fess up friday...third edition

the one where i freak out:

This one just recently happened and I am proud to add it to my collection of embarrassment.

I live in Placerville, well actually I live in Diamond Springs, which are both not very well known. All you need to know for those who are from Sacramento area is that I live where you guys travel to to go camping. It is nice, and beautiful, but there are a lot of critters. Well lately at the Cray household we have been having problems with skunks, they have been coming around the house and in our attempt to kill them they spray and the house smells like skunk for a good amount of time. Well I have class two times a week from 5 PM to 10 PM and I was running late to class. Usually I leave my car windows down because I like to leave my keys in my car at my house (only if you saw where I lived you would understand) and I also leave my car windows down because my car likes to randomly lock itself (which I unfortunately learned at a gas station and had to wait two hours before michael got off work to pick me up) anyways I was running late to class and I jump in my car and zoom off. As I was driving I thought I heard an animal scurrying around. I thought it was my dog, Harvey Danger, Who looks like this:

so I call his name and nothing happens..which isnt too odd considering he is a very rude dog and rarely does what he is told (my fault really) so I call his name again and again nothing happens. So i dont worry about it and i keep driving, a few second later i hear the sound again. this time i am kinda weirded out, soo I take a quick glance over my right shoulder to make sure a killer isnt in my car and I see... a skunk.

Now is about the time i thoroughly freak out, but quietly because I dont want to scare it and have it spray in my car! So i start saying "oh my gosh its a skunk its a skunk" and i pull over my car on the side of the road...I slowly get out of the car...and I am just trying to figure out how to get this thing out of my car without scaring it! So i slowly open the back door...I slowly open the other back door and then I just stand back away from the car and I hope that the little thing will scurry out on its own. So I wait..and I wait...but I am impatiently waiting because I am sitll late to class. Finally i start to dial my husbands number because he knows what to do in every situation. But he doesnt answer. SO finally I decided I am going to check up on this little guy...I slowly creep forward (for real I am like tip toeing) and then I peak in the backseat...and I see some fur...and then I get a little closer...and closer...

and I realize that the skunk that i was terrified of was actually my fur hood on my coat which was on the floor in my backseat. awesome.

and I was late to class

oh dear

For those of you who follow me on instagram/facebook I am sure you have seen the pictures i have posted of the paintings I copied from Katie Daisy. I am a HUGE fan of her work and i loved copying her paintings for fun. If you want to see some more of her amazing pieces she has a shop on etsy called thewheatfield and it is AMAZING.

It was while I was copying some of her stuff that I thought that maybe I can create some of my own with using her as my inspiration. Therefore the creation of Latter Day Sayings. I was pretty excited about it! At first I was nervous that she would be upset that the sayings I was making would be so similar to hers, and then I thought "this girl is so talented and so successful that she wont care what the heck I do. I mean she has contracts with pottery barn, she has sold over 20,000 items on etsy, she has illustrated a book for crying out loud!" So i decided not to worry about it. and Honestly i figured she would appreciate me trying to create my own then just copy hers. So I set to work. and then yesterday I got a comment on my instagram account on a picture I posted:



"you are very talented but I wish you wouldn't copy another artist's work. Develop your own style it will feel a lot more rewarding and you certainly have the talent to do so. I noticed the artist has seen your work."

To be honest I am not sure how I should respond to this. I have no idea who this person is. I am extremely aware that it is similar to katie daisy, I have no problem admitting that she is absolutely my inspiration for these sayings and I give all the credit to her. But is this person right? Should I be ashamed that I didnt come up with an original idea? I dont know and I am seriously considering just shutting down my etsy shop. The last thing I want to do is offend others. I think right now I am just a little heartbroken.

Latter Day Sayings

Hello All! If you are my friend on facebook then this post may seem redundant, but I just wanted to share with everyone that I have opened my own etsy shop!!! I am pretty excited about it! I decided to name it Latter Day Sayings because there are so many inspirational sayings that I grew up with in the LDS faith, and I just wanted to share those sayings with everyone! I have LOTS more that I plan to paint/create, but I figured that I would just add them as I go. Here are a some that I have done so far and you can order!












A few more ideas that I was thinking of creating are:

1. A true love story never ends (with temple) - I actually already created this but the scan didnt come out very well so I am going to have to think of something else
2. Find Joy in the Journey - Quote by Thomas S. Monson
3. Love at home


If you have any ideas or suggestions I would love to hear them!!
and for those of you who are not LDS, please dont feel left out! I feel like these sayings can be applied to anyone and I am also creating some that have nothing to do with religion! Those will be posted as soon as I create them also :)

1 year update

sooo it has been a long time since I updated this, but I wanted to document ella;s first months of being one. At one years old ella:

-looves to talk, her most common words are: whats that?, doggie, daddy, hiii, nice, ooooh and she has random words here and there like jesus, santa, soft
-she LOVES to walk, when she first started walking she would just walk around with her hands in the hair just laughing because she was so happy she was walking!
- she has sprouted her first tooth! she now has three, on big one on the top and two on the bottom
-she has been more sick in her first month of being one than in her whole first year! she has had a fever multipe times, two colds, and the day after her birthday she was throwing up all day :(..I am so excited for her teething to be over for a while (I think that is what is making her so sick)
- she absolutely adores her cousin Tessa, whenever they see each other in the morning they both start laughing and smiling and reaching for each other. They also hold hands, mostly in the car :)


-she looooves to eat and likes everything she tries except for strawberry's.
-she weighs 20.6 lbs
- is in the 50th percentile on everything!
-has definitely gotten a lot more saucy! she can throw a fit quick! hopefully she will gorw out of that and we are working on "no hitting" and "being soft"
-mostly sleep through the night and takes either one 3 hour nap or two 1 hour naps, whatever she feels like.
-she loves music and dancing, and when i sing certain songs she will twirl her hands like she is leading music, it is SO cute!

Michael and I started school last week and I am trying to get an etsy shop started hopefully by valentines day! so we are definitely busy but we are loving our life and our family!

ellas first birthday

Her Birthday party was so fun and so many people came to share in this special time with her! We had so much fun! We did the "you are my sunshine" theme and i think it turned out pretty well :)
the decor....


























and lets pause to take at look at this pretty birthday girl...


ok unpause...


cousin Tessa


yes we are wearing matching shirts... love it!



ella enjoying her lunch



two wonderful ladies and friends


baby jack..ellas future prom date



and now presents! she loved all of them!







and then it was cake eatin time...and she was into that!












Thank you everyone who participated in making it the best first birthday party ever!!

fess up friday...second edition

I would just like to say that this is probably my most embarrassing moment to date. SO much so that i have only told two people about it in my life (Nina and Michael) well I need to get over this, so I decided I am going to share it, and please understand that I am still just as horrified now as I was about 12 years ago.


It's sixth grade and time for science camp. My one friend (teachers pet remember?) could not go so I was all by my lonesome that year. I was put into a cabin with a bunch of girls who were in my class but way cooler and cuter than me so we rarely spoke. I was pretty nervous about this set up but so far it was going pretty smooth, and then we had to take showers. In order to do this we had to go with our pile of clothes and toiletries to the shower house and do it there. Well we all went as a group and as I was waiting for the other girls to finish up I set my dirty clothes on the counter and waited for them to finish. The first half of our group left the showers and were in our cabin having a gay old time when the second half of the group came in busting up laughing at something. We were pretty excited to join in on the fun so we asked what was going on. "LOOK SOMEONE LEFT THEIR UNDERWEAR IN THE SHOWERS AND ITS STAINED. EWWWWWWWW" that is gross, and so we giggled and then they produced a zip lock bag with the underwear inside.

It was my underwear.

now let me take a second to defend myself, my mother is a serious thrifter through and through, if you stain your underwear for whatever reason, you soak it and wash it and its "good as new." even if you can still see the stain and the slight color of it. but that is apparently irrelevant to my family. so unfortunately i owned a pair of stained underwear. and unfortunately that just happened to be the pair I left on the bathroom counter when I picked up my clothes to go back to my cabin.

I, however, thought I was smarter than everybody and decided to play dumb... I mean they cant KNOW it was mine. So i played along as they passed around the dirty evidence, everyone equally ewwing at it, and then I decided that I should end this moment and chastised the girls for doing this (teachers pet remember) "why are you guys even looking at this! this is so gross!" hoping that they would feel guilty and gross for doing this and would stop immediately...that didnt happen

at this time we are all in our bunk beds, I am at the top and underneath me sleeps ashley. well they are still looking at the underwear and STILL talking about who would own such a pair and how gross it is and really i am just horrified, but i still feel safe because they CANT know its mine RIGHT?! and then ashley (who is underneath me and I cant see) announces: "I think I know who the underwear belongs to"
and simultaneously all the girls answer "WHO?!!!"

and then i see their eyeballs slowly start to look up at me from ashley.


OH THE SHAME
OH THE EMBARRASMENT
OH THE HORROR

but what could I do?! What I could I say?
nothing.

so i didnt say anything, and i pulled out my harry potter journal and pretended like i didnt see.

we never mentioned the underwear in our cabin again. but it will haunt me forever.

and just so you know i am now paranoid about my underwear being stainless at all times.

the end.

ella is 11 months

Holy Moly I cant believe we are less than one month away from her first birthday.

at 11 months ella:
-does not eat baby food anymore, she likes whatever we are eating, even though she still has ZERO teeth, not even a bud.
-doesnt mind getting dressed as much anymore...Thank Goodness.. I swear people thought I was abusive when they would hear me getting her dressed
-has taken her first steps! but there is something that I have noticed about ella: once she has accomplished something, she is no longer interested in doing it. examples include: walking by herself, saying doggie, when she first rolled over she stopped for a while, when she first learned to crawl she also stopped for a while, etc
- she REFUSES to wear anything on her head. The other day I literally fought with her for over an HOUR trying to get her to wear a cute beanie. I pleaded, I tricked, I even tried to guilt trip her by making a sad face when she ripped it off (I know I have problems) but it was all in vain. We left the house with no hats and me afraid that this was a preview to what was to come as she gets older
- she loves books and stuffed animals
- she still LOVES water
- loves showers
- we watched white christmas the other day and every time there was a musical number she stopped what she was doing and watched
- is STILL into everything
- is a CLIMBER, we had to lower her crib because michael caught her climbing over it
-she also hates to wear socks/shoes - she rips them off constantly - this baby has determination for sure
- has added the words "hat" and "pretty" to her list

she is the greatest thing in the world and i love her more everyday