Goals!

So, I plan on trying to keep up with this blog by posting at least once a week.  I am really going to make an effort :)  This is way better than facebook anyday too.  Elizabeth is 18 months old already and I can't believe it!  She is the sweetiest thing ever.  For a quick recap of things she is doing now:

• Today when we got home from being over at grandma Johnsons she kept saying "homm"  I could'nt figure out at first what she was trying to say, but then I realized she was saying "home".  So cute!!!
• She has been in nursery now at church for the last 3 weeks, although this last week she really wasnt in it at all.  She started crying even before Eric could get her into the nursery room.  She woke up really early though and church is at 11 (right around nap time, yay) so that didnt go so well.  The first two weeks were great though, so we think she will be alright next week.
• She has started getting VERY picky about the foods she eats, as of now, all she will eat is avacados, apples, clementines, whole wheat noodles with spaghetti sauce, eggs, Cheerios, and Chia seed cereal.  On the few occasions we have had Salmon she scarfs it up though so that is good.  I know that she would probably love eating white bread, processed chicken nuggets, mac and cheese, and hot dogs, but I just don't want her to get accustomed to those foods.  Oh, and once in a while, she will have some green smoothie with us in the mornings.
• Her eye teeth have been trying ever so slowely to make their way out of her gums, thus making sleeping not the best as of late.  She never has really slept all that great but with the teeth bothering her I can expect to be up at least twice a night.  I remind myself often that this wont last forever, I am also hoping that I will be blessed with a good sleeper in my next baby.  I have come to believe its not because we cosleep as I have a friend who also cosleeps and her little one sleeps through the night like crazy. 
• She is still learning signs for words and is now learning how to incorporate the sign for "please" accompanied by her cute little voice saying "peze".  I may have taught her the sign for poop, she is almost to the age of potty training so I figured it was worth a shot, and it sure is funny when she does the sign.  She says banana "nanana", eye "eyyyeee", nose "nows", ear "eah", mouth "mouh", cheek "chee", toe "toooee".  She says more but those are the ones she really does good with.
• She takes her shoes and socks off everywhere we go.  In the car thats one of the first things she does.  She will be one of those barefoot kids.  I brought in a huge pile of her socks from my car the other day.

Our Valentines weekend was really great!  Eric and I got to go to a mystery lunch that was so awesome!  It was funny cause I was trying so hard to figure out who did it and both of us got it wrong.  I was wanting to get it right super bad because they enter you into a drawing for an awesome basket full of free stuff.  Eric and I love free stuff! 

I had to get a mask cause, well, I wanted one :).  But we had a really good time.  The lunch, although not to my healthy standards was delicious!  It was a crossant chicken sandwich, with a side salad, red velvet cake (the death of my diet), and little scones as a snack as we were trying to figure out the darned mystery.  The whole thing was written by some local girls, and all the proceeds went to the Christian Church that the girls attended as well as my sister Hannahs softball team.  The story had a great message about forgiveness too which I though was great. 

Those are a few late pictures from Christmas
Here is a picture of Church the next day in her pretty Christmas dress

She wasnt exactly thrilled that I had put pig tails in her hair... Still cute though!

 Still loves bath time!!!

 She loves to terrorize Nacho!  We don't feel bad for him though because if he wanted to he could run away, but he doesnt... we think he just whines for attention because really I think he likes it!

 One of the fabulous days that Elizabeth was thrilled about green smoothies.   Love the green ring around her whole face!

 Her hair doesnt look crazy becuase she is laying down, it looked just like that when she was sitting up.  It was a serious case of after nap bed head.

 This was an afternoon in the park.  I cant believe she is big enough to go down the big slide all by herself!  She is a big climber too, we will have to watch her soooo carefully!

 Look how big she is just walking and holding my hand on the way home, with a beautiful sunset behind us!  We are so lucky!

 She decided she wanted to play in this box that was probably 3 sizes to small for her.  She kept asking Eric to pull her around in it.  When he would stop she would start whining until he would do it more.

I love this little mischevious face!
This last sunday I got to attend Women at the Well at the stake center.  It was sooo beautiful and of course I cried almost the whole time.  It made me wonder why I don't just listen to more uplifting music all the time.  Eric has been playing basketball on Thursday nights and kicking some major church ball bootay!  I tell him that he might need to be a little more humble, but really I'm proud of him and cant wait to go to his game this Thursday!  I am currently reading a bunch of books here are just a couple that I am working on:
The Biography of Thomas S. Monson (amazing book so far)
The five love languages of children
the Body Ecology Diet
all good books! 
I am really enjoying renegadehealth.com and greensmoothiegirl.com for some good nutritional and exercise motivation and information and recomend them to almost everyone!  Well, thats all from me for now.  Sorry its such a long post but I had to get in a lot of info :)
I'll update next week!  Until then, have an awesome week and we love you all!

Merry Christmas!!!

We are so exited for this christmas!  I decided that Eric and Elizabeth and I need to get more in the christmas giving spirit.  So today and tomorrow I will be baking up some goodies for us to take to friends and family.  It might be a little too slippery to doorbell ditch... but we will see.  I love doing doorbell ditching so hopefully its not too icy out.  We went to our ward christmas party on Saturday and Elizabeth met Santa for the first time...

Clearly she wasnt too thrilled about it.  But it was cute!  I took that picture as fast as I could.

We got our family pictures taken recently, however I didnt have time to make christmas cards.  I believe I will be sending it out in an email though, so post your email so I can send you one if you would like one!

Today we went to the White House grill for lunch... AMAZING, like always.  Here is a pic of when we went for my birthday!

I love how Elizabeth has her eyes closed, lol!  We had so much fun!  However, $25 for lunch is a little pricy... So, while we were there today I looked and payed special attention to what was in my favorite dish so that I can replicate at home.  I want to start doing some themed dinners as a tradition in our family.  I think it would be awesome to incorporate traditions of other cultures in our dinners... Like, dancing!  I am going to look for a vegan whole wheat pita recipe so I can replicate the vegetarian gyro from White House.  Their green beans are to die for, and looking at it closely I realized that it was simply sauteed garlic steamed green beans, EVOO, and basalmic vinegar... Easy enough!  Eric got a nice Factory farmed Turkey from costco for christmas so we will be having our my family over for dinner Christmas eve, as well as play games.  We are so excited!  To all of our friends and family we don't get to share Chistmas with this year, we love and miss you all dearly and are excited to see you soon!  We think of you all the time! We send our wishes of a beautiful Christmas season full of happiness and joy in the knowlege of our wonderful Savior Jesus Christ who came to earth and showed us the way back to our Father in Heaven.

Love the Foutz family!

Well... we all have our days...

   Thought I would share this slightly funny, slightly embarrassing, family story of the day.  Yesterday while playing basketball with the missionary's Eric got kneed right in his thigh muscle.  At first he was groaning about how much it hurt and I thought he would get over it soon enough.  Well, not so.  My poor guys muscle tightened up so much that he cant even really bend his leg.  It hurts him to do just about anything right now (I'm sure it will get better soon though.)  Well, me trying to lift his spirits a little today before he went to work decided I would whip him up some blendtec ice cream for him to take with him and enjoy while on his way.  Well, I'm still new at the whole liquid/ice ratio etc... was running the blendtec and needed to stir it down towards the blade a little more.  I removed the lid and stuck my fork down into it scraping the ice from the sides down to the center.  Well... the blade had not stopped spinning.  I accumulated a stupidity injury on my hand from when the end of the fork jammed into my hand (Its not bad, hurt my hand a little, hurt my pride a little more.)  Besides that it also caused a bunch of the stuff to fly out of the blender, on our cupboards, counter etc.  Eric was standing right there when it happened too, so, more embarrassing.  But anyway, I sucked it up, fixed the ice cream and put some in a cup for Eric.  I felt good about it and it tasted great and I was sure Eric was going to like it.  While in the hustle of trying to get all his things (phone, wallet, keys) he stuck the ice cream on the top of his car.   We said our goodbyes and I love yous for the day, and he was on his way.  Proceed to 3 minutes later.  I get a phone call from Eric.  I thought he was going to tell me how wonderful I was at making blendtec ice cream and how amazing I was and how glad he was to have me for his wife.  Although I'm sure he would agree with those things, the phone call went a little differently.   He said "Renee, I'm really sorry (in my mind "oh no, what else could have happened?") I had put my ice cream on the top of my car, and well, I forgot to get it off and I drove with it on the top of my car.  I now have ice cream down the back of my rear windshield and the cup fell off and shattered on the road a few blocks away from our house."  I started laughing because I thought of all that effort for the stupid ice cream that 1. hurt my hand, 2. made a huge mess, 3. hurt my pride, 4. broke one of our nice glasses, 5. went to waste down the back of a windshield.
   You know, I guess the memory of that will always be something we laugh about.  And hopefully, maybe Eric's leg will feel better after having a good laugh. 

I got a new calling!

I have a new calling in church now!  I am the new Primary Secretary!  I know that this is one of those callings where its intended that I grow... as I'm not the most organized person.  I'm excited though!
Eric has been serving as the Sunday school teacher for the 12-14 year olds and loves it. 
We just got a blendtec last week and we love it.  We are making all kinds of green smoothies, soups, desserts, etc with the thing!  Its awesome!  It seems that Elizabeth will eat anything that has been made in the Blendtec too, which is awesome.  Speaking of which, she just woke up from her nap.  She is sooooo cute when she wakes up.  She does this little yell/cry thing knowing that I'll come in quickly and then she just likes to crawl around on the bed for a while smiling and giving me kisses!  Its great!  She is currently watching sesamestreet.org while I finish writing this.  Besides the blendtec we have been doing really well.   Eric, Elizabeth and I went to the White House for my birthday dinner (obviously not the DC version :) it was amazing!!!  I got the Vegetarian Gurro, lots of Hummus, garlic, veggies, YUM!  Elizabeth got her very first childrens menu item, spagetti with garlic bread (special occasion)  We had a wonderful time, although we were dissapointed we missed the belly dancer that comes every thursday night at 7.  We got there at 5:30 and staying until after 7 would have just been too much for E.   On my birthday I got to watch letters to Juliet which was an amazing chick flick that I loved and would like to someday own :)  Elizabeth is now saying "hi" to everyone that she sees.  Infact, at White House Grill she took a liking to the people sitting next to us and kept looking at them and waving and saying "hi" to them.  It was so cute.  Anyway, thats whats new with us! Till next time!
Love,
the Foutz Family!