Harvey Birdman Danger

This post is to celebrate the commemorate the life of Harvey Birdman Danger. Unfortunately he passed away earlier this week and even though this dog absolutely drove me crazy (and just about everybody else) 95% of the time. He was still a great dog and we will miss him immensely


We'll miss you Harvey!

Ella 15 Month Update!

- she LOVES to play outside. she would be outside all day if I would let her
- she loves to talk and babble. Some of her favorite words are : doggie, daddy, mama, ooooh, hot, hat, eye, belly, bunny, nice, bye, hiii, whats that,
- she REFUSES to say the word please. REFUSES! she has not said it once. usually when I say "say horse" or something she will usually attempt if not say the word horse. but she WILL NOT even try with please. I dont know if this is some sort of mother-daughter power struggle or maybe she just doesn't understand the concept.
- LOVES Toy Story. She will sit and watch that movie on repeat. We bought her a Woody doll for Easter and I am SO excited to give it to her :)
- wears size 4 diapers
- eats everything and loves it. but some of her favorite dishes are pizza, spaghetti (she thinks the long noodles are so cool), bananas, cheese, and of course ice cream

- still loves her bottle. That is how we usually lay her down for her naps or bedtime is with a bottle, but next week I am going to try and take it from her, but I have no idea what I am doing. Help?!
- loves to play tag
- loves to climb onto couches and then calmly walks off the edge (she has done this twice and thankfully has not hurt herself)
- whenever she is eating something she always says "mmmmmm"
- she usually takes about 2 2-hour naps during the day and sleeps about 10-12 hours a night. she is a great sleeper and I am SO thankful for that

- stuffed animals/babies are her absolute favorite and she is usually never without one
- she loves to pretend that random things are purses/necklaces and she walks around the house with her little arm holding a purse and something around her neck saying "ooh peeetty"

- she also loves to do your make up (by brushing make up brushes on your face) and brush your teeth (but not hers, that is usually a struggle) and brush hair

- she also loves to play clean up. Michael has this jar filled with guitar picks, she LOVES to pour all the guitar picks out and then put them back in one by one and then says "all done!"
- is a little sweetheat, when she sees someone crying (like babies in nursery at church) she just goes up and hugs them
- MY FAVORITE part of the day is getting her out of her crib in the morning. she usually gets so excited to see me that she runs around her crib and does a little dance, and then when I pick her up she ALWAYS gives me a hug and pats me on the back. it melts me and is my favorite part of the day

words cannot describe how much I love this little girl!

swings

Today, Michael decided that he wanted to make a swing for Ella. and he did. and she loved it. Here are the girls on their first swing, Tessa wasnt so sure about it. it was amazing :)

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!