Oh boy! Birthday and Holidays :)

It's been so long since I posted, but we've had a wonderful last few months. Alexis' 2nd birthday was great! I loved having all the family over and we enjoyed being together. She got a lot of Elmo toys because she just happens to love Elmo and Cat in the Hat which she also has received.

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. My sister and I planned a wonderful meal and (she cooked most of it) we cooked so much food and set up a beautiful table for all our family to eat. There were 20 of us total. We went Black Friday shopping and got everything we needed. Overall, one of the best Thanksgivings I can remember.

Christmas was fun but exhausting. We spent Christmas Eve with my family, where we all were super spoiled. We spend Christmas day with Kort's family and were equally spoiled. It was a wonderful time. Alexis received so many gifts! I'm not sure a 2 year old needs that much stuff... We continued our Christmas tradition and watched Sherlock Holmes 2. It was a great movie! Today me and my family went shopping and we bought all of our Christmas necessities for next year. Now I can redecorate my tree differently again! Yeah! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. See you next year!

Birthday Ideas?

Alexis at 1 year old...such a cutie!

I'm having a hard time figuring out what I want to do for Alexis' 2nd birthday. I thought I wanted to do just a small family get together but nothing too big. Now, as it gets closer, I really want to do something fun again. I'm not sure what to do, but if you have any fun suggestions, please shoot them my way! So far, I think a Baby Minnie theme is in the lead. :)

A Great Business Class.

I recently was fortunate enough to attend a business class called Step Up by Michael Cole. It was very insightful and has really helped these past few weeks. I recommend it to everyone. It was equally awesome to be there with my gals!

Alexis and lovely words.

Alexis said football today! We are so proud. :)
She has been so expressive and talking up a storm.  Not all of it do we understand, but it's kind of cool picking out her sentences and seeing how much character she has.  She looks in the mirror while wearing mommy's high heels and says, "wow, soooo preeeetttyyy." She really draws out saying it just like that! It's hilarious.  How do we get to be so lucky with our babies?!

Time, of course, is still flying by. I feel like I don't get to journal as much as I'd like. But at the end of the day, I'm so grateful to have every day that passes by.

We're getting ready for Halloween.  Stay tuned for Alexis' costume. I'm not sure what I want to dress her up as yet, but soon, I'll know for sure! When I know, I'll post pictures.

Summing it up.

It's been a few weeks now that I moved to Casa Bella Salon and I've been so busy taking it all in! Crazy way things happened, but so far, everything has been good. It takes so much time to adjust to change and new things, and I feel like I'm getting into a rythym now.  One thing I will say...my clients are amazing! They have been so wonderful with me and so patient with all the change. I know the first three months will really be difficult but I have all the faith in the world that I will do what I need to do to keep my business thriving.  

Family life: Amazing! I couldn't ask for people who love me more purely and who are whole heartedly by my side. My husband is the best thing to ever happen to me. My daughter is hilarious! I just lucked out to have such an amazing little spark of a princess.  She keeps me on my toes and she is just getting smarter and smarter everyday. 

Football: How can a game have so much control over my emotions?! I love it! Go Patriots :) 

Christmas is in 9 weeks?!? I heard that on the radio today. Yikes!! I need to get ready for Halloween, not Christmas! But I do love that time is going by and I'm thankful to be here and enjoying each and every day. 

Oh Boy.

...............Not sure where to begin. The last week has had so many up's and down's I feel like its been a year. Basically I'm starting my own business leasing a space from Casa Bella Salon. I have to take care of everything, and I mean everything. It's been super overwhelming and very frustrating. Once I got behind the chair and worked on my client's hair, I loved it again! It was as if everything else was gone and it was just me being me and having a great time doing what I love. But once they are gone and I have to go back to "being the owner" things get stressful and overwhelming again. I know everyone says the first few months are hard, because you are investing thousands of dollars and not seeing an end in sight; but once that's done, everything's better. You start to make a profit and everything is good again.

They say there are five stages of grief, well, I think I'm definitely going through them. I didn't even see this coming. We were doing so well and being very successful, so out of nowhere having no job and then having to start your own business is tough.  I looked into other good salons and guess what? You have to do an apprenticeship program for at least a year at minimum wage before you can do hair. Now, after living at a higher earnings level for over a year and not foreseeing a job loss, I can't go to minimum wage. Plus, what would I do with my clients? I know there is an end in sight to all the money that needs to be invested, but for now, my wallet is sobbing and my heart still feels like its going to burst out of my chest every time I look at my expense report and to do list. *Sigh* I suppose, I just have to buck up and accept that this is the way it will be for a few months.

Good bye Studio d ... Hello CasaBella!

I found out yesterday that Studio d's owners were resigning and that meant that I no longer had a job. It was very scary, but I guess long overdue.  I received an offer to work for CasaBella Salon and Spa in Meridian leasing a station. I'm not sure that I am completely ready for this step, but I know what's out there and I know that I have the clientele to lease a station and still come out ahead. Marketing is going to be huge for me! The next few months are going to be challenging. I'm going to put my best foot forward and do the very best that I can to have a successful business. Although I'm super frightened, I'm very excited to start this new chapter in my life. Wish me luck!

Yay! New Hair.

I finally got my hair done! It's red and very spunky. :) It's just what I needed. Finding someone at work to do it was not easy because timewise, we're all so busy, but we finally had time! Yay! I'll post pictures soon.

Painting My Parents House.

This weekend Kort, Alexis and I drove to St. Anthony to my parents house to paint it. My Dad had done some of the prep work so we could just show up and paint the house. Unfortunately, there was still extensive loose paint on the house even after being pressure washed, so we spent three hours on Saturday morning scraping loose paint off of the house. After that the real fun started. Kort was so good with the paint gun! He got the entire house painted in three hours. Two coats of paint and primer and then the paint and primer on the trim and window sills.  By the end of the day we were exhausted! Our neighbors came by and helped scrape off loose paint and brought us ladders to use. It is so nice to see such a wonderful community come together to help in times of need. :)

Here are some before and after pictures. I'm so proud of my hubby for doing all of that work just for the sake of helping my parents and because he loves to put his good working skills to use. He definitely earned himself some man points, lol. 

Busy Summer!

This summer has gone by so quickly! We've been so busy. Don't get me wrong, we've loved every bit of it, it's just been so hectic! Every weekend has been filled with lots to do and almost no time for relaxation. We went to Roaring Springs this weekend and it was such a blast.  The kids loved it, except for Diego. He was not liking the water at all.  But he looked so cute in his little hat. Alexis went through two swimming suits because the minute I got the first one on, she peed in it. I guess I should have taken her to the bathroom before we put it on, lol. Her second suit was super cute too. She looked so pretty in both of them.

Alexis is growing so quickly I can barely remember everything that goes on, which is why I have started writing all the cute little things she does in her book. Her vocabulary is getting so advanced and she's laughing more than ever. Everything is funny to her, which makes me super happy. She still doesn't like people she doesn't see often enough. She glares and won't get near them. This makes me happy because I know she won't go to a stranger, and if someone picks her up, she will scream. It's funny how I worry about these things now.

Kort will finally be able to ride his new motorcycle soon. I'm so glad because it is crazy driving the truck to work everyday. I hate filling the tank. A little piece of my heart breaks every time I see it reach $100. We are planning on going to the Oregon coast in September and I'm really thrilled. I love going to new places and I've never been there. We both feel like we need a nice relaxing vacation and that sounds just right.

4th of July, 2011.

Our 4th of July celebration this year, was incredible! I've never had so much fun on this holiday. My family came in from out of town and we planned this huge BBQ/4th of July party for my family and Kort's family and friends and celebrated on Sunday. Almost everyone who we invited came, so we had a full house. We set up the volleyball net on one side of the house, and the golf lasso game on the other side. We put up the sprinklers for the kids to run through, too. We played volleyball for hours! It was amazing how awesome my Dad and Kort's Dad were.  They kicked all of our butts! I forgot how athletic my Dad is :). For the BBQ, we had everyone bring a dish, kind of like a potluck I suppose, but mainly to keep some of the expense down for food. It was perfect. There was so much food. Everyone ate and enjoyed ribs, burgers, hot dogs, great dessert, pastas, chips with all sorts of dips, and so much more. Towards the end of the day, when the sun went down, we lit up some fireworks and sat out on the lawn. When we were done with that, we set up the projection TV outside and watched Men In Black outside on the side of the house. It was like a drive in movie. We were all on the lawn on blankets and chairs eating popcorn and enjoying the movie. About 1am and everyone went home.  It was just perfect!

(Some random pictures of our fun stuff throughout the month :) The ones with the airplanes are us at the Caldwell Air Show a couple of weeks ago. It was so fun!)

On Monday, the 4th, we decided to keep it really low key. We hung out with my family and had another BBQ at my brothers and swam in the swimming pool for a good couple of hours. We had swimming races and again, my Dad beat all of us! I have some increased respect for him, haha. My Mom even got in the pool. Alexis did get her feet wet, but wouldn't get in. I didn't make her get in, because last time, she screamed the entire time. After we swam, we went shopping and then all of us went back home. Kort, Alexis and I watched the Simplot Stadium fireworks from our house, on the roof of our truck. It was a beautiful view. Alexis watched the fireworks go off and she would say "ball!" It was so cute. She fell asleep halfway through the firework show. We were in bed by 11pm. Looking forward to next year.

It's Been A While.

I really do try and keep up with our family blog, yet somehow managing my time has proven difficult. Haha. I guess that's the case for everyone. It's been a great summer so far. We've done a lot of cool things and work has me super busy. Alexis is 19 months now and almost completely potty trained. It's crazy. She's talking so much more and saying words I'm not sure I've ever said? But PBS is a fun channel and she learns a lot from there. I'm thoroughly enjoying our great summer weather! Swimming and BBQ's. We're goingto attempt to go camping in July sometime. We're really goingto try because I think it would be fun and Alexis would love it. Kort bought a big projection tv and he's been in heaven. Honestly I love it too. So many great family nights outside and having friends over. He's getting a motorcycle too noes really happy about that one.

Well, that sums up some of what's been happening. I'll try and be more regular about posting. Especially pictures because Alexis is so stinkin' cute!