Ellie Nova Ottati - First Birthday!

Ellie is one year old today! We had her birthday party a day early so my mom, my brother and my sister in law could come over. It was so fun to see how happy she was when I gave her the smash cake I made. She would look at it and touch it carefully, poking it with one finger. Then she would smear some of the icing off. Then she would squish the cake in her hands and dig into the middle of it. Finally she started smacking it and dumping the cake everywhere and smearing it all over her face and dress! I loved it. 

Me in my jammies getting everything ready.

Murray is a love bug.

Uncle Will and Aunt Cyndel in the morning playing with Ellie, and Murray's doofy face.

I made cake pops, a heart cake and a smash cake. 

Happy birthday!

What is it?

 

My little chunky monkey!

All cleaned up.

This was actually from the week before but they were too cute to leave out. She was pooped from her party though!

A Very Merry Unbirthday

Ellie spent her first Valentine Day celebrating her "unbirthday" with her grandma and great aunt! My aunt took the train over to New York to visit my mom and they decided to come out to Buffalo to spoil Ellie for a day. It worked out well because they didn't mind watching her while Joe and I went out for the night.

I feel like Ellie looks like Max from Where the Wild Things Are in this picture:

Morning bed head!

Joe and I had a great time. We went out to a really modern sushi place and got sake jello shots (pretty good!) We went bar hopping in Allentown and eventually ended up at a local Art House were they had a string quartet playing.
The only tough part was walking from our hotel to all the bars. It wasn't a far walk but it was super cold! Nothing like Alaska, but still, it was yucky. Why didn't we decide to make Valentines Day in the spring??

29 Before 30

Two years ago I did "27 before 28" and I feel like I did a good job with that one, so here it is: 29 things I will do before I turn the big 3-0 (or "dirty thirty" as I prefer to call it.)

Since 29 is like, a SUPER big number and all, I divided my list up into categories so your eyes don't explode or just glaze over. I guess when I reach 30 I'll have to break out the file folders!

1. Pay off my smaller school loan.
2. Snowball that payment onto my car loan and pay it off early.
3. Find a work study job to help move things along and make a dent in my bigger school loan.
4. Looking over my list, much of it requires money! I'll have to budget carefully and make sure I still put money into savings and retirement while allocating for things that I want.
5. Spend as little as possible on groceries while still being able to enjoy interesting food. I'm not going to eat Ramen everyday, but I'd like to spend less than we are now.

1. Start university (again.) I've applied and hopefully I'll hear back soon!
2. Maintain at least a 3.75 GPA
3. Put EVERYTHING I've got into whatever math course I have to take. It's going to be tough!

1. Purchase a nice bed set - the grown-up kind. None of this box-spring-on-the-floor business. This must include a sweet mattress.
2. While I'm thinking about furniture, we need a dining table as well. 
3. Build Ellie a play kitchen from our old bed side tables.
4. Go through my closet a second time and really get rid of things I don't wear. I went through once and got rid of a lot, but of course there are still a bunch of "I might fit this later" and "I think I might wear it again" which you and I know is total BS.
5. Grow my collection of horribly tacky cat figurines. I kinda stopped collecting after we moved out of Anchorage. Alaska had the BEST thrift stores for tacky cat stuff and Louisiana has nothing!
6. Create a weekly shopping list that follows a weekly meal plan... Yes. I'm going there. I'm going to be one of those people! It will help with the cost of groceries more than anything as well as cut out the annoyance of having no idea what to make for dinner and then just eating pasta.
7. On that note, I want to have a set day every month where I make a big batch of freezer meals. I do frozen pizza dough and veggie broth but I know there is so much more I can freeze for an easy dinner. I made a bunch of these before Ellie was born so we wouldn't have to eat cereal for dinner while taking care of a newborn. I want to branch out and make soups, garlic breads, waffles, pot pies and chimichangas. 
8. Start a vegetable garden. Last time I made a list I said I would grow herbs, which I did, but they didn't really thrive indoors. Since we are moving to the country I'd like to plant some vegetables that are easy to grow. This one may not actually happen but I'll try.

1. Start a "Beauty Fund" in a little mason jar.
2. With this fund I'll make sure I get myself regular manicures, haircuts, and tanning. Alaska made me more pale than I care to be and I haven't recovered from it yet. 
3. Make it a habit to have a weekly "pampering day." I'll do a cute nail design for the week, take a nice bath, have a glass of wine and use all my beauty products that sadly get left in cabinets most of the time.
4. Do something interesting with my hair. I'm not sure what, yet, but I've got to do something different.
5. New wardrobe! Let's face it, I need it. Most of my clothes are really old and lots don't fit anymore. I should invest in quality pieces that I love and wear all the time. In the long run it will save money.

1. Learn to play my new ukulele. 
2. Give Ellie a really cute and simple birthday party, Pinterest worthy. That's right, buntings made from Instagram photos are in the future!
3. Set up a schedule for blogging. Once I'm in school and staying home with Ellie I should have a little more blogging time available (HA, yeah right...)
4. Learn more about my cameras settings. 
5. Get some inexpensive lighting equipment for indoor photos.
6. Sew at least one more dress.

1. Keep as much negativity out of my personal bubble as possible. I'm usually pretty good at separating myself from toxicity, but at the same time I'm very sensitive and even the small amount I let in can ruin my day or week. I think it will always do me well to continuously assess my situation and relationships and put a boundary on how much negativity I will take in.
2. I want to try to be less anxious. This year is a big one and I'm constantly looking forward to what will happen in the next few days, weeks and months. The countdowns are just dragging along it seems, like they will never end and the closer the end gets the slower it goes. Unless, of course, it is something I don't want to happen and then time just speeds up! I have to remind myself more often that the time will pass and I will get where I need to be in no time. 

Birthday

My birthday gift from Joe finally arrived!
Back in 2009 I had three ukuleles, but lost them all because of moving around so much. I learned a little bit back then and even took a lesson in Guam, but never got really good. I got this idea in my head a few weeks ago that I wanted to try playing uke again, maybe because it's a kid-friendly instrument, and requested one for my birthday.
Joe is the type of person who will spend hours researching something before buying it, so he picked a really good one for our price range. It's a Mahalo soprano ukulele made from mahogany and koa. It came in an adorable gig bag with little sea turtle zipper pulls.

I'm happy to say that I don't totally suck at it and I remember quite a few chords. Too bad there is no way to make an electric guitar and ukulele band. But hey, if Japan can invent "Babymetal," maybe anything is possible! Island-metal maybe?

Happy Birthday!

Today is Joe's 26th birthday!

My brothers wedding - the first time together again since we had met!

The day we got engaged, Valentines Day 2012.

Married at the courthouse a week later...

Did it again, the fancy way, later that September.

You came to Alaska for the bears.

We got our Miss Kitty.

Took a giant road trip from Alaska down the coast. Christmas on the beach!

Got our Murray dog. Silly dog.

Had our little Ellie-bear!

Best Papa ever!

So many memories!