I'm getting the hint...

For the past few weeks Ruark does the funniest thing. I tend to leave my bras around my bedroom, I take it off right before bed and throw it on the dresser or night stand. I'll admit I hardly ever make it to the drawer, this has never been a problem before now.

If Ruark finds my bras anywhere, even the laundry he drops everything and comes running as fast as he can with my bra and wants me to put it on. I tell him what a good boy he is and thank him. He runs away happy as a clam. I will admit I've walked around my house with two or three bras on at a time just to make him happy.

The other night Chase was trying to put Ruark to sleep. I was catching up on some much needed mommy time, relaxing in the bathtub. Ruark could see me from the bedroom and was screaming and screaming for probably 10 minutes. Finally Chase put him down to see what he wanted, because he never acts like that. Tears streaming down his face, and trembling he toddles around my bedroom picks my bra off of the floor and brings it to me in the bath. I took it from him and told him thank you and what a good boy he is. He nodded his head like he knew he'd done a good job walked back to Chase climbed into his arms and went to sleep immediately.

We laughed, but it made me sad. Maybe he thinks I'm not taking good enough care of myself so he feels he needs to do, maybe he's just trying to tell me to pick up my clothes. Either way I'm so thankful he's my son and he loves me so much. Whoever marries my son is one lucky girl.

Potty Training

So the other day I put Ruark on his potty. I was running around collecting laundry when I walked by the bathroom, Ruark was looking down so I knew he was peeing. I thought I would put the clothes in the wash and run back to give him his reward. While I was starting the washer I heard the toilet flush. "Oh great", last time he threw my IPod in the toilet (which is ruined), I tore through my front room afraid what I would find.

Ruark had peed, gotten off of his potty, opened the big toilet, disassembled his toilet, poured the contents in the toilet and flushed it without spilling a drop! I was amazed! Surely my son must be brilliant, I am still convinced that he is. He's only 16 months old, potty training is going great, hopefully by 18 months he'll be done!

Baby Shower

This weekend was the baby shower!!! I'm so glad to have it over with and be able to move on to more projects!! These are the winning prizes from the games we played. I gave everyone magazines and about 10 minutes to go through and pick out eyes, ears, hair, nose, all the facial features they think the baby will look like, the mother-to-be picked the winner!

The second game we played I had everyone guess how big they thought Sadie's belly is. I gave them ribbon and they had to guess, her sister was EXACTLY right! Good guessing!

These were the party favors, everyone took these home. They are cleaned out baby food jars that I filled with dirt and flower seeds. The seeds attract butterflies and hummingbirds. I wrapped them with ribbon, attached these cute bees I cut out at the craft store and covered the baby jar lids with scrap booking paper and mod podge :) A lot of work, but everyone seemed to love them.

Tissue paper, if I never work with tissue paper again it will be too soon!!! No it wasn't that bad, I just need a break from all the tissue paper pom-pom's we made. We strung them from our fan to make a chandelier. I LOVED it, I never wanted to take it down!

My beloved diaper cake! I loved making this cake!!

We had yummy food, this fruit salad looked SOOO good, unfortunately I am DEATHLY allergic to Kiwi fruit, so I was unable to eat it, but everyone else raved about how good it was. We also had yummy chicken salad sandwiches, green salad, chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting and lemon bars for dessert.

I bought these beautiful goblets and serving dishes from Wal-Mart. I love them, they are so pretty and went perfectly with the theme!

The pretty plates!

These are the silverware. We wrapped each silverware set with the buttons and ribbon we made, it looked so pretty. Some people took them home because they loved them so much :)

Our beautiful Sadie, so close to delivery!

She received so many wonderful gifts, the diaper raffle was a hit! Unfortunately I didn't snag any pictures of the prize. It included the "bee movie", treats and all kinds of goodies. In return, Sadie took home 13 packs of diapers!!! Wow what a great start!

I had many people ask if I was a professional party planner, which was a great compliment. I do love throwing parties and how I would LOVE to do it for a living!!! for now I am thankful to have had the opportunity to throw this shower for my sweet sister.

I feel so lucky she's even asked me to be in the room when she gives birth, and throughout her labor!! I am so excited, this will be the 3rd labor I've attended, not counting my own of course. I can't wait to throw another party and am looking for any kind of excuse for the next one!

Potty Training

We bought Ruark a little kid potty a month or two ago and we have randomly just been pulling it out, until last week. I finally decided to really make a go at potty training him, so I started by putting him on the potty after he woke up and naps. He goes on the potty as soon as I put him after he wakes up, he's gone 24 hours at a time without an accident. YAY!

Unfortunately I decided to let him watch his favorite show, Meet the Robisons, while he sits on the potty. I was running in the other room to get ready, and I had a thought that he might throw it in the toilet. I told myself no way, he watches it all the time in there by himself without doing that. I no sooner finished arguing with myself when I hear the toilet being lifted and a *plop*.

Ugh, running back I found it at the bottom of the toilet bowl. I LOVE my ipod touch, I take it everywhere with me, now the screen is black and it's unresponsive. The warranty we bought now says it doesn't cover water damage but when we bought it they told us they would cover it. Sooo, hopefully that will be my mother's day present. Ruark carries it around crying begging me to turn it on so he can watch his movie. I want to cry too, but maybe I'll take a look at the Ipad's instead.

6 Years

6 Years have gone by and we're even more in love than the day we met.

Our Wedding Day July 1, 2005Our honeymoon in Cabo San Lucas Our Sealing day in the SLC Temple July 1, 2006Our trip to Virginia 2007Our trip to Las Vegas Valentine's 2008Ruark's brithday December 31, 2008, 20 minutes before he was born...

Winter 2009, parents to a 1 year old..

Today is Chase & my 6 year anniversary of the day we met!! Life has flown by so quickly!

We met April 23rd, 2004. It was a Friday night and we were cruising 17th street. The night we met, I told my friend Heather there was something different about him, I didn't know what it was but there was something different. Chase told his mother the same thing the next morning.

We were both dating two people at the time we met, I told him I didn't want a third boyfriend to deal with because I was fed up with the two that I had, and he told me he felt the same way...so we decided to just be friends. Because we were "just friends" we spent all of our extra time together and within 2 weeks we only had eyes for eachother.

We were only 17 when we met, married at 18, had our first baby at 22 and this year we turn 24!!! I am so lucky to have found the love of my life at 17, I feel so blessed everyday. Many of my friends are already divorced once and some even twice, our marriage is one in a million and I am so thankful for my sweet Chase. I don't know what I would do without the man of my dreams.

Meet me at the Rodeo

Our Buckaroo is Turning Two!!!

Not yet, I loved Ruark's first birthday party so much I am getting ideas for his second birthday. I am thinking of doing a cowboy theme, "our Buckaroo is turning Two" it was all inspired while I was searching for baby shower ideas and a friend emailed me this darling idea at Hostess with the Mostess. I found this idea for invitations at Porters!

Not sure how we are going to have hay bales for seating in our house because it will be the middle of the winter, but I love this idea and would love to use it for our party.

Aren't these such a darling place settings? I just love it!!

Goodness knows I have plenty of Mason Jars I could use for glasses for the beverage. Just stick in a straw and bam! They even added a little "howdy" sign on them.

They made individual fruit pies for everyone, and for dinner serve an Idaho Cowboy dinner. Chili, biscuits, baked potatoes and all the fixings. I would love if we could do horse rides too seeing as how my dad has horses. I think this would be a great idea to do in a barn, which my dad also happens to have a beautiful red barn....maybe that something to think about.

In the meantime I am gathering together ideas to go with a cowboy theme, lucky for me Oriental Trading just sent me a magazine this week with cowboy theme birthday parties...how lucky for me!!! They have really cheap ideas for parties, to outfit Ruark's party last year all together it was around $75, you can find coupon codes for free shipping and % off to make it even more cost effective. For now, I'm still surfing the Internet to find more ideas, so if anyone has any more ideas let me know!

Baby Shower Time

In a little less than two weeks I am throwing a baby shower for my little sister!! Ok technically, she's my sister-in-law, but she's the baby sister I've always wanted!! She is due May 25th and is going to have a boy, so for the past few months I have been preparing things to give her the baby shower she deserves.

Lucky for me I have a best friend who loves planning parties and crafts as much as I do! So we have been surfing blogs and craft sites for the past few months getting ideas. Here are some things we've worked on so far.

I wish you could see the invitation better because they are so pretty, I found the paper and envelopes at Artco, LOVE that store! For 50 invitations it was $5.30, amazing! I printed everything out here at home and I love the way they turned out, they are the prettiest baby shower invitations I've ever seen.

It says, "a little baby boy is on the way let's shower his mommy to "bee" before the big day"

There are two little bees at the bottom. There is an envelope at the bottom that hold the information for the diaper raffle. I had never heard of one until my little sister mentioned it to me. It's a great way to get a supply of diaper for new parents. I found a little poem that says, " to add a little extra glee and help the parents-to-"bee" please bring a little extra from the heart, an unwrapped pack of diapers to give them a good start" They can enter as many times as they like, each pack of diapers equals one name at the end, we put their names in a bowl and the winner gets a nice prize.

We tried our hand at a diaper cake, and I love how it turned out!! Have you ever seen a prettier diaper cake? It's up on my mantel being used as decoration until the shower.

These are a great idea, such a cheap way to get decorations. Tissue paper pom poms, they will hang from the trees to give some color. This is a picture courtesy of Designmom. I have even seen where they make small garlands out of the tissue paper pom-poms. For a how-to go to Martha Stewart

These will be the napkin rings, we used ribbon and buttons from the big bin at Porters to tie around the utensils for everyone's meal. Everything is yellow, orange and touch of black from the bumble bees that we're adding. Can't wait to have the shower. We're planning on having it outside I'm hoping the Idaho weather will cooperate! Those tissue pom pom's won't stand a chance against out Idaho wind!