Snow Globes

I made this snow globe for a friend for Christmas and I thought it turned out really cute.
I felt a little jealous giving it to her.

Family Photos

Alright family...here is our family picture!!!

Snow Globes

I was over at a friends house from church the other day and she had made some snow globes that turned out adorable.

I thought it was such a cute idea and then I started seeing them on blogs and I thought they looked cute and would be easy to make so I gave it a try.

I bought 3 of the mason jars from Michaels and one storage jar from Ross. If I planned ahead or was willing to wait I would have collected jars from pasta sauce and other things.

I checked 3 Michales in Tucson and ended up buying a huge pack of the Lemax Trees. I wish there was a Hobby Lobby here because the ones at Hobby Lobby had smaller bases which would have made things easier.

The project ended up being a little more high maintenance than I expected. The lip of the jar is so much smaller than the width of the inside of the jar so I couldn't fit as many trees in some of them as I would have liked. Also, once I put the snow in the trees sat too low so I created plat forms using foam board so the trees would sit taller. I even had to trim some of the needles on the bottoms of the trees to make sure the snow fell past them.

I bought two bags of snow, one regular and one glittery, and only mixed a little glitter in each jar. The glitter sort of sticks to the sides of the jar which I don't love, but I can live with it.

The lady on this blog some how got her trees to sit high and wider than the opening of her jars. Hmm.

More work than expected but they turned out cute.

Emily

Emily and I were roommates our freshman year in college and we are still the best of friends.
She is graduating in a few weeks from the College of Education.
Way to go Em!

Baby Zander

This is baby
Zander.
His mom, Amy, and my sister have been friends since high school.
My sister and I both drove back to Mesa one weekend to meet the baby and take pictures.
He is such a sweet little baby (we loved him).

Newborn Lydia

This is baby Lydia Ryan.
I love the name.
Her mommy (Kristina) and I are sideline cheerleaders for our husbands' soccer team.
We are also in the same ward and we have become great friends.

Kristina's mom came for pictures and support. It was fun having her around.


thanks friends for lettings me take your new baby's pictures

Joedy and Rob family

Joedy, Rob and baby Josey
Such a cute little family!
and funny...they crack me up

Disneyland

James and I went took a trip to Disneyland towards the end of July.
It was his FIRST TIME!

We justified the trip as:
a late anniversary present
a graduation present
a final vacation before school starts
a final vacation before I start work
the list goes on...

To begin our trip we drove to California and spent the first night at James' parent's house. It is always nice to see them and whoever else is around at the time (this time it was Carlos, Paul, and Gina). Then the next day we spent a few hours at Huntington Beach. It was really crowded there, but we were expecting that so it didn't bother us much. Plus, I am a people watcher so it was heaven for me. Oh, on our way to the beach we saw a Cafe Rio so of course we had to stop there for some yumminess.

After the beach it was time to head to our hotel. For our hotel and the Park Hopper tickets, we purchased a package deal through getawaytoday.com. If you know me well enough you know I make sure to check every other option before hand to be sure we are getting a good deal. Which I felt we did.

The hotel was decent. It could have used some updates, but it was a few steps up from some of the many interesting motels we have stayed in. Anyways, we spent the first full day at Disneyland and the weather was nice.
James got his first timers pin and they also gave me a pin so I didn't feel left out.
Before we left for the trip, whenever James would tell people it would be his first time they would often tell him to get ears or a hat, to live like a kid. I wasn't too fond of the idea (they are expensive) but I gave in and we bought James a Goofy Hat.The first ride I took James on was Indiana Jones. It was a hit!!
We also liked Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, Buzz Lightyear's Space Astro Blasters and many others!! Sadly, the Matterhorn was closed...lame. We took picture of the pictures of ourselves on some of the rides. The Buzz Lightyear ride you can e-mail yourself the pictures which is cool. But there isn't anyway to download it and save it after it is e-mailed to you so I print screened it.


The next day we woke up late which I was really bummed about, but turned out to be a good thing since California Adventure Land didn't open until 10am anyways. The second day we spent only in California Adventure.
I forgot to mention we rented a locker all three days which honestly is the best way to go. We were able to stuff our lunch in there, extra waters, snacks and a jacket.

California Adventure was a lot of fun too. The most anxiety I got before a ride was the Tour of Terror, because I had never experienced it before. But it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
We of course loved Soarin' Over California, Toy Story Mania (4D dart shooting game similar to the Buzz one) and the Grizzly River Run which we went on 3 times!

We spent the third and final day going on our favorite rides again and spending some time in Downtown Disney.
Each night we were able to catch a show and they were all great!
While we were there we also met a few Disney Characters.I could go on and on, but that pretty much sums up our trip to Disneyland and California and Adventure Land. And now, whenever someone makes a reference to Disneyland, James knows what they are talking about.