Dear Santa

So, for Christmas this year we decided we each get to spend $20 on whatever we want. This eliminates all stress of trying to find something the other person will like and holds us to our budget.

I'm the one who came up with the idea, Juan is totally on board and we wouldn't understand Blaz even if he did complain. Now, I'm the one messing it up, hehe. Here's the breakdown

Juan:
New tape measure - $7

$13 remaining

Blaz:
4 new books - $2
Rocking horse- free from grandparents
Blocks- free from grandparents

$18 remaining

Camille:
$30 dress form on craigslist (I've been wanting one forever and they usually are upwards of $300 for one this nice. How can I resist?)

$10 in the negative


So, I'm thinking here that I can just take $10 from my son's Christmas money to go towards my dress form. He already got to free gifts, so it's not like he won't have any toys. He's 7 1/2 months old, boxes are more entertaining then toys right now anyway. Lol, just nobody tell him that on his first christmas his mommy took his money to buy stuff for her, hehe.

Or, I got a Christmas money in the mail from my grandparents (thank you!!) and I could use that to pay for the dress form, plus $10 from my money, and still have $10 leftover in my fund to buy something!! Hmm, sounds like a plan?

But, however I want to work it . . . . I already called the seller and picked up the dress form. It's beautiful and looks fabulous next to my sewing table.



(This is why I think housewives should run the family budget. This way we can work things so that everyone (especially us) is happy! I heart my new dress form!!)

Thanksgiving and Busy

It's been a little while since I've posted, but I have been keeping very busy.

Here's my thanksgiving recap:

Our ward had a turkey bowl and turkey trot on thanksgiving morning. I kept saying all week that if it was good weather I would bundle up Blaz in the stroller and walk the 5k. Of course, it was sunny and beautiful. I think only 3 other people did the 5k, but it was still fun. Blaz slept almost the whole time. Juan played football (can you spot him in the green shirt?) and it was a fun way to start the day.


We went to my parents house for the big meal. We really missed Stewart and Becky this year, it was small, but delicious. My mom made ham instead of turkey, mmmm. We ate a lot, watched Angel and Demons and played a game. We stayed til almost 8 o'clock, it was fun. Blaz enjoyed getting lots of attention from everybody and even took a good nap.




I am sewing nonstop getting ready for another craft boutique (I know, I thought they would be over too) but I couldn't resist just one more.

More updates later!!

Growing and Playing

Blaz is 7 months old now and growing and changing. It's funny how he learns so many new things in a few weeks.
Here are some new things happening around here:

-Blaz can undo the tabs on his diaper
-He has learned to spit (the loud poopy-sounding spits) and he enjoys spitting loudly during quiet moments (like the opening prayer in sacrament meeting)
-He can scoot and roll across the living room and has discovered that if he works hard he can reach my sewing patterns and crinkle them
-He loves turning on and off the lights in the bedroom
-Blaz loves taking a bath and is fascinated by the water faucet, he keeps grabbing it and trying to hold it, hilarious:)

-He sits up really good and he likes seeing the world from that angle. We face-plant about once a day though!
-He's started to babble, like he's talking, he does it all day long. Sometimes he'll go dadadadada, or mamamamama and it sounds like he's say mom and dad, love it!
-He recognizes my camera and his face immediately goes serious when he sees it. No matter what cute smiles he's showing, as soon as he sees that silver thing go in front of my face he looks serious. It looks like I have a somber child, lol, he really does smile!
-Peekaboo is hilarious and when Juan pretends to be asleep and says "boo!" Blaz laughs so hard
-He really likes the young men that Juan works w/ at church, he laughs so hard when they talk to him or rough house around him. But, when the young women come up and do the whole "oooh, he's so cute!" he usually cries.
-He wants to crawl and he's close, he just can't get his bum up in the air. We are betting that he will crawl by Christmas.
-He finally likes to read books with me now. We have 3 books that we read every night and we have a rotation system; he eats one, while I read one, then we switch and he eats the one I just finished while I read the other.

Aunt Becky made this adorable book for Blaz with pictures of everybody in the family. Blaz has crinkled and slobbered on every page now, but he likes reading it with me at night. Thanks Becky - we love it!!

So proud!

I've been working very hard at filling my pantry and shelves with things that we use everyday. I'm quite proud of my food storage and yes, I'm a dork and love organizing it and turning all the labels so they face the same direction. Don't worry, it's not alphabetized:) I don't dread charity events where we donate food (because I have plenty of food to donate, a lot of the items in the pantry were free!) and we have kleenex and tp to last for months. Yay!

(the only downside here is that we're moving in 4 months. Ugh, I have to move all that stuff. )

A Tooth!

It has happened, Blaz has a tooth! The bottom left tooth has just barely decided to poke through the skin. We stopped at the grocery store on our way home from our tuesday night church meetings and while I ran in Juan played with Blaz in the car. That's when he noticed something sharp . . . ta da! We got home and investigated and here are some funny pictures.



I think Blaz was a little excited with all the praise, he couldn't quit smiling and kicking his feet.



We tried to get a picture of the mini tooth, but this is as good as it gets.

Life is wonderful here, just enjoying the beautiful sunshine. Blaz and me have gone of several long walks with the stroller and it's been so refreshing in November. I can't believe Christmas is a month and a half away, unbelievable! We've been thinking a lot about family traditions and what we want to do for our baby's first holiday season.

So, here is our evil holiday plot: Last year after Christmas we went to Target and noticed the coolest toys and kid gift sets were 50-75% off, amazing deals. Things that were $30 just 2 days before were now $10. So, Christmas is a friday, Blaz has no idea about it anyway, so we are going to postpone Christmas morning until Sunday the 27th. We will go shopping Saturday, pick up some sweet deals, and wrap them up for holiday cheer the next morning. We will probably do this for the next 5-6 years, at least until he notices that we celebrate on the wrong day. Cheers to saving money:)

Giveaway

I'm giving away a mommy & me apron set over on my recipe blog Camille's Casa

Click here to enter the contest and win!!

Halloween Plus

Blaz was a frog for halloween. We had him wear his cute frog costume to the ward party friday night. He barfed at the party, so for halloween he got to wear jammies!

I can't begin to explain the bizarre complexities of my husband's family, but we decided to invite them all to a halloween party at our place. We also invited the missionaries. We cleaned, decorated and baked all day. I was joking w/ Juan that his brothers and family wouldn't come and it would just be us and the missionaries. Haha! Our party ended up being us and the missionaries eating pizza and munchies, lol. Juan's parents did eventually show up after we'd cleaned up though. We sent the missionaries home with lots of extra cupcakes and we're still nibbling on the veggie tray, deviled eggs, cupcakes and pizza.

Here is Blaz with his Abuela Rosa. He doesn't like to smile for the camera anymore. I pull it out and he gets this serious face, he probably wants to eat it:)




Blaz "flying" with daddy.


We live on a dead end, so I assumed nobody would come trick or treating. I only bought one bag and there were SO many kids we ran out of candy around 6. We packed up and went to the mall where I found a great pair of jeans at Old Navy. I know right? Cute jeans at Old Navy, and let me brag a little and say they are 3 sizes smaller than I was wearing before. Gracias to Wii fit, love it!

Sunday Juan's parents came by to drop of some harvest apples and see Blaz again. My dad-in-law hates holding babies, but he actually held Blaz a little bit. He says they seem to little and "breakable." I snapped this cutie lastnight.

Hope everybody else had a fun/safe halloween. I love November and I'm so excited it's here!