My Swimsuit Shop

I've been busy gearing up for swimsuit season! And by that I don't mean working out and getting into shape (I really need to do more of that). By that I mean I've been spending lots of time on swimsuit orders, updating my website, scheduling home parties, advertising, and getting my 'swimsuit shop' ready for the season. I had my first open house over the weekend. We have a room attached to our house with a separate entrance where I have all of my swimsuits on display. I call it my 'swimsuit shop' but Niel is trying to turn it into a 'man cave'. Not happening.

This year I am excited to not only carry Lime Ricki brand swimsuits but also ModBe swimsuits! If you live in Las Vegas, swing by to check out the cute, modest swimsuits. Everything on my website, plus a little more is available to try on and buy. I'll even let you host a super fun swimsuit party (with great perks!) if you beg me:)

Spread the word!

You can become a fan on facebook here

My New Ride

This is my new ride I've been driving around town the last couple of months. Our GMC Acadia replaced the Honda. It took longer than we anticipated to finally get a new car because we got it used from an auction. We saved a lot of money but we had to be patient. Which meant I went without a car for most days for about three months or so after Kensie was born. Talk about cabin fever to the max. No car, stuck at home with a newborn.

Anyways, we wanted something with more leg room and cargo space. We also preferred something with a third row but that wasn't a huge SUV or minivan. We narrowed our search down to the Toyota 4Runner, Lincoln MKX, and the Acadia. My favorite things about the Acadia are the bucket seats, the third row, and the body style. Having the extra cargo space is great and it's so much easier getting Kensie in and out of the car.

I hadn't ever driven anything bigger than a small sedan so I had to adjust to driving this car. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. But I'll be honest, I still struggle backing this thing up and parking in tight spaces.

So I guess it's pretty official now. My car screams mom. Hopefully people think 'Hot Mom.'

Jimmermania

Niel and I are both BYU alumni and we will always be big cougar fans. But being a BYU cougar fan during this year's basketball season was better than ever. We all know why. The Jimmer. Even my Grandma is a Jimmer fan. We finally got to see him play in person at the MWC here in Vegas. The first night of the conference we got a babysitter for Kensie and tried to buy tickets from scalpers. That was unsuccessful. Not only did we not get into the game, but Kensie screamed for the babysitter almost the entire time we were gone. The following night we got tickets to the San Diego vs. BYU game while my aunt watched Kensie. It was a sad loss but I'm still glad we were able to go.

Here we are at the game. blurry. It's all I've got.

My brother Brannen and his family came to Vegas over the weekend for the MWC. They stayed at our house on Saturday night and went to church with us the following day. It was so much fun to have them stay with us even though it was a short visit!

Mollie and Gregg had a party for the BYU vs. Florida game. That was one really disappointing game but at least Mollie made really cool cupcakes with pictures of the BYU basketball players. It was sad to see Jimmer have a rough shooting night in his last game of his college basketball career.

But...

I'm pretty sure we will see a lot more of Jimmer in the NBA...and we will be his number one fan as long as he never sports a Lakers Jersey.

Karyna's Visit

My old roommate Karyna came to visit at the beginning of March! She and her daughter, Macy, stayed for three nights with us. Kensie loved having another little person around to entertain her. Karyna and I both got guest passes to the YMCA while she was here. We dropped off our girls at the free childcare inside the gym and worked out for almost two hours both days! It was great. We tried Zumba for the first time. I really liked it. We also tried a step class (didn't like that one so much) and an ab workout.One sunny afternoon we headed to Red Rock Canyon. We spent two afternoons visiting with Julie and Rushton. Besides that we relaxed and enjoyed each other's company. I'm glad that I have been able to keep in touch with my roommates from college.

Red Rock Canyon (It's blurry because I had it on portrait mode accidentally. oops.)

Six Months

Our baby turned six months on the 16th. My favorite thing she started doing is giving us 'kisses'! I LOVE it! She opens her mouth, leans in towards us, and plants them on our cheeks! It makes me smile every. single. time. I think she learned to give us 'kisses' so quickly because I kiss her cheeks a bajillion times a day. How could you not? They are so stinkin' adorable and kissable.

The picture below is Kensie's most genuine smile. I don't have many pictures of her genuine smile because she always gets distracted by the camera.

Below is the face she does a lot when she is excited/happy. Open mouth & bright eyes.

Bedtime: I love our bedtime routine; it is one of my favorite parts of the day with Kensie. I feed her, wrap her up in her blanket, give her the binkie, say prayers with her, sing 'twinkle twinkle little star', and lay her down in her crib. She is so sweet right before I put her to bed. Usually she lets me hold her real close and her whole body relaxes. She looks at me with sleepy eyes as I sing to her. Sometimes she falls asleep in my arms as she finishes up eating or while I sing to her. Usually she stays awake until I lay her down in her crib though. She hardly ever cries at bedtime and falls asleep almost instantly when I lay her in the crib. It is the cutest thing when turns onto her side to fall asleep. We have been doing this bedtime routine since she was about 3 1/2 months old. She goes to bed around 7:30 p.m.

Naps: This past month has been a rough month for naps. We are in the process of experimenting between two and three naps. She has been fighting her naps a lot. And then after an hour of trying to get her down for a nap she will wake up 20-45 minutes into it. SO frustrating. Things have improved the last week or two but still not great.

Nighttime sleep: On a good night she will sleep 7pm-5 am, wake up to eat and go back to sleep until 7 or 7:30. Not a good night=waking up twice in the night and waking up at 6am. ugh.

Other things about our little miss...

• She puts her toes in her mouth and loves gnawing on them.
• Actually, she loves gnawing on just about anything she can put in her mouth.
• Sometimes she will cry/yell out in objection when you take something away from her
• She is completely fascinated with the iPhone
• Still has a blocked tear duct
• Her hair has fallen out except for on the top of her head. She has an awesome old man, comb-over look.
• She plays with her own hair sometimes. It's pretty cute.
• Loves yanking on my hair. ouch. Sometimes she will gently run her fingers through it though.
• Not sitting up yet. Only rolling occasionally.
• Still just eats rice cereal and milk.
• No teeth yet.
• She rubs her feet together when she is frustrated

She gets tons of attention wherever we go. People love making a fuss over her...and Kensie doesn't mind one bit. She loves being with people and being the center of attention. Don't know where she gets that from:)

Kensie's Baby Blessing

We blessed Kensie on November 7th, 2010 when she was seven weeks old. I just recently got the pictures from the baby blessing so I'm finally posting about it. Kensie was little miss popular and had LOTS of family and friends attend the baby blessing!

We both look really tired. It's because we were.

Family who came for the blessing

Little Miss Kensie on her blessing day. 7 weeks.

We had twelve people stay at our house over the weekend! I had been stressing about having that many people at our new, unfurnished, and undecorated house. Where everyone was going to eat, sit, and sleep heavilly weighed on my mind. We didn't have a dining room table or a suitable couch for that many guests because our furniture shopping attempts were unsuccessful...so we used folding chairs and a fold up table instead. My parents were total lifesavers and basically hosted the event all weekend even though it was at my house. They went grocery shopping, cooked, cleaned, and regulated. I have amazing parents. It's a good thing they came down early because I was not prepared at all to host that many people.

Here are some pictures from the weekend...

Kensie got lots of attention from both her Grandmas! My parents were here for a few days before the blessing and Niel's mom stayed for a week after the blessing. Kensie had a hard time adjusting to not being held all the time after everyone left!

The weekend ending up being a great time with family and friends! We even got some work done on our house with the help of Steve, my dad, and Devin. We got our garage door opener installed, a utility sink installed in the laundry room, all the screens put on our windows, our shutters tightened, and the satellite removed from the house.

On Saturday we went to my Aunt Marilyn's house and then we had a picnic at the park next to our house. Afterwards we went hot tubbing.

Sunday was the blessing day. Niel gave Kensie a beautiful blessing. Afterwards everyone came over to our house for dinner and birthday cake since my birthday was the following day. It was a very memorable day for our family. Thank you to all of our family and friends who came to share this special day with us!

Painting

The people who previously lived in our home painted the whole thing a bright sea foam green. It was disgusting. Luckily, the bank repainted the house beige before we moved in. At first we thought we would keep it because it was a nice, neutral color. But, we decided to spice things up in the living room. We also realized that eventually we will have to re-paint the whole house because the bank used flat paint.

I wanted to paint the living room a bluish/gray color.

So...19 paint samples later...We finally found the perfect color I was looking for.

Here is only a handful of the paint samples I tried. I didn't end up using any of the blues pictured.

Who would have thought this would be such a hard color to find?!?! Our first attempt we were WAY off. It looked like a baby boy's room. I kept thinking we were getting closer but it would either be too light, too dark, too gray, too purple-ish, or too blue. Finally we found the color in the gray shades. I wish I had known this from the start. If you want a bluish/gray color go straight to the gray shades!

It was finally time to paint! Courtney and Cameron came over to help. Cameron and Niel ended up doing all of the painting while Courtney and I went shopping for some home decor.

Here are some after pictures:







I love the color. It was exactly what I was going for. We've still got a long ways to go until this room is done but we are making progress.

5 Months

She found her feet and thinks they are the greatest!

We gave Kensie rice cereal for the first time a few days before she turned five months. The first time she didn't know what to do with a spoon. She kinda flicked her tongue and did a sucking action at the same time causing the rice cereal to go everywhere. At first she seemed indifferent to rice cereal but now she likes it.

(I'm running almost a month behind on Kensie's posts FYI. She is almost six months now.)

• Still wears newborn shoes. 0-3 month shoes are even big on her.
• She likes being in the same room as us. If we leave the room she starts crying.
• She started getting eczema the past month
• She reaches for anything and everything around her
• Loves sitting at the dinner table with Mom & Dad
• She scratches everything
• She tries to wiggle away from me when I burp her
• We FINALLY transitioned her from sleeping in the bouncer to the crib
• Still hates being on her tummy
• Takes an average of three naps (which have been awful lately! She keeps waking 45 minutes into all of her naps)
• Loves her bumbo
• She likes to sit in her bumbo seat while I cook.
• She got another bad cold....which means she started waking up several times at night again.
• A tiny corner of a tooth poked through a few weeks before she was five months but then it went back down and we haven't seen it since.
• She is a little social butterfly. She loves being around people!
• She jabbers, laughs, and smiles more and more everyday.
• Mom is her favorite person in the world. Dad follows closely behind:)