Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Photo Post


 It all started with this crazy birthday girl.



Who loves Winnie the Pooh.






 I think every gift she got was related to Pooh somehow...even the dollhouse we built her with our own two hands.

I love it, she loves it. We are happy.
We hit the pinata



 Pin the Tail on Eeyore


and blew out candles

 which she did blow out both all by herself! There was lots of family to wish her well



 and a tried and failed beehive cake.
Where there is water, there are toddlers.

We love our happy little Liza. Her speech is getting pretty understandable-she leaves off endings of any word that ends in a vowel; her favorite phrases are: I'm  home, I don't know, here it is, thank you and I love dad. Her 2yr check up is Friday and I'm guessing she will be around 23-24lbs and 33" tall. Right now she loves washing dishes, playing "tea party", Winnie the Pooh, doggies, drawing marker all over herself, stuffed animals, going to look at the new house, her bottle.





Tuesday, August 7, 2012

My new Food Blog

I know I've mentioned it to a couple people how much I love cooking and couponing and everything so I decided to start a blog where I document what I do...How am I going to keep up a food blog when I don't even post on here regularly? Well, let's just say you're going to be hearing a lot from me all around.

Follow me on Instagram @rissa_co24 to get daily updates and check out

Carissa's Food Blog!

I post a weekly menu with shopping lists and price matching with coupons and then the recipes daily. It's a lot of good stuff on there. I'm also planning to do recipe reviews, especially of the "Best Evers" so prevelant on Pinterest. We'll See.

Ok, Get ready for some more pics in my next post...these not of my precious almost 2 yr old, but of our new house:)

Promised pictures

Better late than never right?




 I call this one "riding in the car with boys"
 My gorgeous redheaded niece
 Lucious
 The cousins playing together



 She looks like she's running away, but she is actually loving that dog!
A photo shoot gone bad...my sister and I wore those dresses when we were about their age and my mom wanted a duplicate shot. didn't really happen what with the pool in the background that you can see them lusting after. Oh well.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

No excuses

I really have been thinking if I should even keep up my blog since everything I would post here I post on instagram (@rissa_co 24) but I know not everyone uses it or follows me. So I guess what it comes down to is I'm going to be updating here less regularly for those who dont see my daily updates.

We are building a house:-)  yay. We hope to move in in October.
Our ward was dissolved and we were released from our callings (I was primary president and tyler was ward clerk). Therefore we are relaxing and enjoying these last months before we move and dont have responsibilities.
Eliza turns two next month. Wow. I'll post pics from her party. I'm planning a Winnie the Pooh party because right now it's her favorite. Any suggestions would be great!
We are planning to move her into a toddler bed and I'm so excited because then maybe I can potty train her! I'm so done with diapers.
I've been reading like crazy. Join me on goodreads.com to see what I'm reading and get some new ideas of books to read.
Tyler stopped traveling. Yay. He is back doing audit instead of security consulting. The job is less technical and interesting, but he comes home every night and we love it.
We went camping as a family for the first time and eliza loved it. We did too. It was gorgeous.
We hiked the Y and Stewart falls and we are planning Timp.
we are training for another half marathon this fall. We ran the Red Rock Relay this spring and loved it. We are already securing a spot for Wasatch Back next year.
Now for some pictures

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Woe

Coming home from a vacation. With no pictures because your phone which you brought just so you could use its camera since your point and shoot got stolen from the diaper bag and you didn't want to bring your DSLR died. Yes, that's a run on sentence. Sometimes that's all life seems to be is to keep running on and good things and bad things run into each other so that it becomes hard to tell whether it's a good day or a bad one. Like this morning, I take the car into to get the safety and emissions inspection for the annual registration and get the oil changed then go to the bank to deposit the left over money from the vacation (we only spent $25 of our cash, wha what?) and while I'm leaning into my small little Honda trying to unbuckle my child a lady proceeds to chew me out for letting my car door touch hers. I ignore her knowing if I say something it will be not very nice. Since her car is over the parking line and mine is parked perfectly in the middle of the two yellow lines and the door is leaning against her wheel since she has an SUV and I have a small little sedan, but nope, I kept my mouth shut and just sauntered into the store determined not to let her foul my mood. The bank doesn't have the DumDums for Eliza that I promised her for being good while running errands and thankfully she doesn't throw a fit but gratefully accepts the sticker instead. As soon as we get outside the wind blows it away and we are chasing after it because heaven knows we can't lose our brand new marketing-compensating for not having DumDums-sticker. I drive to Wal-Mart to pick up some more diapers because we are on our last one after a rough post travel diarrhea stint and proceed to lock my keys in the car. This has only happened to me twice in my WHOLE LIFE. Of course Eliza is yelling in my ear distracting me and I'm in Tyler's car so I have to lock it before I close the door. wham bam thank you ma'am. I run inside and get those blasted diapers and call the police to come help me out. It's lunch time and Eliza is trying to run around the parking lot and I try to distract her with the promise of chicken nuggets. We make it home before she falls asleep and we gobble down lunch and I decide that running 4 miles during her nap is not a good idea.

Who knew my life would be so up and down. Having kids is hard.

Now for the imaginary picture journey of our cruise:

Vacations are awesome. Beaches are relaxing and fun. We bury Eliza in the sand up to her waist and she looks so adorable in her little blue ruffle halter swim suit and hat and sunglasses. When I try to take a pic she either ignores me or does a very cheesy grin.

Tyler buries my feet and then proceeds to make my feet bumps look like boobs.

We see Minnie and Eliza goes wild.

We see Mickey and Eliza goes crazy.

We see Pluto and Eliza starts barking and pointing and yelling.

Do you see a theme here?

We play in the splash pool with our beach toys and make new friends with the other non-potty trained babies who aren't allowed in the big pools. Including a mom and her baby who live in Cabo and a couple who are Brazilian who live in Canada and Tyler and he exchange business cards...I talk potty-training.

We eat ourselves 10lbs heavier on the all you can eat chicken fingers, shrimp, and steak. (I'm still sticking to my no chocolate, cheese and anything good diet;()

We take a big group family pic of all 10 adults and 6 kids on the grande staircase.

Eliza sees Minnie and goes wild, etc.

What a Wonderful World.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Easter

We loved surprising eliza with an easter basket and and new dress. She loved hunting for eggs and I of course took a video which I'm sure everyone will want to watch...just kidding.

We have been loving the warmer weather and playing outside, but the rainy days have been driving me crazy. Eliza goes through and opens everything! I can't leave her alone for a second.

This morning I come out of the bathroom and Find that eliza had proceeded to dump shampoo all over the tv table ruining a couple books in the process. It wasn't even 8:00AM! Then we tried painting and she fell off the chair. It's like a big countdown until nap time when the house (and me) get a break only for her to wake up and we survive until bedtime.

I'm only staying sane by training hard for a relay race on May 12 down in Moab. I can't wait!

The past year I've been suffering from chronic migraines and the last couple weeks I've been on a special diet that consists of no cheese, chocolate, bbq, deli meat, sugar substitutes, and artificial sweeteners. For me, the hardest is cheese and diet coke. Ok, and chocolate too:-)  I'm running out of ideas for recipes and lunches without cheese. I've been cutting down my preservatives too which has ben quite difficult.
The good part is that it is helping.

things have been happy though:-) sunday we take off for a week in mexico.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Eliza's "Oh" face



she makes this face all the time and she looks so dang cute!

Since it was so warm this weekend we decided to play at the park
 We are so excited to be with daddy
 I don't know about this sand mom
 Although she started out a little hesitant, dad's enthusiasm caught on and soon she was up and down the slide by herself




Yay!
Can you tell I like taking photos of this little one?
P.S. We are moving at the end of the summer to north Lehi where we bought a house:)

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Things I've learned

When your husband travels every week

it's just easier to have doubles of all the essentials so he doesn't have to unpack and repack toiletries every time.

Everything you need for a week CAN fit in a carry on.

Theres a lot of ironing that really adds up fast.

Weekends are awesome.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Genius or folly

Eliza just barricaded herself in the pantry by moving a basket against the door and filling it with cans. I ask you, is that the makings of a genius or a fool?

Haha I think it means shes smart!!

Thursday, March 8, 2012

San Fran

Ok, not from our trip to San Fran, but some cute ones nonetheless from the weekend right before we left.
We went on a walk today and I tried making this animation to show how she "loves" to wear her sunglasses. 
 She loves being outside
 I don't know about this thing mom...
 Come on, get me off!
 Please!
Thank you!