2012 I am still here!

I used to be a good blogger..to document what was going on in my life. And now I wish I had documented more last year because I've forgotten a lot of things! LOL I guess that happens.. So my goal for this blog is to blog atleast once per week.

In a nutshell here is what 2011 entailed.

Breaking up, getting back together, getting a job, losing a job, Kyle starting wyotech, Kyle graduating from Wyotech, Wesley turned 2 (oh boy!), I turned 26 (yikes closer to 30), Easter was spent in Illinois, Christmas was spent in Illinois, no other traveling happened that year, House was finally paid off, Kyle sold Ranger, Kyle received Dodge Ram, 2 kittens joined our family, Turbo & Diesel, The End.

That pretty much sums the year up. The beginning of the year was the hardest for me ( I don't want to hash out details), but its over and done and now its 2012, and I hope for lots of positive changes.

For 2012 so far this is what has happened. Kyle turned 25, Wesley turned 3, Wesley is 100% potty trained,  I start weightloss journey & lose 20lbs so far, turbo & diesel leave family, road trip to california, we buy a camper, Kyle moves to Rawlins for new job, Kyle gets a dog, womens softball starts.

Now it is May 2012, and Kyle has finally landed a secure job in Rawlins (boo), but atleast he is working in his field! He has been there 2 weeks now, and really enjoys it. We didn't relocate there, but instead got him a camper to live in. Might have to figure something else out for the winter, but will deal with that later in the year.

I re-started my weight loss journey. I do want more children eventually, but I need to be in better shape for that to happen. You can follow along my journey over HERE. Progress has slowed for the last couple months, but with nice weather, I will be outside more, swimming, hiking, bike riding, camping, softball, tennis (hopefully soon).

Here is a slideshow of photos from the 2011. Photos from CA trip in another post.

Wesley 16mo

As of July 10th Wesley is not 16th months old! He had an ear infection before vacation...and it continued while we were on vacation but finally after 2x the medicine after we got home he went back to the doc and was as good as new!

Wesley's favorite thing to do: CLIMB...

Stay tuned for more updates!! Its taking some time since I got back from vacation to get things updated!

Memorial Weekend

I know I'm wayyyyy behind on blogging but I wanted to catch you all up a little bit.

We had a FANTASTIC memorial weekend!

Saturday was pretty relaxing. Was in and out most of the day. Kyle installed our new clothes line, and worked on fixing the siding of our house. I just did laundry and played with Wesley outside. Nothing special but just a fun day at home.

Sunday was our anniversary. Kyle surprised me with some beautiful yellow roses (which didn't last long), and I made Kyle a video and surprised with with Brooks & Dunn tickets!

 We took a lunchtime bike ride to subway and back, Wesley went down for a nap and I did laundry and hung clothes on the new line. I did a workout while Wesley was napping also, and then we all went on another bike ride to the park after Wesley was up from his nap. We wanted to take him to see the ducks and feed them but the seagulls wanted the bread instead.
Instead of cooking we ordered togo from one of our favorite pubs in town. The Library. They have amazing sweet potato fries, and I had a breakfast sandwich, and kyle had Philly steak sandwich.
We relaxed and watched Avatar.

The next day we headed down to Fort Collins to visit my Dad. Grandma was in town visiting  and we wanted to see her before she went back to Illinois.

It was a gorgeous day down in CO. We had some grilled chicken for lunch with a bunch of fruit and veggies.
Since my Dad lives right on a lake and it was warm enough and we brought our suits, we took a little swim in the water!

The neighbors dog Cody decided to come take a swim with us too!

Wesley played on the porch for awhile to dry off.

Wesley was such a trooper. He didn't take his usual afternoon nap, but sure did take a great nap on the drive home and went to bed a bit early.

What a wonderful weekend we had!

Wanna see a J-Lo booty??

Wesley has a j-lo booty! LOL. 

Want to see?? Hop on over to the All about Wesley blog. 

CLICK HERE

UBP After Party!!!

This week was a blast looking through all of the blogs. I'm still not finished either. I have a list of all the ones I want to see and try to get to a few each day but its hard. There are soooooooooooo many!!!

Thank you so much everyone for stopping by my family blog, and my photography blog.

3 new blogs I discovered this week are:

Bitsy Baby Photography

Please subscribe to my blog or follow me and I'll be sure to do the same for you too!! Just leave me a comment letting me know!
ALSO:I have BIG plans for this blog. Here are a few hi-lights. I hope you tune in. I'm even considering adding a MckLinky so others can link up to their craft projects, meal plans and any other household projects they are doing. It would be really fun.

• Weekend Spring Cleaning (to prepare for spring/summer I'm going to be cleaning out an area of my house each weekend and either freecycling, donating, trashing, selling or a combo of all of those.) And calling it Trash it Thursday for the theme. Then it would be easier to not have to link up on weekends. And then I can post my completed area I de-cluttered and see what everyone else is doing for spring cleaning. Or this might just be something I do myself because I have no idea how many people are spring cleaning.
• Weekend Craft projects (Wesley is getting older and able to do a lot more than he use to. And also our walls are bare and we have too much stuff. SO I plan to each weekend find a family friendly craft or make something useful for our house that is LOW COST.) If I did this weekly I was thinking Show & Tell Tuesday? So everyone can show their project. Or a previous project they might have done.
• Weekly Menu Plans (I really need to have a menu plan and STICK WITH IT. I would love to get the menu done on Friday, and shop on Saturday for the supplies. 2 weeks worth. This gives me an opportunity to get coupons and whatever else I may need to save some money. I would love to be more frugal! And if you have suggestions for meals or recipes I would love to hear them. I will also post my favorite recipes for the week as well. This will be a weekly theme). Meal Plan Monday.

What other things would you like to see on my blog??

Over at my photography blog I have weekly themes. I don't get around to them every week but I try.

• Mystery Monday
• Toddler Tuesday
• Wyoming Wednesday
• Thankful Thursday
• Fix it Friday

Please check it out!!!

I just love following blogs and keeping in touch with people. Who knows, maybe someday I'll get to meet a few fellow bloggers!! That would be super fun.

I am always looking for new local friends as well to get together with or have playdates with the kiddo. Tata for now!!

And because I cannot end this post without a photo here is Wesley playing. I really hope to get more photos outside now that the weather is warming up!

Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend!!

New buttons!

I've been doing a lot of blogging over at my photography + design blog lately. Mainly because I have no idea what to blog about. I was having a blog block.

My giveaway just ended last night. It was for a free photo session with a $100 print credit, or for an 8x10 of one of my art prints. I ended up having 2 winners, one for the session and one for the art print. It was exciting to do this. My 1st ever giveaway. I've continued the "After Giveaway Sale" for those who didn't win or might be interested in my services or art prints!! Check it out. As soon as I get twice as many followers on either this blog or my photography blog I will hold another giveaway. Right now I have 13 on here. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE pass my blog around. Here are both of my buttons and I will put them up in my sidebar as well.

In other news........The last week we've been trying to get our yard cleaned up for the rain that hit yesterday. We had a tree (the only tree in our yard) that was tore down last summer because it was dead. Now I want to plant a new tree and bushes in the yard to make it more lively.

I was out getting all leaves, sticks, needles, and dead grass raked up AND cleaning dog poop. The joys of home ownership (well sort of). We live in a mobile home. And the yard it part of the lot and we have to pay "lot rent." I hope someday we can own a "REAL" home and not a poorly built mobile home. But for now this is where we live and thats ok. We have a huge yard, 2 sheds for our stuff and a very nice porch/mudroom addition to the house.

Because we live in Wyoming our planting season is really short. I really want to make a little garden in our yard, but its hard to right now when our weather changes drastically all the time!

And here is Wesley. 13mo old now. Messy face, and not happy that he couldn't get over that gate. Maybe soon he will learn how to climb those stairs, which are tile and they are a bit bigger than an average step.

For the rest of the day I'm going to going to work on

• dishes,
• laundry,
• putting some boxes in the shed of Wesleys clothes that don't fit,
• taking a nice long walk with my friend with the dog and Wesley,
• and making Taco Salads for dinner. Yum!
• OH and making a menu for the next 2 weeks.
• And if I get time take all the recycling to the bins. (We are not fortunate enough in Laramie to get curb side pick up)

And I need to get my camera out and take some new photos. Maybe on our walk today I'll find something different to take a photo of. There isn't really alot of green yet (the grass is starting to sprout though).

13 months old.

New post over on Wesley's blog.

Check it out HERE

I can't believe he is 13 months already!!! This time last year I was trying to sleep when he did, and plan my wedding at the same time AND getting ready to move out of our apartment.

Visit from "Grandma Kim"

The last week Wesley got to see his grandma. She flew in from California. Saturday I drove down to the harmony transfer station in fort collins to pick her up. From there we headed to Cheyenne to get Wesley's birthday cake, and then hopped on i-80 over to Laramie. 

Sunday was Wesleys first birthday party. It was a lot of fun. We didn't really do much. Just made some food, and had balloons for decorations. Wal-mart helium doesn't last that long. By then end of then night the balloons were already sinking and by morning they were all on the floor.

(Birthday pics here)

On Monday, Wesley had his 1 year doctors appointment. He had to get 2 shots this time; chicken pox & mmr. He only cried for a minute and then was all better. Went on a walk later that afternoon. 

Tuesday: I had a few overdue books from the library so we headed over to the University. It was a gorgeous day. Wesley loved walking around and following all of the people. Since it was spring break it was pretty quiet. I took some of Wesley's 1 year photos that day as well. Couldn't have asked for better weather! 

Wednesday: St. Pattys day.  We didn't do anything super special that day. I did wear green, and dressed Wesley up in a really adorable outfit I'd been waiting for him to wear. We headed to the park to play and to take his "official" 1 year photos. It was just a fun photoshoot. No posing, just real, in the moment shots. Those are my favorite, since I hate posing. 

Thursday we took a nice walk in the morning! Kyle was volunteering over at the territorial prison for a couple hours. Since we live just down the street from there, we walked down there and said hello. I always have my camera with me just so I can find something new to snap pics of. After Wesley's nap we headed to the rec center to swim! I love the pool. I plan on taking Wesley every week or two until our community pool opens up May 1 or June 1. Can't remember. And then of course to undine park this summer if the new water pad thing is built.

We ended up getting snow Thursday night. It was so gorgeous and then boom, snow. Of course! Thats Wyoming for ya. We had planned on going to Breckenridge for a mini vacation (friday & saturday) but I didn't really want to drive 5+ hours in the snow to get there, and the roads were icky, so we decided not to go. I know my mom wanted to leave saturday since the roads did clear up, but 1 day just didn't seem worth it. But it probably would have been. :( Bummer. Definitely next time!! So instead we did some shopping around town. Mom got me some sweet new walking shoes. I usually wear etnies, which had absolutely no support and kill my feet, so I'm thankful she wanted to get me some!! 

Kyle and I were going to see a movie, but never ended up going. So he went out for a couple drinks with a friend.

Saturday was just a fun relaxing day. Watched a movie in the morning, my sisters keeper, (very good!!), and then headed back to the rec center in the afternoon to swim. There were a lot of people there so it kept Wesley entertained. 

Sunday came and went. Drove mom back to the bus stop and said goodbye. I did have a few tears in my eyes when I left. I really love my mom, and am so thankful she came to visit and helped out with Wesley and cooking, and cleaning. Love you Mom. Thanks for everything!!!

Visited my dad for a little bit before I headed back to Laramie. He just lives in fort collins and didn't have any plans. Kyle and I ended up seeing Alice in Wonderland in 3D when we got back. Wesley hung out with our friend Stephanie for a couple hours while we had a little date. 

It was a very awesome week, but went by way too fast. I can't believe next week is April already! 

Wesley's 1st Birthday

Wesley's birthday party was on Sunday the 14th. It was a lot of fun! Yummy food, friends to hang with, kids for wesley to play with and balloons! Wesley loves balloons. The cake was banana. Yumm!

In no particular order, heres a bunch of photos from the party.

Me & my Mom

Sesame street cake