I'm head over heels in love...

ugh. I am the worst at blogging. But I need to type this stuff down! My little baby isn't even a baby anymore. She said a real sentence this week (besides "I love you"). We were at her friends house and he was asking his mom for juice and then I hear this little high voice say "I want juice too". WHAT. THE. HECK!??! She is a little person now! When she doesn't like something she will say "I don't like that" or "I don't want it." Right now she gets extremely upset if I am chewing gum and attempting to blow bubbles and yells "NO! I don't like that!" I am having such a great time with her. She is so independent which makes this age a MILLION times better than having a newborn. She is in underwear all the time now except for nap time and night time. Maybe that will change when she gets a real bed instead of sleeping in a pack and play. Fall was BEAUTIFUL here in Wisconsin. We went to a ton of apple orchards...

Remember that one time I told you that my 6 month old likes to poop in the toilet? Well she still does. And now she does it without me holding her over a giant toilet. A month ago I decided I was sick of changing diapers/ paying ridiculous amounts of money for them. We had a little potty for her that she practiced going in every now and then. But now i was ready to do the real deal... pant less potty training for three days straight. This day was pretty much the worst day ever. Estela had 13 accidents and one success and it wasn't even 2. Ugh. Lots and lots of bleach that day. I decided to hold off on serious training until i came back from my trip from Oregon. Fast forward to two or three weeks later and we were on serious attempt number 2. It only lasted a few hours. She had less accidents but I thought that it was stupid to try and train her now when I had a wedding to photograph coming up in a few days. There was no way either Dan or I could watch her because he was filmi...

Our "second" day on the cruise we arrived at a port on Mallorca. It's a beautiful island of the coast of Spain. We took our time in the morning sleeping in till 8:30! Estela woke up in the middle of the night and only went back to sleep when she was in our bed with her little hand caressing my face... well more like pinching me over and over again. After breakfast we headed out on foot towards the Castle. Dan had a T mobile plan for the month which gave us unlimited Data on his phone wherever we went! I highly suggest it if traveling internationally. So google maps told us it would only take 40 minutes to walk there. Totally do-able right? We strapped Estela into her awfully cheap umbrella stroller and went on our way. Little did we know that the entire trek would be uphill on cobble stoned roads and then hiking up a mountain. Going uphill is fine but we weren't expecting a mountain. But we are troupers and I carried Estela a mile up the mountain while Dan carri...

Sometimes it is hard to see the beauty in this world. Sometimes it seems that there are dark awful horrible clouds covering everything and it's impossible to see any light. Sometimes you feel betrayed by someone you love and there is no beauty in that. Just ugly darkness. Darkness is cold and overwhelming. It can make you feel lost, small, and vulnerable. Then you see someone do something that touches you. Someone sharing a love that is so pure: a christlike love. It's so sweet that makes your throat lump up and brings tears to your eyes. Good tears... The kind that don't leave you with a horrible head ache. That is when you a small glimmer of light. The worlds beauty starts to shine through. It brings a smile to your face; it brings hope. Seeing the worlds beauty makes the darkness become a little lighter.

After a night filled with a couple 3 hour naps inturrupted by a baby who wanted to chat with us for an hour in-between, we finally got up to spend the day with some of our best friends from BYU Hawaii; Taylor and Ana Dame! It was SO good to see these wonderful people. Those lucky bums are living in Madrid while Taylor gets his MBA. They get to have an adventure every weekend. Our hotel was just a quick walk from La Sagrada Familia. Because the food in Spain is nothing special (seriously… I tried their "specialty" dish, paella, and it sucked… big time) we headed to our trusted American McDonalds. This is the start of me letting go of food anxiety. We eat mostly a plant based diet. I cringe/make a weird sort of yelling exclamation when people try to put goldfish or candy into my child's mouth or even give her some cows milk. (I have no idea why people think they need to give other peoples babies food… You are NOT their mother! Feed your own dang kids and leave mine ...

So a few of my friends were wondering how the heck we went to Europe for two weeks with a one year old. It was a lot easier than you would think! It helps that Estela is a pretty easy baby and almost always happy.  Before our flight we ran to the 99 cent store (the name is deceiving because of the ridiculously high taxes: nothing is really only 99 cents) to pick up some flash cards and other things to keep Estela occupied. Thank heavens for all the suggestions I received! They were great! Right before we got to our gates, TSA decided to check every nook and cranny of our bags and take our deodorant, toothpaste, hair product, hand sanitizer, and makeup. I was mad but luckily Dan smuggled some hand sanitizer with him. Good thing they took my makeup because I totally had a bomb in my bare minerals foundation. ugh. Idiots. The 12 hour flight was so easy. When you are traveling with a baby they give you the area with a ton of leg room. Estela had a blast picking up all the cards we put ...