Before and After

We've now been in our house for 3 years, and have made a lot of changes to it. We had no idea what we were doing when we bought this house, but have learned a lot, and are happy with what we've done with it. Last year I posted some before and after pictures, but we've planted more trees, our plants have grown, we added rocks to our flower beds, and Stephen painted our door. So here's some fun before and after pictures of the outside of our house. (We've done a lot inside too, but the outside changes look the coolest.)

5 Year Anniversary!

April 29th Stephen and I celebrated our 5 year wedding anniversary! Time has gone by fast, and so much has happened. I'm grateful for Stephen and for our marriage. To celebrate we went over to the bay and stayed at this beautiful historic hotel in Berkeley. It's called the Berkeley City Club and was designed by the same architect that designed Hearst Castle down south. This place was called the little castle. It was beautiful. We had a fun experience walking around Berkeley on a Friday night, there is a very big variety of people there. We ate at this really cool restaurant, then Eleanor got to go in a swimming pool for the first time. She seemed to like it well enough. The pool at the hotel was all mosaic, and very beautiful, I did laps in it the next morning. The next day we met Mom and Dad Cromar in Union City, and we all got to use our Christmas gift from two Christmas's ago. We did indoor sky diving in the big wind tunnel. It was fun to get to fly. We loved it!

Easter

We had a nice Easter weekend. Ryan, Jessica, Emily and Samuel came up that Saturday, and we had a lunch, and went to the park. It's so fun to live close enough that we get to see them, and that our kids get to see each other. (Eleanor's just going to love getting to be near her Merced cousins) Easter Sunday we went to Stephen's parents house, and had a nice dinner and evening. Eleanor got a cute basket from Mom Fremming with a chick stuffed animal. Eleanor loves chewing on the chick! My sister Jenny made Eleanor her Easter dress. She looked so very cute! We're grateful for this time of year, to see blossoms and new growth, and to celebrate the Savior's resurrection.

Spring Pictures!

We had a coupon from when we had our pictures taken in December, so we got some more family pictures done, and got some pictures of Eleanor. Eleanor did such a great job! Usually when we bring out our camera she just stares at it and won't smile, but when we went to take pictures at JCPenneys, the photographer would say "peek-a-boo," and she would smile and he would take the picture. We were so glad to get so many pictures of her smiling, we just love her smile!

Tutu and Dog Hair

For Emily's birthday I decided I wanted to make her a tutu for dress up. Emily is great at, and enjoys imaginary play a lot, so I thought this would be a fun gift. I've never made a tutu before, so I got online and watched a couple of videos on youtube, went to Walmart and picked out some tulle and ribbon, and made a tutu and some hair flower clips. I loved how it turned out, and Emily seemed to like it too.

Other news in our house...Molly got a hair cut. Actually a lot of hair cut, the groomer said that the hair they cut off Molly was equal to all the hair they cut off all the other dogs that day combined, and they were busy. Molly had a double coat of long hair, and spent most all of her days laying around the house panting. So we had her shaved, and she looks like a new dog. She plays a lot more now, and isn't panting like she used to. Hopefully she'll be more comfortable this summer compared to previous summers. Here are her before and after pictures.

Funny Faces

So we think Eleanor is a super beautiful baby, but lately we've gotten some pictures of her making some funny faces that I wanted to share. Here are Eleanor's cute/funny faces.

Cricuting!

Here are two projects I did last week. Both were very cheap, but took some time. The Family tiles are 4"x4" tiles. Stephen drilled holes through them, and I used ribbon to connect them. The Season block are 7 blocks that spell all four seasons. Here are the letter combos front and back if you want to do this (T S, M I, N M, E G, W U, A R, U P). I got the wood from Home Depot's scrap wood section, and they cut it into blocks for me. It ended up being 51 cents for 14 blocks! Stephen sanded them for me, then I just had to figure out which papers to use that would go with different seasons. I like how they turned out. I also made a little plaque with a quote from President Monson about gratitude. All three of these items I donated for the YM/YW spaghetti dinner auction. The people that won them seemed excited about them. I now want to make some for myself.

Yosemite Trip

We took a trip to Yosemite during January. We stayed at Curry Village in an heated tent cabin, and Eleanor did a great job sleeping in a travel bassinet. We had originally planned on going ice skating, but changed our minds to the much safer activity of snowshoeing. We had a wonderful time. It was sunny and warm and we both ended up taking off our coats and pushing up our sleeves. We took a bus up to badger pass, and went snowshoeing for 2 hours with a group led by a Park Ranger. It ended up only costing $5 each for Stephen and I, which was so much cheaper than renting them and going on our own. We snowshoed through the woods and to a beautiful vista point where we were able to see 1/3 of Yosemite (Yosemite National Park covers almost 1,200 square miles). Stephen carried Eleanor in the front pack, and she ended up sleeping the whole 2 hours! It was very peaceful to walk through the woods on the snow, and very easy too. We really enjoyed it and hope to do more snowshoeing in the future.

Visit to Great Grandma

On Martin Luther King Day Stephen didn't have work so we went down to Fresno to visit his Grandma. It was the first time Eleanor got to meet her Great Grandma. We had a great visit. The last time we had visited her was near the end of my pregnancy and she had felt Eleanor kick. She seemed delighted to get to meet Eleanor. She talked to her, played with her, held her and watched her. We were really glad to get to visit.

New Years Day Trip

New Years Day we took our first day trip with Eleanor over to the coast. We spent the day in Monterey at the aquarium, which is one of my favorite places ever. Eleanor seemed to like looking at the fish, and the jelly fish. Stephen really enjoyed the Seahorse part, his favorite seahorse was the Weedy Seadragon. Eleanor watched the jelly fish a lot. My favorite part was the part where you can touch stuff, and I got to pet a bat ray, it felt soft and smooth. The kelp forest was also really neat to look at, with the shark, ray, and other big fish. That night we went to Captain Bulwackers to eat, it's one of Stephen's favorite restaurants over there, and I had given him a coupon for it for Christmas. The food was delicious! Eleanor did a great job on the drive there and home, and we were glad to find out that she can make longer trips. What a nice day, oh how I wish we lived on the coast!