Bartelmes

Summer gone...(sigh)

2011-10-03T13:00:00.000-07:00

I have been slacking in the blog area for awhile so it's time to catch up :) Summer is officially over, and it's actually looking like fall is going to be over here soon. The snow is creeping up on us as we speak. I would say it's "sneaking" but it's actually the opposite as the stark contrast of white makes its unholy way down the mountains...We just got to see my beautiful niece Kali be baptized a few weeks ago, and Lee turned 28 yesterday! So, our fall has been eventful! We also had a fun summer full of fishing, company, and a fun trip to Dallas! We also got to go to New Orleans to visit family while we were there and Tyler and Amanda drove down to see us!! We had a fun time and we were so happy we got to see them. We've missed them a lot since moving from Idaho! My niece Abby is adorable and we got some cute pictures of the cousins together. We only got to see them for a day, but it was better than not seeing them at all so we'll take what we can get :)

Addie is growing like a weed and is actually officially nine months old today. I can't believe how fast time flies! She's still in the 95th percentile for height and her head circumference is off the charts so she's a big girl :) :) She has two teeth and she's a crawling machine. She's also getting pretty fast at walking along furniture so we think actual walking isn't too far off. I'm not sure I'm ready for that. She almost took a step by herself today. She's funny because she stands up by herself without holding onto anything all the time and just stands there balancing. As soon as she realizes no ones holding her up she slowly and carefully lowers herself to the floor. She learned really fast that she hates falling down :) She makes me laugh more and more everyday. She has some really funny little quirks and has become SO noisy over the last few weeks. We're starting to train her to hold her little finger up when we ask her how old she is so she'll be able to do it by January :) Too bad she doesn't like to perform. She'll ignore you when you ask her how old she is and then we'll find her holding her finger up by herself for no reason :) I love that little turd so much it hurts :) She's so fun, and as much as I loved her as a baby, this next stage is gonna be a blast! I can't wait to do little girl things with her!

We're still waiting for a job, but it's all kind of in a stand-still for a bit. We were thinking of going back to Idaho but decided to stick it out till spring because some things here are looking promising, so we'll see what happens. Now we're gearing up for winter, halloween (Addie is going to be addorable/hilarious as a skunk because she's a stinker ;), and Christmas! My favorite time of year by far! The only thing bad about the holidays is the calories :) :) Hope all is well with all of you! Take care!

Here are some pictures from our summer!

Camping and King season!

2011-06-22T14:11:00.001-07:00

A couple weekends ago we went camping and fishing with my parents and aunt and uncle who were visiting. The first night was nasty wet and cold, but it got beautiful the next day and everyone caught a bunch of fish...minus me :( Oh well. I did have one on for a second but it broke the line...anyway, we had a lot of fun, Addie sure does love camping even though she came home with poor little bug bites all over her face :( We sure had fun with Aunt Sheri and Uncle Wyatt!

This first picture is actually from Memorial Day weekend, Lee and I on our pontoon rafts. we had a fun camping trip then too! :)

My first cake from scratch...and life these days!

2011-06-13T19:24:00.000-07:00

I've been in baking-mode lately, and that's a little weird for me, It's been fun though. Tonight I made my first cake from scratch! (the frosting is also from scratch) It's a carrot cake and is DELICIOUS if I do say so myself :) :) (I know because I taste test a LOT while cooking) Here's some pictures. The nuts aren't very evenly scatterd because I didn't have many left, and my feeble attempt at decorating is funny, but I had a good time :)

I guess I should probably update about our life while I'm on here :) We've been having a fun summer full of fishing, shrimping, and camping as we're still waiting for a job. Lee's had a few promising interviews so hopefully soon! Addie's growing like a weed, and we have tons of way cute videos of her on Lee's site leebartelme.com/family! We got her ears pierced right before she turned 5 months and they are sooo cute! Little dimond studs, and I don't care if people think I'm a bad mother for doing that to my baby because she needed some on her cute pokey-out ears :) She took it like a champ! She's been so fun, she's sitting up, eating baby food, and starting to scoot already! She also LOVES camping and we went swimming at the pool today and she had a blast. She's loved the water since she was born. What we don't love is teething....that's horrible and I feel so bad for her when she's hurting. None have broken through yet, but the pain goes in cycles. She's tough though and has quite the addie-tude as we have come to call it because of her temper :) She's seriously the best blessing I could ever have dreamed of and I love her more and more everyday. I'm constantly laughing and playing with that little sweetie, Lee and I both are completely in love :) She is turning into a Daddie's girl though, and her favorite lately is Grandpa/pepsi max! That little munchkin just LOVES soda thanks to him, haha. I don't really have pictures of her as we've just been taking massive amounts of videos, and they just don't do her justice. She's the funniest little thing in the world, and we are truly blessed.

That's pretty much our life these days, as we gear up for the summer and our trip to Dallas to visit our family and show off our daughter, we hope all is well with everyone!

Hobby time

2011-04-22T11:08:00.000-07:00

I have always really loved making jewelry, and these are a few things I've done in my spare time. I haven't decided to try and sell anything yet, but maybe someday I'll get an etsy shop or something when I live somewhere closer to craft stores to get supplies :) I usually end up giving away what I make as gifts :) My mom is also really fun to make things for because she LOVES anything sparkly! Sorry the pictures aren't that great, I don't have a very good camera and didn't have great lighting. If you can't tell by the pics...I pretty much love turquoise :)

Addie will have a room someday...

2011-04-22T11:01:00.000-07:00

I made a few things for Addie's room awhile ago and they were so fun! I made name signs to hang above her crib using foam board, ribbon, rhinestones, flowers and my Mom's cricut :) I also made a board for her hair bows using fabric over a cork board and ribbon. Addie's room will be pretty cute when we get a place of our own :)

Back to Idaho!

2011-04-21T13:56:00.000-07:00

My sister and I decided to go to Idaho last weekend while my parents were going to be there to see my brother's new little baby be blessed. It was a fun trip! Lee unfortunately had to stay home :( Addie seemed to travel really well with only a few little meltdowns :) Red eye flights are just great aren't they? ;) While we were there we got to see a lot of family and spend some time with the sweet little Abigail! A lot of my extended family got to see Addie for the first time as well. I'm pretty sure Addie loves her new little cousin.

We had a lot of fun dressing them in matching outfits for pictures :). It was a pretty exhausting trip as it was only from Saturday to Tuesday, but it was definitely worth it to see everyone! I love my new niece, she's such a sweetie and it was fun to get to see her be blessed! Here's some pictures!

Spoke too soon...

2011-04-07T14:04:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's not springtime yet....this is what we woke up to today. I shouldn't have been so excited about the weather yesterday. It looks like we're gonna get punished for having a record low snowfall this year. Humph.

Lee workin hard to get rid of it :)

Addie's first bonfire!

2011-04-06T23:30:00.000-07:00

Tonight we went out to have the first bonfire of the summer :) It was Addie's first fire and she was quite mesmorized by it....she wouldn't stop staring! It was a lot of fun and the weather today was so beautiful! I can't wait for the rest of summer!

My New Niece!!

2011-03-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

Little Abigail is here!! She's such a little doll, I can't wait to meet her, and Addie is excited to meet her new cousin! Congratulations to Tyler and Amanda! :) :)

I guess I'm keeping this blog :) UPDATE

2011-03-17T19:03:00.000-07:00

I decided I should probably keep this blog since Lee's is primarily going to be for his buisness. I've been completely slacking off on keeping people updated, sorry!

Where to begin??? Lee graduated in December and since then we've been living in Valdez with my family while we look for work...kind of slow in the winter! I came back to Alaska a few weeks earlier then Lee because I was very pregnant and wouldn't be able to fly with him.

Beware, this next section will be LONG:

That was the trip from hell let me tell you....I HATE DELTA AIRLINES WITH A PASSION! I left Idaho Falls around 4:45 on November 28th (about an hour behind schedule), after dealing with some "less then friendly" personel, and arrived in SLC too late to make my connecting flight due to weather. This was no problem as I was simply bumped to the next flight to Portland and my boarding passes showed that I would still be able to make my connection to Anchorage at 10:50 from Portland. So I sat around the SLC airport for a few hours and then boarded the flight to Portland. We were all aware that all the flights were delayed for about an hour due to the weather, which was still fine. But, we then proceeded to spend almost two hours on the tarmack because our de-icer truck ran out of juice (just my luck). I finally made it to Portland at around 10:35pm and I was all excited because I was gonna make my flight!!! NOPE. The plane left at 10:05 instead even though my boarding card for that flight clearly said 10:50pm. Needless to say I was very upset. I went to talk to the personel and they simply ignored the fact that they gave me the wrong boarding card! I NEVER WOULD HAVE BOARDED THE PLANE IF I KNEW THE CORRECT TIME! No way would I have made it! Then they tried to make me collect my bags....yeah...I'm 8 months pregnant with three 50 lb. boxes. So I refused and they finally agreed to send them on to Anchorage without me. They "put" me in a hotel and had to send me back to SLC the next afternoon because there were no more openings on flights to Anchorage from Portland or SLC till two days later. They then refused to give me a hotel for the next night and I would've been screwed if we didn't have some awesome friends living in the SLC area that I could stay with. So I waited around with them for another day and a half, was driven to the airport, and was the only one in the security line! My only break! But then they tried to make me go through the new x-ray machines even though it was VERY obvious that I was pregnant. I refused and had the pat down even though they assured me it was a perfectly "safe amount of radiation". Bull, they don't know squat about the amount of radiation. This was also about my 4th time having to go through stupid security. I finally made it on my plane (redeye) and had a horrible seat in the very back isle, but I didn't care because I just wanted to be home! I got to Anchorage very early the next morning, went to a hotel, and then flew back to Valdez...FINALLY! I was an exhausted mess! Then I found that my luggage had been slightly less then destroyed in the traveling process! I even had some shoes missing from one box that had been horribly re-taped! I was pretty much treated like crap by everyone I had to deal with except one lady. I can't believe people are that mean to pregnant women traveling alone!

Needless to say I wrote a scathing email to Delta about this experience and they SOOOO kindly gave me a $50 travel voucher for my future travels. Yeah...like I'm ever going to fly with them again. Then a few weeks later I look on my credit card account and they CHARGED ME FOR THE HOTEL IN PORTLAND!!!! I was so ANGRY! Lee called and complained and they completely wrote him off. He explained that we understood they aren't responsible for weather delays, but they are responsible for boarding me on a plane that they knew very well wasn't going to make it in time for my connection. So I had to pay for my hotel room when they clearly indicated that it was on them......GRRRR. That's enough ranting about Delta......I hate them, enough said. It's just very surprising that I didn't have a complete breakdown being as hormonal as I was.... I was just too tired.

So....on to better things :) We had our baby girl on January 3rd!!! She was being pretty stubborn because we were doing everything we could to have her before the 1st for tax reasons :) I was actually due on the 9th, so she was still a week early. It was a pretty lengthy experience :)

Another long section:

My water broke on January 1st around 9pm. I was relieved because within the last two weeks I had swollen to roughly the size of a baby whale :) I started having mild contractions and we ended up going to the hospital to get checked around 11:30 or so when they were about 7 min. apart, but not very regular. I was only dilated to a 2, but my water had definitely broken so they wouldn't let me leave or induce me. I was kind of mad I had to stay there, but oh well. So the doctor said he'd start pitocin after 24hrs if hard labor still hadn't begun. It didn't... I had super irregular contractions that varied in strength, and the hospital monitor couldn't get a good read on them. My body was pretty much doing nothing the way it was supposed to. So I had to stay in "mild" labor for another whole day.

They finally started the pitocin after I got an epidural on the 3rd around 2pm. After the epidural I was so exhausted that I just crashed! A little after 5pm I was at 10cm so I started to push. My baby had still not dropped at this point. So, we had to wait for her to drop, her head to cone, and for my muscles to move out of the way...all the while I'm having to push. The doctor said that I had too tight of muscle bands that the baby had to push through, so I was in for a rough time...YAY! :) I also wasn't allowed to have any more pain meds at this point as the machine still wasn't reading my contractions correctly. They needed me to be able to really feel when I needed to push. So, after 2 1/2 hrs of pushing, she was finally here, and SOOO Beautiful! I can't believe how much we love that little girl! Lee was such a trooper for the whole ordeal, MUCH better than I thought! He doesn't typically do well with blood and stuff :)

Now Addison is almost 11 weeks old and is so fun! Those first few weeks were pretty rough, she hated nursing so that only lasted for 3 weeks. She had her days and nights completely mixed up, so I was pretty tired (Lee sleeps through her cries :) She is also the most gassy little thing ever so she had belly aches a lot. We've switched her to a sensitive formula now and she's so much better! She's grins constantly and is starting to squeal and giggle, it's so cute! She can't roll over yet, but her head is in the 95th percentile so she does good just to get it off the ground! :) She's such a beautiful little blessing and I can't believe how much I love her more and more everyday.

I turned 24 three days after Addie was born, and dropped 20lbs of water weight....still a long way to go but I'm glad to be done being pregnant for hopefully at least a couple of years :)

Sorry for the long post, but it's been too long with too much going on!! Here's our little angel :)

Baby Bartelme!!!

2010-06-03T20:33:00.000-07:00

The new addition to our family will make "its" debut January 2011! We're excited/terrified! :)

Valentine's Day

2010-02-19T09:03:00.000-08:00

We had a fun Valentine's weekend! Lee gave me some yummy chocolate covered strawberries! This is what they looked like but in pinks and reds :)

I got his watch fixed for him and gave him a big Reese's heart, and then on Friday night we went to dinner in IF and watched Avatar in 3-D, which was awesome! Then we got to spend all Saturday afternoon snowboarding at Targhee!! It was such a beautiful day and we had so much fun! We were a little spoiled this year :)

I've been slacking...

2010-01-25T08:39:00.000-08:00

Wow I have a lot to catch up on Huh? Where to begin....

1) Christmas: We went to Texas last month for Christmas and had fun with Lee's side of the family. We got to see his parents, siblings, and grandparents for about 10 days. We also drove with Lee's mom (she was sick most of the trip, sorry Heather!) to New Orleans, my first time ever, for a few days and ate some amazing food :) I got to see the graveyards (the tombs are very interesting) and the amazing architecture! I love the New Orleans homes! We also got to see some of the sad aftermath of Katrina that's still evident.
After spending time in NO with Lee's grandmother, we headed back to Dallas for some quality time with Ed, Kathy, Stephen, and Chris and met up with Brandon, Brittney, Ryann, and Seiler. We spent Christmas Eve with Lee's Dad's family, and Christmas day with Lee's Mom. It snowed for me both on Christmas eve and Christmas day :) Being my first Christmas away from Alaska it was nice to have it white. Christmas Day was fun and full of presents, and then we saw Sherlock Holmes that night. We also got to see some amazing fancy homes in Dallas that had awesome Christmas Lights!
Next on the list was the Mavericks' game!! I love basketball and it was a blast to be able to watch them play (and they won :) Wish I could say the same about the Cowboys...Sorry Lee :)
Heather and Bill took us out to eat at the Gaylord Texan, and to an ice exhibit themed as the Grinch stole Christmas. We got loaded down with big coats and wondered through the exhibit in 9 degree weather, it was fun! We had a lot of fun, and many thanks to the Smith's and Bartelme's for a great Christmas break! We love you! (pictures to come soon) Don't worry Mom and Dad, we love you too and hopefully will be heading to AK for Christmas next year :)

2) New Year 2010. We went to my cousin Carey's house this year for New Year's Eve with my brother and his wife to play games and eat all night, so that was fun. :) About an hour after midnight we started our new years resolution diet....so far he's lost about 10lbs. and I've gained 1. Success? I think not. It is NOT fair that we eat the same amount, exercise the same amount...and I gain weight? Damn men's metablolisms...That is all.

3) My birthday was on Jan. 6th, so I met up with Lee for chinese food in Idaho falls with Tyler and Amanda which was sooo good! Lee got me a new wallet and a plain wedding band so I can wear something on my finger that doesn't get in the way of the latex gloves I wear all day doing lab work and drawing blood! I was pretty excited, it's really pretty and shiny :)

4) At the present time we're just super busy with Lee's school and both of us working and going snowboarding any chance we get (Lee's getting so good! :). Lee's working and studying hard, and I'm trying to bring home the bacon as well. It's going good, but we'll both be glad when this semester is over! Future plans include a summer trip to Alaska, and hopefully an internship for Lee next fall!

Love you all!

My Tree!

2009-12-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

I had so much fun decorating the Christmas tree this year, I love it!!

Thanksgiving Break

2009-12-05T12:37:00.000-08:00

So for Thanksgiving this year we were supposed to go to Boise to visit my grandparents. Sadly though, Lee got sick the day before so I got him some antibiotics from work and we stayed in Rexburg to avoid bringing illness to others. We had fun though! He started feeling better and because we hadn't planned on cooking OR cleaning, we went to IHOP for Thanksgiving dinner (they had really good turkey and ham)! We had a nice relaxing weekend and got to watch New Moon and The Blind Side (both are soooo good!). We went black Friday shopping at noon the day after Thanksgiving thinking it would have died down by that point...but no. People are crazy!! We were so bored from not having to work or do anything by Saturday that we went and bought some kiddie tubes from Walmart and went sledding at the dunes! As the pictures show, Lee popped his tube within the first 10 minutes we were out there, so we had to share mine :) We got a good workout, it only takes running up sandy/snowy hills to let you know how out of shape you are!

My dollar store wreath!!

2009-11-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

I technically made it :)

Christmas is my favorite

2009-11-16T14:43:00.001-08:00

I love Christmas! It's my favorite time of year by far. I get to go to Texas this year and while I'm super excited for that trip, I'm equally depressed that I don't get to go home as well, so it's kind of bittersweet but I'm sure it'll be fun! I went to the dollar store and got a bunch of cute/cheap Christmas decorations and I have Christmas scentsy smells so I love it! My favorite decoraction is the wreath that I made out of parts and pieces from the dollar store, I'll have to post a picture later. I don't even care that it's not even Thanksgiving yet because I like to have Christmas last as long as possible!

This is my Purse!

2009-11-15T14:56:00.001-08:00

It will hopefully look like the black and white pattern when it is finished!

This is funny to me...

2009-11-09T12:59:00.000-08:00

This is a real commercial...I saw it the other day, haha :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXqHfHN9dJs

Halloween

2009-11-03T14:44:00.000-08:00

Halloween was fun this year! We didn't dress up but we did make caramel apples and play games all night with my brother and his wife! We only got 4 groups of trick or treaters but they were soooo cute! We had carved pumpkins the week before (being stupid I forgot our camera because they were pretty cool) and we lit the pathway to my Brother's house with their pumpkins and candles. We played all 15 rounds of mexican train, and it got pretty intense! Lee ended up winning, beating me barely with 12 points and Tyler was within 20 so it was a close game! Then we played 2 rounds of yahtzee, at which point I was about ready to pass out, so we went home, but we had a blast! I really need to start taking pictures huh?.......

First weekend apart....

2009-10-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

So last weekend was the first time Lee and I have been apart since we've been married. Besides each of us having the bed to ourselves for a night we didn't really enjoy it :) I went to Wyoming for my cousin's baby blessing, and Lee went hunting with his friend Cody. This is a picture of him during the excursion! I'm pretty sure this was Lee's first time on a horse (needless to say he was regretting that decision later) He was pretty sore and tired by the time he got home....and they didn't see a thing. Sad day! The other picture here is just a cute one of Lee I took when he was on the couch :)

Happy Birthday Lee!!

2009-10-06T20:29:00.000-07:00

For the big 2-6 we headed down to Utah for some fun. Both of our cars were not working well at the time, but since we had non-refundable reservations we rented a car for the weekend! It was nice to drive a nice/new car for a bit. We stayed at a nice suite and ate out at the Mayan and Joe's Crab shack! We got to see some friends and watch conference in our awesome hotel room (that had an amazing breakfast by the way) We also went to a Howie Day concert, but we only caught the end of it due to horrible traffic :( Sad day for Lee! He was a spoiled boy, he got giftcards and money from family, and I bought him the .22 rifle he wanted! We had a fun trip!

Married life two months later...

2009-10-06T14:07:00.000-07:00

So here are my notes on marriage and things I've discovered about myself thus far:

1) Compromise does not have to be a four letter word but sometimes is.

2) I really am as stubborn as people have been saying for years (thanks mom and dad).

3) I never realized how much video games drive me crazy.

4) I have more characteristics of my mother in me than I knew existed (not a bad thing, just kinda funny :).

5) I can NEVER make up my mind and drive Lee crazy.

6) No matter what happens, it's unbelievable how much your love for someone grows everyday. Especially when they do sweet things for you like the dishes, laundry and cooking.

7) It's a huge and frustrating eye opener when things don't work out (like cars start crapping out on you) and you have to start saving up to pay for it.

8) I always thought I'd get tired of someone when I have to live with them 24-7, but I don't. I actually even miss him when I'm just at work.

9) Hormones suck and I feel bad for men for having to put up with women....first time ever

10) I always wondered why couples disappeared when they got married...but it turns out it makes perfect sense. You already have a built-in hang out buddy at all times.

11) Most of all...Life is good and I'm pretty darn lucky that someone puts up with me :)

We finally got married :)

2009-10-06T14:03:00.000-07:00

We were married on July 30th 2009, it was an awesome experience, but we're both glad that stress is over :) Now on to the rest of our lives...