Note to Self

So I have been in my houe coming on two years. Yes that is right. And here I thought I knew most of its deep dark secrets. So a few weeks ago I decided to put up Christmas decor, which meant I had to clean everything first. So Erick starts with the ceiling fans adn something, something that i've never felt before, makes me take the vent cover off the wall vents and clean them. Oh I remember, I saw a pen stickign out. Whatever it was, I reach my hand down the vent and think, Oh there is something down here....little did I know that a fake snake, a few tires, a necklace, a gumby toy and the entire Big Wheels collection were all, I'm sure, 'in safe keeping' for some 4 year old that got suddenly moved before he could take his stash. Lesson learned..You should always check your vents.
I swear that all came out of ONE vent.

Santa Run 2011

My first 5k! ANd it was probably the funnest....I was needing some motivation to get me back to the gym so I decided a public display of my running prowess might be just the thing. So I found this 5k for the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was hilarious. The suits came with the registration adn there were over 900 Santas!! I finished in my first, and personal best time, 33:54. It was cold, fun and a great motivator. I'm thinking if this doesn' texist in Washington, when I eventually make it back...I'm bringing it with me. Good times.

Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Mobile Max

Can you believe it!!?? He just up and let go one day. Its all over.

9 Month Max

So Max is 9 months today. Can't quite believe we will be celebrating his first birthday so soon...He has two bottom teeth and just broke ground on the two top teeth. Drool central. Pretty sure Max is going to be walking any day now. 4 days ago he pulled himself on some step stairs that we have and proceeded to push them all the way across the kitchen walking. He is experimenting with letting go of whatever he is holding on to and just seeing how long he can remain standing. Today he suddenly discovered how to navigate stairs. It was like he's alwyas known how. And maybe his bigget accomplishment thus far....he started sleeping through the night Wednesday night. It has been great. I had started to not let him nurse at night and only give him a bottle to keep him in his crib and I wonder if maybe he just decided that wasn't worth waking up for. Who knows. But he is sleeping great. Now to get him potty trained.....

Oh did i mention how fussy he has gotten? This is what he looks like more often than not lately.

Saturday October 8, 2011, Erick and I were married in Richland Washington. It was a pretty perfect day and in a more beautiful location I don't think it could have been. A friend of my sister's let us have it in their back yard. My uncle John who lives in Colorado flew up to officiate and it truly was perfect. We had a simple ceremony with family and a few friends - thank you so much for those that were there and traveled to be there. It was really special to have you there. My mom did so much to get everything ready and my sister created some great accessories at the last minute. I tended to be a little detail-ambiguous and I'm grateful that people put up with me. I've never been the girl that had this planned since she was a kid and knew exactly what she wanted...so I think it was pretty stellar considering. :) Thanks everyone.

Oh. And my last name is Cortez. Just for the confused :D

Cake by Jill Pospical. Exactly what I pictured. And tasted even better.

Erick and his mother Nelly

Still not sure what Jared is doing...but I thought Stephanie would like to see it
Don't be fooled - Max was NOT this thrilled most of the day....
It was more like this...

And the night ends... As beautiful as it began

Bridal Shower

This was by far teh most creative shower I've ever been to. I've never been a huge fan of shower games or the like, but I had a blast at my bridal shower- wish I had more pictures. But this is a video of one of the games. It was a cupcake war theme and I definitely prepped for the competition. Unfortunately I don't have pics of my....creations....but there were some lessons learned. So I first tried to create a Smores cupcake. I found a cinnamon graham cupcake recipe with chocolate ganache and a home-made marshmallow frosting. THey looked awesome. Taste....definitely missed the Smores train. THe cake was all cinnamon, the ganache rocked and the frosting tasted like whipped eggs. weird. Second experiment was a lemon cupcake with Lemon Cream Cheese frosting. Not bad, but the bake is pretty dense and dry. For some reason I thought dense=good but i've since changed my mind. Anyways the final product and my entry in the competition was a White Chocolate Marachino Cherry Cupcake. With diced cherries and white chocolate chips minced in the batter, topped with a cherry buttercream (i've learned the secret to fluffy buttercream! its butter.) topped with a marachino cherry. THis is a long story just to say they won Best looking - but totally not best tasting. Erick calls them 'prostitute' cupcakes. No explanation. Lacey won Best all around for a great Orange cupcake with home-made candied orange peel!! Extra mile Lou. Extra mile. Best tasting were...uh-hmm....store bought but still amazing coconut cupcakes. Unfortunately (or maybe thankfully) there was disaster on the homefront and Kendra's Butternut Squash with Marzcapone frosting cupackes didn't turn out. I still really liked them though.
I have since informed Kendra that I hope she has more ideas for her own bridal shower - because the creative gene got maxed out on her.

Just thought I'd throw this in - I laid Max down last night - he wasn't asleep but you could tell he would eventually sleep without much fuss. So 30 minutes later I come in and find him like this. I guess escaping just took too much energy.

Raspberry Jam

So I totally lied that the raspberry jam pics in the prevous blog - I will add them separate. If Dad ever reads this, we discovered that we need some kind of 'thing' (Christine knows the name)that keeps the jars off teh bottom of a pan so we can make the low-sugar version....but this is my first attempt at makign jam. Slickety slick.

Erick's Birthday

We decided to hit up Bear Lake for Erick's birthday...Kyle and Christine have just moved down here, so we all headed out to Raspberry days (raspberry jam pics below) and hit the lake on the jet ski. The lake was super flooded so there was hardly any beach available, but we found a spot of land after ripping out some brush :D. Then we headed over to Laketown to the Weston's and the Raspberry Days rodeo. Tami' daughter Chelsea was the Rodeo Queen and Kathryn's girl Shelby was the princess. They were awesome and it was a great night for a rodeo....the bull fighter might not have agreed considering he got stepped on the head and pelvis by the first bull ride of the night. Slightly traumatizing.

Necessities 101

So Erick is quite the bargain shopper/yard saler. I am not. I enjoy a shiny new product that I found in T-10 seconds in a store that always sells said product. HOwever, we were perusing(sp?) the local Savers and I found this gem. Always a necessity, this is the obviously the first step to the creation of Popcorn cake. This popcorn popper was my #1 find of the....quarter. At least.

Traveling Man

Had to share this - I thought this was the funnest idea....

You know what time it is....6 Month Max!!

Max is freaking awesome. We have about a week of him sleeping through the night (which means he wakes up once but goes back to sleep within 10 minutes), he is eating oatmeal, squash, carrots and today bananas. He loves to stand up and now puts himself on all fours. I think he is deliberating the benefits of crawling. Like his mother, he needs to think it all through first. As my blog title says, I really feel like I'm just stumbling through this whole mother-hood thing, but Max makes it easy on me. I"m grateful for all those out there that shares their knowledge and experiences with me. Maybe I make it sound great because I don't write about how fussy or curious (Erick says impertinent) that Max is. He can be all of that. But I think talking about how awesome people are helps us remember just that. I think that is my mother soap box. Kids are hard. Thats a given. Lets hear what makes them great. Random random thought.

This is Max somehow slipping between the beds (this has never happened when I'm home)

Don't think the Fat Cats staff thought this was as cute as I did...

5 Month Max

Max is going strong and 5 months already. I really love just chillin with him. He is getting some attitude now though. He has figured out how to throw himself feet first out of his bouncy seat...we have found him face down on the ground pretty regular now. He has turned over...once. He just doesn't seem too interested. But he also stands up really well and actually takes steps while holding our fingers. Sleeping is still an issue - 5 months is starting to catch up to me. So I think we will make that more of a conscious effort now to get him to sleep more than 3 1/2 hours a stretch....starting feeding him some rice cereal about 2 weeks ago and he loves eating it. Just can't figure out if its helping keep him full at night...oh well. its really cute to feed him. My favorite things right now are bath time and getting to watch him wake up.

Wanting to put everything in his mouth....

Obviously anything will do...

Arizona

Here are some pics from our trip to Arizona over Memorial Day weekend....I think Marble Canyon was my favorite...

Marble Canyon

Super Cachi

Over the edge....

So I think I got a pretty cool engagement. Over the Memorial Day weekend, we went to Mesa Arizona to visit some family of Erick's. On the way back, we stopped at the Grand Canyon which was cool anyways. So Erick kind of went off by himself (details unnecessary) so I went looking for him at one of the view points. We ended up on the rim of the Grand Canyon and he took the ring out and got down on one knee. It was very sweet and we are planning on getting married on the weekend of the most important holiday. And I am of course talking about Columbus Day. It will be in Washington and we are very excited. Mostly for the cake. I love wedding cake.

White. Sun. Diamonds. Bad combo