I've been busy

Hello blog-o-sphere! It's only been about 6 and a half months since I've posted anything, but if you've seen my last post, you understand that I've had a little bit of an excuse. :)
Please welcome to this crazy world with me, my new son, Levi Michael Towner.
He was born this Thanksgiving day! What a great gift :) We was 8lbs and 21 inches long! Perfect and adorable. I just love him! Elli is so proud of him :)

I don't know how much time I'll have to post anything anymore, but I will try. I miss it - honestly, I do! But! I think I'll have to adjust to this new and larger family thing first!

Where have you been?

Okay... where have I been? I'll tell you. Not in my basement...that's for sure.

My basement is very nice, newly remodeled, a clean and pretty living space in our house. We have a TV, video game system, treadmill, and our home computer all down there.
But since I have become pregnant, I can't go down there. It smells funny. When I have to go down there to get laundry, go to the freezer or pantry, or whatever, I have to hold my nose.
I can't type and hold my nose at the same time.

I can't blog, or check my email, or post pictures, or edit pictures, or anything because my basement smells funky.

To the average, non pregnant human being, my house and my basement would smell completely normal. Not unusual or weird, maybe a little bit like a dog (only because I have one).
It's horrible! How am I supposed to go 9 months without doing in my basement? Or my house? - which by the way, I think smells really weird too. I am messed up.

Pregnancy sucks. I don't believe anyone who says that being pregnant is the greatest thing ever. Or that they loved being pregnant. Seriously?! I've been throwing up for 6 weeks. That's a real great time, let me tell ya. I've been in the hospital twice for dehydration. I've let a lot of people down because I couldn't fill obligations that I had made because I am so sick. Does this sound like the best time ever to you? I am on drugs to help me not be so grossed out towards food so that I will be able to eat and keep food down and PUT ON weight. I've lost a lot. I have to live my life on a day to day basis without committing to anything - honestly, that's not so bad, I kind of did that anyways. I get repulsed by smells that no one else smells, sights of ordinary things, thoughts of brushing my teeth. I have a horrendous metallic taste in my mouth that won't go away. I have a catch in my back already and I am only 11 weeks along - that won't let me pick up Elli or walk normally.
Whine. Whine. Whine.

So that's where I've been. Pregnant. Smelling strange things in my basement. Watching a lot of TV. I'll catch up again eventually. Maybe next time I'll be a little more pleasant :)

Pictures from today

I know it's been a long time since I've posted....I'll post that later.
For now, here's some pretty pictures of my little girl taken today over at my Grandma's house. This is her Easter dress that my mom made. Very cute, very old fashioned. Elli loves it! Enjoy the pics!

Oh those curls...

Dancing around the flower bed...

Dancing again in her yellow tutu dress....(love this picture)

She loved sitting in this tree!

And hanging from it...
The fairy queen watching over her flowerbed...

Funny story...

Yesterday evening we all went to thePULSE - our Wednesday night program at church.

Our church is descent sized, so our parking lot's pretty big. We have a pretty oasis with nice grass, big maple trees and a giant evergreen or two.

I dropped Grandma Becky and Papa Orrin off at the door and then went to park the car. I pulled into a parking spot that faces into the oasis. Elli says:

"There's poop in that tree, mommy!"

"What??"

"There's POOP in that TREE!"

I looked to see what she was looking at and sure enough, there stood the giant energreen tree with great big pinecones hanging off of the tips that look like giant turds.

I lost it. I was laughing so hard I was crying.

"Oh, honey. Those are pinecones!"

"Oh! Pinecones!" She said.

Can you tell that we've been potty training (She's 96% trained), and we've been talking potty talk for a while?

Barbie

My name is Jessie, I am almost 29 years old, and I like Barbie movies.

Elli loves everything to do with "pretty barbies" "pretty dresses" "pretty princesses" prettiness. So when we go to the library for movies, she gravitates to the disney princess movies (ofcourse) and the Barbie ones. I am not going to lie. I get a little excited when I see that someone's returned one that we haven't seen yet - not quite to the degree that Elli does, but still. It's a little rediculous. I should have been cleaning my house this evening, but I was SUCKED IN to the Barbie "power of the rainbow" movie. It is the 3rd in the Barbie Fairytopia series.

Lol! I am cracking myself up!

They're pretty good - you should check them out sometime....better yet, I'll pop some popcorn and we can watch it at my house.

Playin' at the park

Fun on the tube slide!

She's getting too big, too fast.

Wearing down...

Playin' at the park

Some fun photos of our day at one of the local parks:

New pendant

I added a new pendant to my etsy site :

I'll post another in the next day or so. It's purple :)

Trampoline!

A few weeks ago Elli jumped on a trampoline for the first time. She was not so sure about it at first. She enjoyed jumping while I was holding her on my hip, but didn't like that it wasn't solid under feet. She has a little bit of an issue with flexible joints, which makes her fall easily, so this was like doubly hard to walk or keep balance. She did eventually, though, really REALLY like running around and jumping by herself! She thought it was so much fun and just laughed and laughed! We need to get back over to our friends house soon and let Elli and out friend's son (a few months older than she) jump and play on it.
Here she is getting comfortable in between my friend Jill and myself.

Braver! Jumping!!!

Woohoo!!! This is great!!!

On another note, I've been busy and feel so bad that I haven't been blogging or keeping up with this very well. I was offered a job to work in my church office 4 days a week, and felt like it was the right thing to do right now. With the way the economy is and we don't have a lot of money (but who does, right?! - If you do, why don't you hop on over to my etsy shop and support a starving artist - thought you wouldn't think I was "starving " by the size of my hips! Lol!), and before we have another child I would like to help us out with our income more than I was. I just feel like I am contributing more if I do. I know, I know, raising Elli and taking care of my house is a huge contribution...ugh. I am still torn. I've only been doing it a week and a half and I completely miss Elli like crazy all ready. I held her too long while I was rocking her to sleep, and screwed up her nap. She just woke up WAY too early! Argh!
I'll try to keep up better. Now I have pictures on my computer and it will be a lot easier for me to do it for a little while.

Crafty crafties

Elli and I made a little hanging book display for her wall! It took me maybe 30 minutes to make! I'm pretty speedy when it comes to the sewing machine. :) Here's where I got the idea. Wish I could claim it for my own.

And look what I found today in my flowerbed (while I was finally taking down my christmas lights)!! Spring is almost here!!!! I am so excited!!

Hello, Kitty

So I *attempted* to make some cake pops for my sister's birthday. I have NEVER made these before and I am not sure why I thought I could make Hello Kitty. Seriously... I bow at Bakerella's cake pop-abilities.

As cute as they are, I wish they tasted as yummy. They didn't taste terrible, they were just VERY sweet and kindof mushy. If you are a texture kindof food person, you probably wouldn't like them. They were fun to make anyway. The possibilities are endless with them - Death Star cake pops at your next Star Wars party?

Elli was excited to finally chomp into the things mommy wouldn't let her help with. They were so sweet that she couldn't even finish one.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY JACKIE!!

Dish Day.

Whew! I did the dishes today. I'm proud of my stack.

Etsy shop

Hey :) I just got my jewelry uploaded to my site. Cool.
I am exhausted.
Maybe now that I've done this, I can relax and have some fun.

And so it begins!

I uploaded most of my fabric stuff last night...this morning...whatever....it's 12:22 am.... to my etsy shop! Woohoo!! I started it!
I'll get some jewelry up there tomorrow or by the end of the week. I have to come up with descriptions of my spoon pendants and then I'll be good for a while!!

Check out the new addition to my sidebar----->
My etsy site address is at the bottom of the list :)

Blushing Buttercream Pettiskirt GIVEAWAY!!!!

Elli really REALLY needs this beautiful Blushing Buttercream Pettiskirt ! I saw one in a catalog once and longed to see my little girl in it and this one is SO much cuter with the dual colors! So stinking cute! I want one! I hope we win!!

Everything is amazing, nobody's happy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yk7nKjr9Keo

Check out that video - I couldn't just post it here, sorry. It is an interesting perspective!

Princesses!!!

This may look like your ordinary Disney Princess obsessed little girls line-up, but this is quite extra-ordinary. For 4 of these princesses have been earned. That's right. I am bribing my daughter to use the potty. I don't care what you say. It is working for me! I won't reward her everytime she goes, but to get her to know what it feels like and what I mean when I say to use the potty - it's worth it. She has earned 4 "presents" in 24 hours with no "icky" messes! I haven't even been trying to potty train. I've just been encouraging her towards it. Princesses really are magical.

Crafty Crafties

My cousin, Jason, is serving over in Iraq right now (pray for him - again - he's been there before) and I thought that I'd make him something. So I made him a Rubik's Cube personalized with pictures of his lovely daughters and beautiful girlfriend. I think it turned out so cool, that I actually made one for Mike for valentine's day (of us, not Jason's family!) - but forgot to take pictures of it before he took it to work. ( I sent the solving directions with the cube that I sent in case he can't firgure out how to solve it if somebody screws it up!)

** This just added!! It's really very easy to make. I purchased some sticker paper, measured the squares on the cube...5/8 inch square is what I used. Inserted pictures into Microsoft Word (because that's what I have!) and cropped them how I liked them down to the size that I needed and printed, snipped, stuck, and sealed(with mod podge)! I know it is very very wrong to peel off the stickers on a cube, but I did it anyway...and it felt good! The hardest part is picking out pictures. 6 good pictures printed 9 times- it took a seriously long time to print because of the file size. **

And I made this cute little crown for E girl. Isn't it sweet? Look how crazy curly her hair is!

My day today

So here's how my day went today. I got kicked out of my bed this morning by a two year old who decided to crawl into bed with me sometime in the night. I went to the eye doctor and got my eyes dialated and examed. I couldn't see anything clearly for hours. Fun! Fun! Especially when they do that little poof of air right into your retina. Then when I eventually made it home and was cleaning up some things and noticed Elli being very quiet. I found her under the table playing with a new bottle of foaming face wash. She was "hiding" and "washing my hair" she said. At least she's telling the truth! Bath #1

Then I guess at dinner time, she decided she was finished with her peanut butter and thought it would be good to rub it all over her face while I went to the kitchen to get us both a drink. Bath #2 and then some bribery potty training that ended up with me just wiping up the floor.

Ugh. Some day.