On Being Poor

I don't want to stay poor my whole life ( I want my children to have opportunities, have a real house, etc.), but I have learned a lot by being so. I know people who's parents have bought them houses (while they were in school), and others who's parents paid for all of their schooling, rent, extra everything and  never worked. While my parents were certainly helpful (helped pay for rent when I lived in Corvallis, bought groceries sometimes, loaned us money, helped with car troubles, etc.), they did not do everything for me and I am grateful to them for it. 

 I worked several jobs through out college. I am grateful I had the opportunity to work, go to school and participate in many extra curricular activities. I had a very busy and fun college life. Tyler and I were married most of our undergrad careers and did struggle finically a bit, but being in school is not quite like the "real world". 

We are currently in a sort of waiting place. Tyler needs prereqs and clinical hours before he can apply to PA school. He is busy working full time and taking those prereq classes. While his job pays a decent amount, it is by no means a job we would want to have forever. We often are just scraping along. I am not going to lie, this can be hard. There are so many women who graciously put up with their husbands going through years of school, living in basement apartments, sometimes having over five children before he is done with school. These women should get some sort of award. I met one the other day and all I could think is: this lady is incredible. There have got to be days where she thinks about everything they do not have, but she was so positive about it. I am in/going to be in a similar situation and Elanor will probably be six by the time everything is said and done (and hopefully we will have more kids too!). While this is hard, I am so grateful for this experience. 

I have started to learn about money. I am terrible about budgeting and have never done it before. I am starting to and I am trying to find ways to save money. These "skills" I am learning are sure to come in handy. I have also learned how to do so many new things!  Such as :

1. I make my own laundry detergent, get recipe here. It works great, by the way!

2. I make my own hot dog buns and they are so worth it and so yummy! Recipe here.

3. I make homemade bread--I'll share the recipe with you sometime!

4.  We did cloth diapers, which you all know---and we did have to learn quite a bit about them.

5.  I make my own tortillas. This recipe does not call for baking powder, which we did not have at the time and wanted tortillas. We liked the recipe so much that we kept using it even after we bought some baking powder.

I am planning on making my own liquid dish soap and hand soap as well. You can check out my pinterest for some recipes, if you are interested.

I probably would not have made many of these things if necessity did not require it of me. I have learned and am learning so much. While I do look forward to having a house, Tyler having a real job, and some extra cash for trips around the world, I am so glad I have experienced being poor not only to learn new things, but also to better appreciate what I had growing up and what we will have one day.

Potty Training: the tutorial

I thought my title was funny, especially if someone pins this on pinterest. Maybe it is just me. Ha. This is a bit long, but if you are interested here is our little potty training tale:

We bought a potty when Elanor was 11 months old after reading Diaper Free Before Three. 

{We bought a Baby Bjorn potty and we really like it. It is simple, has the back and only has two parts. It is super easy to empty and clean, plus for when we have boys it has that little guard thing. It was about $30.}

Beautiful Oregon

So, we are back and I will now be a much better blogger. We had a wonderful time in Oregon! We saw a lot of family and friends and saw and did many fun things. I am going to try and keep this post brief and mostly show a ton of pictures of everything we did.

We spent the first half of the week with my family:

We went to the beach (Elanor's first time!)

Elanor with her "Nan" (my mom).

I have been watching the Olympics....

.....thus no blog posts. I have also been incredibly lazy about blogging, simply put I just have not felt like it. Sorry, folks. I have a lot of posts all written down in my head. I have a few recipes (I even took pictures), some Elanor stuff, a few mom posts/Elizabeth's ideas/rants BUT we are also going out of town on Friday (to Oregon) and will not be back until the 19th!  So, I will try to squeeze in a few posts before we leave.  

How about this be my Elanor post (because I know everyone has been missing her), yes? I thought so.

She has been wanting to do a lot of this lately:

As in, she does not want to sit in her high chair and would prefer to sit at the table. I only let her do this sometimes, because she is still a messy eater.

 Pardon the crazy hair... I believe she had just woken up from a nap and insisted putting this princess dress on (the one I promised I would put picture up of).

Lately....

...we have been having a lot of fun! My cousin, Sean, got home from his mission and he had his homecoming talk in church and party this past weekend. My parents and brothers came down, as did my Grandpa and Vonnie.  We had a fun weekend with lots of family and good food!

Elanor got just a bit spoiled by her grandparents. She got a new princess dress ( I need to take pictures of her in it), a new book about London, and the movie "Tangled". Elanor LOVES Rapunzel and Flynn Rider. It is probably her favorite movie, but Winnie the Pooh and Beauty and the Beast are up there as well. It is so cute to see Elanor start to really recognize everybody and remember names. She has for awhile, but she is getting better at saying everything. She calls my mom ,"Nan", my dad, "Pa",  Ian, "Eeee", and Erik, "Eri". It was a short weekend visit, but still a lot of fun!

I unfortunately only took pictures when we went to Liberty Park and watched Elanor play in the little creeks and pools there.

 My mom and  Ian with Elanor

Elanor loved splashing!

Payson Scottish Festival

This weekend we traveled down to Provo to stay with some good friends of ours and go to the Payson Scottish Festival.  A month or two ago, I was looking up local Highland Games and I sadly realized we had missed the big Highland Games held in Lehi. However, I kept looking and found the festival in Payson, which is twenty minutes south of Provo. The huge benefit of this one is that it is free! Every other Highland Games I have been to or found online always cost about $10-15 to get in, so it was awesome to find a free one!

Elanor and I in front of the Scott Clan's crest (every clan had a booth). Oh, and the adorable kilt she is wearing was mine when I was a wee lass (Tyler wanted me to say "wee lass")!

If you don't know or have never been to a Highland Games it is basically a lot of Scottish (and also Irish and Welsh) people who get together and celebrate their heritage. I am Scottish on both sides (plus my maiden name is Scott) and I simply love Scotland. I would live there if ever given the chance. I have been there once and would love to go back. My heart yearns for Scotland--I know that is cheesy and all that but I feel a connection to it, which I get from my mom since she loves Scotland.

How could I not love a place that looks like this? My dad took this picture, by the way.

FYI---I almost always have a page break  in my posts so make sure to push the "Keep Reading!" button to read the rest of this blog post. I do this so my blog looks neater and you can scroll through all the posts quickly and choose which ones to read. It does have some cons to it since many people don't know there is more to the post. So sorry for anyone who had been confused!

4th of July

We had a pretty fun 4th of July! Our ward, puts on a really fun party. It started off with raising the flag, a short talk, and the local firefighters and their engines were there. Then, there was a 5k race, which we ran (Tyler pushed Elanor in the stroller). I did alright. I had not really run much beforehand, but I felt pretty good running and I really want to run on a more regular basis. After the run, there was a huge breakfast, a little kids parade and a waterfight. It was a fun morning. I forgot my camera for the morning stuff which was unfortunate. 

Later, we headed over to Sugarhouse Park with some friends of ours and looked at all the booths. It was soooo hot.

Elanor and Eli. They are pretty cute and love playing together. Elanor's little flag dress was made by my cousins, Susy and Julie. She looked pretty adorable in it....until we had to change her out of it. Yes, Elanor did go through four outfits on the 4th. Luckily, she has plenty of red, white and blue outfits.

In the Kitchen: Dutch Babies

.....German Pancakes, Puff Pancake, whatever you call them. My family calls them Dutch Babies. I waited until Saturday to post this, because I made these for breakfast this morning and I wanted to to do this for my "In the Kitchen" recipe. This is a breakfast staple in my family. They are easy to make (as in I first made these when I was probably 8) and they are so tasty! The only thing you have to be careful about is to not over mix, otherwise they won't puff up right.

 Here is the recipe: