Addict?

So at the beginning of the year I hit my "spring cleaning, re-organize the entire house" phase. This happens every year. Today was our end tables and I found this...

I love puzzle books... obviously! I just didn't realize how many I've collected. The problem is I have a select few puzzles that I love and so when I've done those few I want to buy another book. I usually buy them when we're going on vacation.

Do they have classes for Variety Puzzle addicts?

Crunchy Mom?

So I'd never heard this term until recently and when I first did I didn't even know what it meant. So I googled it. Of course I can't find the blog that I looked up now but it had a list of things that might make you a "crunchy mom." I don't want to offend all the true crunchy moms out there so I'll say I'm semi-crucnhy. :] I also just want to put a disclaimer out there that I don't think you're a bad parent if you don't do these things. I've just done the research and discovered what I think it best for me and Levi and these things fall under that catagory. That doesn't mean I think everyone needs to do them. You know yourself and your child better then anyone.

Anyway this women had a list of items on her blog that would categorize you as a crunchy parent and honestly, most of the things I have done stemmed from wanting to save money. The other things I've decided to do come from the fact that I want to be healthier and I want to start Levi being healthier also. These are the ones I've decided to do or done:

-Using non-toxic cleaning products. This falls under saving money and being healthier (but mostly saving money.) To clean the house I use vinegar and baking soda and it has saved us a TON of money in the past few months. I use them for everything and I love that I can clean the kitchen counters and spray the fruits and veggies and I don't have to worry about getting cleaning products on them. I also have a safe laundry detergent that I use for all the laundry (including Levi's) which costs about $15 to make for a YEAR'S worth of detergent. I love it, plus who wants to buy that ridiculously expensive baby detergent?!

- I'm breastfeeding.  At least for the first year which has been a little tough on my health but we're managing and I'm so glad that I can do it for Levi. I feel blessed that I'm able to and I'm so sorry for all you women out there who can't and I definitely don't think it makes you a bad parent if you don't or if you don't like it. I was a formula baby for health reasons and I turned out ok... I think. :]

- Not using rice cereal. I'm not sure using not using rice cereal is part of the "crunchy parent" persona but I was doing research on it and I don't see the need to give it to Levi. The more research I did the more I realized rice cereal is pretty much straight sugar (which makes sense.) It can have good effects but none of the good things that come from giving your babies rice cereal effect Levi so why give it to him?.

-Making my own baby food. Jarom and I got a Ninja for Christmas. I can't believe how much baby food costs! Ridiculous! I decided to make my own which will also be healthier to keep out all that extra processed sugar. I haven't started doing it yet as Levi is still to little but I hope I'll be able to stick with it. :] This also doesn't mean Levi will never have fast food or dessert. I just believe in moderation.

-No Vaccines. It's not that I think all vaccines are bad and I think many of them are beneficial but I don't trust these companies who are pumping them out and I don't feel good about giving my baby a ton of medicine all at once. If there were just a few vaccines I wouldn't mind but it is ridiculous how many vaccines are recommended AND how much money they make off of them. Don't get me wrong I LOVE modern medicine. It's the only reason I'm still alive and able to have children. But because I've been on it my entire life I also know how harmful it can be for us. I mean there is no medicine out there that doesn't have a warning label a mile long and just because we may not receive any of the symptoms when we take those medications, that doesn't mean it's still not affecting out bodies in a negative way. Some of the meds I'm on are actually killing me, they're just killing me slower then the CF. So yes I love modern medicine but I believe if you can do things holistically you should and I don't see the need for ALL those vaccinines. But again I completely understand if you do those things and I'm not trying to say you're a bad parent if you do. I was scared to make the decision to not vaccinate Levi. There are pro's and con's to both sides of the spectrum but for myself and Levi, I personally feel there are more cons.

-Cloth diapers. I haven't totally decided on this one and it really is just to save money. I mean helping the earth is great but it's not really my number one priority. I just haven't decided if it would be cheaper or not. I think the route I'd want to take would be the disposable inserts and I don't feel like those would save you much money.

Anyway like I said I'm not a full on crunchy parent or even a half crunchy parent. Maybe a quarter crunchy. :] But I think that those who are, are great and those who are not, are also great! :] Whatever works best for you, your baby, and your family is what you need to do!

Things that make me a non crunchy parent:

- I didn't have a natural birth although I'd still love to do one. I had an epidural and as nice as it is to not feel pain, it wasn't a great experience either. I'd still love to try doing one if we ever have #2. I just need to come in more prepared and now that I know what my body does and what I need to do to get through the pain (even when nurses are telling me not to do those things) I'm hoping I'll be able to.

- We circumcised Levi. I didn't do to much research on this and really left it up to Jarom since he is a guy. I don't know if I'd want to be circumcised. I mean on the pain scale I'd think no but Jarom said he is really glad that he was so we did.

- I didn't co-sleep or even have him in our room for more then a week. I just couldn't do it. I need my own room and I need sleep and that wasn't happening with Levi in the room. I would also do this again with #2 as Levi is a great sleeper. Not that doing what we did made him a great sleeper but it may have helped.

- I eat non-oragnic foods. Mainly because non-organic foods are cheaper. I just wash them really well. :]

- I let Levi watch TV. It's not that I put him in front of his own TV shows but if I have a show on and he's really fussy, yes I let him watch it. But really Levi just isn't that fussy. I normally play and talk to him. I've done this maybe 3 times in the last 2 months. It usually happens when he wakes up and wants to eat but he hasn't made it to 3 hours. When I let him eat earlier then 3 hours his entire schedule gets thrown off and before I know it I'm feeding every hour!! Don't worry I don't starve him. If I can't console him I do feed him.

Boys Before Baby Shower

So I went to S.D this past week to go to a doctors appt., spend some time with family, and have my baby shower! :] The shower will be in a different post but I took some pics of the boys (mainly Bryce) that I have to post.

Hi my name is Bryce and my crazy Aunt thinks I'm so adorable that she took these picture of me eating bread.

1st attempt

Oops, it fell before I could get it in my mouth

2nd attempt

Success...

And look at my perfect lips covered with crumbs!

Oh and my crazy grandpa (Grant took this picture.)

Oh and I'm more adorable when I'm taking a bath

And pretty cute when I'm sitting in the shopping cart with my equally adorable older brother Grant.

Holy cow have I mentioned how much I love these boys!!

I grew something!

So 2 months ago I was really wanting to have a garden. I just want to plant something and watch it grow. Flowers, veggies, fruits, I want to do it all. Well I can't really do that being in an apartment but back in Jan. I found this plant at Target on sale for $3 that you grow inside your house. It came with the plant container, dirt/mulch, and flower bulb. It started growing after a couple weeks and I was so excited. :] I'm not sure why it's so exciting to watch something grow but it is.

Jan 24th (about 2 weeks after I planted it)

Jan 31

Feb. 2nd

Feb 6th

Feb 9th

Feb 10th

Feb 10th

Feb 11th

Feb. 17th

Feb. 20th A flower is open

Feb 25th

Feb 25th

All 4 flowers didn't bloom until the 27th but that's what it looked like. I guess I'm so fascinated because I don't understand how a seed can turn into that. ^^ It really is amazing when you think about it. I ended up throwing it away because we're getting ready to move. Oh yeah... I guess I haven't done a blog about us moving but we are. I guess that's my next post. :]

Family Time (Rogers)

The weekend after the Prices came we had a visit from the Rogers. Will's grandma passed away and her funeral was in Corona which is 20-30min away from our house so they stayed with us from Friday-Monday. We just had a great time together hanging out and Lahren brought her new Cricket which I loved. I'm going to need to use it for some home decor ideas that I have. :] And of course I took pics of my favorite boys ever!

Bryce was pooped. He just fell asleep sitting up against Lahrens arm. 

Grant loved sitting next to Bryce on the couch with the blanket around them. That's all he wanted to do. He's such a good big brother and he LOVES Bryce! 

Me and my Bryce Bean. 

This was over Facetime (which is why you can see my photo in the bottom row) and it was just a few days before they came up but I decided to add it anyway. <3

5 Fears About Having a New Car

Fear #1: Obviously dings and scrapes. I have never worried about that with my old car. I mean Mr. Knightly was beat up so if something happened it wasn't that bad. I still got that small sinking feeling but after 5 seconds it was gone and life went on. I guess it will be the same except that sinking feeling will last more then 5 seconds.

Fear #2: Getting into an accident. Not that I EVER wanted to get into an accident with Knightly but since I didn't really care (as long as it wasn't my fault and I didn't get hurt) I was so comfortable driving. Now I'm on pins and needles. I feel that I'm more of a danger on the road trying to be so careful then just doing what I normally do.

Fear #3: Being broken into. No one every wanted to break into Mr. Knightly. He was old and from the outside it was obvious there was never anything valuable to take. So as soon as people saw the outside they never thought about trying to break in because the likeliness of there being something good inside was slim. Now, even though there still isn't anything valuable inside our new car there might be more of a thought to break in since the "likeliness" of there being something is higher.

Fear #4: Getting tickets. I've never received a ticket and I'm a pretty safe driver so I'm not planning on it but I remember one of my doctors saying, "since you drive such an old car, you don't really stand out so cops probably don't even look at you if you are speeding. You just blend in and they probably think you're an old person." I don't know. In reality maybe I stuck out even more being so old and dirty and maybe I'll blend in more now that I have a "normal car." Still I feel that cops are going to be watching me more. Like when they saw me before they didn't even think my car could get over 70... now they'll be scoping me out.

Fear #5: Looking so fabulous and independent in my beautiful new car that I will be hit on endlessly. :]

Whatever Hair...

My hair is whatever. It's not straight, curly or wavy but more of a combination of the 3. I guess it is more wavy and poofy when natural!

I love to curl my hair but I've noticed when I do it always falls out within an hour or so into big waves. I do like this look sometimes but other time I want curls. I remember my friend Janelle telling me (well actually my sister Lahren who told me) that right after you curl the hair put it in a pin curl while it's cooling off and that will help the curl. So I decided to try it the other day. I hope you don't mind the cheetah P.J's my parents gave me for Christmas. It was just one of those days. :]

After curling with no pin curls. 

 From the top. I just pinned the top half.

After taking pin curls out. BAM! Beautiful Curls

Over an hour later and still super curly. It lasted all night long. 

 I took 2 strands on the side of my head and braided them. Then used them as a head band. 

A Tribute to Mr. Knightly

Today Jarom and I got a new car! A Dark Gray 2009 Toyota Camery.

We weren't really planning on getting a new car as we can't really afford one but this was a great price from one of Jarom's co-workers. It was a company car from the church that he needed to sell and the church was extremely fair on the price. Since my '94 Camery (18 years old. Isn't that like 103 in human years :]) is about to die and we had this great offer we felt that it was time. If Jarom's car dies anytime soon we'll have to be a one car family so we're hoping that doesn't happen. We can afford it but it will be tight. We just want to get it payed off asap!

I named my old Toyota Mr. Knightly. Mainly because I had just seen Emma recently when I got the car but he has truly lived up to his name.

1) He has driven me to San diego about 1000 times since we've moved up to Rancho. Many times late at night and has gotten me there and back safely every time.

2) He has great gas milage and has even gone many miles on fumes so I don't have to be stranded and call AAA and waits until I can get him to a gas station. Even if he sees me pass 10 stations on my way to Costco he'll wait.

3) He was hit by someone once but didn't complain when we used the money to buy a T.V instead of getting him repaired. :]

4) I have never had to take him to a mechanic to get repairs except once. He has suffered through to save me money.

5) He has let me go a couple months late to get oil changes even though he has an oil leak and never complained.

6) Although he can go 70-75 (even 80) he really prefers 65 on the freeway but hasn't minded when I've had to speed when I need to get somewhere in a hurry.

7) When people are driving crazy and I need to stop quickly he helps me push on those breaks to keep me alive. Alright alright sometimes I have needed to put them on because I have done crazy things but he hasn't complained even when I feel those brakes grinding.

8) He has put up with my loud (sometimes blaring when I'm in a really good mood) music even though his speakers are tired.

9) He has saved us so much money by being old and beat up. We had no car payment on him and our insurance payment was about $200 a year for him.

10) And last even though he has over 170,000 miles on him and is probably ready to go to car heaven he has always gotten me where I need to be and is even staying alive so we can make a little bit of money off of him.

Mr. Knightly you have been good to me and even though I'm really excited to have a new car you were as gentlemanly, selfless, and reliable as the person you were named after. You were my first car and I'll remember you forever. :]

Pics will be posted soon...

My house is finally in order...

Our year started with a few goals and a lot of cleaning. We'll start with the cleaning.

On Saturday the 6th Jarom and I spent all day (at least 6 hours) cleaning and organizing our apartment for 2012. It hasn't been so organized since before we moved in. The 2 places that really needed help were the kitchen and master bathroom. When we moved in I just kind of threw things places and we finally went in and organized it the way we wanted it. 

The Master Bathroom Before:

After.

It feels good when you have a clean house but when you know places other people don't normally see are clean and organized... that feels even better. 

Now the goals. 

This year I have 2 New Years resolutions. I started to feel like everyone else and thought about not doing any (since I rarely keep them) but then I thought "Tay you're motivated to change right now so whether it's New Years or not you need to set some goals." So I did. I actually wanted to set about 500 goals but then I knew I really wouldn't follow through so I thought about all the goalsI wanted to set and thought of one goal that would help me accomplish the rest of them.

1) To wake up at 7am. I know that might seem weird but I usually wake up at 9 (because I went to bed at 12 or 1am the night before) sluggishly get out of bed, do my treatments, get something to eat, forget prayer and scriptures and before I know it it's noon and I have done 2 things and I'm still in my P.J's. I needed to have better structure to accomplish my 500 goals so I decided that waking up a 7 would help me a little with each goal I want to accomplish. As I get down the 7am thing I'll be able to set better goals to help me with everything else I want to do. This is also helping me go to bed earlier. I was asleep but 10:30 last night. My goal for this is to be getting ready for bed by 9 so I can be in bed by 10 and asleep but 10-10:30.

2) I want to be more spiritual at the end of this year then I am now. I know that's very broad and I need to set smaller goals to help me do this but it's a start. Plus the 7am thing is helping me with this too. This is my first morning doing it and I already feel more spiritual. 

Best husband award goes to...

Jarom Price!!!!

When Jarom and I were first married and would get into arguments I would want to tell my mom, Lahren, friends, basically everyone what happened. Jarom finally came to me and told me it really bothered him when I did that. I didn't need to share everything that happened, I needed to come talk to him so we could fix it. I'm so glad he told me this. It was hard to not share things at first but now it's hard to share things. I feel that this is totally appropriate and I love that our relationship has become more private in this area. It has made us so much closer and better able to communicate.

I know you're wondering where in the world I'm going but I'm getting there :]...

So along with not always sharing when I'm frustrated with him I've also toned back on sharing when I'm utterly in love with him. I mean people can tell I am because it's super hard to not show when you're completely in love with someone :] but I'm less likely to post it on facebook or write a blog about it and I think this is good also because instead of me telling the world when I'm in love with Jarom, I tell Jarom. I believe this has also brought us closer together.

So with that said I am going to step a little out of my comfort zone for now and write a blog about the sweetest thing. The main reason I'm doing this is because this blog is my journal. It's so easy to type out everything I want to say and post pictures and I want to remember this forever. I also want our children to know about these things (from my perspective) so they can learn from him and they can be more like him.

Well 2 nights ago Jarom and I got into an argument. Jarom and I never yell at each other or say hurtful/mean comments on purpose or out of spite. I feel that we're very good at communicating how we're feeling  but sometimes things are said that get taken the wrong way and this was one of those nights. It was hard and hurtful. We finally went to bed (not really having the issue resolved) and Jarom left at 5:30am the next morning to visit a seminary class and I didn't get home until 9pm because I had a doc appt. in S.D.

As I was walking up to the apartment I realized all the lights were off. I thought this was a little weird but not to much because I always call Jarom my vampire. If he gets home when the sun is up and is sitting on the couch watching T.V when the sun goes down he wont get up to turn on the lights. I've come home to him many times sitting on the couch in the dark playing with his iPad or watching T.V (Or both.) So I walk in but there's no Jarom. Then I hear music coming from the back and see a weird glow coming from our bedroom. None of our lights make this kind of glow. It looked like Christmas lights coming from our bedroom. Then I listen to the music more closely and realize it's Christmas music! Very un-Jarom like to listen to Christmas music before Thanksgiving.

I'm so confused so I start walking into the back and hear the shower going. So at this point I hear Christmas music, see a soft glow, and realize that Jarom is taking a shower. What is going on? When I walk in to this...

I know you're thinking "What is it?" So I will tell you. I took a pictures with more lights on but the presentation was so beautiful that I hated turning the lights on because the pictures cannot do it justice. 

On top of the nightstand are flowers, a card, a village piece, and his iPad that was playing music all on some of our fake snow. Below is a lamp from the kitchen so the ornaments could be lit (also sitting on fake snow.) 

I just sat there in awe!!! A few nights ago we had gone to Costco and I had seen these indoor/outdoor ornaments and wanted some to hang on our balcony! So that night he had gone to Costco and bought the ornaments and flowers. Then went and dug out our Christmas decorations, found the fake snow and  village house. Wrote me a beautiful apology note, turned on some Christmas music and set everything up to take my breath away. Plus he had gone on the Find a Friend app so even though I hadn't called and told him that I was coming home he had followed my every move to know when he should set it up and hop in the shower so I could have some alone time to soak it all in.

The note was special to me so I didn't post the whole thing but I loved this part. 

(I hope these flowers and Christmas wonderland will bring back the joy I caused to take away.)

 Flowers.

Beautiful Ornaments! 

SO beautiful and incredible sweet!!! I love you Jarom Price. Thank you for being such a thoughtful man! I hope all of our children turn out just like you!

Recently...

Will first off I have about a gazzilion pics of my new adorable nephew Bryce and his equally adorable brother Grant but I cannot post them. Lahren and Will aren't so comfortable with the blog/picture thing and I don't blame them. There are some creepy people out there. Blogger needs to come up with private posts. If there is a post that you want to add but just want close friends to see (like my sweet nephews) you can make just that post private. Wouldn't that be awesome. Alright blogger we're waiting. :]

Then I was going to do a Halloween post but I have to admit our Halloween was pretty lame. At least to post about on a blog.  It was nice but not packed with spooky fun-ness or pictures. :] We did go to a really fun Halloween party put on by our good friends and we dressed up last min. as baseball players (just put on a couple of Jaroms old shirts and some hats.) Yeah we didn't dress up this year. I was feeling particularly poor and we don't have kids yet so it's no big deal right?!

The next night was the trunk or treat with our ward and we passed out candy to all the cuties and talked with some friends and then headed home for the evening.

Halloween was next. That morning I was in S.D for a doctors appt. (which you can read about here) and spent the morning with some (not all) of my favorite people (Mom, Lahren, Will, Grant, and Bryce) and then drove home to spend that night with my hubby. We went out to dinner and then snuck into our house before the trick-or-treaters could see us. Lame? Yeah but candy is SO (Caps, bold, underlined, italicized, so you'll get my point) expensive and we did do the trunk or treat so we felt that we have done our part. When we got home we made hot chocolate and I went to put on the Others since it's the ONLY scary movie I can watch (probably because it's not even that scary and was on instant Netflix) when Jarom said "I don't like this movie." Meh... I had been looking forward to this for days... just me and him, candles, hot chocolate, cuddling, semi creepy movie... and at the last second he tells me he doesn't like it. :[ So we talked for a little but about what we wanted to do and decided to rent that weeks "Halloween" episode of Psych! Our favorite T.V show and the only one we watch. We couldn't get it online because they're making us wait 30 days before they'll start putting the episodes online (lame.) So we decided to splurge and invited over an institute student ( SUPER cool Tia) to watch it with us since she is a Psych lover too. So the evening ended up being pretty good. I loved the episode but I rarely don't like the episodes.

This brings me to today. Who knew my introduction about why I haven't been doing blog posts and my beautiful day today would turn into a massive update about what's been going on?!

Well ready to hear some more... good. :] Actually I really just do these for me. My blog is definitely my journal so sometimes you get the fun posts and sometimes the boring ones that I will love to look back on. :]

So today really was a bunch of nothingness but that nothingness ended up being AMAZING! This morning I went to Jaroms institute class that he started for the women in our stake (and anyone else who may want to join.) It was great and I loved it and being with/ learning from other women instead of just on Sundays. Plus woman from primary/ YW can come so I think it will be a great opportunity for them as well. :] We only had 5 (including myself) show up this morning but that usually happens with the first class plus it was raining. Hopefully it will grow and a lot of women said they were bummed they missed this morning.

So after class Jarom said he needed to work on his lesson for tomorrow (he's talking at youth conference) and was going to spend some more time at the institute. Well he needed to get on youtube to download a video he wanted to show and he cant do that on his church computer so he said he'd have to come home and work at home... darn. :]

I think you can guess what happened next. Yeah he came home and we lit candles, took a nap, played games, talked and had so much fun just being together all while it was cold and rainy outside. Then around 5 he picked up a pizza and cleaned the kitchen while I did my treatments and then we rented Cars 2 while we ate cookies and had hot chocolate. I wish the movies were $2 instead of $5 (I'm sure future generations will look back and laugh at that when they're paying $15-$20) but when you consider that it would have been $25 for us to see it in a movie theater... $5 HD isn't that bad. And we have a pretty nice T.V. We loved the movie and I cried but I don't think there is one Disney movie that hasn't made me cry when I see it (at least the first time.) Now he is finishing up his lesson and I'm writing on my blog instead of doing the school that I've procrastinated into doing tomorrow. :]

GREAT DAY!

Game High!

So Sunday and I Jarom were having a nice day together and decided to play a game. I picked Yahtzee. For some reason I wasn't feeling it. I won the first game but only by a little and then totally bombed the second. Jarom wanted to play a third to break the tie but it just wasn't settling. A few hours later I all of a sudden wanted to play. I just felt like I couldn't lose. :] Guess it was good I followed my gut feeling because...

I got 3 Yahtzee's!!! :] I was a little bummed because I sacrificed my bonus (for the upper section)  and 4 of a kind but come on... 3 Yahtzees. My final score was 447. Probably a new high. :]

Jarom was such a good sport even as he watched me take pictures and knew I would post them on the blog. What a great husband. :]

Food Glorious Food

So even though we already celebrated our anniversary we never really had a nice dinner and I was craving CPK so I forced Jarom to take me out for an anniversary dinner. :] It's in Victoria Gardens... a beautiful outside mall here.

Just a random picture of the mall.

This is why I forced him to take me! I'm in love with there Kung Pao spagehtti. I know it sounds weird but it is pure spicy deliciousness.

I also LOVE there mango lemonade!

We got this a few days later but since this post seemed to be all about food I thought I'd include it. A smores mix that they are selling at Costco right now. It is so good!