Ivan Pictures

This was taken last night (12/7/12). Ivan got a little congested so things like eating, sleeping, and breathing were a little difficult for him. He was pretty content here though. Ivan usually is quickly calmed by his Dad. 

This was taken at Jeff's flag football game. His teammates and some other players commented on how cute he is and how calm he was...actually I quote "Aw' man, he ain't even cryin' o' nothin'."

And this was taken earlier this week during nap time. I always set him on the ottoman that is just his size for his naps and he usually sleeps on his belly, but its rare when we get the bum in the air. 

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend was a great one! Jeff had Wednesday off and we spent it together resting, cleaning, and taking care of things we don't normally get to. We also went to the new Bahama Bucks for awesome snow cones. By this time we had been enough times to fill up a frequent user card and are now waiting to go back to get our free one. 

Thanksgiving morning we went to the wards annual Turkey Bowl. Jeff played for about two hours while Ivan and I enjoyed watching from the sidelines. 

It was pretty chilly and I forgot his cute orange beenie to wear. 

This is a good picture of Jeff doing a fist pump. I think it represents how excited and happy he was the whole time to be playing.

We then picked up Katie from the airport and headed to Peter and Jenn's house.  

Cute cuddles with Ivan and Katie. 

Shortly after we got there Tom was arriving so Jeff went to pick him up. 

Grandpa holding Ivan. He told us how Ivan looks just like Jeff did when he was a baby. I wasn't there but Jeff was a cute baby!

First Family Picture

Just before we left for the hospital

My Big boy!

Our first picture together.

Our New Life!

Literally! We have a new baby! A precious new life that we are responsible to raise. What a blessing it has been so far. Things are going so well. Ivan is just the sweetest baby with the calmest behavior. There have been very few times that I have felt a little overwhelmed. A lot of the low stress has to do with my parents  being here and helping so much. Since I had a C-section, things like getting out of bed, bending to pick something up were tough so their help has been huge especially when Jeff has had to go back to full time school and been busy with his calling again. At night Jeff is always there when I need him and since he has some special arms that Ivan quiets down right away in, its very helpful to have him right there. 

Here are some sweet pictures of Ivan.

calming him after his bath

Laying on his tummy to get his legs and feet.

And for those who are interested I will be writing my birth story on my pregnancy blog but will be making that blog private soon. Iv'e been getting comments from random strangers and I don't care for that.  

Found Engagement CD

Painting Stripes

These last few days I have been on a kick to do projects. First with the headboard and now this. Yesterday morning I decided I wanted to paint stripes on the walls in the baby's room and while thinking about what color realized we had leftover paint from the color in our bedroom. So I thought that would be perfect. It already ties in to the house and its free! So at 11:00 I had a haircut coming over then right after I started mapping out which walls, how many stripes, what size then continued by marking the walls with a level and a pencil. 

At about 2:00 I about finished taping all the lines and was ready to paint. I had another hour until a second haircut would show up and I still hadn't eaten lunch so I decided I should take care of that. Good thing too because the client called and said his day ended early and he could come over then (about 2:20). Great! I could get that done then start painting. =) And that is just what happened. I had the brush to wall at about 4:00 and had 3 of the 5 stripes done by the time Jeff got home. And no I hadn't thought of dinner. Whoops. Luckily we had some leftovers so not only was it microwavable but dinner was quick so I could get back to my project. Jeff helped paint the 4th line while I painted the 5th and it went by so quickly. We had some good laughs and stories from the day and I really enjoyed his help. He is such a great guy! 

This morning I couldn't wait to take the tape off so I quickly ate breakfast and started pulling it down, putting the curtains back up and putting the furniture back. Thinking the whole time "I should watch the clock, this work can be distracting and you have a haircut at 10:30." I finished it all and it was only 8:37. So I had time to take pictures, post about it on the blog, and now, get ready for the day. =)    

Headboard

Since we moved in I have been wanting to add a headboard to our bed. So yesterday I took a trip to Home Depot to find some wood for the easiest DIY headboard project I could find that I still liked. 

What I started with.

My sample board. Seeing if I like the colors then seeing how it covered with the stain.

The boards after the color coat.

The finished product!

I used a Minwax stain color-Ebony. I had two small paint cans of blue and green from the previous owners so I thought that would be perfect. It does feel a little unfinished now that its up but I love it for now. I might add some molding to the edges later. 

Funnel Cake

Last Tuesday for our dessert night we made  Funnel Cake. It was so yummy. Here is the recipe.

Funnel Cake

Ingredients:

1 egg
2/3 cup milk
2 Tablespoons sugar
1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder

Funnel Cake Directions:

1. In a deep skillet, heat about two cups of oil over medium-high heat until hot. Test the temperature by dropping a pinch of flour into the hot oil. If it sizzles right away without smoking, it's perfect.

2. Beat egg and milk. Mix all other ingredients in a separate bowl and slowly add to the egg mixture, beating until smooth.

3. Using a funnel, drop into hot oil working from center outwards in a web pattern. (You can use a gallon sized freezer bag instead of a funnel by pouring the batter into the bag, snipping off a small corner of it, and squeezing the batter into the oil.)

4. Cook for about 2-3 minutes, remove from the oil when golden brown and crispy.

5. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and serve.

Being sure to follow instructions!

Our "spiderweb"

Dessert with an awesome movie. 

We will definitely be making these again. So easy and so tasty! 

Caramel Apples

Jeff and I have decided to make Tuesday nights Dessert Night. So if you follow me on Pinterest you can get a pretty good idea of what we will make. This was our first night where we made these delicious Apple Pie Caramel Apples.

The delicious apples

Jeff preparing the dipping goodness.

Melting the caramel.

We still have more of the makings so im waiting until the perfect moment to make them again. That may just be today. =)

Maggots

Yes, this post is about the disgusting insects maggots. I will keep it brief since the more detailed I get the more I will imagine them on me. So! Here is the story

Thursday is trash day in our neighborhood and the truck doesn't come by until well in to the afternoon. Important because if it came by first thing in the morning I would have put the trash out the night before and might not have noticed THESE!

What seemed to be thousands of maggots were growing, living, and taking over my garbage can! I was so disgusted I hurried to tell Jeff (via text) to which his reply was "take a picture!" While practically burying my face in their "perfect environment" to get the picture I could hear a loud humming noise from all of them squirming around. Ideas were already coming in to my head as to how to get rid of them. Ideas that involved the smallest contact, even the furthest distance would work best for me. 

I remembered seeing a video on Youtube long ago, where a family had a huge wasps nest near there house and destroyed it by knocking it in to a metal trash can with some kind of lighter fluid then setting it on FIRE! Wonderful! Fire destroys everything! Including melting my plastic garbage can. So I knew that would not be realistic. I turned to Google and asked my question. It often surprises me how many people on the internet have my same questions and have already dealt with my same problems and there are tons of answers from people who have tried things!

 My Solution: I decided to wait until the trash truck came for the garbage so there would be less surface area for these suckers to be on. It was almost exciting when I could hear the truck down the street and as I watched from my office room window, pictured them all falling and separating their precious families and I yelled to the trash man "take em all. Take them all!" Then practically clenched my fists and stared at what was now left of them. I hurried down stairs to start boiling the water and grabbed the gallon bucket of bleach and the empty bucket from the garage. With my poison all ready I bring the garbage can just off the street, open the lid, and with no second thought, pour that beautiful liquid in to the can. I listen as the bubbles and silent screams of them all reached my ears and enjoyed every second of their death. I let them soak in their poison (plus some hot sun) a little longer before I laid them to their graves (the street). I grabbed the hose and gave the can a final rinse and No more bugs!  As the garage door closed I looked at the battle sight one last time and felt so triumphant! It was a great day in the Bell home. 

4th of July and Austin

On the 4th we attended the pancake breakfast at the church then headed over to the Leon Valley Parade which consisted of a lot of Ford Mustangs, a roller derby group, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, a local rock band, and a few fire trucks, and a lot more. After the parade we went home and took naps then cleaned the house and after dinner we celebrated with this delicious ice cream cake. We went to our friends house to watch a movie then see some fireworks. It wrapped up our 4th very nicely.   

On Thursday Jeff and I headed up to Austin for a last getaway before school started again for him. We went to the Natural Bridge Caverns which were very, very neat! 

 We ate at The Green Misquite in Austin which has delicious BBQ then headed to our hotel to drop our things off then went to Ikea to look for baby furniture.

The view from our room. On the 14th floor after we switched out of our 4th floor smoking room. A great improvement and a special treat!

 We walked to the Austin favorite 6th street for dinner. It is literally door after door bars. I think I saw 10 standalone ATM's and a countless amount of "men" in tank tops, shorts way above the knee's, and Toms or the like. They really mean it when they say "Keep Austin Weird" 

We finally found a roof top Tex-Mex restaurant that we settled on and for desert we took back to the hotel. The most Delicious Tres Leches cake I have EVER had!  

Friday we took our time getting ready, ate breakfast at Denny's then headed to the Barton Springs Pool which is probably 3 miles from downtown. It is a natural spring so it is advertised to stay at a constant 68 degrees. The fenced off a large area and built around the spring so it has a diving board and plenty of lounging space but still has the natural mossy rocks, long grass and salamanders. 

Diving board in the left underneath the guy in the green shorts.

Jeff swimming across with his things above the water after re-entering the pool to get his goggles he left in the car.  

We had a really great time!