Bear Droppings

Favorite age and cake pops

What ever stage Sharlie is in I always feel like it is my favorite, but really this time 18 months seriously is my most favorite!!! I am in LOVE with this age! Sharlie is cracking me up everyday! Yesterday she learned how to twirl and she thought it was hilarious! She would twirl, laugh and then fall over. My brother-in-law told us that he calls this stage the explosion stage b/c kids learn so much. He was totally right, Sharlie is learning a new word everyday!

Here are some of her words

book,kitty, dog,star,baby,eyes, nose,mouth,duck,fish, bubble,please, thank you,more,apple, banana, grape,snake,Elmo(her favorite, she sings the Elmo song all day long), tootles (mickey mouse club house),ball, cheese, and a bunch more I can't think of right now. She also does all the animal noises and says choo choo when she sees a train. For some reason she calls planes do dos, who knows why, but she does.

Anyway I love this girl so much and am having so much fun with her!!

 

 
This little girl loves her pony books. She has to read them EVERYDAY.

Lastly here are some little lamb cake pops that I made for my friends baby shower. I got the recipe from Bakerella, but please don't look at hers after seeing mine! :) I have always wanted to make one of her cake pops and I figured a baby shower was a good excuse.

 

Snow fun!

This year I have decided to have a good attitude towards the snow and enjoy it! I think I can say this b/c  I will only be in the snow for a little over a month this winter. I go back to AZ during the middle and February for my little brothers wedding and I stay there for March because Beegh has a rotation in Phoenix. So hopefully when I come back to Cleveland it will be spring! Really though the snow can be so fun, it just gets old after a while. I do love how peaceful it feels when it snows, I also love how pretty it looks when no one has walked in it and how it sparkles!

Sharlie LOVES the snow! She points out the window and says snow over and over. She also really enjoyed sledding. She would laugh the whole ride down the hill .To bad our hands froze so we only went down the hill for a little bit, seriously have your hands ever gotten so cold that you want to cry?

 

Anyone ever tried putting gloves on an 18 month old??

See our gloves were not made for the snow. Next time I am for sure wearing my snowboarding gloves.

 

December

December has gone  by so fast its unreal! Being home with family has been wonderful! We have had such a great time! The first part of the month was a little rough b/c Beegh was not here with us, but we survived it and are loving having him back ( seriously I was starting to go crazy having a baby who missed her dad and therefore constantly clung to me!

Here is what our December has looked like....

a day of shopping and eating out makes for one tired baby girl!

hanging out in Christmas Pj's. My new tradition is to give Sharlie her Christmas PJ's on December first or the day after Thanksgiving that way she has all month to wear them.

Sharlie loved playing in the fake snow, I can't wait to see how she acts in the real snow (okay actually I can, I am loving the no snow winter here in AZ!)

This year my dad got a train for under the tree, as you can see the grandkids loved it.

 

 My little one looking so big!!

 

Little monkeys jumping on the bed! Sharlie and her cousins LOVED jumping on the bed as I was pumping it up. Seriously they thought it was the greatest thing ever. My favorite was how Sharlie instantly knew that she wanted in on the action!

 

Yummy oranges! Oh how I love the citrus of AZ. 

My favorite- chicken mango quesadilla. Seriously I have missed this meal. 

My mom, soon to be sister-in-law and I learned how to make tamales. Beegh's family always has a Mexican fiesta on Christmas Eve so I was happy I had something to make for the party.

Of course we made our delicious annual Christmas candy. We decided that this year was some of our best.

It is so great to have a temple so close. It's also great to have so many willing babysitters. Beegh's sister is getting married so we all got to go through the temple with her, it was neat to have so many of us there.

Checking out the train display. This guys back yard is completely  dedicated to trains.

 
Our annual gingerbread house . My mom and I of course took first place. No one could  beat the necko roof, open door w/ Santa and a candle in the house.

Christmas would not be the same without going to the temple lights. It' nice to go and remember what Christmas is all about.

     

Pizza Mart with all of us Mechams, I think every single person had an ice cream cone here.

 

Well I hope everyone else is enjoying their Christmas vacation as much as we are!

Love my girls!

The other night my girlfriends and I all got together for our annual Christmas party. It was so much fun!!  I absolutely love these girls! I have known most of them since 5th grade and we have so many hilarious memories together! It was so great to reminisce and spend time with people who I really know and who really know me. Love you girls (missed you girls that couldn't make it)!

 

Holidays in hand

So I just finished this free online class called holidays at hand from one of my favorite  scrapbook sites (yes I am an old lady and like to scrapbook, but I do digital

I loved the class, Jessica Sprague is so amazing!! In the class we set things up to make a daily album for December that focuses on capturing the holiday season.
Our first little assignment is to think of some holiday words that describe my families holiday/values.

Here are some words I picked

joyful, lights, food, warmth, togetherness, giving, stockings, welcome, glow, Christ, laughter, memorable, wonder, reflecting and merry                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Second we put down some goals that will help us accomplish what is important to us this holiday season ...

-Spend time with people I love and friends I have not seen in a while

-Stay healthy- continue to run and don't go crazy on the treat

-Remember who I am honoring and why we celebrate CHRISTmas

-Share the holiday spirit- do something for those less fortunate

-Start a new tradition

-Of course take lots of meaningful pictures

Next Jessica gave us a bunch of prompts to use throughout the month of December. She has so many wonderful ideas! The prompts are used to give you ideas of what to put in your album each day in December (it does remind me of Ali's daily December, except Jessica has given us some ideas of what to include in the album)

Everyday there is a suggestion for what to write about and what to take a picture of (this is going to make my photo-a-day challenge easy! She left the do and make part up to us, I think she knows we are not going to make something everyday! )

here are some of my favorite writing ideas

write...

about your favorite holiday sights

favorite holiday movie

the importance of your holiday tree

who do you spend the holidays with

sentimental holiday decor

holiday song that has meaning to you

describe your favorite holiday food

write about the idea of "good will"

something you feel blessed for

Christmas Eve traditions

Photograph ideas...

holiday clothing

Christmas dvd covers

something that represents hope

close up of wrapped gifts

something warm

my idea of joy

close up of holiday symbol

holiday lights

some of your favorite places in your home

Anyway I really enjoyed this class and I am so thankful to Jessica for sharing her talents for free! I am super excited for the holidays now!!

So hopefully by the end of December I will have a beautiful album that captures some good memories of the Christmas season!

Halloween monsters!

Seriously does life get any better than a Halloween photo shoot! I love Halloween and photography, so the two together is probably the best thing that could ever happen! Really though I have been having such a good time taking pictures of my friends little ones all dressed up! This last photo shoot was really fun, we figured since it's Halloween a cemetery would be perfect, plus the cemeterys are so beautiful here.

Can you believe that my friend made her little girls costumes! How cute are they! I love the wings she made and the clown costume is so original!

     

As you can see Sharlie skunk was not in the mood for pictures (on the butt of her costume it says little stinker, so I guess she felt she had to live up to the costume) . Luckily Caysie brought candy, so that helped us get a few shots in. Can you tell she is chewing in most the pictures!

  

Since this was a Halloween photo shoot I had to make some pictures feel more like Halloween!

I had way to much fun with these!! This tree just fit so perfectly in the cemetery.

 
Anyone else feeling like some spooky Halloween pictures!?

Delicious colors of fall

I love that I have a little model this fall to take pictures of (last fall wasn't as fun since she didn't walk) although, it is getting really hard to get pictures of her where she is looking at the camera! I try all kinds of things to get her attention, but she knows what's really going on!

Well after this photo shoot (I took pictures of a friends kids and then just stayed to take some pictures of Sharlie) my car battery was completely dead. Beegh had to call our friend Jesse to come jump the car and save me. So thank you Jesse for your help, thank you Caysie for being cool about Jesse being late to dinner, and thank you for cell phones!

   

         

Picking out pumpkins

Last year our pumpkin patch experience was pretty lame (look how small Sharlie was last yr.!), so this year we decided to skip the whole pumpkin patch thing and just go to a local farmer's market. It worked out better than I thought it would. It was close, it wasn't too crowded and there were tons of pumpkins!! I'm thinking while Sharlie is young this will be the best way to pick out pumpkins.

   Sharlie and I are so happy to have Beegh back! He just finished finals. On top of finals Beegh had to get all his applications ready for his clerkships. In addition to finals and clerkships he had clinic. Seriously I feel like we didn't even see Beegh for the last 3 weeks. 

Return of the lens!

To celebrate my camera lens coming back (it was broke and I had to send it in) I of course had to take a ton of pictures! Sharlie was in a great mood that day so it worked out really well! These are for you Papa, enjoy!!

 

   

Things I am loving

I am just loving so many things right now that I had to share.

First, Sharlie- I am loving the phase that she is in. She just walks around speaking jibberish all day, it's hilarious. She is discovering new things everyday. I love how each day I get to wait and see what she will figure out. I also am happy that her hair is longer so I can do things with it now.

I love that TV shows are back. I am annoyed that 30rock doesn't come back until October, but I am enjoying The biggest loser, the office and yes 90210.

I am loving how my vi.sualize looks . If you've never heard of this site it is one of my favorites. You can gather images from across the web into your own collection, tag them for organization, and basically create your own personal idea book. I love it b/c I always see things I like, but then I forget where I saw the idea etc.( I hate bookmarking everything). I really like how if you double click on one of your pictures it will take you to the original site you got it from.I also like how you can download their button so to add a picture to your page all you do is right click it then hit the button.( you do have to be careful when you go to this site b/c some people mark pictures that you don't want to see,when you register make sure the safety is turned on)

kaboodle-This is another one of my favorite sites. I wish everyone I knew had an account. It would make gift giving a lot easier. It's nice b/c if I think of a gift idea for Beegh or Sharlie I can add it to my kaboodle so I don't forget. I HATE when I know I had a good gift idea for someone, but I can't remember what it is. Not to mention it's fun to add anything I would like to have someday! :)(um yes that blue fish will keep my hand warm when I'm on the computer in the winter, seriously I usually have to wear gloves!)

I love that I can get magazines from the library. Even though most magazines put everything on their website I still like actually flipping through magazines.

The leaves are starting to change and of course I am so excited. I love that I have a SLR camera this yr. to take pictures with!!

I am excited that my little brother is engaged! Really that was such a fun time in my life. Beegh and I have a wonderful relationship, but I don't think I'll ever be as excited for his phone calls as I was when we were engaged. I'm happy that my brother has found someone that he loves! Now they just need to pick a date!!

I just found out my sister is pregnant with her fourth and final kid! I am loving that I have a good chance of being in AZ when she has her baby!

 I love the new himalaya line at baby gap especially this hat for Sharlie, it looks so warm!

I love that I just spoke in church on Sunday so I don't have to speak again for a while!

General conference is coming up. I love hearing from the Prophet. It's nice to listen to the talks and figure out what I can improve in my life.

love these pumpkins...

I saw them on a blog last yr. , but it was after Fall so I really want to make them this year.

I love the wealth of information that can be found on the internet. For example today we noticed that Sharlie got a hold of a pen a did a little drawing on our couch (didn't even know she could draw! haha) so I googled how to get it out, alcohol or hand sanitizer was suppose to do the trick. We tried it and it totally worked!

Lastly, I love that my lens is getting repaired for free!! This is why I love canon!

Oh so many things to love right now!! Anyone else?