Fatty needs a treadmill...

 Hunter is doing better, I'm fairly certain it is mainly because he is in love with his water dish and the bubbles inside... He seems to have flipped to the polar opposite of emotions and has been overly cuddly and loving, which is completely out of character for him. He is so happy it is pretty funny and nice. He is normally an outdoor cat who only comes in at night, and even than would most often rather be outside. Now, when we put him outside he mainly just sits under a bush all day. As a result he has gained weight. He has always been a very lean cat with impressive muscles. I am hoping that he will recover in summer...

New Year

• I have an "I can conquer the world" attitude lately that I hope doesn't go away. I have not been this confident since I was a toddler.

• I love the movie Frozen, I really relate to Elsa. 

• I am planning on spending the year painting and drawing hundreds of paintings and drawings, and I really believe it will happen.

• I'm converting the kitchen into my art studio... as soon as I get the parts to the baby gate to put up in the doorway  (we got the gate out of storage at Ryan's parents house, and forgot to ask for the parts that secure it in place). It is nice to have family dinners at the table, however both Ryan and I agree that we can easily have them in the living room, as we both think it is important and necessary that I have a place to do art. I am grateful that Ryan agrees and supports me. I find the more confident I get in myself, the more her supports my ideas that once sounded crazy.

• We are in a tiny two bedroom apartment that doesn't have a washer and dryer, is drafty, is a basement type apartment, and doesn't have any insulation in the outside walls of the kitchen--therefore allowing a lot of moisture to build up inside the cupboards (we found this out after discovering puddles underneath our packaged and canned food)... yet we are perfectly happy and content. I think we will actually even stay here for at least a year. It is interesting how you figure out through constant moving and trials what you really want and need to be happy, and for us we have discovered that we don't need or want a big place in order to be happy. We don't want to live here forever, and when we do move we hope we can move into a home we have built (the options for housing in this area are so expensive, that we would rather build a home for the same price it would take to get into a cruddy old home). It won't be a huge home--It will be around 1900 sq ft at the most. I have a friend who is currently living in a very tiny log cabin style home that has a loft for one of the two bedrooms which overlooks the living room and kitchen, and despite the very cozy conditions they and their two kids are the happiest and most content people I have ever known. I want to be the same way.

• I'm doing a large oil painting this year, and I have very high expectations for it. I have the composition planned out, and I am waiting for some reference photo's from one of my models.

• Ryan bought me a new fancy camera for my graduation, and I love it and have no idea how to operate it. I'm going to have to take time to read the manual, because I want to use it to take reference pictures for my painting and drawings, as well as use it to take pictures of my artwork--instead of relying on others to do it for me.

• People continuously ask us at church how we like Lander, as well as if we think we will stay. The truth is that we decided before we moved here that it didn't matter what Lander was like, we were going to love it simply because it has been such a blessing for Ryan to get this job. Honestly, Lander isn't too impressive in winter time; it's pretty boring and cold, and very isolated. We are okay though, and happy simply because we had prayed so hard and for so many years for this job. We are going to therefore be happy regardless of our surroundings.

• It is hard to explain why graduating from a four year university was so important to me, as well as how something so simple could inspire so much confidence in myself. Ryan was surprised at how emotional I was over my graduation; he said that the only thing he felt over his graduation was surprise at school being over. I am the first person in my family--including among my grandparents on both sides, my parents, and my 8 siblings--to get my bachelors. I have some cousins who have graduated, but no one in my immediate family has received their bachelors. I also have many friends who wanted to go to college and could not for financial and confidence reasons. Many feel stuck in cycles of poverty as a result of the poverty they were born into. Others feel they are not smart enough. Sometimes I think that the value of school is beyond what most graduates understand. When I first went to BYU-I after high school I felt that there was no way I could really succeed because I didn't think I was smart enough... I did my best to pretend that I was going to graduate, but I didn't really believe it was possible. Therefore, finishing school built my confidence tremendously, and I will always be greatful that I was able to go and to get a degree that I had worked so hard for.

Workacising

I have yet to wake up early and work out. Because honestly, I hate getting out of bed, even if I can't go back to sleep--the bed is just so warm and comfy, and I talk myself out of getting up unless I absolutely have to. So, I finally made myself work out around 10 am today, and Violet was so excited to "workacise" with me, which is what she calls it. Here are two videos of her exercising with me. 

I find that if I work out I have more energy and motivation to do everything else I need to do. I'm much happier as well.

  In the above video she is holding her blanket bunched up in her arms, which she then calls her baby...

Sweet boy.

 This smart, sweet boy is growing up way too fast. He has discovered the concept of love, as in girl and boy love. He has started asking me questions about it... not sure how I feel about this, lol. Some days he still looks like his little toddler boy self, but other days I see hints of an older boy peeking out.

Sweet Girl

I have decided that Violet has got to be the most adorable girl ever born. She keeps surprising us wth the funny things she does. She is definitely over-brimming with personality. She comes and cuddles every morning, and I love feeling her next to me in the bed, cuddled up against me as close as possible. I love her little smile.

She started saying "I love you" and now we have conversations saying I love you back and forth, lol.

 

She loves to dance, and draw. She loves to draw on everything, which has become a problem. She has held her drawing utensils correctly since the first day she picked up a pencil, and she draws patterns of circles and lines over and over on everything from printer paper to walls.She is very particular about what she draws, and it is always the same stuff over and over again. I've had to remove all writing utensils to a higher location, but they don't seem to stay there, and she inevitably gets ahold of one and then gets into trouble for drawing in mommy's books, or Ethan's library books, or the wall, or the bills on the desk, or the checkbook. She cries, and says "sorry!" over and over. She is cute when she says sorry. "sorry I 'lelled''" "sorry for 'plashing' in the tub" "sorry for being mean". This morning she told Ethan (of her own accord) sorry for waking him up, lol.

 

Violet fell in love with Heather on our visit, and cuddled with her as much as possible (this is on Heather's couch watching a movie). Just now she saw the picture on my blog, and whispered "shh, Heaver afweep". :). Sarah got us a really nice hotel room at the hotel she works at, and so the kids also loved playing in the hot tub and pool. Sarah loves lotions and perfumes, so she had tons for Violet to look through which made Violet happy as Violet loves them as well.

 

Violet loves stuffed animals and babies, and turns everything into a baby doll--even water bottles. She loves to dance, and dances to all music. She even tries break dancing, which cracks us up. I am excited for spring, because I'm going to put Violet in Ballet, and I know she is going to love it.



Wyoming...

So here is a list of funny and odd things we have noticed about Wyoming so far:

• they have strange building codes. Driving down the street and looking at houses is entertaining.
• The favorite past time of locals, at least in Lander and Riverton, seems to be drinking alcohol. Every Restaurant boasts alcohol as their number one selling point in the advertising. Mainly it is just home brewed beer. Every grocery store, including walmart, has a sepearte, large alcohol store attatched--even the local grocery store. When you ask non-LDS locals about where is a good place to eat, their list of pro's always lists the resturants alcohol as the number one reason for liking the place. I'm guessing the food doesn't matter much after you are drunk.
• waitresses/waiters are confused when you say you don't want any alcohol or cofee.
• They have an Octoberfest celebration, which of course we didn't witness since we moved the last week of October. Another point towards the locals love of alcohol.
• People cross main street on horseback.
• A guy picked up his daughter from school the other day riding his bike, and pulling a trailer thing he had made himself. She was 10 or older, so it was a rather large trailer made of plywood and other materials.
• Houses are expensive here. Our Burley house would be close to $200,000 here.
• Wyoming schools are impressive. Ethan's Elementary school is the fanciest school I have ever been in.
• There seems to be a large percentage of hipsters in this area... A lot of the locals are from Denver, or have ties to Denver, which also has a large percentage of hipsters. Honestly, I think a lot of them look ridiculous, like when they wear their hats barely on their head, so that they look like Dopey from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. And the guys all have beards.. the same scraggly kind... they all look the same, which I think defeats the purpose of a hipster as I thought they wanted to be known, which was to stand out from the crowd...
• I don't think the missionaries get fed much. We have had them to our apartment twice now, and one of the elders (who is skinny and boasts constantly about exercising a lot and eating healthy) seriously devours everything we put in front of him, and still looks hungry. Sunday I made lasagna... he finished off the tray himself.
• I'm looking forward to summer here, because it is supposed to be a great area for outdoor activities, though people keep telling us it is not safe to go camping with young children in this area due to bears... and they are serious, not joking trying to see if we would believe them...
• You have to fence your garden and flower beds, and put fencing around your ornamental or small trees, or deer will eat them.

Finding a new groove

• That was the craziest move we have had to date (9th move). We found out Ryan got a GREAT job the friday before Halloween, when his new boss came up from Wyoming just to interview him. The following week was spent packing, and we moved that saturday. We were very grateful for Ryan's parents who helped us with this move-- it was greatly appreciated.  
• several things that have been bothering me lately (this is not meant to be negative, just things that are bothering me but I'm planing to fix):

     
          -I gained 10lbs this last year. People are starting to ask if I'm pregnant...
          -I have been feeling extra old looking lately, mainly from stress and lack of sleep.
          -I am having trouble feeling grounded here, though I am really happy about the job and schools.
          -I ran out of watercolor paint (hey, it lasted 10 years, so I can't complain) and paper. So, I can't do any new art projects until I get the payment I'm expecting from one of my paintings I sold. It is in the mail though, so it won't be long.
          -It is very hard to maintain motivation for housework each day, especially since that is all I currently have to do each day. Each day is the same as the day before... it is very hard to wake up eager to wash dishes, put away laundry, pick up toys, etc.
          -At this very moment, my cat Hunter is outside the front door crying. He is in a lot of trouble because he decided to pee on my brand new shirt I got from Maurices. I am so mad, but I'm not the kind of person who could get rid of a family pet, especially one we have had for several years. But I can't have him in our apartment if he won't go in the litter box...
          -Violet is waking up EARLY every day and coming into our bed. Then, she proceeds to ask for cereal for the next hour or two until Ryan's alarm goes off for him to get ready for work and me to get up.
          -Some person hacked my blogger account and got access to my yahoo email account, and then took an old blog that I had deleted and converted it into a blog to sell decor items under my name. I have no idea why, it doesn't make any sense. It is unnerving.

• So, I am a plan person. Lists and plans make me feel better, like I can accomplish things and things aren't hopeless. So, to solve the above list of concerns, this is my plan:

      -I'm going to begin getting out of bed early. I'm already awake (despite not being a morning person) so I might as well take advantage of it.
      -I'll do P90X each morning, while Violet eats her oatmeal and then her cereal.
      -I can then launch into cleaning the house, and then when Violet is down for her nap (as a result of how early she wakes up) I can do art. Once I buy supplies.
      -I'm going to bed early from now on.
      -For the time being, Hunter will remain outside all day. I don't know what to do about him other than that.
      -I'm going to start using one of those sleep masks that you chill in the fridge. And I bought new makeup and concealer, lol.
      -Yesterday and this morning I spnt time deleting my yahoo account, changing passwords, notifying blogger of a false impersonation/identity theft, and giving the thief a "cease and desist" order that I hope they take seriously. And if not, I'm hoping blogger simply deletes the blog for me, since I can't gain access to it. Crazy people, lol.