Crazy year

In all honesty, I am excited for this year to come to an end. Its been a crazy one with A LOT of changes and A LOT of uncertainty. But I finally feel like we are in a place where we can breathe for a second and finally start moving towards the goals we want to accomplish in our future. Since I have been really bad about writing anything down lately, let me just clarify what our year looked like.
January: We left Hawaii, one of the hardest choices we had to make, and moved to San Diego with no job and no place to live
April: Scotty got a job as a manager for a construction company and we finally got to move into our own place in Encinitas, we fell in LOVE with our house and the city and felt at home for the first time in a long time
June: Scotty's job ended up being a disaster and he had to quit, leaving us unemployed again. We were really blessed and got lots and lots of side jobs for the next couple of months which kept us afloat
August: New job opportunity comes up at a digital marketing firm, totally different experience for the husband but he was learning so much and enjoying a new field, we thought this was it, this was the job he would be at for the next several years. Wrong again!
September: Ellie turns one and my whole life changes with a toddler!
November: Our friends from Encinitas move to Thousand Oaks, about three hours away from San Diego for a new job, about two weeks later Scotty gets call saying there is a job at the company that would be perfect for him. The pay was more, his schedule would be flexible and he could do something he loved. I laughed at first, and shrugged it off, no way was I moving again. But after another talk with our friend, Scotty was convinced this job was perfect for him. He called me from work and before he even said the words I knew we were moving. I started bawling right away. I love Encinitas, LOVE it. Next to Hawaii I couldn't think of a better place to live. I had never even been to Thousand Oaks and we were all the sudden moving in less than two weeks.
December: Here we are! In a new house, in a new place, with all new people. The ocean is 20-25 min away, we have never lived that far from the beach since we have been married. Ellie spent almost every day of her first year of life on the sand and in the water and she is like a little fish out of water here. I really like my new house, and I like being able to decorate and make it ours. I am not in love with Thousand Oaks, its been a hard adjustment but we are getting through it. The upside, Scotty loves his job. He is a construction superintendant for a real estate, restoration and management company. They buy houses, fix them up and rent them out. He is busy, the phone is always ringing and he is all over the place. But thats just what he likes, to keep moving! And Ellie and I are trying to figure out what it is that people do when they don't have the beach and how to find our way around a place that is so spread out!
It has been a crazy year, especially with a baby, but we learned a lot and we feel like every move we made led us up to this point and even though it might not be where we would have chosen, its where we are for now and we are trying to see it as an adventure. So heres to change! And heres to hoping we have a little less in 2013, though I am not planning on it!

First Birthday

I can't believe I have a one year old. The year feels like it went by so fast but at the same time I can't even remember what life was like before Ellie. Its like she has always been with us. She is exactly everything I ever could have wanted in a daughter and she makes us so happy everyday. Because my life revolves around her pretty much everyday I have been thinking about her birthday party for probably 3 months now. I wanted to have a cute theme and cute decorations and get the perfect pictures of her smashing her cake. Well, of course things never quite turn out the way you plan. I had built up this party so much in my head there was no way it was ever going to live up to my expectations. It was stressful planning and I was worrying about all the little details when I should have just been enjoying the fact that we made it through a year of parenthood without causing any serious damage to our child. The night before I was baking cupcakes and making treats until 11:30, the wonderful husband I have just let me go on and on about how things werent looking the right way and how the white chocolate covered popcorn wasn't dyed the right pink. The next morning we woke up early to go get the pavillion at the park. I was frantically throwing everything together, while scotty was running between the house and the park transporting everything and decorating. Ellie was tired and over the party before it began. Once we got everything set up and I had gotten over the fact the things didn't look the way I had imagined we waited and waited. Everyone was late, there was bad traffic and a few people didn't make it there until everything was over. When Ellie was starting to fall apart I decided we should just do the cake and she'll taste that icing and be happy. We started to sing Happy Birthday and she looked very worried and confused. Once the song was over everyone just stared at her waiting to do anything, cousins were in her face trying to get to to touch the cake and she wasn't loving it. Then Scotty took her hand and put it in the cake. Everyone laughed and Ellie lost it. She screamed and cried and wanted out of her chair immediately. I should have known she would have hated it. I told Scotty to remind me next time to just give our one year old a piece of cake at home and take some pictures. It just wasn't worth all the stress and work! But it was good to see friends and family and the rest of the day was spent at the beach with our best friends and it couldn't have been better. Ellie past out immediately, exhausted physically and emotionally I'm sure.Ellie, I hope you don't remember all the everyone staring at you pressuring you to preform, but I hope you do remember that lots of family and friends came from all over to spend the day with you and give you lots of cute presents. You are a very loved little girl and you are the cutest kid I have ever seen.

New jobs and new tricks

Our family has been in quite a transition period this summer. We spent a couple months unemployed after Scotty quit (yes quit, it just had to be done) his job as a construction manager, it was a stressful time but we were lucky enough to have steady side work that kept us afloat. Now that we have gotten through that rough patch, we can look back now and actually appreciate that we got to spend almost the whole summer together as a family which I'm sure will never happen again. In my husbands endless search for what he really wants to do with his life, he got an amazing opportunity at a digital marketing firm called Digitaria. His official title is Quality Assurance Associate, for those of you like me who have no idea what this means, basically he deals with websites, making sure everything is working properly. Right now he is working on some pretty big projects for Ironman and Ford. Its literally a whole new world for him. He doesn't have to wear a suit and tie but he does wear collared shirts and long pants which he rips off immediately after coming in the door. He is learning a ton but so far he likes it a lot and I think it will be a really good place for him. Scotty isn't the only one to have a new job. I have started working with Twigg Botanicals a floral company that does amazing weddings. Its something I never thought about doing but I really enjoy it. I have gotten the opportunity to work with top wedding planners in San Diego and learn a lot about flowers and design. Its been weird for me to be away from Ellie for the entire day, its been over a year since I have worked and my life has literally been all about her. Luckily its only a couple days a week so it works pretty well with our schedule and as much as I like getting to do something other than be mommy I do miss her the days I'm gone. Ellie has also been learning some new tricks the past couple weeks. She WALKS now, like a drunk but she walks. She was getting too impatient waiting to figure out her balance that she just decided one day that she was going to walk no matter how many times she falls. And she falls a lot! She has had a black eye, a busted lip and bruises all over just in the past week or two. I promise I watch her! She has her dad's determination and my impatience which makes for a deadly combo sometimes. She is turning one next week, I cannot believe it. This past year just flew by. And this whole transition to one has been so weird for me, she eats different, drinks out of a cup, tries to tell us what she wants, goes to sleep different. Its just weird that technically shes not a baby anymore. So yes we are all in transition right now and I had to write it down because I feel like things aren't going to slow down anytime soon and I'm going to forget all the little things that are so important. Like the excitement your baby gets from riding on a train for the first time.

It's been a while

We have had a crazy summer. We have had lots of visitors and lots of changes and because of all this I have had absolutely no time to blog. I promise I will write an amazing post in the next few days when I get a moment. But for the time being here is my most favorite picture of Ellie ever taken by far. She has been doing this "o" face since she was 2 months old. And it gets better each month. I don't know where this girl got so much personality but I cant even tell you how much I love it.

Where do the weeks go?

We have been busy lately and we just keep getting busier. It seems like our weeks just disappear and our weekends fly by even faster. Scotty has his regular job five days a week but on top of that he is doing an addition for our friends sister as a side job on the weekends and can't ever seem to say no to a board repair. Add all this onto the constant projects we have going on around the house and he is dead at the end of each day. Not to mention we barely ever see each other. We are in serious need of a date. I am busy being the mom of a ridiculously active 9 month old and working on projects for our new etsy shop. More on that later, it's a big work in progress! Somehow during all this I need to find the time to take a Spanish class and get my grant writing certification, it's something I have wanted to do for a long time. Ellie is more mobile than ever and is having so much fun discovering the world. She has mastered this whole crawling stage and has moved onto standing and jumping off things. Which means I am chasing her all day long making sure she won't kill herself. Right now is one of my few quiet moments, every couple of days she decides to take good naps, but most days I'm lucky if I get one nap out of her. I don't think she knows she's 9 months old. And this week my brother is coming to stay with us for a while before going on a mission to Sacramento. Three days later my mom is coming for eight days, it will be a tight fit in our tiny house but I am so excited to have these two here. I miss my family and Hawaii so much right now. Soo to sum up, our life is kind of crazy but we are realizing that it's not going to slow down any time soon. So I guess we better get used to it.

8 months

8 months

~Three more teeth are pushing their way through, two on top, one more on bottom. That will make a total of 5!

~She loves the beach, she will play for hours rolling around in the sand

~She is right on the brink of crawling but for now she pushes her head against the floor and wiggles herself to where to wants to be, her own technique

~She loves to play pat-a-cake 

~Wants to play with ANYTHING that isn't a toy (phones, cords, paper, spatulas, pens....)

~Pulls herself up in her crib 

~She is very selective about who holds her at what time

~She literally never stops moving, her arms are always shaking like shes trying to fly

~She bites! Hard. She bites our shoulders, necks, hands and even our toes!

~She is a terrible napper, most days were lucky if we get two good naps (its rough on mom)

~She has the best giggle and laughs constantly, at dad especially

 

Sunny weekend

When we moved from Hawaii it was the middle of winter on the mainland and I was excited. I wanted to wear all the cute sweaters and boots and cuddle up in blankets. I really didn't mind the cold because I knew it would only be a couple months before California would warm up again. Well after a couple months I was craving the sun again. My tan lines disappeared and I was ready for winter to end. There have been nice sunny days here and there but the wind at the beach is pretty chilly and we usually end up keeping our clothes on. But this past Saturday, ahh, it was pure bliss. You have never seen someone so happy to get a sunburn. Ellie played in the sand all day and cried when we picked her up to go home. Yep, shes our baby. It's Tuesday and its been cloudy and windy the past three days. Come back sun!!