Sale = Good Deal

Those people out there who are getting amazing deals are not just using coupons or buying things on sale. They are usually doing both.

So how do you get started?

The coupon part of the equation:

Ever heard of Coupons.com?

There are a lot of sites where you can get printable coupons, but I have found this site to be a great place to get started. They have lots and lots of coupons for lots of different things.

I usually browse coupons.com and print out any coupon for something I would normally buy, or was planning on buying in the near future. That way if a sale comes up on that item I already have a coupon for it. Or if I'm definitely going to be buying that item anyway, I get it for a little cheaper.

The sale part of the equation:

Which stores do you normally shop at? If you go to that store's website they usually have a digital version of the weekly ad, which tells you the sales. Look out for sales on anything that you have a coupon for because if your getting it anyway, you might as well get an awesome deal on it.

Now, an example from my experiences so that you can get a better understanding of what the heck I'm talking about:

My son owns a tag junior reader. It's this little thing that reads books to him so I don't have to. Ha! Anyway. I am always on the lookout for coupons/deals on these books because they are always a good gift for him. Sometime last year a coupon came out for $3 off any Tag Junior book, it didn't expire until February of this year. I printed it just in case a sale came up and I could get an awesome deal. Then in December Target had a sale: buy one Tag book get one free. Now these things are normally $10.99 each. But with the BOGO (buy one get one) sale and my $3 off coupon I got both for 7.99 or $4 each instead of $11 each. Good deal!

If you're thinking, "well good for you but I'm not in the market for Tag Jr. books right now." No worries, this was just an example, things like this happen all the time with all kinds of different products.

So, to summarize the lesson for today:

-Print coupons for things you would normally or will buy.

-Check the weekly ads for the stores you normally shop at.

-If you see a sale for something that you have a coupon for AND would normally buy/WILL definitely use, BUY IT!!!

I will get into everything a little deeper tomorrow and throughout the rest of the week. If you have any questions about what I have said - comment - I WILL answer. =)

Inspitation in Goal Setting

2011-02-18T12:16:00.000-08:00

I like to make goals. I have to. I am such a scatterbrain that if I didn't set goals there would be very essential things in life that I would just never do.

In the process of setting my goals for this year I have come across this bit of wisdom that made me look at my goals in a whole different way. It's called Parkinson's Law, and it states:

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion"

I love this because it puts into words a phenomena I have seen occur thousands of times in my life. Here's a little scenario for you that has happened hundreds of times in our home.

Monday-Friday: Supposed to clean the house because mother-in-law is coming on Saturday. I start cleaning the kitchen counters and somehow get caught up working on one corner of the counter. All I accomplish in 5 days is a square foot of clean counter and tornado-ridden rest of the house.

Saturday Morning: Mother-in-law coming in 20 minutes. Clean, vacuum, sweep the entire house and have it sparkling clean by the time the MIL gets here.

This perfectly illustrates Parkinson's law (okay, I'm sure not perfectly, but I think it's pretty good). When I have a week to clean the house and don't set any specific time limits for specific tasks I end up getting distracted and caught up on one thing. The house does not get clean.

When I have 20 minutes to clean the house, it is cleaned.

In the past I have always been timid about goal setting because I didn't want to overdo myself. But this has made me realize that making more goals for myself rather than less is the way to go. So for my 2011 To Do List (aka goals) I plan on adding lots and lots of things to the list and making sure I define my time frame so I don't get too carried away on one thing.

I am so excited to have stumbled upon this Parkinson's law. For years I have struggled with time management and I feel like this is exactly what I needed to be reminded of. I hope this helps someone else out there.

i share printables

2011-02-11T09:02:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to share a link to this site in case there is anyone who hasn't heard of it. It's called i share printables. It is a collection of cute printable stuff that you can download for free. They have a lot of cute stuff for holidays: cupcake toppers, candy wrappers, and cute quotes to frame.

I love this quote so much! And I love that all I have to do to turn it into some cute valentines day decor is print it and frame it.

I thought these candy baggie toppers were too awesome! And the download comes with those little stickers to top off the Reeses. So cute!

I'm going to be checking this site before I send off any holiday treats or throw any parties in the future. And maybe someday I'll contribute with printables of my own. But for now, it's nice to have a place to go where the work is already done for me. All I have to do is click print.

'Cute as a Button' Framed Heart

2011-02-10T08:06:00.000-08:00

One thing we are always needing more of in this house is decor. We have all kinds of little shelvy things with not much to put on them. When I saw this framed button heart floating around the blogosphere I knew just where I could use it. So I got to work making it.

Supplies:

-Valentine's colored buttons

-Coordinating color of paint

-Paintbrush

-Cheap frame (got mine at $Tree for TWO for a dolla!)

-Glue gun

-Paper

I started by painting the frame and letting it dry. Easy.

Then I made a template from the paper that came inside the frame. I did the old 'perfect heart' trick to get my heart super cute and right in the middle. Then I traced the heart and the shape of the paper onto cardstock.

I started gluing down the outline of my heart. Once that was done I filled it in. It was not easy. The frame was 4x6. I think a bigger heart would have made for easier piecing. I ended up overlapping a couple of the buttons because I didn't have just the right size for some of the spaces.

To finish it off I stuck on a label. My labeler was in the same box with my buttons and I'm glad it was, because it gave me the idea for the perfect finishing touch. A little 'love' at the bottom.

It's super fast and simple. You could even make it with a kid if you swap out the hot glue for some tacky glue. I like how it looks on my shelf next to my blocks from Target!

Marathon Man

2011-02-07T20:50:00.000-08:00

Over this past weekend our family headed out to Death Valley, CA, so that Todd and his dad could run a marathon together. I had never been to Death Valley and was kinda worried about what Luke and I would do while Todd was running all day, but it turned out to be really awesome!

The hotel that we stayed at was like a little village with a general store, restaurants, horse stables, a playground, and even the Borax Museum, which had old buggies, wagons, stagecoaches and trains. This was soooo perfect for Luke as he is obsessed with anything with wheels on it.

Luke was so lucky to get to spend the whole day with his awesome Grandma Bibi, or "Grandma Baby" as he calls her. She ran around with Luke all day! Luke absolutely loved it, and it was nice that I could take a break from chasing after him!

About an hour before Todd and his Dad crossed the finish line Luke, "Grandma Baby", and I camped out at the finish line to wait for our boys. We got the opportunity to cheer on the runners that crossed the finish line before Todd came. It was such an amazingly inspiring experience. We watched at least three 70+ year old men finish their marathons and I'd be lying if I said that I didn't get a little lump in my throat every time I watched those men cross the finish line.

I was so proud to see Todd and his Dad finish the marathon. They did great! Look at that semi-smirk on Todd's face. I know that after 26.2 miles I would not be able to muster any kind of a facial expression.

Luke and I got to give Todd his medal!

We had such a nice, relaxing dinner when the runners were all done, and I can only imagine how good it must have felt for those boys to sit down and eat after the day they had.

This is the gorgeous sunset we caught on the way home:

I know Death Valley doesn't sound like an ideal vacation spot, but I actually came away quite smitten with it. I am putting it on my list of getaway destinations when Todd and I get the chance to take a little vacation together.

Fun at the Zoo!

2011-02-01T18:28:00.000-08:00

One of my goals this year is to spend more productive time with Luke. Like, instead of watching back to back episodes of Ni-Hao Kai Lan (Which, by the way, is teaching him horrible habits! You would think that a network that advertises that it is like preschool for your child would be more careful about what they are teaching kids. )we would do something that would help him learn, or that would be more fun for both of us.

On Saturday we went to the zoo in Hesperia. I love this place. We got in and out of there for less than 20 bucks including admission, 2 cups of food for Luke to feed the animals, and a little cheetah print jeep toy for Luke.

***Funny tidbit: Some of the animals, like the monkeys, have little toddler tricycles in their cages to play with. Luke is sooooo obsessed with trikes and cars that when we are looking at those animals he is pointing to and looking at the toy instead of the extremely fascinating animal in front of our faces!

If you live in the area, especially if you have little kids, you need to go here! And I'm so glad we opted for real tigers rather than the cartoon Kai Lan tiger that tells his friends, "I DON'T WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU ANYMORE!!!" Yikes.

An award? For meeeee?

2011-01-19T22:09:00.000-08:00

Why, thank you!

One of my favorite people, Megan, awarded me the stylish blogger award! Thanks, Megan! I do feel like it lowers the standard of the award to be given to a lazy blogger such as myself! But I'll take it!!! I love my blog, however neglected it may be sometimes. I love that it gives me a way to document life when I would never take the time to do so otherwise!

So, along with the award, I have to do some other things. I don't know what happens if I don't do them. Maybe I get erased from the Stylish Blogger Hall of Fame. We don't want that to happen so here it goes. I'll do my best:

Thing #1: Thank, and link back to, the person who awarded you this award
Thanks so much, Megan! I am totally obsessed with your blog. I was just telling my husband the other day how it is such a perfect balance of food, crafts, photography and humor!
Everyone check out Megan's blog- she's awesome!

Thing #2: Share 7 things about yourself
1. I have a huge crush on Ron Swanson from Parks and Rec. He is so grumpily handsome! I guess there are younger guys on the show that I could be infatuated with but---meh. Swanson is my man.

2. I am majorly cursed. My husband and I CAN NOT cook for other people. When we do it always turns out burnt, raw, or deadly in some other way. We have tested our curse out dozens of times thinking maybe it was just a fluke. No, no, it's a curse.
3. Two things that I wish Todd and I would have done before we started having kids is visited Europe and lived in a big city for a while. I guess now we will just have to wait till our kids are grown and then spring break it up in Europe and New York!
4. I am not creative AT ALL. I would say I am talented, but definitely not creative. I can copy most things that I see, but I could never come up with ideas on my own. Most people don't understand the difference between talent and creativity so people expect me to have good ideas for stuff just because I can make stuff. Not so.

5. I have a major nap addiction. I literally can not allow myself to rest or lay down between the hours of 1pm-5pm, otherwise I uncontrollably fall asleep for many hours. Some people in my family have narcolepsy. Maybe I should get that checked out.

6. Favorite dessert when I'm trying to be healthy: Apples dipped in peanut butter and a half-glass of chocolate milk. (Yeah, that is my healthy version of dessert. Can you imagine what I'd eat otherwise.)
7. Once in college, I pooped my pants a little bit at a Country Steaks all-you-can-eat buffet and I didn’t leave until I finished my second plate of shrimp(***Note: this didn't actually happen but you get a zillion points if you can tell me where it's from!***)

Thing #3 Award 15 recently discovered great bloggers

Well, there aren't 15 and they are not all recently discovered but here are a few people that I know in real life whose blogs are awesome! Sorry, just got too lazy to do 15. I know, I know, revoke my award!

Maggi's Misadventures
I (Heart) Food
This Just In
Sidmonds Family Inc.
Alter Ego
Cinnaberry Suite
Simpsonized Crafts

These ladies are so awesome! Some of them are ridiculously crafty, some are incredible and hilarious writers, and some make some dang yummy food. Check them out!

Thing #4 Contact these bloggers and tell them about the award!
Done.

P.S. To be deserving of this most honorable award I decided that I am going to try harder at blogging. Stay tuned for my attempts.

Snow Day

2011-01-04T11:35:00.000-08:00

I love living where I live. When people visit the desert they always wonder why a person would choose to live here. I have lived here since I was a year old, so the quirks have become charming to me. Christmas day is always sunny, and it wouldn't be Christmas to me if the sun was not shining. In the spring the desert floor is covered with green, of course the green comes from the weeds that are sprouting up, waiting to cause allergy misery. But that is spring to me.

Another thing I love about where I live is that every once in a while we get a SNOW DAY!!! We never get enough snow to get sick of it, but just enough to give us one day full of pure excitement and fun!

We loved our snow day!!!

Luke pining for the snow through the sliding door.

Don't know what this face is all about, but I like it!

Our snow man fell over when we went inside to get him a hat. RIP =(

Money Saving

2010-12-29T19:02:00.000-08:00

Over the past year I have become almost obsessed with saving money by any means necessary (excluding fornication or murder). I literally get giddy when I find coupons or great finds at the dollar or thrift stores.

I have a friend who introduced me to the whole world of frugality (Don't know if you read this- BUT YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!!!! =)) and I really appreciate all her texts and emails telling me when there are going to be great deals, or where I can find a coupon for something I am likely to buy.

Since I am slowly, sloooowwly getting better at this whole world of couponing I thought I would share some really easy ways to get started.

One thing that I just discovered was a way to get a fatty coupon book from Proctor and Gamble. I buy so much stuff made by Proctor and Gamble so I get pretty excited for a WHOLE BOOK filled with their coupons. Here are a few brands Proctor and Gamble makes:

Bounce
Bounty
Braun
Cascade
Charmin
Cheer
CoverGirl
Crest
Downy
Duracell
Febreze
Herbal Essences
Iams
Mr. Clean
Olay
Old Spice
Oral-B
Pampers
Pantene
Pepto-Bismol
Puffs
Secret
Swiffer
Tide
Vicks

To get the book you just have to collect reciepts from P&G brands from September-December showing that you have purchased $50 worth of P&G products. Then you mail them in to them and they mail you back a book filled with sexy, sexy coupons.

I thought I would be going through receipts all day. But I found 3 right away that totaled up to $50. It was really easy!

Here is the link to the page where you can find the form and all the info to get the coupon book.

http://www.pgeverydaysolutions.com/pgeds/pgeverydaysavings/index.jsp

The only thing is that the receipts have to be dated between September(ish) and December, and the receipts + form need to be postmarked by January 14th. So if this interests you--get on it!!!

Hope this helps someone out!

Christmas and stuff...

2010-12-16T19:28:00.000-08:00

Ahhh, I'm so glad blogging is not my job, because I would SO be fired by now! Life is too fun to keep up on blogging! We have been up to a lot lately; Christmas shopping, decorating and baking, getting sick, seeing Santa:

Luke has been really getting into the 'magic' of the whole Santa thing, so I thought for sure he would be excited to see Santa, unlike last year. But we got there and he threw himself on the floor in protest. So it's a family picture with Santa this year! I wish I would have foreseen this and put on some makeup that morning!

In other news, I stumbled upon this awesome site that I have been wasting lots of time on lately. It's called dearblankpleaseblank.com

Here are a few of my favorites:

Dear Yahoo,

I've never heard anyone say, "I don't know, let's Yahoo! it..." just saying...

Sincerely, Google.

Dear Noah,

We could have sworn you said the ark wasn't leaving till 5.

Sincerely, Unicorns.

Dear World of Warcraft,

Thank you for ensuring my sons virginity.

Sincerely, parents everywhere.

Merry Christmas, in case I don't blog before then!!!

Seasonal Blocks-Day 7

2010-11-27T17:49:00.000-08:00

Before I introduce the idea for our seventh handmade Christmas project, let me preface it by ranting about the amazingness of using hardware store lumber in crafting. It is a little bit of extra work, but it is so cheap! A 4x4 runs about $6-$8 and makes 20 blocks. That is about .40 cents a block. You can not find that kind of a deal on blocks at a craft store. They are upwards of 2 bucks each meaning to make the craft pictured below you would spend at least 14 dollars just on the wood. As opposed to $3.

I'll admit I was a little embarrassed to set foot inside a hardware store among scores of burly men to buy supplies for...(ahem)...crafts. But the more I shop there the more I realize that they probably have a lot of customers who are buying stuff for smaller projects rather than building a house with their bare hands. So there is no need to be ashamed. Many of the hardware stores will even cut the wood into blocks for you.

So before you go to a pricey craft store ask yourself if it is a cut of wood or any other material that you could get elsewhere. If the answer is 'yes' give the home improvement stores a try.

Photo Courtesy of brownpaper--packages.blogspot.com

I thought these mantle blocks would be a great idea for handmade christmas presents. I know that I always love getting home decor stuff because it is so hard to accumulate enough stuff to make our house feel really decorated. I'd say our house is about 1/3 of the way decorated and ALL of that stuff was given to us by other people, not purchased.

Anyway, the great thing about these blocks is that they have letters on 4 sides so they can be switched up to spell lots of different things enveloping many different seasons and holidays.
The words include:

Harvest
Welcome
Friends
Faith
Family
Spooky
Winter
Freedom
Blessed
Snow
Home
Hope
Monster
Mother
Dream
Easter

Please go here for the full tutorial. She gives you the info on which letters go on which blocks. Such an awesome idea!

Button Bracelet-handmade day 6

2010-11-24T09:42:00.000-08:00

I'm not a big fan of 'real' jewelry. I feel so weird in precious metals! So I really like this button bracelet. It looks from the tutorial like it is really easy to make. And super cheap! I love the rough chunkiness of this!

Photo courtesy of: lillyella.blogspot.com

In other news, I am having way too much fun lately. In the past week we have had visits from family in Seattle and Utah. And we have gone to Disneyland, Universal Studios, and Medieval Times! I thought I would have time before the holiday fun got too busy to post ideas for 25 crafts. But alas, the fun has snuck up on us early this year! Thus, 25 days of handmade Christmas has become 12 days. Ha ha! I am such a slacker! Stay tuned for a whopping 6 more hand-made Christmas ideas.

Little Boy Lumber Jack Hats-Day 5

2010-11-16T09:45:00.000-08:00

I bought Luke one of these hats before I found this tutorial. I LOVE it! I make him wear it whenever I can. Little boys look so cute in hats and I have to say the Lumber Jack hat is my favorite by far! SO cute!

You can find the full tutorial on how to make the hat here.

Gathered Clutch-Day 4

2010-11-13T17:57:00.000-08:00

I found a tutorial for this adorable clutch! I want to make a million of them! Which is why I haven't made one yet. Over-ambition kinda kills a lot of my projects! But who would not love getting one of these for Christmas? (hint hint to my family that reads my blog...just kiddding =))

Photo Courtesy Of: Noodleheads.blogspot.com

The tutorial is really detailed so if you have never made a zippered bag before you should be able to follow along really well! Go here to see the full tutorial!

Homemade Play dough (Day 3)

2010-11-12T10:57:00.000-08:00

Making homemade play dough is one of my fondest and most vivid memories growing up. I thought it was funnest thing ever! The other day I made some with Luke. I have tried a couple different recipes and this one is by far the best!

Ingredients:

1 cup flour
1/4 cup of salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 cup water
1 smidge of gel food coloring

1 tablespoon vegetable oil

*One recipe will make about 3 different colors.

Step 1: Put the dry ingredients in a pan and whisk them together until well mixed.

Step 2: Add the wet ingredients and mix (with a mixing spoon, not a mixer)

Step 3: Put the pan on the stove over medium heat and keep mixing. It will start to get lumpy, that's good keep mixing until it starts to really come together, stick to itself and form a rough ball. Take it off the heat when this happens, if you cook it for to long it will get too dry.

Step 4: Knead in food coloring. I used the Wilton Gel food coloring, because it makes more vibrant colors. When I was young we always used regular food coloring and our play dough was always pastel.

Making homemade play dough is really easy and so cheap! I am always making stuff; crafts and treats, but making this is almost relaxing compared to even the easiest of projects I have done. I was really surprised how fast and effortlessly this came together.

With a couple of dollar store tuperware containers, the play dough can be cutely packaged up and stuffed into a stocking!

Lego Table- Handmade Idea 2

2010-11-11T09:34:00.000-08:00

Photo Courtesy of Shabby2Sweet.Blogspot.com

I found the tutorial for this table a while back and thought it was such a good idea! I have stored it in the back of my mind until we have more kids who would play with it. But in the meantime I wanted to share it!

This is an old side table that wasn't needed anymore, so it got a coat of paint, some dollar store baskets affixed onto the sides and a foundation of legos super-glued onto the top. Now it is a perfect station for storing and playing with Legos!

The thing that blows me away about this project is how cheap it is. I mean, you can find little side tables at yard sales for a few bucks! And the baskets on the side are from the dollar store. The result is something that I think any kid would be so excited about on Christmas morning!

Also if your kids are too small to play with Legos or you just don't want them laying around the house for younger kids to stuff in their mouths you could make the same thing with Duplos or Mega Bloks!

If you want to see the full details of how the table was made please visit the Shabby2Sweet blog.

25 Days of Handmade Christmas- Day 1

2010-11-10T08:59:00.000-08:00

As I already blabbed about earlier this year, I am a big fan of homemade Christmas presents. I also have a passion for seeking out good ideas. Like I have said before I am not creative, so I love scouring the blog world for cute ideas for handmade stuff.

I decided to share some of those ideas I have found with those of you who read my blog. It's also a way for me to document those things so I can find them easily when I want to use them. Some of them will be things that I am making for Christmas this year, and some of them will be links to a tutorial on another blog. I will probably lean toward presents for kids, since that is what is on my mind a lot. =) But I will definitely have some good grown-up ones too!

Whenever ~~my husband~~ Santa asks me what I want in my stocking I always tell him 'accessories'! I can never have enough hair thingies and beauty supplies. They make me giddy. I thought that would be a super easy super cheap idea for a handmade Christmas present.

I got a pack of 4 headbands for $1. I covered this one in blue fabric and made petals following this tutorial. I glued some turquoise sequins to the middle aaaaaand...done. Easy.

For this one I pleated some purple ribbon, ironed it, and sewed it down the middle to hold the pleats. Then glued it onto the headband and glued the polka dot ribbon on top to cover the stitching.

I followed this tutorial to make some rolled fabric flowers with some old denim jeans I had. I also wrapped the headband in a strip of denim. Easy (but painful, burnt my finger on the hot glue. I can't believe with all the technology we have at our fingertips we can't invent something better than the hot glue gun!).

This one is my favorite, because it's for ME! I can't wear normal headbands because they always give me a headache, so I bought some black elastic by-the-yard at the fabric store. I think it was a dollar something a yard. A yard will make at least 3 headbands. I measured how much elastic I needed for one headband, then sewed the elastic together and glued a super simple bow on the top. ANY of these headbands can also be made with elastic. Make the flowers/pleats according to the tutorial and sew or glue them on the elastic.

You can also make bows or flowers and glue them on clippies if you (or your recipient) aren't a headband person. I got this box of 100 clips from a beauty supply store for 5 bucks.

For this flower I just bought a bunch of dollar store fake daisies. I pulled one off the stem, took the front piece and back piece off, and glued a clip to the back and a button to the middle.

For this last one I followed this tutorial and glued it onto a clip. Sooooo easy, soooooo cheap!

Asymmetrical, Pleated Shirt Refashion

2010-11-08T17:19:00.000-08:00

I love fall/winter weather! My favorite thing ever is layering. I think t-shirts, tank tops, and such become so much cuter with a contrasting long sleeved shirt underneath. That's why I was thrilled when I found this tutorial for a one-sleeved, pleated tank top.

It was relatively easy, and I love the result! I didn't have a long sleeve crew neck shirt like the one in the tutorial above, mine was scoop neck so it turned out a little different. If you see the shirt and think, "That would be much cuter if it was a little less cave woman" then check out the tutorial, because if you do it the right way, it's much less extreme (meaning if you wore this shirt without an undershirt you wouldn't get charged with indecent exposure)! I want to try it with a crewneck soon because I seriously love this look, but the only thing that bothers me is the angle of the neckline.

But for now, I am excited for this cute shirt that I could never pull off wearing if it weren't for layering! Woo hoo!

***Please do yourself a favor and follow the link above the pictures to the original tutorial. It is a much cuter shirt when: a)made correctly, b) not wrinkled, and c) on someone with any kind of a shape!!!

Pumpkin Carving FAIL = Delicious (triple) WIN

2010-11-04T00:16:00.000-07:00

Todd and I like to make unnecessary things into a competition. We place bets on everyday things like how many times Luke will wake up in the middle of the night. We have a tradition of making graham cracker haunted houses and having our friends on facebook judge whose is better. Last year was a total fail on my part.

This was Todd's house:

And this was mine:

Some of our friends actually thought that Luke made it because it was so bad! Really? REALLY? Luke was not even a year old at this point!

This year we wanted to turn our pumpkin carving into a facebook competition too. We have both been reading the Scott Pilgrim books and we actually both had the idea to make Scott Pilgrim pumpkins, but one of us had to give up the dream, and so I went to my second option. A LOLCats pumpkin. I wanted to do that fancy carving thing where you don't cut all the flesh out, but just make it thin enough that light shines through. Long story short-it was a fail.

After so many halloween competition related failures I was determined to salvage what I could of this project. Pumpkin puree to the rescue!

A couple of years ago we found instructions on how to make pumpkin puree, along with a recipe for pumpkin pie from scratch. This is what saved me from another Halloween of humiliation.

We had much more puree than was needed for the pie, so we also made a pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin bread. We topped all 3 pumpkin creations off with an amazing recipe for homemade whipped cream using almond extract. ~heavenly~ (If you follow the links to one of the recipes, make it the whipped cream, this stuff makes ANYTHING taste amazing)

Caramel Apples

2010-11-01T17:55:00.000-07:00

Caramel apples are my favorite fall treat! Oh my goodness! They are so good! I didn't like them for a long time, because I always tried to eat them off the stick and it is impossible. But when I learned to just cut it up and eat it like a regular apple, I fell in love!

These are super easy to make. I love when desserts are easy and turn out pro looking. Unlike this fail of a cake that was super labor intensive and turned out so, so sad!

After I dipped the apples following the directions on the caramel package I melted chocolate and dipped them in that, and sprinkled them with various toppings. The toppings are the fun part! It's so fun to think of all the different things you can do. I did sprinkles, butterscotch drizzle, Reeses pieces, crunched up Snickers, Butterfinger, and Kit Kats.

A couple toppings that I wanted to try but didn't were sea salt sprinkled, apple pie (dipped in white chocolate instead of milk chocolate and sprinkled with a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon, and graham cracker crumbles), and mini M&M's.

I like that these can be easily packaged up and shared with friends. Mmmmmmm...

Homemade Halloween Costumes

2010-10-31T01:59:00.000-07:00

Growing up, my mom always made our halloween costumes. I remember going to the store around Halloween and seeing a sweet costume. I would beg my mom to buy it, but she would always say, "I can make that, that's easy." I always wished that we had just bought the costume in case for some reason it wasn't as easy to make as she thought it would be. But my mom was always amazing, she would spend half the money and instead of painted-on details the details were always real. I remember one year I wanted to be Pocahontas. My mom bought some suede and some beads and instead of having a one piece nylon costume with a turquoise necklace painted on it, I wore a thick suede dress with a hand beaded turquoise necklace.

I was always nervous about going to school in my home made costumes. It's not that I didn't like them, but I was going to stand out so much against the store bought costumes and I didn't know how I felt about that. But when I showed up to school every Halloween my friends would drool over my costume and say that they wished their moms knew how to sew. I was always so proud of my mom!

It made me feel so loved to know that my mom put so much time into something to make me happy. I think her amazing craftiness and creativity is what inspires me to want to do these things too. I want my kids to have that special home-made aspects to their lives that I had growing up.

That being said, this was my first attempt at a home-made halloween costume for Luke. I have no idea how to make a cowboy hat from scratch, so- sorry, that was store bought. But altogether this costume cost about $15 to make as opposed to the 30+ dollars it costs to buy one.

I made the vest and the shirt, and added the Woody details to the hat. Of course his cuteness is what makes the costume, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I think it's pretty close...

The life of Luke

2010-10-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

I realized that I haven't updated about Luke in a long, long time. When babies are so little we keep track of every single bit of progress. Then when they start to grow up we get lazy! That's why everybody's baby books are so packed in the first couple pages and then totally blank for the rest.

But in all honesty, Luke amazes me every single day when I see all that he is learning and the person he is becoming!

Here are a few tidbits about Luke:

Favorite Things:

-Luke LOVES cars, trains, big trucks, busses, and anything else with big wheels and a loud motor. When he lays down in his bed to go to sleep I can hear him over the baby monitor saying things like, "trains going through the tunnels, chooo choooooo!"

-He also loves his family. He has a little toy cell phone that he is always 'calling' someone on. I hear him having conversations with Uncle Chad, Uncle Mac, Auntie Laurel, and always his cousins. I love that he is to the age where he pretends to do things, it makes life so much more interesting.

-He loves to sleep. He takes 3 hour naps in the middle of the day, and sleeps for 11 hours every night. I am a lucky mommy!

-He loves chocolate! He prefers it over absolutely any other treat. Just a chunk of chocolate. A few weeks ago Todd made hamburgers for dinner and he thought it was chocolate (because of the color). He was very surprised when he took that first bite!

Hates:

-Luke hates sitting in a highchair in restaurants.

-He hates being interrupted when he is playing

-He hates when mommy brushes his teeth!

-He doesn't like to give hugs or snuggle. I try to force him and it makes him so mad! =)

Fun facts, quirks, and cute things about Luke:

- Luke will repeat EVERYTHING we say. If he is in the room while Todd is gaming, this is not a good thing! He picked up a habit of saying 'Oh Crap!' for a while, but I think he's over it. Todd also taught him to say, "fight the demons!"

- Luke has already visited his first foreign country! He went to Canada in August! He adds that to his long list of exotic destinations visited in his first 2 years, Chicago, Hawaii, Alaska, etc.

-Unlike most 2 year olds he says "yes" to everything instead of no. He actually says YEAH! He also always answers a question with the last thing you say. "Who do you love more, Mommy or Daddy?" Daddy! "Who do you love more, Daddy or Mommy?" Mommy! Also, yeah, we play the who do you love more game! PARENTING FAIL!!!

I love this kid so much!!!

Faux Gumball Machine

2010-10-12T19:01:00.000-07:00

I love when I find a really simple project that yields awesome results. This was so easy, and I think it turned out really cute.

Supply List:

photo courtesy of A Pumpkin and a Princess

I think the supplies cost me about 2 bucks total! I didn't use spraypaint, just a cheapo bottle of black paint like this:

The cool thing is that this is a really kid friendly craft. You could just sit the pot, paint, and a paintbrush in front of your kid and let him paint away until it's all covered up with black. Then all you do is glue the vase to the upside down pot, glue the wooden ball onto the saucer, and the rest works itself out!

I got the idea from the project here at a pumpkin and a princess.

Spooky words decor

2010-10-10T15:43:00.000-07:00

Isn't being sick the worst!?! I hate it! The worst part is that when you are healthy you don't pay any attention to how great you feel. Then you get sick and you want to be healthy so bad, you imagine all the things you could accomplish in a day if you felt better, and you tell yourself you could be doing so much more with your time. Then you feel better and you forget all that you have learned and go back to being lazy! =)

Anyway, I was sick last week, so the Perkins's haven't had many adventures lately.

But here's a project that I did a couple weeks ago:

In case you haven't noticed, I don't have a creative bone in my body! I don't come up with good ideas, but I loooove to steal other peoples! I found the cutest craft over on this site, and made one of my own!

I love it! Every time I look at it I get reminded of all the reasons why I LOVE fall! It was really cheap, that piece of wood was .50 cents! Crazy! The lady who came up with the project sells the vinyl stickers pre cut on her blog if you want to make one for yourself!

Cute Halloween Cookies

2010-09-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

I found these cute mummy cookies on this site, and I had to make them (even though I think it is totally blasphemous to cover something so delicious as an Oreo cookie with (*cringe*) white chocolate). You need to see the ones she made though, they are much, much cuter!

The other cookies are just 2 Ritz crackers with peanut butter in the middle, then dipped in chocolate and drizzled with melted butterscotch chips. There is nothing really Halloweeny about these ones except that I thought that the chocolate and butterscotch looked like orange and black.

In all honesty, I couldn't even eat the mummy ones, I pawned them off on Luke. They are cute, but I just can't eat that white chocolate. But the other ones are pretty tasty, and they look cute together! =)

Halloween Countdown

2010-09-23T14:05:00.001-07:00

Now that we have a little one running around it's time to start hyping up the holidays! I thought this countdown was the perfect way to get Luke excited for Halloween.

I found my inspiration for this from a couple different blog posts. Here and here.

This was an exciting project because it was soooo cheap! The blocks are made from a 4x4 that I had cut into about 20 pieces. And the base is a 2x4. I think the 4x4 was $7 and the 2x4 was $3. But that makes enough pieces for 10 of these. So the total cost of the wood is $1 per countdown. Not bad!

I had my brother's wife over and we each made 3. One for us and a couple for the girls we visit teach. The only thing I would recommend is doing it in stages. Cut and sand the blocks one day, cut the sqares of scrapbook paper another day, etc. We did it all in one day, and it got a little exhausting.

39 days to CANDY!!! Happy counting!

Snapshots of Alaska

2010-09-13T11:51:00.001-07:00

I have traveled to so many different places in my life and for some reason, out of everywhere I have been, I really feel a connection to Alaska. I don't know how to describe why this particular place sticks out to me more than others I have been to. So I'll just trust in the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words."

500 Days of wardrobe envy!

2010-09-07T13:53:00.000-07:00

Todd and I aren't very good at watching movies when they come out. It seems like good movies come in waves, so when good ones come out we don't have enough time to see all of them. Anyway, we juuuust got around to watching 500 Days of Summer. Holy cow! Such and amazing movie! I know a lot of people didn't like it because of how it ends up, but it's such a true story! Things don't always work out the way we imagine they will, but they always work out for the best. I thought that was a super powerful message.

I have been becoming more and more interested in clothing design lately and I was drooooooling over Zooey Deschanel's wardrobe in this movie!

I love how all the clothes are feminine, but still really modest and comfy (I'm guessing). After all my holiday craft making is over I am seriously going to start working on recreating her entire wardrobe for myself!

Especially this dress:

Isn't it soooo pretty? I will keep you posted about my attempts to own every clothing article from this movie! =)

UTAH

2010-09-06T13:39:00.000-07:00

Oh Utah, the only words that I can think of to describe this state were said by one of Todd's mission companions, "Utah's lack of culture is a culture in and of itself." Well said, brother. Well said.

Does anyone else think it's strange how many Ranch Exits there are off the 15 on the drive to Utah?

Anyway, we went to Utah this summer so the kids could see their Great Grandma Viehweg, and to surprise my sister on her birthday. She (Laurel) kept begging us to come visit her and we kept making up excuses, knowing all the while that we really WERE going to go see her. Her reaction was priceless:

Laurel has this thing that we have lovingly entitled "the cry-smile" or the "cryle" if you will. It's when she cries and smiles at the same time. It cracks us up, and it is what got us through that miserable 9 hour drive!!! Thanks Laurel!

We hung out with Laurel a lot...

And the kids spent lots of time with Great Grandma Viehweg.

They loved her stash of old toys.

I love my Grandma's toys. She has a big stash

that my Dad and his brothers used to play with

when they were younger.

When I would come to visit her when

I was little I would play

with them, and now my little boy plays with them.

They have been enjoyed by 3 generations!!!

One day while we were in Utah I got feeling pretty bad for Luke

and all the sitting in the car he had been doing all week.

As a reward I introduced him to one of my favorite treats:

...it was pretty messy

But he deserved it!!!

Wheat Pillow

2010-09-05T23:07:00.001-07:00

The Problem:

Sometimes people ask me, "how are you so skinny?" What do you say to that? Why do people ask that??? I know it is a compliment, but I never know how to answer that question. 'Uhhhh, I eat whatever is in front of my face.' I have never been a fan of diets. I refuse to give up delicious food for the sake of my figure! Anyway, I now know how to answer that question: My body will not let me stop exercising!!!

Our family has a history of really bad back problems. I have been subject to them quite a few times and it is literally crippling. Working my core relieves the strain on my back and as long as I do it consistently I don't have any problems. Well, that's a problem...because I am a big fan of loafing. Long story short: I haven't been diligent in my pilates and now I can't even lift my baby!!!

The Solution (or part of it anyway):

When I was growing up my parents were super cheap (sorry parents! It's true). In the winter it would get pretty cold in our house, and I'm also ultra sensitive to cold, so by 'pretty cold' I mean, like, probably 67 degrees. Anyway, in high school I discovered The Wheat Pillow

...or so I call it. It's basically a reusable heating pack made out of wheat. I would put mine in the microwave for a couple minutes and then put it at my feet when I went to sleep and it would keep me warm through the night. I love wheat pillows!!! I think those were the stuffed animals of my high school days. I couldn't go to sleep without one in the winter, and it was a sad day when I had to retire it for the summer.

They are really easy to make:

1. Cut out fabric and sew inside out leaving a 3 inch(ish) gap

2. Grab yourself some wheat! (We happen to have it on hand from our emergency food storage, but it's super cheap to buy if you don't already have it laying around.)

3. Use a funnel to put wheat into the opening of the pillow without spilling it all over the place. Don't fill it too full, mine is probably 2/3 full of wheat, if that.

4. Sew the hole closed and bask in the sweet, sweet warmth of the almighty wheat pillow!

It is great for sooo many things! I use it when my back hurts (it can be used hot or cold, for cold use pop it in the freezer for a half hour), I pop it in the microwave for 2 minutes before I have to leave on a cold morning, so that I have something while the car takes 20 minutes to heat up, I also used to take it to work when I was working sports games in the winter.

As we speak my wheat pillow is on my back relieving my pain and hopefully (fingers crossed) buying me some time until I have to start exercising again! =)

2010-09-01T23:13:00.001-07:00

My Mom and Dad watched Luke while we were on our cruise in Alaska. I am so grateful to have them around. I know that they will take good care of him because they took perfect care of me!

Luke came home from the cruise and he would say "pillow game! pillow game!!!". I asked my parents "what the heck is 'pillow game'?" Apparently you just pile as many pillows as you have on top of him, and he gets the biggest kick out of it!

I know that my parents are awesome, but I am surprised how good they are with Luke! He has waaaaay more fun with them than he has with us (and we are a party to hang out with, alright?). I never grew up close to my Grandparents and I am so glad that Luke gets to!

Cool photo editing trick

2010-09-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

A few months ago I found a tutorial here on how to add a background to a plain photo. I wanted to try it, but never got the chance. Untill....

I had the awesome privilege of taking photos of my friend's new baby. Look at this little guy! Have you ever seen a baby boy this cute!??! I'd say he's in my top 3 of cutest baby boys!

before

I didn't feel like a plain black background was good enough for this cute little face. So I went on google images and found a polka dot background (Note: I do not know the legality of doing this, do it at your own risk! =)) And laid it on top of the picture and then lowered the opacity and erased it off of his face, and...

Tah dah!

after

I think it brings out the cuteness of the picture a lot more. I am not very good at this technique just yet, but I am excited for the possibilities it opens up. Anyone could take a picture of their baby on a plain white wall at their house and, with some simple editing, make it look like something that was done at a studio!

San Jose

2010-08-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

Our first trip in a long lineup of summer vacations was to see Todd's dad and his wife in San Jose. San Jose, I learned, is a great place to have a kid. There are so many fun things for a little one to do there! There are lots of parks with way more than a swingset and jungle gym. We went to one park that had a train and a carousel!

Luke loves trains so he was really excited (doesn't his expression in this picture just say it all!), really.

Luke's Grandpa loves to spoil him, so of course he had to have a train hat and t-shirt!

It was hard to choose between all the things there were to do. It is so funny how, once you have a baby everything becomes so exciting, because you can't wait for them to experience it. We will definitely have to plan another trip to San Jose soon, so we can do all the other things that we didn't have time for!

We went to Chuck E Cheese one day, and the Santa Cruz Pier another day. Both were so much fun!

At the pier Luke got his caricature drawn.

I think the resemblance is pretty stinkin' close!

Summer Adventures

2010-08-21T18:32:00.001-07:00

Luke after his very first S'more

Holy cow! This summer has been so intense! We have had lots of fun and gone LOTS of places. Our one week on/one week off vacation schedule is coming to a close and I'm actually excited to get back to being lazy and boring! Woo! I will be updating on all our adventures soon!

The Hesperia Zoo????

2010-06-11T22:35:00.000-07:00

The other day Luke woke up and was just not content being indoors. We decided that we would take him on a walk around our block. When we went outside we were surprised to find that our skin was not boiling from the excruciating heat! It was perfect outside, so we spontaneously decided to take Luke to the zoo.

Yes, there is a zoo in Hesperia, and it is actually REALLY cool!

Of course you have to assume that anything with the word 'Hesperia' in it is going to be a little weird and quirky!

The zoo has all kinds of CRAZY animals and none of them are more than 3 feet away from you. We watched a Bengal Tiger suck down a chicken breast bones and all right in front our face! Along with Bengal Tigers, some of the other residents of the zoo are: Black Bear, Olive Baboon, Ring Tailed Lemurs, Lion, Cougar, Wallabies, Camel, Reindeer, and a whole bunch of other animals that I obviously didn't care about enough.

It was just such a trip to see these animals in the middle of the desert! Luke's favorite was the Llamas! The tiger was devouring flesh right in front of our faces and he was totally oblivious, but when we passed the llamas he kept saying 'mama! mama! mama!' (he thinks mama and Llama are interchangeable)

We've decided this summer we are going to do something fun and semi-adventurous (for us that merely means anything that takes more effort than watching T.V.) once a week. So stay tuned for the Perkins family summer adventures!

Boy Onesies!

2010-05-26T16:15:00.000-07:00

My good friend from High School is having a baby boy. There are lots of ideas out there on how to add ruffles and lace to a onesie to make it cute for a baby girl, here are ideas for 'cuteifying' a onesie for a boy.

Trip to Seattle!

2010-05-07T15:48:00.000-07:00

Last week we went on one of our semi-annual trips to Seattle! Our newest niece was being blessed and we really wanted to meet her and be part of it!

She is such a cutie pie! I can't wait until she is older and less fragile so I can violently smother her with kisses! (lovingly violently-it sounded too creepy)

This was by far (in my opinion) the best trip we've taken to Seattle. At the same time it was sooooo stressful and a lot of work. Note to self: toddler boys can NOT just sit in the car all day and then be expected to behave while you are having fun! I don't know how we managed to have so much fun and be so exhausted at the same time. Sacrifice brings for the blessings of heaven, right?

Luke helped us kick off the week by EXPLODING multiple times all over the place and ruining his and our clothes.

poor todd.

YES that is POOP on his arm!

We had one really relaxing day. It was rainy and we ate some hot pho. Then drove a beautiful drive to go to the zoo and Boehms Chocolate shop. We don't have any pictures from this day, just sweet, delicious memories.

Carseat=naptime. On vacations this is pretty much all he gets, poor kiddo.

We spent the rest of our days catering to Luke's rambunctiousness. We came to realize that he needed to play or else we would go crazy. One day we went to a children's museum in Seattle where everything was kid height, everything was play-with-able, and everything was soft and safe. It was so nice to let Luke run around and explore!

Another day we went to Chuck E Cheese. That was so much fun. We've never gone there before because we just figured Luke wasn't really old enough to 'get' it. But he loved tearing the tickets off after the game spits them out! So we got to play all the fun games while Luke waited patiently for those tickets to come out.

Eventually we had to say goodbye to the tickets for something equally as lovable...A NEW CAR!

Luke loved spending time with his cousins! Now that he is older and less of a blob, they really had fun playing together.

Side note: shortly before taking this picture, Natty got hit in the face with a piece of shrimp! =)

Gotta love teppanyaki!

Luke's cousins caught on fast that he liked cars. So they bought him a few and whenever he would start getting fussy at a restaurant they would bust a new one out and give it to him to calm him down! THANK YOU COUSINS!

So, Luke came home from Seattle with 4 new cars! I think that makes for a great trip in his book! =)

Custom T shirts

2010-05-06T10:16:00.000-07:00

I just discovered a new craft technique that is sooooo cool! It's called freezer paper stenciling. I made two shirts using this technique:

I love it because you can make very custom shirts, which is just about the only craft I have found that is guy friendly!

I made the first shirt for Luke. We had a onesie made for him when he was a baby that said the same thing. But he grew out of it waaaaay too fast! I got this shirt for free from a gal that was giving away a bunch of old kids clothes. I found the Star wars font at dafont.com.

The second shirt I made for our Bro-in-Law for his birthday. He didn't know that Narwhals were real. He thought they were a mythical creature like a unicorn. So we made this to lovingly poke fun at him. And to share the gospel of the reality of the Narwhal.

If you want to learn how to do freezer paper stenciling there is a detailed video tutorial on how to do it here.

Last week's craft

2010-04-05T17:21:00.001-07:00

This past week my craft was to do 3 layouts for scrapbooking. This is soooooo hard for me! I usually catch on to crafty things pretty quick, but to me scrapbooking requires so much effort and creativity. It's a little bit discouraging. I have a good friend who made me a scrapbook for Luke's first year. She produces absolutely BEAUTIFUL pages, and she says she averages about 15 minutes of work per page. These simple pages took me a couple hours each, AT LEAST! But I really want our family to have easy access to memories, so- there ya go!

2010-04-04T22:59:00.000-07:00

I can not thank my Savior enough for what He did. Easter is such a blessed day to remember the great joys that we have in life, and to remember that they can always be ours through the sacrifice made by our Redeemer.

They love each other...

2010-03-30T16:52:00.001-07:00

I found these pictures today as I was going through some photos for scrapbooking and they cracked me up! =)

This is Luke and his cousin. 3 months apart and for the longest time Luke didn't even acknowledge his existence. Either that or he knew he was there but didn't acknowledge that he was a human being. He would step on him and hit him, just thinking he was an object. I'm glad they are becoming better friends now that they can both walk and talk and play!

My craft for this week...

2010-03-27T15:31:00.001-07:00

I have 2 new shirts in my closet...made by ME! Well, Kind of...

This one started out being a long sleeved scoop neck tee. So I didn't ACTUALLY make it, I just embellished it. I cut off the sleeves and used the sleeve fabric to make the ruffles. This shirt was 4 dollars on clearance at Target! Woo!

I followed this tutorial and kinda made up some of my own rules too.

I got this shirt for 5 bucks also. I really like the fit of these shirts from Tilly's so I buy one in each color. But it's so boring just to have 5 of the same shirts! So this refashioning thing is really working out well.

For this shirt I just added ruffles, a strip of fabric to the middle and some buttons. I followed this tutorial, again making adjustments.

I'm not thrilled with how this one turned out. I thought if I put ruffles all down the front like in the tutorial that it would accentuate bulges that I don't want accentuated. But I'm not in love with how it turned out. Hey, at least it was only 5 bucks right!?

My first shirt refashion

2010-03-22T23:44:00.000-07:00

I have known how to sew since I was really young, but I hated it. I hated following patterns so precisely only to get a bulky shirt that doesn't fit precisely AT ALL. So when I stumbled across the idea of refashions (taking something old and ugly [essentially] and making it new and cute) I was excited. Less work, and NO PATTERNS.

My first refashion was from a shirt I got for Todd. He didn't like it so I snagged it.

I laid a shirt on top of it (one that I like the fit of) and cut around it, leaving space for hemming and some extra because of the differences of stretchyness in the materials.

I kept the same sleeves, just cut them shorter.

Sewed it all together and added some pleats to the top...

This is my attempt at a self portrait...HORRIBLE! I'm supposed to be good at photography!

My inspiration came from this tutorial. It didn't come out perfect, but I am so excited that I finally tried it. That I got out my sewing machine and learned how to thread it. Be prepared for more in the near future!

The week I wait for all year........

2010-03-12T14:28:00.000-08:00

Photo Credit: Google Images =)

Okay, I can not keep this recipe to myself any longer(not that I have really tried)! Todd and I love Love LOVE corned beef and cabbage. Before I was married to him I had NEVER had it in my life! In our 3 St. Patty's days since we've been married we have tried a vast array of recipes and dishes of corned beef. One year we even braved the anarchy of an Irish pub to get our corned beef fix. That's about as good as it gets, right? Wrong!!! Last year we made this recipe and I am confident in saying that it is the only corned beef we will eat for the rest of our lives!!! It is the best! I urge you to make this stuff! If you've never had corned beef, try it. If you make it, let me know how you liked it!

P.S. Eat it with mustard!!! Yummmmm.......

Luke's first CEO dinner

2010-02-27T22:03:00.000-08:00

Having a baby is my dream come true! I absolutely love being a mom with all my heart and there isn't anything in the world that I'd rather be doing. That being said, I do understand that it isn't always the most glamorous job. When your method of checking for a dirty diaper consists of raising the child's rear to your nose and inhaling forcefully, you realize that you have just banished yourself from certain classes in society.

So, Todd and I were surprised when 'the powers that be' at the company that he works for invited us to go to a dinner at a fancy schmancy restaurant in Santa Barbara last week...all of us. I asked Todd "Are you sure they know that Luke is with us? And you're sure that's okay????" Yep.

I know I shouldn't have been embarrassed to bring my sweet little boy, he's so adorable! Even when he is throwing tantrums and spitting out every bite of food that we put into his mouth, I think it's adorable because he's a baby. I only get one or two years of enjoying the blowing of snot bubbles, and the babbling of words that sound an awful lot like "poop"(Luke doing those things, not me=)). But I also know that when you haven't had a baby in a couple years, you forget all those "fun" things that babies do. I was hoping that the CEOs we were dining with would have good memories.

I spent the first few minutes of the night making sure my elbows weren't on the table, that I was using the right set of silverware, and that Luke's mouth was stuffed full of bread at all times, so as not to raise the ambiance of the restaurant from romantic/peaceful to wild and ferocious.

I was so happy when I looked up between bites of fettuccine to see Luke playing peek-a-boo with a couple sitting at another table. I knew that the people at our table would be sweet, they always are. But I was so glad that Luke was not only NOT annoying any of the other diners in the restaurant, but he was making his way around the room smiling at/flirting with/playing with every table in the place.

My sweet Luke is not only my pride and joy in the company of my family, or other moms, but everywhere I go. I have THE best job ever, and everywhere I go with my sweet buddy I am reminded of that!

Shoutout to my new favorite site!!!

2010-02-20T09:41:00.000-08:00

I have become obsessed with this website. She shows how to take an old or plain shirt/article of clothing and make it cuter and fancier just by adding some pretty simple additions. I LOVE this site. I have looked through all her tutorials and made a list of ones that I want to do. I think there are about twenty that I want to try. We'll see how that goes.

Here is one of her tutorials that I want to try. You take a plain shirt and add some lace to the top. Then make some removable flower pins to add to the side. Ahhhh......

Look who's talking!

2010-02-01T19:26:00.000-08:00

Our little Luke is becoming quite the linguist! He knows about 15 words right now. And by 'knows' I mean he will point to something and say the word without even being asked what it is. It's amazing considering a month ago he had ONE word in his repertoire. Some of them he is really good at saying and even strangers recognize, "hey- he just said 'shoe'!". Some of them can only be deciphered by mom or dad. Like 'Gah' (Dog...obviously, right?) or 'Poo poo' (Shampoo). I can't wait for the day when he is telling his friends that his mom pours poo all over his head every night! Waiting for the CPS visit on that one!

The other day Todd was playing Megaman and Luke pointed to the screen and said 'baby'. We all had a good laugh. It's so funny to see how kids interpret their world! But hey, if the definition of baby is someone who's head is disproportionately big for their body then he is spot on! Smart kid!

craft update

2010-01-23T17:38:00.000-08:00

I have two weeks worth of crafting to report and I have actually done 2 crafts like I was supposed to!

For the first week I just made some gift tags for Christmas and birthday presents. No sewing involved (mostly because I have yet to figure out how to use the new machine!).

The second craft I did was little girl's hair bows. NO, we are not expecting! =) I was just thinking it would be fun to learn. One of my friends taught me and I made a bunch of them. So if you are one of my 2 friends that is expecting a baby girl you can plan on getting a handful of my hair bows! They got better the more practice I got, so some of them are better than others. It was a lot of fun, AND really cheap and easy!

Maui 2010

2010-01-23T17:16:00.000-08:00

This year we went to Maui with the entire Viehweg clan! We had gone to Chicago earlier with everybody, but now that the babies can move around a little more, it was a LOT more of a challenge! It was really fun though. We played at the beach with the babies, went on a whale watch, ate delicious Hawaiian cuisine, and went to an aquarium. We all liked it a lot, but we are in no rush to get back. Turning the living room of the condo into a baby safe holding area was no easy task!

Luke's birthday! (catching up!!!)

2010-01-21T21:11:00.000-08:00

Our sweet baby boy turned ONE year old in December. And it was so fun to see his reaction to all things birthday!

I think his favorite thing was hearing everyone sing happy birthday to him. I don't know why, but that song just makes him so happy. Probably because he knows that delicious sugary foods are laid before him immediately following the end of the song.

He loved ice cream, cake, and presents. And he loved having ALL THREE sets of grandparents together for his special birthday! Thank you to everybody who showed him love on his birthday!

Handmade Christmas

2010-01-20T14:57:00.000-08:00

My mom is super talented. For Christmas growing up we would often get at least one homemade present from her. I always loved it so much! There is something about opening a skirt that comes wrapped in a shoe box, knowing that it is worth so much more than any other present because of the love and hard work that went into it.

Me and Todd had good intentions in making each other ONE homemade present for Christmas. But, when Christmas eve came and neither one of us had started making the present yet, we abandoned the idea-for sanity's sake. We went to bed semi-early on Christmas eve, and that was our gift to each other!

I did manage to get my present for Luke done though! Whew! It's a giant stuffed Muno head!

Muno is a character from Luke's favorite show Yo Gabba Gabba

It was super easy, I mean, he's just made out of shapes! I just cut the outline by looking at a picture of Muno. Then sewed an eye, mouth and teeth on. I put a huge black button for the eye because Luke has a fascination with buttons-I thought he'd like that. Then I stuffed him. He looked a lot better before Luke rolled around with him and sat on him, but it was way fun and I am excited to do MUCH better next year!

getting crafty (maybe?)

2010-01-12T22:24:00.000-08:00

Sooooo..... or should I say seeeew.....

I got a new sewing machine for Christmas and I made a goal to make one crafty thing per week this year. Too lofty? Yes, probably, but even if I end up with like 10 projects done at the end of the year, that will be better than last year, right? Yes. I will post pictures as I finish my projects. Unless they are presents for people or something. Woo hoo!

Luke meets Santa...

2009-12-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

12 Months of Luke

2009-12-15T23:56:00.001-08:00

Happy Birthday to my sweet baby boy. Words could not tell how you have blessed our lives for the past 12 months!

First trip to Disneyland!

2009-12-14T11:41:00.000-08:00

Finally the day we have waited for since before Luke was born! I think everybody fantasizes about taking their kids to Disneyland before they have kids...right? It was so much fun! We went for my niece's birthday, but since they were only born a week (and 2 years) apart it was kinda for Luke's birthday too. He enjoyed it a lot more than we expected him to. He loved seeing little kids everywhere and he was waving to everybody from his stroller the whole day!

Luke and mommy went on the teacups together because daddy didn't feel like ralphing. Weirdo. Luke liked it a lot at first and then he must have got dizzy because he was done after a while.

Small World was definitely Luke's favorite. This was his face throughout the entire ride:

He wasn't too happy in this picture because we made him look at the camera and he was still trying to bask in the glory of Small World.

All bundled up for the parade, which he slept through =(

I still remember how good it felt to sleep when I was little after a long day at Disneyland.

Such a FUN day!!!

First Haircut!

2009-12-10T15:11:00.000-08:00

The first haircut is a little sad. Those were the first hairs that ever grew on my baby's head! I was reluctant to cut Luke's hair, but I promised myself once it got close to his first birthday I would do it. Everywhere we went people would say, "I love his crazy hair", Todd told me that was all they could think of to say because they didn't want to say "He looks ridiculous!". Either way, I loved my baby boy's soft hair, but I still love him bunches with short hair, and I must admit he looks a little less homeless!

BEFORE

"Fluff" a.k.a. my resignation letter

2009-12-03T22:09:00.000-08:00

Recently I decided to give up photography as a profession. Growing up I always wanted to be a photographer (which is weird because I didn't realize that I had said that the whole time I was growing up until someone who I was taking pictures of pointed it out to me!). I always told people "That way I can have a job AND be a stay at home Mom." I love photography! I love when people tell me that they love my pictures. I know I loved our wedding photographer so much and her pictures made me happy. I loved the idea of making people happy with my small amount of talent!

A few weeks ago I had an experience where I thought I was going to die. That sounds SO dramatic, and is so funny, because it turns out I just had the flu. But I felt worse than I ever had in my entire life and for the first time EVER, I really thought that I wasn't going to make it. Laugh all you want, but hey, I got a lesson out of it, and so it was worth it. I sat in the ER for hours, and all I could think about the whole time is what I could be doing differently in my life. I didn't feel like I was a bad person or making horrible choices, but I realized that I could be spending so much more time with my family. Specifically, my sweet baby boy who is growing up all too fast! As soon as I got better I made the choice to quit photography. I'm sure to a lot of people think I just look like a total flake, but I know it was the right thing to do!

In church last Sunday we had a lesson about 'fluff', yes fluff. The teacher talked about how there just isn't enough time in life to do everything we want to do. If we try we end up pushing out something else that is, most likely, extremely important. She suggested that we get rid of the fluff in our lives to make room for the things that matter most. So this is me, getting rid of the fluff!

This is why I quit photography:

Giving Thanks!

2009-11-27T16:18:00.001-08:00

Lately I have felt an overwhelming gratitude for the things I have in my life. One thing that has given me this sense of gratitude even when things are going a little wrong is reading this talk. First of all it makes me realize that no matter what my trials in life are, I have it pretty easy. But it also makes me realize that even if I lost EVERYTHING, there would still be reason to be thankful, because the atonement of Christ has made it possible to have everything restored to us. I am grateful for Jesus Christ, and that I have the knowledge of Him in my life!

Good Movie!!!

2009-11-09T20:43:00.001-08:00

So, I am a big fan of good movies. Only problem... there doesn't seem to be enough of them out there! So when I see a keeper I get reeeal excited! This movie was so cute! It's a little older and usually that means it is automatically boring (not the case here!!!), but this is TOO cute!

Disclaimer: I have never seen the first one, so couldn't tell you if this is better/worse/along the same lines as the first.

A peek into the mid-west

2009-10-04T20:23:00.001-07:00

Speechless Sunday

2009-09-20T22:50:00.000-07:00

Summer Firsts

2009-09-03T20:05:00.000-07:00

This summer Luke did a lot of fun things for the first time. As noted below, he took his first ride on an airplane. He also went to the beach for the first time. He LOVED it! Definitely not a sentiment shared by many Perkinses! He loved walking in the wet sand and apparently liked the taste of the sand. I had to keep a close eye on him because every time I turned around he had a mouth full of sand.

He swam in the pool for the first time too. I don't think he was very impressed, which is great because I'm not a big fan of the pool either.

*note: Mammoth post coming soon.

Summer in Seattle

2009-08-31T12:50:00.000-07:00

We had a blast this summer, and we kicked it off with an awesome trip to Seattle! Our amazing nephew Mikey was getting baptized so we flew up there to be with him on his special day.

Luke's grandma gave him a special rockin' outfit to wear for his first trip to Seattle- so sweet!

This was Luke's first plane trip! He did SO good! Slept the whole time both ways!

He was so excited to spend time with family that he hadn't seen in so long!

Our visit also included spending the 4th of July in Washington. What a FUN experience! I knew that fireworks were legal there, but I didn't quite understand how cool it was until I experienced it! It's like Disneyland fireworks going off in EVERYONE'S back yard! Such a fun experience!

I lit off a few roman candles and held them as far away from my body as possible. I was a lot more comfortable with the sparklers!

And of course- Luke slept right through them- ahhh to be a baby!

It was 90 degrees there the first couple days we were there. Then without warning it suddenly turned freezing cold! Crazy Seattle weather! I love this picture of Luke all bundled up in his stroller at Pike Place!

It was a fun kickoff to a fun summer, and we're SO excited to spend time there again in the fall!

Speechless Sunday

2009-08-30T22:57:00.000-07:00

So, I copied a fellow blogger and decided to do a 'speechless Sunday' post, where every Sunday I post JUST pictures from the week, no words. Sometimes I just want to show off my attractive family without having anything clever to say! Obviously this time I said stuff, it won't happen again!

Inspiration

2009-08-02T20:13:00.000-07:00

So, lately I have been so inspired to kick butt at life. One thing that has been inspiring to me is the story behind the movie 'Julie and Julia'

This woman Julie Powell decided she was going to go through Julia Child's entire cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" completing all 500 some recipes in a year. It's so interesting to me that this intense goal that this girl set led to her 'mastering' French cooking- which is SO cool, but also she inspired tons of people and had a movie made about her! I thought about doing the same thing, but I just don't have the guts to slaughter Lobsters and such! Her blog is really interesting, although a little heavy on the obscenities. You can read all about her culinary adventures here

I'm excited to see the movie and maybe someday set a fun lofty goal like hers. One that doesn't involve killing and eating weird things! Stay tuned for posts on all our summer adventures!

Prunes

2009-06-01T20:39:00.000-07:00

I think I am in a state of denial that Luke is growing up. And because of that I do dumb things. The other day I left a thing of prunes in front of him for 5 seconds thinking 'he doesn't have the coordination to grab hold of that thing'. This was the messy result....

This is Luke hoping that there were some remains of his prune mess to lick off the tray-too cute!

LOST questions

2009-06-01T16:43:00.000-07:00

Ever since season 5 of Lost ended me and Todd have been on a mission to try to solve some mysteries. We enlisted my sister, Laurel to re watch the entire series with us and we've been keeping a list of questions/observations we have after watching it all again.

So, we want to know what mysteries you have solved/ what questions you still have. We are building up our list so that when the last season plays we will have a list to check off. And if we watch that last episode and still have questions on our list....I don't know what will happen. Maybe it'll be a sign of the apocalypse or something.

Getting closer to the dream...

2009-04-24T18:00:00.000-07:00

So, a couple years ago my sister and I decided that we wanted to open a cake business! We were so confident! I offered to make a cake for my niece's first birthday party. I was so excited, but it didn't turn out quite right.
The eyebrows on that bear...oh man, I felt so bad!

But I think we're slowly getting better, this cake was a lot of work, but it was so cool to see the finished product, and it tasted amazing too!

Little wiggles

2009-04-04T19:48:00.000-07:00

It's amazing, as a parent, how exciting it is when your child makes even the smallest amount of growth. Yesterday Luke was laying on his little play mat and he wiggled himself around 90 degrees! It seems like the smallest most insignificant thing, but we were so excited about it! This little baby, who just three months ago, couldn't do a thing for himself is now learning how to get around on his own.

I have never understood our Heavenly Father's love for us quite the same as I do now that I have a child. I like to think that He is proud of us in the same way. Maybe today I learn how to be a little more self reliant, or I put a little bit more of my time into service for others, I could be wrong, but I think even those small, seemingly insignificant amounts of growth make our Heavenly Father happy, and make him beam with pride that we are His children.

The thought just gives me courage to keep going even if it feels like I'm not really getting anywhere. Today it's a 90 degree turn, but tomorrow it's a first step. It may take a while, but we keep progressing and over time we will be able to see how far we've come!

Dare Devil

2009-03-10T22:26:00.001-07:00

I learned how to ski when I was 6ish. My parents started us young. But in my whole skiing career I have never been on a black diamond run! The 'scariness', if you will, of the ski slope is rated by three different shaped and colored signs. A green circle is the easiest, blue square is medium, and black diamond is the...SCARIEST! Today I conquered a black diamond run! Why now, as opposed to years ago when I didn't have a child to raise and a husband to take care of...yeah, I don't know either. P.S. A black diamond isn't as bad as a double black diamond, there was no risk of death involved-trust me.

Family Pics.

2009-02-25T15:19:00.000-08:00

Todd's sister Angela took these pictures for us. We LOVE them! If you happen to live in the Seattle area, I HIGHLY recommend her. And if you don't...pay for her to come to you-it's worth it!=)

Goals

2009-02-23T21:30:00.000-08:00

I have been inspired by some of my family members goals, so I decided to make some goals myself. I constantly have goals, and I usually do pretty good at achieving them, but I write them in a word doc. and never look at them, so this time I thought I'd post them so that I feel a little more accountable to get them done. Here they are...

My 90 day goals, Feb 24- May 24

Spiritual

-Write in journal once a week

-'Daily 4' every day (prayer, scriptures, exercise(pilates 3x, Leg kicks 3x), get ready)

-Get activity days planned 4 at a time at least 2 weeks before they happen

-Get rough draft of lesson done 2 weeks before

-100% Visiting Teaching

-Start marking scriptures as I study them

Financial

-Get tax info completely organized

-Start a CD

Homemaker/mom

-Hold/play with Luke at least 5 of the 8 hours from 9am to 5pm

-Find 3 new recipes a week on F.N. (add to already collected recipes to make 60 by end of 90 days)

-Make dinner 6/7 days

-Make 1 new dessert a week to practice my baking skills

-Me + Todd do chores 40 min a day to keep house clean

Personal

-Get caught up on 365 scrapbook and do new pages every 2 weeks

-Do 3 photoshoots

-Watch 3 photoshop trainings and take notes

-Go to bed at 9:00 5 nights a week

-Normal scrapbook pages, 1 every 2 weeks (6 total by end of 90 days)

-Add post to family history blog once a week (Luke, zebras & baby brother)

-Send birth announcement

-Do a semi intense project for 3 different people over 90 days

-Do nice things for Todd (aside from dessert) once a week

I intend to accomplish all of these, but if I find that I can't pay enough attention to my family while trying to get all this done, then I will start dropping the least important ones, until I can be the wife and mom I need to be. Wish me luck!!!

10 ways life has changed since I've become a mom...

2009-01-26T23:33:00.000-08:00

1. I've learned to never take brushing your teeth for granted, it is a luxury if you are lucky enough to find time to do it!
2. Laundry is no longer a once a week job with our little poop monster!
3. I learned to expect to get peed on at least twice a day
4. The sound of the vacuum cleaner has become serene
5. I don't think I will ever have a non lullaby song stuck in my head for the next 2 years
6. I've learned the eternal importance of the pacifier
7. 3 hours of sleep at a time is AWESOME
8. I've discovered I either need to give up chocolate...or my sanity for the next year...I chose to give up chocolate!=(
9. There is no such thing as free time
10. I don't know how we were happy without him!

Best Christmas Present EVER!

2008-12-21T09:46:00.000-08:00

Luke Benjamin Perkins is here!!! Just in time to give us the best Christmas present ever!!!

He was born 3 weeks early. I probably would have been way caught off guard, but I had a feeling he was coming sooner. On Thanksgiving I started having some pretty intense contractions, but they didn't hurt so I figured I was okay. When I went to the doctor the next week he said I'd been doing my homework too much and that I was already dilating and effacing at 35 weeks. So they put me on medicine to stop it until 36 weeks when his lungs would be developed enough that if he came early he would be fine.

So, last Sunday I started having some real contractions. Before we went to bed on Sunday night I told Todd that I was pretty sure we were going to have the baby the next day. I don't think he believed me. I tried to sleep but I ended up staying awake all night timing my contractions. They were really irregular all night, and then at about 5 am they all of a sudden started being exactly 3 minutes apart every time. Eek! I woke up Todd and we left for the hospital, not really realizing the next time we pulled into our driveway we'd have an extra member of the family with us.

(This is me faking a contraction, if it were real I would look way uglier and I would kill my husband for taking the picture!=))

The labor was...intense. Thank heavens for epidurals. Everybody talks about epidurals like they are the scariest thing, but let me tell ya, I'd take a wussy needle in the back over those contractions ANY DAY. The labor went by really fast, I don't remember a lot, but it felt like the pushing part only lasted like 5 minutes. I was SO relieved when they took him out and put him on my chest! He was adorable even all covered in goo! He is perfectly healthy. 5 lbs 13 oz. I wasn't allowed to hold him for the first hour after he was born because I was being...repaired, that was hard, but I'm kinda glad because looking forward to holding him gave me something to keep my mind off the pain for that hour. Then finally he was mine! Having a baby is an AMAZING thing! It is incredible to go through that intense pain all day, and when it is over, you could care less because the reward for that pain is SO much more than worth it. It's amazing to me that a day in the hospital filled with pain and scariness can be the best day of your life.

We are so happy to have our little guy with us. It is seriously THE best Christmas present ever!!! When people say Merry Christmas to us now, we kinda have to remind ourselves that Christmas is still coming, because to us it felt like we got our Christmas on December 15th.

To add to the awesomeness of having a baby for Christmas, the first day we had him home it snowed all day long. We had the best day just hanging out with Luke all day and watching our back yard become a winter wonderland! We are very blessed.

Random Christmas excitingness...

2008-12-04T17:47:00.000-08:00

So, I just have to share some exciting things that I have discovered in the past couple days.

Thing # 1:
If you live in the high desert you have to check out this house on Chateau Court. It is right off of Yucca Loma Rd., so if you know where Apple Valley Rd. is, take that to Yucca Loma and go East on Yucca Loma. Todd and I were driving home from Target the other night and we saw this house with TONS of lights and they were just blinking on and of in the most random spazzy way. So of course we decided to drive by and make fun of the randomness. Turns out, the home broadcasts Christmas music on a radio station that matches the blinking of the lights on the house-IT IS RAD! Do it!

Thing # 2:
I'm our ward's activity day leader and I was looking for a Christmas craft to do with the girls when I came across this.I was so excited. It is SO stinkin' cute and really easy to make. You just use those clear glass ornaments and fill them with fake snow, and the rest is just pom poms, pipe cleaners and ribbon. I cut up some material and replaced the ribbon on the bottom with a scarf. It was WAY cute. I love how you can leech off the creativity of others through the magic of the internet!!!

Catching up...

2008-11-26T15:24:00.000-08:00

I feel a little icky today, so I thought that would be the perfect excuse to lay around and blog about stuff I haven't had time to blog about yet. =)

First order of business: Halloween. We had such a fun Halloween. Our neighborhood is so awesome on Halloween. It's one of the safest neighborhoods in Apple Valley, so we get tons of Trick-or-Treaters. Its such a zoo, every street looks like main street at Disneyland-super crowded- I LOVE it! This Halloween Todd and I decided to wait to buy costume stuff until it was 50% off. It's a little more challenging that way because there's not much left, but we scrounged up enough stuff to look pretty punk rock...I think.

Todd's costume was awesome-I think he could pull that look off on a daily basis. I love his tattoos!

2nd: Everyone has been bugging me to put up a picture of me pregnant. So I got my sister to take some pictures of me this weekend. She did such a good job!

Also, those trees are in our FRONT YARD. If you live in Apple Valley you know how rare it is to witness the leaves change, because there are no trees. We LOVE our trees!!!

The baby is coming exactly 6 weeks from today. Whew, can't believe it! Pregnancy has been very good to me so far. I have felt so good (after the morning sickness phase) and it's so much fun to have a little baby kicking around inside all day long. I highly recommend it...to most people(ie: married, etc.)=)

6 Quirks

2008-11-12T10:10:00.000-08:00

I got tagged by my fabulous sister-in-law Heather. I have to list six quirks that I have. It's funny to me how most people's quirks are more on the obsessive compulsive or anal side. Like, having a quirk where you have to vacuum the floors twice a day-that's a good thing in my book! My quirks are totally the opposite, they are lazy, irresponsible things that I do that are super annoying...poor Todd.

1. Losing stuff- I have a knack for losing stuff, but especially my keys. I'm not talking, like once a month or even once a week, I lose my keys on an average of three times a week, I'd say. I don't know how I do it, and why keys? I don't lose anything else that often. When I still lived at home and I would lose my keys my dad would ask me "where is the last place you had them?" That is THE most annoying question, if I knew the last place I had them, then I would know right where they are wouldn't I??? Todd likes to ask me that every time I lose them now just because he knows how much I hate it!

2. I love being in bed. I thought that everybody did. I mean, the bed is obviously the most comfortable place in the house! I try to do absolutely everything I can from in bed. I read my scriptures from bed, do ALL computer related stuff from bed including photoshopping all my photography. When I was in school I would write all my papers on my laptop from bed. I tried to exercise from bed a couple times, but it doesn't work out great. And OF COURSE I love to watch tv and movies from bed. Todd hates it- I seriously do not understand it. If you could chose between a couch and a bed, why would you choose a couch? The bed is a bajillion times more comfortable!

3. I dread grocery shopping. I have to mentally prepare myself for days before I go grocery shopping. I refuse to go shopping if I haven't prepared. I make a list of everything we need and then I highlight things with different colors depending on what section they are in (produce, dairy, etc.). And even after all that, I put it off until I know that we do not have anything in the fridge that could possibly be construed to form a meal of any kind.

4. I don't like chapstick. If you have taken a gander at my lips you know that I have a pretty spacious surface to cover when applying chapstick. And the fact that my lips are humongous makes it even more important to use chapstick because no one wants to see my huge lips cracked and flaky. But I hate using it. I think I am just too lazy, and I don't like getting the nasty taste of chapstick in my mouth, especially if they have sunscreen in them or some kind of medicine-bleck. So, I just wait until my lips hurt from being so dry, put on chapstick, and then wait until they hurt again. I know thats gross, and I'm totally working on it. Promise.

5. I'm shy. I don't think shyness is a quirk, but I think I'm shy in a weird way. I am super duper shy around almost everyone- even people that I have known for years and some family. But for some reason the right combination of people can get me to open up and once that can is open you would never believe for a second that 'shy' is a word that could be used to describe me. I say really inappropriate stuff, not inappropriate in a bad way, but I say what everyone else is thinking but most people wont say. And I make fun of people a LOT. It usually happens at family dinners, so the only people that get to enjoy it are my family, and occasionally the missionaries if they happen to be present. But luckily for Todd, I'm like that all the time around him, and since Todd is a pretty big fan of saying offensive stuff and making fun of people we have a good time together!

6. I like to read Todd's emails. I think it's because I'll get like one email a day that is actually significant and all the rest are junk mail for enlarging your pinky toe or whatever. So, on days when I feel especially insignificant as far as email goes, I like to read all of Todd's emails. It's funny because they are all really boring work emails, and I don't understand a lot of what they are talking about. But, I like to see what it's like to be popular and contribute to society and stuff, vicariously, through Todd.

I tag...Kerri, Elaina Andreasen, and Courtney Andersen.

Fall Festivities!!!

2008-10-22T09:20:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was SO MUCH FUN!!! Todd's dad and his wife came to visit, and although we only had one full day to spend with them, we crammed as much fun into that one day as we possibly could! We visited the pumpkin patch, which I look forward to all year long!

I love how this guy's beak is so appropriately, festively colored!

I LOVE the corn maze. I love the feeling of being completely lost! Unfortunately, I discovered this year that Todd has a method that he uses to find his way out, so it ruined the whole hopelessly lost illusion. But I made him promise next year that he wouldn't use his method or memorize where we'd been. I guess not getting lost isn't that bad, we ran into a lady with her kids who had been lost inside for an hour and a half! How do you do that???
I think Todd may be a little bit jealous of me, so we found him a precious baby of his own.
After we found pumpkins that we felt we could love and care for, we started the carving process. It was easier for some than it was for others. Todd's dad picked a really complex design, plus he had to shrink it down to fit it on his pumpkin, and it was impossible to do. Luckily Bibi salvaged his pumpkin and turned it into that adorable pumpkin with a bow tie that you see below. And of course, Todd's is the pac man pumpkin!=)

We decided to be resourceful with our pumpkins this year, so we saved the seeds and the flesh from the inside. Todd made some tasty pumpkin seeds and we boiled and blended the flesh for a completely homemade pumpkin pie! It was so fun, it may be a lot more work than just popping a can open, but it made us feel very self-reliant to be able to do it from scratch.

Also, we are probably the last people on earth to see this movie, but we LOVED it! It was SOOOO good! If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it! It was the perfect kinda spooky movie for a very halloweenish day!

It's a...

2008-10-16T13:39:00.000-07:00

BOY!!!!!

I should have known all along! This kid is kicking my gut all day and I just knew he was too tough to be a girl!!! We are so excited! We're glad that we have a boy first to be a big brother to future siblings. A couple weeks ago I all of a sudden got really excited about boy stuff, I saw the little blue and brown blankets and beanies and I thought how fun it would be to have a boy. Up until that point I had wanted a girl- hands down, so I kinda had a feeling when that happened that I was being prepared to be excited about having a boy! And I am! I'm excited to be outnumbered by cute Perkins boys! It's a dream come true! I just hope he looks like his dad!!!=)