Raspberry Jam

Thanks to Laura (my cousin) and Grandpa Cook (my cousins Grandpa) I made raspberry freezer jam for Tom! I only had to buy the pectin, and the jars to put it in, a cheap way to do it!  Thanks Grandpa!  Tom is in 7th heaven....he's kind of weird because he would rather eat store bought raspberry jam, than homemade strawberry jam.  I know, CRAZY!  We still have quite a bit of strawberry jam from last year, but now we'll have raspberry jam too!  I'm pretty impressed with myself for doing it....I've helped my Grandma make jam before, but never done it by myself.  It wasn't too hard, and I actually quite enjoyed myself, it makes me feel very domestic!  Now, if I can only clean up the kitchen....

Nana's House

Nana is my grandmother, my Mom's mom.  Elliana LOVES Nana, and LOVES going to Nana's house.  Last night we drove up to Nana's house (she lives in South Jordan).  Tom had a test at the U of U first thing this morning, so we decided to save him some drive time this morning.

I think it's adorable how much she loves Nana's house.  There isn't really anything to play with....but she LOVES going there.  We had KFC for dinner last night and Nana made cookies that Elliana loved, we even got to bring some home.  Nana had to go to the grocery store and took Elliana and I with her, and let Elli pick out some candies.  She woke up this morning and was SO sad because Nana was still sleeping.  It was adorable.

Here's a cute new picture from Nana's house.  Her hair is a mess, so don't look...but she's pretty adorable!

After we left Nana's, we went to the South Towne Mall and let Elliana ride the carousel, which she of course LOVED.  It was so cute to see her as she saw the Merry Go Round from the car window, she started shaking she was SO excited!

Our New Home

I'll lead you through a picture story of our house!  Hope you can all come visit soon!

 After trying to do this many times, I lost one of the pictures...Anyways, our front door, you walk down the stairs you see and enter a hallway, to the left (where we're going with the next picture) you find the living room and kitchen.  To the right, you find the bedrooms, laundry and bathroom.

 Our family room!  It's quite spacious and we love the bright red wall!  The TV is set in front of a working fireplace; but with Elliana in the house, there will be no wood burning fires in this house!  We have a really nice dark wood floor that we LOVE!

 Another view of the living room; looking a bit towards the dining room/kitchen!

 I have to say, that I LOVE LOVE LOVE my kitchen!  it is so nice, big, spacious with tons of storage space! And what you can't see is that I have a HUGE pantry.  Next to the fridge which you see on the far left, there is a back door, where we can head outside to our back yard and grill.  We also have a little storage area in the car port, where we are able to keep tools, strollers, scooters, and our freezer!

 So we went to the right from the bottom of the stairs and the first room you run into, is ours....which there is no picture of yet.  We're still getting it all put together and set up, it will come later.  It's big and we are able to have our king size bed and our dresser and a bookcase.  It's nice!  Anyways, the above picture is Elliana's room.  It's small, it fits her bed and toys, and her dresser, but it's a bit cramped!  She thinks it is the perfect size and it's right next to our room.

 If you keep heading down the hall to the left, you'll run into our 3rd bedroom.  This is just a partial view of the room, but this is where Tom spends his time studying.  In there we also have our guest room (with a queen size bed) and our exercise bike!

Just to the left of the 3rd bedroom you get to the bathroom.  It's a small bathroom, and we're sad to only have one, having lived with 2 for the past year, but it works and we LOVE the cheap rent!  Directly across the hall from the bathroom is our laundry room, nothing special, so I didn't take a picture.  Hope you enjoyed a tour of our house!

The Help

About a year and a half ago I read the book The Help.  It was one of the most amazing and inspiring books I've ever read.  The slavery issue is something that is so hard for me to comprehend having lived in such a highly populated African American population.

This book was SO well written and I believe a first novel for Kathyrn Stockett.  http://www.kathrynstockett.com/ Visit her website here if you haven't read the book.

Since Elliana is gone Tom and I decided to use some movie passes we had and go see a movie.  We, or rather I decided that I wanted to see The Help.  Tom wanted to see it too, but it wasn't his first choice of movies.

It was the GREATEST movie.  I highly recommend it.  It was one of the best movies I have seen in a very long time.  Probably since The Blind Side....but I think it was even better than that.  I laughed, I cried...I felt so much joy and such sadness.  It truly was amazing and I would go see it again in a heartbeat!  So inspiring.  I hope if you haven't read the book you will, and if you haven't seen the movie, you will.

My Baby...

My little sister Alexis came to stay with us for about a week and the day she was leaving she came to talk to me.  She asked if I would let Elliana go home with her and my parents for a week.  At first thought the answer was NO WAY!  I would miss her way too much!  I called my dad and he said, I'm fine with it if you are.  After him further thinking it out he called me back to suggest I come up too since Elliana is such a mama's girl.  That is probably the grossest understatement of the CENTURY!  She is SUCH a mama's girl.  I talked to Tom and we decided it would be good for her and me...that I would be able to accomplish so much and that it would be good for her to be away.

I am dismayed to say that she is having a blast and we're missing her terribly!  She is loving it.  I can't lie though, Tom and I are very much enjoying sleeping in and just having fun together, it's almost like we're newlyweds again.  I have been able to get SO much done, and now the only really big thing I have left to do is change out all our electrical plugs.  It's a major pain in the rear and I hate it, but hopefully I will get it all done this next week til I get Elliana back on Thursday.

I finally got Elliana signed up for Preschool and she is SO excited to start.  She cried when I told her she couldn't go to school yet.  She is going to go to my cousins wife's preschool.  Her cousin Crystal will be in her class.  We went backpack shopping together and of course the girls got the same backpacks.  They have so much fun together and as mothers we love seeing them play together and have so much fun!  I'm having a bit of a hard time letting her grow up.  So much has happened in the last few months.  I mean really... : potty training, big girl bed, riding a scooter, dressing herself, the "all by myself" stage, and now preschool!  She's growing up so fast.

 This one above is Tom's favorite!

 I love the one above of her clapping, it just captures Elliana!  So happy, and fun loving....The one below I love too, she was chasing Jessica and I with the squirt bottle, trying to get us wet.  She had success.

I got back her pictures from her 2 year shoot and I wanted to share a few of our favorites!  Hope you enjoy! I love you baby girl and miss you EVERY day!