Steven - Tiffany - Ava - Sage Our Forever Family

Just because...

2010-11-08T19:37:00.000-08:00

These two little girls keep me very entertained during the day. Love my little blue eyed cuties!

Halloween

2010-11-04T20:03:00.000-07:00

This year for Halloween we had a "normal" princess according to Ava and a cute little 6 month old Tiger. Ava loved Halloween this year, I think because it's the first year she understood a little better of what was going on. She was so excited to be a princess. If you asked her what she was going to be for Halloween she would tell you a princess. If then asked her what princess? She would say "a normal princess." She is a funny girl.

Conversation between Steven and Ava after she was all dressed up for the first time getting ready to go to our trunk-or-treat.
Steven: What are you?
Ava: I'm a princess and I looove it!
Steven: You love it?
Ava: Yes, I'm just so happy!
She keeps us laughing.

Here is our little Tiger. I think she is the cutest little Tiger I've ever seen! She must have known what she was dressed up as, because she screamed the entire time we were at the trunk-or-treat. Everyone kept commenting about how she was doing her tiger roar.

After we took her hair down, lol. All in all it was a good Halloween, but I'm glad it's over until next year. I'm learning that Halloween is a lot of work and very busy when you have kids.

We are still here!

2010-10-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

Yet again, I have been a terrible blogger! I don't know why I have such a hard time keeping this up?? So, I'm not going to say I am going to get myself caught up, I have about a billion new pictures since my last post, I know I'll never get to posting them, so here are a few recent pics and a quick recap of our summer: We've camped twice, went to the San Fran Zoo, spent lots of time with friends, hung out with visiting family, went to Monterey, played at the park, and much more! It's been a great summer we had tons of fun, and have loved getting to know Sage's little personality! But, I am so glad for cooler weather to come and the holiday season!

Ava on the beach in Monterey

Ava: She is officially 2 1/2 today! She loves, playing make-believe with ANYTHING! I can't not believe how creative her little mind is! She is talking so well, full sentences! Learning new things daily, hourly! lol she loves, playing outside, playing with Sage, playing with her friends, calling Steven and I by our given names and not "mommy & daddy", watching Disney movies, reading books, playing with her baby dolls, working outside with Steven, drinking chocolate milk, swimming, blowing bubbles, etc. She is so much fun and loves helping with her sister, but she is a strong willed little girl! And can throw a pretty good fit when she wants. She is really a great little girl who I love spending my days with!

Sage: She is almost 6 months old! I can't even believe my baby is already half way to a year!! The time has gone by so fast! She is soooo big and so cute!! She has the most kissable checks!! She is such a good baby, she rolls over like a champ, can just about sit-up on her own, loves her binkie, loves playing in her walker, she is a talker and a loud talker! She loves to sleep with a blanket on her face (which used to freak me out, but I've finally gotten used to it), she is doing pretty good with eating solids, and recently discovered her feet and loves to eat them! I just love my sweet little chunk! She gives us the biggest smiles and makes me so happy!

Our feet on the beach in Monterey. Steven's foot got cut off, but we couldn't re-do the picture because right after this was taken a huge wave came that we didn't see and soaked Sage up to her belly! She wasn't a very happy baby after that.

Here is a silly picture of Steven and I at a party we had a couple weeks ago at our friends house. They had this couch set up outside with a box full of props for everyone to use for pictures. It was hilarious! Such a fun party!!

Steven and I our doing great, just busy busy all the time. Steven recently started a new job with a company called Veneco. They have about 200 natural gas wells in the Sutter Butes, his job right now is to maintain them. It's a great company with a lot of potential for Steven to grow within the company. We are so thankful for this job, specially with the way the economy is right now, we think this is going to work out great for us and he can still go to school while working there. Someday he WILL finish school! I am still doing daycare, it keeps me VERY busy, but helps us meet our needs at this time, I am thankful I have a few good families who bring their kids to me everyday.

That's about it for now...hopefully I'll be back on here soon, but I make no promises. :)

My girls!

2010-06-15T08:43:00.000-07:00

My friend Lacey took these awesome pictures of Sage when she was a new born, and of Ava for her two-year pictures. I love them!! I think she did a great job! It was so hard to narrow it down to a few to put on my blog. I can't wait to take more of Sage when she is a little older, she is such a smiley girl, I know we'll get some great ones! We are also going to have our family pictures done a little later this summer, when Sage is older and I have lost more weight :) I'm excited! Enjoy!

Overwhelmed

2010-06-11T22:59:00.000-07:00

So, pretty much I'm a failed blogger. I have so much to blog about and get so behind and then so overwhelmed that I end up just not blogging anything. But, I am going to try and get caught up on a few things. Life is so much crazier now with two kids, I know for those of you with more then two probably think two is easy, but for me I'm still trying to figure out how to balance life with two kids. Here are my future blog posts that I'm going to try to blog about in the next couple of weeks. These are the happenings with our family over the last few months...
1. Steven's b-day
2. Pics of Sage and her crazy growing...she's huge!
3. Ava's two year pics.
4. Camping over memorial day weekend.
5. Potty training
6. Ava's new need to dress herself everyday
7. Sage's new born photo shoot.
8. Oh, yeah, and I'd still like to get Easter on here.

Yeah, I know a lot. But, I'm really going to try to get to it.

Introducing Sage Allison

2010-04-23T11:36:00.001-07:00

I know it's been over a week now, but Sage has arrived!! She was born April 13th at 8:45am. She was 8lbs 1oz and 21 inches long! She is the most content little girl, hardly ever cries, as long as I keep her tummy full she is happy! We are all doing well and adjusting to life with two kids. Ava has had some moments, but for the most part she seems happy to have Sage around. She loves to give her kisses and stick her pacifier in her mouth. Hopefully she will continue to love her little sister! So here is the birth story...I'll try to keep it short.
I was due on Thursday April 8th...still had not had her by Monday the 12th, had a Dr. appt. that Monday morning. The Dr. said he would induce me on Wed. if I did not go into labor before that on my own. By that point I had just given up on going into labor and figured I would just have to be induced again. But, the baby had other plans. I started having contractions Monday around 4:30pm, they continued all evening and continued to get more intense as the night went on. We went to the hospital around 11pm I was dilated to a 3. Finally got my epidural around 3am at that point I was a dilated to a 6. So I was able to rest most of the night while my body progressed. I was ready to have her at 8:30 that morning, and little did I know that my epidural had completely worn off from my waste down. So I felt EVERYTHING while I was pushing her out and getting sewn up! I was not expecting that at all, but in the long run it was better because I was able to push her out in 15 min! So all in all, everything went very smoothly and she is healthy and happy. I have healed so much faster this time and feel great!
I am so thankful that the entire process went so much faster then when I had Ava! Here are a few pictures from the hospital and our first few days at home.

Healthy big girl

She was so alert!

A new little girl for Daddy

You can see how happy Ava was when she first meet Sage, lol. I love this pic! She really didn't know what to think.

She is feeling much better about her now.

All ready for her first outing.

Me and my girls

Question?

2010-03-31T21:09:00.000-07:00

Why is my blog off center from my background? It's driving me crazy and I don't know how to fix it?? I'm open to help if anyone knows how to explain this to me? Thanks!

Update

2010-03-31T20:11:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I haven't exactly done a very good job in keeping my blog up to date. But I'm doing one now!

Ava update:

She will be two on Sunday the 4th! I can't believe my baby is two! We had a little party for her last Saturday. It was a really nice day, we BBQ'd in the backyard at my parents house and had a great time hanging out. She was very spoiled by everyone! Here are a just a few pictures from the party.

She is talking like crazy! I can't believe how many things she says now and understands, she amazes me everyday. She can be very stubborn sometimes and throw quite the screaming fit, but most of the time she really is very easy and listens to me very well. She loves hanging out with Steven while he is working outside, she will play out there for hours! She loves to help me around the house, sometimes her helping can really slow me down, haha...but I love that she is so happy to help me, I hope it lasts! Her new thing is to say "what's this?" She walks around the house pointing at anything and everything saying "what's this?". She also loves when there are airplanes flying over the house, she gets so excited and says "air plane mommy, air plane!". Those are just a few things that I can think of right now that she is doing. We love this little girl more and more everyday! I really can't wait to continue to watch her grow up and see how she is as a big sister! Which leads me to the pregnancy update....

I am one week away from my due date and so done being pregnant!! I want this little girl to come out now!! haha. This pregnancy has been very physically hard on me, my body is very tired and sore all the time. I know that it is because I take care of all those daycare kiddos everyday and I probably lift them way too much and should have slowed down a lot sooner then I have, but that's hard to do! I am 1cm dilated, the Dr. says my cervix is very soft and that the baby is very low, soooo I'm hoping it will be sooner then later. We shall see...

A little help please

2010-01-04T12:01:00.000-08:00

Hello friends and family. This is a quick post for my mother-in-law Tracy Astle. She has just finished writing her first novel and is in the process of trying to get it published. She has spent hours and hours doing research on how to get published and such. One of the things she has found really helps is to create a blog and to have lots of followers. So, I am asking all of you out there who read my blog if you wouldn't mind adding her to the blogs you follow. Even if you never ever read her blog and have no idea who she is, that is okay. It will really help her out if her blog shows she has lots of followers. She is listed on my side bar under my family links...her name obviously is Tracy Astle. She has worked so long and hard at writing this book I would love to see her get published and see what happens! Again, you don't have to read her blog if you don't want if you just add it to your blogs you follow that will help a lot! Thanks!

Parent and Tot Class

2009-12-15T10:32:00.000-08:00

Steven's cousin works at Youngsters Inc., it's a gymnastics place for kids here in Yuba City. All the employees get to have one free child enrolled under their name and since his cousin is only 20 and has no kids she enrolled Ava under her name for us! There is only one class she is old enough to attend and that is the Parent and Tot class that Emma (his cousin) teaches on Monday evenings. The class age range is 18months - 3 years. Ava is just 20 months, so she barely makes the cut off, the next youngest in the class is 2 1/2. Needless to say I'm the only parent who really has to participate in the class and help Ava, the rest of the kids are old enough to follow what the teachers do and listen to the instructions on their own. But, Ava loves it, she really doesn't get that she is supposed to be doing certain things at certain times, but she is willing to try everything. Every time we do something she says "ooh" or "wee" or "hooray", it is pretty cute. So I try to keep her following the rest of the class the whole time, it wears me out, but it's fun and she'll eventually get it. Here are a few pictures Steven took of her last night. (please ignore how gross I look)

She does really well on the balance beam, I was surprised at how easily she does it at her age. I hardly have to hold on to her.
Getting ready to do a backwards somersault

Her favorite part, getting a stamp at the end of class

Trying to weasel her way into getting as many stamps as possible.

I just thought this was a cute picture of her. She is getting ready to get her shoes on to go home.

Yes, we're still here....

2009-12-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

Hello long lost blogging friends!! I know I have been a terrible blogger the past few months. It all started out with a crazy but fun summer that I got way behind on trying to post pictures from, then I just got overwhelmed with it, then I just ignored it all together...which got me to where I am now....December with no pictures of what we have been up to since JUNE!! So I've decided to start from now instead of trying to go back and play catch-up, kinda.
Below is just a cute picture of Ava in front of our tree we took last Sunday before church.

So I know Halloween is long over, but I wanted to post a just a few pictures of our cute lady bug. We did a lot during Halloween I didn't want to let it go without posting a couple of pictures.
Our ladybug throwing a nice little fit in the middle of our church Halloween carnival because she didn't want to let someone else have their turn for the bean bag toss game.

Here she is looking cute before taking her out on Halloween to see family and friends.

She was very excited to carve pumpkins! She wasn't too excited about all the slime inside, but loved that I let her sit on the table. She is always climbing onto the table and I am constantly pulling her off, so she thought it was pretty cool that I was allowing her to sit on the table that night.

Okay...done with Halloween.

UPDATES:

Yes, I am pregnant! I'm sure this is old news to everyone, but since I have never made the official announcement on my blog I decided I better do it. I am 23 weeks I think? Or maybe 24? I have been so bad at keeping up on how many weeks I am this time. It looks like it's going to be another girl, I was secretly hoping for a boy. During the ultra sound she had her feet crossed, so we didn't get a super clear view. But, we are pretty sure it's a girl. Don't get me wrong I am very excited to have another girl, but it's just hard to imagine having another baby girl to melt our hearts like our baby girl has. I know though, that as soon as she is in my arms she will fill our hearts just as much as Ava has. Plus, it is so nice to have everything we'll need, I don't need to worry about getting a bunch of boy stuff. My due date is April 8th, four days after Ava's 2nd birthday! Crazy! I hope they will grow up to be close friends. As for a name, we have a few that we are thinking about, but nothing official yet.

Ava update: She is 20 months and busy as ever!! She keeps me on my toes!! Talking like crazy, she is starting to put two and three words together to make short sentences, she can count to 10, and knows most of her animal noises. She loves baby dolls and playing outside or working in the garage with her daddy. She is so funny, she would love, if I let her, to put on a dress and all her accessories and then go out in the garage or in the yard and work with Steven. He has a few tools that he lets her carry around and "help" him work on things. I think she will be a good mix of girly girl that's not afraid to get dirty. I don't think she really understands yet that she is going to be a big sister, but if you ask her where the baby is she'll point to my stomach. She is such a strong willed little girl, which can be very frustrating at times, but I love spending all day with her and watching her learn and grow.

We are all decorated and getting ready for Christmas! I love this time of year! We have so much going on this month, I plan on being better at blogging our happenings. I hope all of you are enjoying this Christmas season and hopefully we'll get to see some of you that we don't see often!

Sorry for the very random blog, but after not blogging for five months it's hard to know where to start and what to say. So heres to a fresh start of blogging for me!

Where are my pictures?!

2009-07-29T08:53:00.000-07:00

Just letting everyone know we are still here. We have been doing lots of stuff this summer, and I do have pictures of it all, but there is a problem. All of our pictures are either on my camera which is lost, or my broken laptop! So frustrating! Steven says the hard drive is still good on our laptop and that he should be able to recover all of our stuff to put on our new computer, but he has been so busy lately he just hasn't had the chance to do it. As for my camera, I have no idea where it is?? I never lose things, so this is very frustrating. I'm hopeful it will turn up somewhere...thinking maybe Ava carried off and has put it in some random place around the house, I hope. In the mean time, I hate not having my camera!!
So, as soon as I either find my camera or we get everything off our old computer I will blog about our summer happenings. Hope everyone else is enjoying there summer!

Camping!!

2009-06-17T21:50:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we went camping with our friends, the Wards. We camped at Scotts Flat Lake. Had a blast!! Thank you Sid for letting us borrow the boat!! We had so much fun on it, probably spent about half of our four days there on the boat!! Ava, loved camping, she was a filthy mess for most of the time, but that's what happens when you camp with a 14 month old. Here are a few of our pictures, I know there is a lot here, but I took tons of pictures, it was hard to narrow it down for the blog.

Ava loved being in the tent, when we first set it up we couldn't get her out of it.
My silly little boat girl. She LOVED being on the boat!!

Ava and Jacob. Ava was always stealing Jacobs binkie, which is funny because she never really took a binkie when she was a baby.

Steven & Ava and Brandon & Jacob. Daddy's and their dirty face babies.

This is the whole group.

Jacob hanging out on the boat

My little water baby

We did A LOT of fishing, but noooo catching

Hanging out at the campsite

The babies took quite a few naps on the boat

Maggie and I getting ready for tubing.

We hiked around the lake to the dam

Playing in the boat

cute little Jacob

The boys made a HUGE fire the last night we were there

Ava thought the water was a little too cold...

...she was much happier wrapped up with daddy.

Decided to try again...

...nope never mind.

We wished the weather was a little warmer while we were there, but luckily it's a warm lake, so we still did lots of swimming, tubing and stuff, it was just a little chilly when we got out of the water. It was a great trip, with great food and great company! We can't wait to go next year!

Also..

2009-06-03T15:21:00.000-07:00

Here is a short little video of Ava walking around the front yard. I haven't posted a video of her walking yet...so here you go! Hope this works, I've never posted a video before.

The front yard and playing outside

2009-06-03T14:58:00.000-07:00

Ava loves to play outside! So, I took a few pictures of her playing in the yard yesterday. I also took some of our flowers we planted this year. We, are trying to finish up our front yard, we still have a few things to do, but I like how it's turning out! We don't know very much about plants and flowers, so this is a learning experience for us. I just want color, I love color in yards!

Charlee loves to play outside too!

Our front planter, right underneath our front window as your walking up to our door. I know the flowers and things are very random...this is kind of a trial year for us. Next spring we will have a better idea of what grows well and what we like. So far, some things have grown really well and others have not. We are excited for the Japanese Maple in the back corner to grow though!

The planter in the bottom corner of the yard. We are happy with the Birch Trees. We are still trying to figure out what to plant around them.

One of my favorites, right up by our front door. Can't remember the name of it though, I'm really bad about that. I'm sure some of you reading this will probably know, I think it's a fairly common flower.

Another one I really like, I love the purple!

This is our house. I figured I better take a couple of pictures of it now. We are getting ready to change the siding and paint it. Hoping that it will help it look more updated. We hate the siding it has now, very 70's. And it can definitly use a new paint job!

We still have a few things to do in the front yard, a few weeds that keep coming back...argh! But, I really like how it's turning out, and I think when the new siding is up and it's all painted it will look really nice! Next is the backyard....that is going to be a BIG job!! Probably won't be finished until next spring, we need to save up a while. I'm going try to take pictures as we go, I didn't do that with the front yard, so I don't have any before pictures...it was pretty run down when we first moved in.

That's all for now, I haven't blogged in a while, so I figured I better get something up. Hope everyone is enjoying the beginning of their summers!

Chicken Pox Update:

2009-05-11T11:55:00.000-07:00

When I called Ava's Dr. to ask about the chicken pox she said she wanted me to bring her in so she could look at them. So, went to the Doctor, and guess what? She doesn't have chicken pox! She has a virus, it has a name, but I can't even begin to spell it. So anyway, it's nothing too serious, we just have to let it run it's course. It might continue to get worse over the next few days, but then it should start going away. She might feel kinda crummy, but nothing too major. I'm glad it's not chicken pox, bummer that she is sick, but glad she's not too sick. She is very contagious, but only to young kids, so, I'm just going to enjoy my few days off I get from the daycare kids.

Walking, Mothers Day & Chicken Pox...

2009-05-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

Ava is walking!! She has been walking for a little over a week now, I'm just a little late getting to this post. She had been talking one or two steps here and there for about a week, and then Friday, May 1st. she just decided to start walking all over. Of course at first it was about 50% walking 50% crawling, she is doing mostly walking now. She is still loses her balance at times and is quite slow still, but she's a walking girl!! Here is a picture of her and Steven walking out to the car. I'll get a video posted soon.

My Mothers Day was great!! Steven made me a yummy egg omelet for breakfast and he and Ava gave me some beautiful earrings! We hung out at the house for most of the day and then went over to my parents for dinner. My dad made his famous BBQ shishcabobs(sp???)for dinner, they were really good! It was a great relaxing day...with only one problem. Ava woke up with chicken pox!! The poor girl is covered in them! I took her in for her year well-baby check up about 2 weeks ago and that is when she got her first chicken pox vaccination. Well, according to the little information sheet they give you about the vaccination, the chicken pox vaccination can cause "1 or less of every 20 children" who receive the shot to get the virus. This can happen for up to 30 days after receiving the shot. So, she was one of the lucky few. She is not too itchy yet, but from what I understand that will come...here are a few pictures, the chicken pox didn't really show up in them though. And she won't sit still for five seconds for me to take a picture.

These pictures really don't do it justice, she is pretty covered head to toe, mostly on her back and stomach. I'm going to try to get some better ones later, I think maybe different lighting will help the picture??

Also, her well-baby check-up update: She is 19.5lbs which is 25% for weight and 29 3/4" in height, 50%. So she is growing up to be a petite little girl compared to the big girl she used to be.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

2009-04-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

I'm a little late getting to this blog. Last Tuesday the 21st was Steven's birthday! I wasn't able to get a post on here till today because our Internet has been doing weird stuff all week and I haven't been able to upload photos. But, I just wanted to write a little note for him. He is such a great husband and father!! He works so hard for our little family. He is in school full-time and working full-time. He also usually does side jobs on Saturdays to help bring in some extra income. He is very busy! I appreciate all he does for us! Among all his work and school he still finds time to spend with Ava and me. We love him so much!!
Here are a couple of pictures of him blowing out his birthday candles.

Happy 26th Birthday Steven!!

Happy Easter 2009!

2009-04-14T09:33:00.000-07:00

For Easter this year we started our morning at home just hanging out and gave Ava her Easter basket. She didn't have any idea what it was for or why she was getting it, but she was excited to pull everything out of it. And she loved carrying her Easter basket around all day, she didn't want to put it down! We went to church with my parents, took some pictures in our Easter Sunday clothes in their backyard. After church we went home and changed then went over to Thomas and Cassandras new house for Easter dinner with Steven's family. We had tons of good food! I ate waaay too much! It was fun visiting with everyone and having Steven's Aunt Carole here from Texas! Here are a few pictures from the day.

Checking out her basket

Of course, she loved the grass at the bottom the best!

All ready for church in her new Easter dress

Too bad Steven's eyes are mostly closed, would have been a great family picture!

Ava with Grandma and Grandpa

Everyone having dinner at Thomas and Cassandras

Ava sharing daddy's plate with him

Nana, Pop-pop, Aunt Carole and Cassandra

Relaxing with daddy

Steven with his Nana and Ava

Hanging out with Pop-pop after dinner.

Steven and his brother Thomas

We had a great day spending time with our family! (I really wish I knew how to put a bunch of pictures into one picture so my posts are not so long. I don't know how to do that?? Feel free to give me some tips anyone :).)

Ladybug Birthday!

2009-04-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

I'm finally posting Ava's birthday pictures! We had a ladybug theme, so I decorated the table to look like a ladybug, and tried to do all red and black for the party supplies. I think it turned out pretty cute! We just had our immediate families over for her party, and with them alone, there was still about 25 people there! We ate pizza and salad, opened gifts and of course had cake and ice cream. Ava didn't really know what to think of all the attention she was getting, it took her a while to warm up to everyone all being there at once, but once she did I think she had fun.

This is her cake. I think it turned out so cute! My friend Andrea decorated it for me. I could never had done that on my own!! She did such a good job!!

Ava waiting for everyone to get there

Playing with the fan. This picture cracks me up!

Sitting with Grandpa

She was so exited, it was so cute!

Loves books!

She was so spoiled!!

Getting ready for cake. I don't know why this picture is sideways?? I put a garbage bag over her highchair to try to prevent cake getting all over in it.

She kept trying to grab the flame!

She wasn't really sure what to do with it at first. (btw, her little cake we frosted white with red dots to try to keep from staining her skin too much. We figured black and red would be hard to get off of things.)

Kinda picking at it...

Maybe I'll try to just take a bite out of it.

Grandpa Kelly helping her dig in!

Here we go, this is the good stuff!

Why is everyone staring at me??

Okay I'm done!!

Her Nana helping me clean her up.

All clean playing with her new toys

Maybe this will help her to start walking on her own soon!

Sneak Peek

2009-04-06T08:33:00.000-07:00

Just a sneak peek to her birthday party pictures...

Thankfully Ava was feeling so much better on Sunday! So, since her party guests were pretty much just family anyways, we called everyone up and said "come over around five and we'll have her party"! I'm so glad she was feeling better and that we were able to have the party yesterday. I already had all the food and everything ready to go from the day before, and I had no idea when we would have been able to do it if we had to postpone it for later, with Easter coming up things are kinda busy over the next few weeks. So, it turned out great! I have lots of pictures, but not enough time to get them all up here right now. So, stay tuned for more to come of her first birthday party!

A year already!

2009-04-04T14:50:00.001-07:00

HAPPY FIRST BIRTHDAY AVA!

here she is a few hours old

here she is now

I can't believe that our baby girl is a year today!? It is crazy how fast the year goes by! She is such a sweet girl, and we are so thankful everyday to have her as our daughter.
Unfortunately we had to cancel her birthday party that we were going to have for her this afternoon. She caught the rotarvirus from one of the daycare kids. It's so sad that she is sick on her birthday! Good thing she doesn't know what she is missing. I think I am the one that is the most sad. :( But, on a good note she is doing much better this afternoon then she was this morning. I'm hopeful that it will be short lived. The rotarvirus is something that babies get vaccinated for. Ava has had all three of her rotarvirus vaccinations. The daycare boy has not had any of his, he caught a really bad case of it and has been in the hospital for three days now. We are hoping that since Ava has had her vaccinations it won't get that bad for her. And seeing how much better she is acting this afternoon makes me feel much better.

So as soon as we are able to have the birthday party I will post the pictures. And for those of you who are wondering...she is not walking yet, I'm thinking it's still going to be another month or so, she's close but not that close. So we'll see! I just hope she is all better soon!

3 Years!

2009-03-17T08:37:00.000-07:00

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO US!

I can't believe it's been three years! It doesn't seem like it's been that long! It has been a great three years! I am so thankful everyday that I get to spend eternity with Steven!

To celebrate we are going to go to dinner and the movies tonight. It's been so long since we've been to the movies together! Should be fun!

This picture was taken on our honeymoon...I've decided I want another honeymoon, such a fun trip!

To the rest of the world Happy St. Pattys Day!

Ava, Ava and more Ava

2009-03-11T10:34:00.000-07:00

I can't believe Ava is going to be a year in less then a month!! She is getting so big and developing quite a personality! She can be a very stubborn little girl when she wants to be, but is also a sweetheart. She loves to give kisses, mostly to her daddy. She is so busy getting into everything, which can be a pain at times, but then again I love watching her explore! Ava is such a curious little girl, very interested in everything! She's not walking yet, but is getting around very well, and loves to climb on things. It won't be long before she's walking. So this past weekend we took a bunch of mini photo shoots of her. I know there are a bunch of pictures here, but we seriously took like 200 pictures, it was very hard to narrow it down to a few to put on here. So I'm sorry for those of you who don't care to look at 25 pictures of her :) Here she is, our sweet baby who is turning into our little girl.

Looking oh so innocent

Such a little cheeser

Mom, why do you always put these things on my head!?

So curious

Caught!

Love this one, except for the snotty nose.

Crazy hair and 10 months!

2009-02-12T19:02:00.000-08:00

Ava always wakes up with the craziest hair! Today it was really bad, so I got the camera out. She had some good smiles going on when she woke up today, I thought these were pretty cute!

I can't believe she is 10 months old now! It's crazy to me that in less then two months we'll be celebrating her first birthday! Time has flown by since I had her! She is so much fun...crawling around and pulling herself up on anything and everything. She is a very busy girl! She is about 18lbs and a little over 28 inches long.
This was the first day I was able to finally put a bow in her hair! I was so excited, but of course you can hardly see the bow in the picture I took of her. I couldn't get her to stay still after this one picture for me to try to take another one. So I just took it of her crawling, at least you can see the bow. I can't wait for her hair to get long so I can do cute things with it!

Here she is waiting to get in the bath. I just couldn't resist taking this of her cute little butt! :) She loves bath time!

Blogger help!

2009-02-10T11:04:00.000-08:00

I finally figured out how to change my background. I didn't realize how easy it was. But, now I'm trying to figure out how to change my thing at the top of my page. Everyone has these cute pictures of their kids and families, I want to do that to. Help?? I don't know how. Can someone tell me how to do it? Please? Thanks! :)

Christmas

2009-01-05T11:07:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting to my Christmas post! We had a great holiday! Christmas Eve was spent at my parents house. We were there with my Grandpa and Grandma Empey, Grandpa Kelly and Blake's girlfriend Andrea. We had a great dinner and played Catch Phrase after. It was fun to have Grandpa and Grandma playing with us! Then of course we all opened our Christmas Eve PJ's before going home.

Christmas Eve dinner, everyone except me taking the picture.

Ava having some dessert

This picture is a little out of order. This was around noon on Christmas Day, just hanging out waiting for Steven's family to come over.

Back to Christmas Eve, Ava trying to get into the gifts under my parents tree.

Christmas Morning! Santa came to see Ava!!

I love this picture of her with her Santa gifts in her Christmas PJ's. I don't think she really knew what the heck was going on.

Helping her open gifts. I love how excited she is in this one!

Checking out all her new stuff

Charlee already tearing apart his gift!

Ava and Charlee playing with their new stuff.

Christmas Day we had all of Steven's family over. It was our first big gathering at our house. It was so much fun! I am so mad I didn't take a single picture! We had 17 people, we had the dinning room table and a table set up in the middle of our living room. It worked really well! We had lots of fun hanging out chatting and had a great dinner! After dinner we all gathered around and exchanged gifts. I think it will become a tradition to have everyone over at our house on Christmas.

That's it! It's so weird that it's almost been a month since Christmas. I'm already looking forward to next year!

A little of this and a little of that

2008-12-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

We have been very busy this past month with lots of Christmas party's, Christmas decorating, baking, wrapping, shopping, house cleaning, chasing around Ava, etc. It has been a fun crazy month. And of course I forgot to take pictures of most of it, but I did get a few things, so I thought I would share.

Ava spent quite a bit of time sleeping in the stroller while I shopped.

We learned that Ava fits right inside the Christmas lights box. (Steven is in camo because he was getting ready to go paint balling. He wears it to blend into the bushes better)

Ava eating one of her favorites, a piece of lunch meat while I make dinner. Charlee staying close by for anything that she might drop.

Finishing up the Christmas decorations.

A very tired baby

Bath time = Happy time

Steven finishing our new floors! Yay!

Annual ginger bread house making at Shannon's.

Ava found the curtains.

Ava also found the DVD's

Unhappy visits to Santa

Pulling the lights off the tree.

That is a little of what has been going on around our home lately. Hope you are all having a wonderful Christmas season! Merry Christmas!!

Twilight

2008-11-27T11:54:00.000-08:00

Yes, my friends and I went and saw the midnight showing....and I loved it!!! I've already gone to see it again! I can't wait till the next movie!

Just a little late....

2008-11-27T11:10:00.001-08:00

It is 11:30am on Thanksgiving day and I am finally getting my Halloween and Pumpkin Farm pictures posted. I guess better late then never, right? Ava was the cutest little black cat for Halloween. We didn't actually take her trick-or-treating, we just took her to see each of her grandparents and stopped by one of our friends houses for a little while. But it was a fun night.

Earlier in the month my parents took us to Bishops Pumpkin Farm. We took about a million pictures of her that day, she was so smiley and loved it!! So that's why I have so many on here, it was so hard to narrow it down! So here you go...

Oh, and yes in the pumpkin farm pictures she has a nice shiner on her eye. On of my daycare kids pinched her right under her eye and broke a blood vessel. But she was so tough she only cried for about two minutes.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Where did September go?

2008-10-08T15:02:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't posted a blog in over a month!! September flew by! It has been so crazy busy lately...sometimes that is nice and sometimes not so nice. As of October 4th Ava is 6 months old!! I can't believe she is half a year old already, it only feels like a couple of months ago she was born and then again it feels like she has been apart of our family forever! She is so much fun! She is clapping and waving and oh so close to crawling! She is so cute to watch, she can sit on the floor and entertain herself for so long now. It is so sweet to listen to her talk, she has the cutest little voice. She doesn't have her 6 month well baby check-up until the 28th, so I'll post her weight and such at that point.
I thought I would add this picture to this post. Ava and Steven love to nap together. Since he works from 3am to 11:30am he'll come home every day and take a nap before doing anything else. I would say about 3 or so days of the week he and Ava will nap together. I walked into our room the other day and saw them sleeping like this. They are laying in the same position with the same look on their faces. This just confirms how much they look like each other!! She LOVES her daddy! Every day when he comes home she gives him the biggest smile and if he doesn't come pick her up for a few minutes she gets her feelings so hurt. It is so cute!

Tutu's by BOO

2008-09-06T20:10:00.000-07:00

My very talented friend from church Brigette, is starting a business of making onsie tutus with matching hair bows for infant girls. They are soooo adorable!! And Ava was lucky enough to get one from her! So I had to take some pictures to show off how cute they are! Sorry about my legs in the back ground, but to get the full effect she needed to stand up. A big thank you to Brigette!!

Don't you just love those chunky legs!

(As you can see I've been playing catch-up with my blogs, I think this is my fourth one today!)

We had visitors!

2008-09-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

Last week our doorbell rang and when I opened the door there was this cute little boy just sitting there on my door step all by himself! After a double take I immediately knew it was Ava's future husband Teigen! Teigen is my best friend Ashley's son. (Ashley moved to New Mexico after she got married so I don't get to see her very often...her son is five weeks older then Ava.) Ashley of course was just hiding around the corner from our door step. I was so excited to see her and meet Teigen for the first time! She came to town for her brothers wedding open house, which I was told that she couldn't come for. But she surprised me! It was so fun to hangout with her for a few days and watch Ava and Teigen interact with each other. We of course have already arranged their marriage. I only got a couple of pictures because my camera battery died, but I at least got a few. And of course we totally forgot to take a picture of Ash and I together because we were too busy taking pics of the babies.

Look who's sitting up!

2008-09-06T19:44:00.000-07:00

At just under five months she started sitting up! She loves to just sit on a blanket and play with her toys. She'll still topple over every once in a while, but it's getting to be less and less. She is such a big girl!

Usually when she bends in half like this she'll chew on her toes, but this time she chose her book.

Labor Day Weekend

2008-09-06T15:53:00.000-07:00

For Labor Day weekend our friends the Hood's invited us up to their cabin on Lake Almanor. So we went up with Steven's parents and a couple of his siblings for the weekend. It was sooo fun! We went there last year and loved it, so we were very excited they invited us up again! They have a cabin in the Country Club right on the Lake, it's so pretty up there! And the weather was perfect! I wish I had taken pictures of the inside of the cabin, they have the coolest cabin, and it sleeps like 15 people or something, it's great! We enjoyed a great weekend with everyone and probably came home a few pounds heavier from all the great food we ate. But it was well worth it!

There is a little park in the Country Club, so we took Ava on the swings. This was her first time and she loved it!!

Here she fell asleep on uncle Thomas' lap in the chair hammock.
Of course we played tons of games!!
Took a little ride on the golf cart around the Country Club checking out all the cabins wishing we could buy one up there.
A picture of the shoreline. This was in the evening when it was getting pretty cold out, so all the beaches were deserted.

They have a shooting rage close by, so I shot a 9mm hand gun! It was pretty cool, but I really need to work on my aim!
Here is Steven shooting, he is much better then me :)
On Saturday it was hot enough to go to the beach and ride the jet skis. Here is Ava and her Aunt Emma playing on the beach

Steven and I were getting ready to go out on the jet ski so we took a picture of the three of us on it. And no we didn't take Ava out!! :)

We can't wait to go again next year!! Thanks to the Hood's for a great weekend!!

4 month photos and an update.

2008-08-16T15:10:00.000-07:00

We went and had Ava's pictures taken a few weeks ago. She is four months old in these photos. I thought they turned out really cute. I was a little nervous that they wouldn't turn out because she cried almost the entire time! She never cries! She is usually the happiest baby, but of course the first time we take her to have her pictures done she cries the whole time. Luckily we did get a few smiles out of her. We ordered the first one and the third one down, they were my favorites. (Thanks Aunt Linda for this cute dress!)

She looks so evil in this one. I think she was mad at us because she just wanted to get out of there! haha

You can kind of see the red around her eyes from her crying in this one.

So I haven't blogged in over a month and it's mostly because at the end of the day all I want to do is sit on the couch and stare at the TV. I have six kids (including Ava) coming to daycare now and when the day is over I am physically and mentally spent! I can't believe how much it takes out of me! I know things will get better once I get a good routine down and once all the kids get used to each other. Right now everything is new for me and for them so we are all adjusting. But I think I'll be able to get back to normal in a few weeks. So because my week days are full of daycare my weekends have been really busy trying to get caught up with everything and of course trying to get a little relaxing in.

When I took Ava in for her 4 month Doctor visit she was 15lbs 12oz and 26" long! Both in the 95th percentile for her age. She grew three inches in the last two months! She is as healthy as ever! She is so much fun, she rolls over all the time, loves to hold anything, loves to blow spit bubbles and do raspberries with her tongue. She is on the verge of giggling, I just can't quite get it out of her yet, I know it will be any day though. I can't wait to here it!

Fort Bragg

2008-07-08T19:29:00.001-07:00

For the 4th of July weekend we went to Fort Bragg with my parents and the Nix family for the weekend. It was sooo nice to get away for a few days and enjoy the cool air on the coast! It was kinda weird to not be bbqing and swimming on the 4th, but it was still a lot of fun!
We enjoyed good food, good views, good fire works, good walks, and lots of relaxation! Here are a few pictures, I made a slide show of them so I wouldn't have to make such a long post of pictures, but I couldn't get it to work! So annoying! So, I had to settled for just a long line of pictures. Enjoy!

The family, the sun was in our eyes sooo bad. So we're all squinting.
This was on Glass Beach, BTW, Glass Beach doesn't have much glass anymore
Steven and Brad out on the rocks
This is on a walk we took by our camp site. dad, mom, Ann and Ava.
Cute pic of my mom, not so great of my dad.
The seals relaxing on the rocks
Uncle Blake and Ava

Our little family, out to eat.
All of us that went out to eat, except for Ava, she didn't make it in this picture.
Daddy and Ava
Brad and Alisa

Grandpa and Ava
I'm not sure what everyone is looking at here?
Our little Ava J

The fog coming in Blake and Steven on the bikes
Grandma, Ava and me. It was pretty cold and windy that day.
The three of us again.

Just a side note, Fort Bragg doesn't seem to enforce the illegal fire works law. There were people lighting off illegal fire works like crazy!! They were all on the beach though. So maybe that was why, I don't think they can do much damage when your doing them right on the ocean. So from where we were camping on the bluffs we had a great view of everyone on the beach lighting off their fire works! There were tons of them!! They lit them for probably two hours! Brad participated as well, but he didn't do his on the beach he did his right on the bluff! The whole crowd cheered because it was so close to everyone who was up there watching...which could have been a bad thing. Luckily it didn't hit anyone.

Tagged...

2008-06-28T16:34:00.000-07:00

What is his name? Steven Paul Astle
How long have you been together? Almost three years.
How long did you date? One month until we got engaged (fast I know), and then had a five month engagement.
How old is he? He is 25, younger then me by 10 months.
Who eats more? Him, but when I was pregnant, I think I did.
Who said I love you first? He did, it was really sweet.
Who is taller? He is. I'm only 5'2", it doesn't take much to be taller then me.
Who can sing better? Let's just say neither of us received much talent in the voice area.
Who is smarter? Steven is, he really is very smart.
Who does the laundry? I do the laundry. I really don't mind doing it. Plus I'm kinda picky about how it's done. But he will do a load now and then if I ask him too.
Who pays the bills? I do, probably my least favorite job because of the stress involved. But Steven really doesn't have the time.
Who sleeps on the right side? If your facing the bed Steven does.
Who mows the lawn? Steven does. I have mowed it once though.
Who cooks dinner? I do. But every once in a great while Steven will do it, always a nice surprise.
Who drives? Steven does, only because I don't like to drive if I don't have to.
Who is more stubborn? Oh Steven is for sure!
Who kissed who first? He kissed me.
Who proposed? Steven did of course. It was very romantic, maybe I'll tell that story sometime, I don't feel like typing it right now.
Who has more friends? I would say it's pretty equal, most of our friends our other couples we hang out with, so it's pretty even.
Who is more sensitive? I am for sure, but Steven knows how to be sensitive too.
Who has more siblings? Steven does by one.
Who wears the pants? I would say we both do equally.

I tag: Anyone who hasn't already done this one!

Brad Paisley!!!

2008-06-23T11:10:00.000-07:00

For my birthday my friend Lisa bought me a ticket to the Brad Paisley concert this past Saturday! It was sooo fun! I love Brad!! He puts on such a great show!! I saw him last year too, I can never get enough Brad Paisley! Anyway, we had a girls night out! It was Lisa & I and Lisa's daughter Carissa and her two friends Destiny and Vivianne. We went to dinner before and then headed out to the ampatheather!

Here we all are waiting for the show to start. We had lawn seats, it was such a nice night hanging out on a blanket watching a great show! For those of you who don't know...from left- Lisa, me, Vivianne, Carissa, & Destiny. The cute girls, they are all going to be Juniors in high school next year. They were a lot of fun to hangout with for the night.
Here is Brad! Since we had lawn seats, it was hard to take pictures of the stage, but I had to at least get one. This was when he was playing "Ticks"
I took a picture of the big screen, so you could see his face a little better.

It was so fun! Thanks Lisa for a great night!!
P.S. This was the longest I have left Ava for. My mom watched her for me and said she did great!

Random

2008-06-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

Here are a few other random pictures...I'm working on getting caught up on my posting my pictures on here if you can't tell :)

Ava and me, I think this was taken on Fathers Day if I remember correctly?
This was a picture Steven took with his camera phone one morning when he and Ava were laying in bed together. I think it shows how much she looks like him!
These next few pictures were taken on Fathers Day, all the dads napping at my parents house. Well I guess Blake isn't a dad yet. They were all napping at the same time, so I had to get some pictures.

Hanging out

2008-06-23T10:04:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures from the last few days....they got out of order when I was loading them. I don't know why I am having such a problem with that lately??

Steven and I took Ava swimming in our pool for the first time, she loved it!!
Just a cute picture of her. Here is our little swimmer, just hanging out in her little floaty thing.

This is how she feel asleep on her Great Grandma Empey's floor.

Sitting on uncle Blake's new bike, making my daddy very jealous and my mommy very nervous! (Grandpa Ron is holding her on there)

So there are a few of our summer happenings. We've just been hanging out trying to keep cool in the hot weather!

Tagged

2008-06-19T18:36:00.000-07:00

JOYS:
1. My family
2. Traveling
3. Feeling organized

FEARS:
1. Someone breaking into our house and taking Ava out of her crib at night. Which is one of the reasons why she is still sleeping in our room. I'll get there soon enough.
2. Losing any of my family members.
3. The dark. Yes, I am still afraid of the dark.

GOALS:
1. To be a good mother and wife. (yes I know that's two)
2. To get Steven through school
3. To lose the baby weight, plus a little more.

CURRENT OBSESSIONS:
1. Ava
2. The Twilight series
3. So You Think You Can Dance (I LOVE this show!)

RANDOM SURPRISING FACTS:
1. I love new jeans, I have more jeans then I need, I will admit it.
2. I love taking a shower, it's one of my favorite times of my day.
3. I don't know what I would do without spell check, I'm terrible at spelling.

I tag whoever wants to do this. You know you want to

Today and Friday

2008-06-08T16:37:00.000-07:00

Here are a bunch of pictures. Mostly from today at my parents house, but a few from when my Aunt Lynn, cousin Alysia and her daughter Braydee Lou were visiting from Idaho this past week. My parents had a BBQ at their house on Friday while they were here with my grandma and grandpa Empey. These pictures got way out of order when I was adding them, I don't know what I did?? So anyway, here they are...enjoy!

I'm still here!

2008-06-07T13:55:00.000-07:00

Just checking in letting everyone know our Internet has been down, we can't figure out what's wrong with it. Steven thinks he might have cut a wire when he was up in the attic a few weeks ago installing a whole house fan. So I'm not sure when it will be back up. I'm at my parents house right now, checking everyone's blogs.
Just a little Ava update, I took her in for her two month well baby check-up this past week. She is 13lbs 2oz and 23 3/4 inches long! Big girl! She's in the 99th percentile for her weight and 95th percentile for her height! She is doing so great and smiling all the time now! I'll get a picture up as soon as I can.
Also, for those of you who don't know, I am starting a daycare...I'll be doing daycare out of our home, so our life has been consumed with a new baby and getting our house ready for daycare! I am getting licensed and as well as having a preschool program for kids of that age. We just had our house inspected this morning and we passed! So a week from Monday I'll be up and running. I'm excited to start even though I think I might go a little crazy! lol. It will be good for us, we really need me to still have an income, but I didn't want to have to go back to working out of the home after having Ava, so here we are. I'll be doing this for probably the next 5 years or so until Steven finishes school. So wish me luck!!
Well, that is an update of what is going on in our life! Hopefully up Internet will be up and running soon so I can be back to blogging more regularly!

Ava's Blessing

2008-05-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

This past Sunday we had Ava blessed. It was such an amazing feeling to have Steven bless our daughter. I really can't explain it, but those of you who have already been through this experience probably know what I mean. The spirit was with me so strongly all day. It was such a great day!
Here are a just a few pictures we took of Ava, she is just so beautiful! I know some of these are kinda blurry, I don't know why I have such a hard time getting a clear picture, no one else seems to have this problem, I think I just have shaky hands or something.

The blanket was made by Ruth Wilder, a good friend of my family.

I love this picture of her and Steven! He didn't know I was taking this, I'm so glad I caught the moment! It shows how in love with her he is. Steven is an amazing father, I can't believe how well and how fast he transitioned into fatherhood. He has been so great since day one, I am so thankful for him and love him so much!!

New pictures of AJ

2008-04-27T15:59:00.000-07:00

So here are a bunch of new pictures of Ava. I know it's been a while, I've been meaning to get on here and put these up I just haven't sat down and done it. But my dad told me that Linda has requested more pictures asap, so here you go :)
Also, we had her two week well baby check up last week (she was actually three weeks old, her Dr. couldn't get her in any sooner). She is now 9.4 lbs and 21 inches! I can't believe how much bigger she is! And as of yesterday she is no longer in new born diapers. It's crazy how fast babies grow!

She is definitely her daddy's daughter!

I love this pic because it looks like she is annoyed with me that I put that big ol' hat on her.

This was this morning before church, her first time going.

My dad is a baby hog, he won't let anyone else hold her when he has her, it's pretty funny!

She is such a sweaty baby! I don't know if all babies sweat this much, but the poor girl is always sweaty. You can see her shinny sweaty face here.

Napping on grandpas lap.

Introducing....

2008-04-09T13:27:00.000-07:00

Ava Janae Astle

4/4/08

7lbs 8oz & 20.25"

8:37am

We are so happy to finally have her here!

Just getting ready to leave the hospital. Sorry for the bad picture of Steven.

She is a very happy content little girl, with big blue eyes and lots of dark hair that we think will probably fall out and grow back blond. So far, everyone is saying she looks a lot like Steven, she has most of his facial features.

She is a very loved little girl!

Birth Story...

For those of you who haven't heard, I'll give a little recap of the loooong labor/birth.

I went to the Dr. on the 31st to have my check up, one week over due. He decided to have me induced the next day. So Tuesday 4/1/08 we went to the hospital at 7:00am they put a little pill (I can't remember the name) on my cervix that is supposed to make it thin out and then cause me to start having contractions. When I got to the hospital I was only 2cm, 70% effaced. After a couple of hours the contractions started coming, not very strong, but slowly getting stronger and closer together. By mid afternoon, my contractions seemed to be progressing quite well, so we were pretty excited thinking that night we would have her here. But little Ava decided to pull and April fools joke on us. Around 4:30 everything started slowing down...eventually to almost nothing. So my Dr. decided at midnight to send me home to get some rest and eat some food. He told me to stay home all day Wednesday, hoping that I would go into labor and if not then to come back Thursday morning and they would induce me again. We decided to do this to try to avoid having to have a c section. So, nothing exciting happened all day Wednesday, just very light contractions about 30 min. apart. So on Thursday we were back at the hospital at 12:00pm. They checked me and I was 2.5 cm and 80% effaced. Not much progress at all. They put the pill on my cervix again, and again a couple of hours later the contractions started coming, but not very strong and still not very close together. And my body wasn't making much progress. So at 4:30 my Dr. broke my water and then shortly after that the contractions came on! I endured them for 2 hours (2 of the most painful hours of my life) They checked me after two hours of really good contractions and I was only 3 cm, 90% effaced! I thought I was gonna die! So I asked for the epidural, and then life was much better. I was in labor for 13 more hours!!! Thankfully not feeling the crazy contractions I was having. Finally after an hour of pushing and the Dr. having to help with the vacuum, she arrived at 8:37am!

It was a very long week! But so worth every minute of it!! And Steven has been so great through all of it! I couldn't have asked him to do anything better.

I think my dad has some better pictures on his camera, so as soon as he gets those to me, I'll post some more pictures.

4 days past due!

2008-03-27T13:44:00.000-07:00

So this picture was taken of me on Easter Sunday, my actual due date. It's still weird for me to see pics of myself, I can't believe how big my belly is!
It's now 4 days past my due date, and I'm just waiting...I want to be done so bad!!! I'm so tired all the time and I just want her here! So hopefully she will be here sooner then later. If nothing happens over the next few days I go to the Dr. again on Monday to see if any progress has happened. But I'm crossing my fingers that there will be no need for that appointment! :)

Still not here....

2008-03-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

Just a quick baby update...I am now two days past my due date! I went to the Dr. yesterday, he said I was just barely one cm dilated and my cervix was about 50% thinned. But, told me not to get excited because it's possible to stay that way for another few days to a week or more! I am soooo ready! He also told me that she is going to be a big baby, he is guessing around 8.5 to 9 lbs! I'm actually not freaking out about that too much, I don't know why but I kinda expected to have a big baby. So we'll see... I have a picture of my belly that we took on my due date, so I could document how big it is, but I don't have it loaded on my computer yet, I'll try to get it on here today sometime.
Hope all is well with everyone! After looking at all your blogs it looks like everyone had a great Easter!!

Two years ago today...

2008-03-17T10:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Two Year Anniversary!!

I can't believe it's been two years since we got married!! It's crazy how fast time flies and how much can happen in two years! I love him more then ever and can't wait to see what new and exciting changes the next year will bring!
Happy two years to us!

P.S. Happy St. Patty's day!

Baby Shower!!

2008-03-04T15:29:00.000-08:00

A couple of Saturdays ago, my mom and some of her friends threw me a baby shower! It was a lot of fun, with good food, and good friends!! I have a bunch of pictures from it, so I'll just go down the pictures and make comments on them to tell you a little about the shower. And for those of you who are my Kelly cousins and the wives of my Kelly cousins, yes this is at Grandpa Kelly's house. He has a lot more seating in his living room then my mom does, so she decided to have it over there...it worked out great and it was so nice of him to let us all take over his house for the morning!

This was the little sign in table. My moms friend made those sheets for everyone to sign and write a little note on, they fit perfectly in the scrap book she started for me. And then there were also some things pick-up for some of the games that we played.

It was a brunch, so we had some really yummy egg casseroles, fruit pizza and my Grandma Empey's homemade cinnamon rolls. It was all sooooo good!!

A couple of pictures of some of the people who were there.

The gift table.

Some pictures of me opening gifts. Sorry, I'm not really looking at the camera in any of them. And some of them are a little dark. (and I really should have taken my jacket off, it makes me look so wide in all the pics, oh well) :)

I'm telling you this little girl is going to be so well dressed!! I love baby girl clothes!!

All the gifts sitting on the floor in the baby's room. I can't believe how generous everyone was!! We were given some really nice gifts and almost everything we needed for the baby. We hardly have anything left for us to go buy! Thank you!!

My friend Carrie made this really cool diaper cake! Those are all diapers for us to use! Such a pretty way to give a gift of diapers! I don't want to take it apart!

I just had to take a picture of the crib set, I love it!! Isn't it so cute?! We are decorating the room in frogs and lady bugs, so far it's turning out really cute! I'm going to take pictures of it when it's all done.

I'm going to have to do a quilt/blanket show and tell blog, we've had so many hand made quilts/blankets given to us! I feel like they deserve a blog of their own, ha! And just another side note, I was soooo sick on the day of my shower! That was the only bummer, but thankfully there is no close-up pictures of me, I had big ol' circles under my eyes! I went home afterwards and crashed out for awhile!

24 years!!

2008-02-28T12:04:00.000-08:00

HAPPY 24th BIRTHDAY BLAKE!!

Well, his birthday was actually yesterday, the 27th, but I didn't get a chance to do this post yesterday. So here it is a day late. We went out to eat, at you guessed it, Casa Loupe! Here are a few pictures from dinner. Sorry, the pictures are not so great, I am a horrible photographer!

Gotta love the "chewing" pictures. :)
He has that "just hurry up and take it" look.
They came and sang to him and brought him, his free birthday dessert.

So, here goes my list of 24 things about Blake!

1. He is very trustworthy.

2. He has waay too many "toys"

3. He can be very shy

4. But when you get to know him, he is actually very funny.

5. He is a very hard worker.

6. He loves to fish, but doesn't always have the best luck at it. :)

7. He is very smart.

8. He can be quite annoying when he wants to be.

9. He is my moms "Bwakie Wakie"

10.He'll always talk on the phone with me when Steven has to work late and I get spooked at home.

11.But then he'll tease me about it later.

12. He loves to tease!

13. He is going to be a great uncle.

14. He can sleep just about anywhere.

15. The boy has some major eyebrows!

16. He is always willing to help.
17. He has a strong testimony.

18. He is my dads sidekick

19. He is a night owl.

20. He is the only one of us that ended up with curly hair.

21. He loves going riding, even though he doesn't race much anymore.

22. He's always got some kind of project going with my dad.

23. He is a great brother.

24. We love him a lot!

Hope your day was great Blake!!

He's legal???

2008-02-20T18:41:00.000-08:00

HAPPY 18TH BIRTHDAY DEVAN!!

Today is Devan's 18th birthday, this post is dedicated to him in honor of his birthday. We celebrated it last Saturday with pizza and garlic twists from Round Table (his fav.) and deviled eggs. Yes, I know wierd combination, but he has been on a huge deviled egg kick lately! Below are a couple of pictures of the night. I know there is only three, but I managed to take not-so-great pictures of everyone, so to spare them embarrasment I'm not going to put them up. The first two pics are of Devan obviously. The last one is a cute one I got of Nana and Cassandra.

To continue on with my tradition of listing random facts/things about the birthday guy/girl here are 18 random things about Devan in honor of his 18th birthday!

1. He is very witty

2. He has good style.

3. He is fun to play bored games with.

4. He is very smart.

5. He plays the roll of pain-in-the-butt brother very well ;) Just ask Em.

6. He is a hard worker when he wants to be.

7. He always has a really good tan. (yes it's natural, thanks to their mom)

8. He makes me laugh.

9. He has a really good ear for music.

10. He always smells good.

11. He made me feel welcome in the family right from the start.

12. He has two great older brothers who are great examples for him.

13. When him and his brothers goof off together, it's always hilarious.

14. He thinks he is just oh so cool, we don't bother to tell him otherwise ;)

15. He is going to be something great someday.

16. We're always protected from our land scaping when he is around, lol.

17. He has seriously great hair!

18. We love him a lot!

Happy birthday Dev, hope you have a great day!

V-Day & weekend fun!

2008-02-20T16:28:00.001-08:00

I know I'm a little late getting a post on here about Valentines and our weekend. But I honestly have been soooo busy, I really haven't had a chance to sit and type. And of course I forgot to take one single picture of all of the events over the past few days! Sometimes I wonder why I even bother carrying my camera around.
Anyway, it started of with Valentines day. My hubby gave me some beautiful flowers, a sweet card and some really pretty smelling candles. (I love having lit candles around the house) We then had our friends Jason and Rosalie over for some games for a while to kill time until our dinner reservations. After some games we went the the Hibacci(sp) Steak House, we met up with another couple Art & Shiree there. It was a really fun dinner! It is one of those places where they cook your dinner in front of you, our cook put on quite a show for us!! So we all had some really good food and Steven and I also ordered some sushi, they have a great sushi bar there. I haven't had sushi since I've been prego, it was sooooo good!!! So, dinner was great, with some great company, although a little more exspensive then we would normally spend, it was woth it to celebrate Valentines Day with each other and our friends. We gotta spoil ourselves sometiems right?
On Friday night our ward had a Mystery Dinner Party. It was really cool! Even though it was a church event, they had it at a beautiful big house about 15 min. south of Yuba City, pretty much in the middle of no where. We all were givin a person we had to be for the night. It was set during WWII time period, so everyone was dressed so cool, depending on who they were and where they were from. They sent out formal inviations a few weeks ago inviting us to join the Contessa such and such (can't remember the rest of her name?) to a Resistance gathering at her home. While we were there we learned that there was a spy among us who was against the Resistance. So we had to go around and talk to everyone to try to figure out who it was. We were given some clues to get us going. Oh, let me back up again, also a few weeks ago we were given the information on who we were to be for the night. There was quite a bit written about each person, so we could learn about who we were to be so we could act accordingly. I was Ursual Braun a german midwife, currently living in Frankfurt. My husband and I ran a clinic there. Steven was Tomas Farkas a Hungarian gunsmith currently residing in Germany. He was also quite wealthy. It was a fun night, everything was fancy and done so well!! The people who put this on put a lot of time into it!! I am so mad I didn't take on single picture!!
Lastly on Saturday night we celebrated Devan's (Steven's younger brother) 18th birthday! I did actually get pictures from dinner and stuff. But I'll put those up later when I do his birthday post. It was fun hanging out with the family as always! I'll get to more about this later though.
So, all in all it was a really fun weekend! I do have a new belly picture to put on here, but I'll have to do it later because I don't have it loaded on my computer yet. Sorry if this is really bad grammar, I don't have time to proof read it right now, I just want to get it posted!!

Long time no talk...

2008-01-28T11:55:00.000-08:00

Wow, so I have been a really bad blogger! It's been over a month since I have posted anything! I figured I better get on here and give everyone a little update....

Mostly we have been getting ready for the baby. I am 32 weeks pregnant, only 8 more to go! I am so excited and so nervous at the same time! We are working on getting the baby room done, which seems to be going a lot slower then I'd like it to, but it will get there. Once we've made some progress I'll post some pictures. Oh, and for those of you who don't know we are having a girl, I don't think I ever posted anything after we had our ultrasound done. As far as names go, hopefully we'll agree on something at least by the time she is born! haha.

We're also trying to get the hall bathroom finished before the baby gets here. It has been completely gutted for quite some time now, but poor Steven works so much that he hardly has anytime to work on it. He is determined to get it done. He's made quite a bit of progress this past month and plans on working on it quite a bit this week. It's getting so close! I'll also post the pics of the entire progress once we get it finished. I'm so excited, it's going to look so nice!!

Really not much else exciting is going on. Just the normal day to day things. I hate that I don't have one single picture to put up with this post, especially since I got a new camera for Christmas. Boo on me for not using it more! We've got some other exciting changes coming up, but can't quite post about those yet, so stay tuned.

Hope all is well with everyone, and I'll try to be a better blogger. Oh, I'm also going to have Steven take a belly shot of me so I can show you all how huge my belly is!

Happy Birthday Mom!

2007-12-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

Wednesday was my moms birthday! Anyone who knows my mom knows that she really doesn't like going anywhere during week nights so we ordered in Mexican food and had dinner at their house. My dad made her a cake, decorated it and everything!
Sorry about the picture, I guess I was a little close to her, or I should have had the flash off. But it's still a cute pic of her!

So now in honor of my moms 46th b-day, here are 46 things about her.
1. She is one of my best friends.
2. She loves to shop.
3. She is my favorite shopping partner.
4. Some of my favorite memories are of going shopping with her and my grandma.
3. She always laughs out loud when watching sitcoms(sp) on TV
4. She loves chocolate and other homemade baked goods more then anyone I know.
5. Well, her mom and her sisters may be tied with her in that area. maybe.
6. She bakes really well.
7. She loves going on trips in the motor home.
8. Especially to the Oregon Coast.
9. She is very gullible!
10. She is fun to tease.
11. She is addicted to reality TV
12. She loves to lay on her bed and watch TV
13. We talk on the phone at least once a day every day.
14. She talks to her mom on the phone at least once a day every day.
15. She loves to be with her family.
16. She is going to be an awesome grandma!
17. She loves to sing loudly in her car.
18. She starts listening to Christmas music in October.
19. She loves Christmas time.
20. She loves food!
21. She is very caring.
22. She always made my friends feel very welcome at our home.
23. Everyone loves my mom.
24. She spoils us kids. But we love it :)
25. Her and my dad are a perfect match for each other.
26. She loves her doggies.
27. Sometimes we think shes going a little crazy ;)
28. She loves the gospel.
29. She is becoming quite addicted to Guitar Hero
30. It's obvious to see how much she loves us.
31. Shes a great cook.
32. She loves to sit out in the backyard by the pond.
33. She is the only other person in the family who gets teased just as much as me.
34. I catch myself doing things just like her more and more.
35. I don't mind it at all, though I do hope I get a few of my dads qualities.
36. I hope I'm as good a mom as she is.
37. She has good style.
38. I don't know what shes going to do when my brothers move out of their house.
39. She loves to go on vacation with our family
40. She is an all around fun mom.
41. She is the biggest pack rat I know!
42. She says she is trying to be better about getting rid of things.
43. She is very dependable.
44. She is not a slow driver and does not like to get behind other slow drivers.
45. She is fun to laugh with.
46. She is the best mom ever!

Happy Birthday Dad!

2007-12-14T14:17:00.000-08:00

I know I'm a little late getting to this post....Last Saturday was my dads birthday. We all went out to dinner at his favorite Chinese Buffet place that our family calls China Dinah....I don't even know what the actual name of the restaurant is?? It's one of my dads favs though. After dinner we went back to my parents house and played some Guitar Hero, my mom is becoming very addicted!! Here are a few pictures from the night.

She's gonna hate me for posting this! :)

So in honor of my dads 46th b-day, here are 46 random things about him...

1. He loves to play jokes/tricks on people

2. He has no fashion sense at all.

3. He loves to go fishing with my brothers and my grandpa and whoever else will go.

4. He can fix anything (at least that's what it seems like to me)

5. He is easy to talk to.

6. He is a big softy, though he likes to act like he's tough.

7. He has good taste in music.

8. He has a good judge of character.

9. He loves to be with his family.

10. He can't wait to be a grandpa.

11. He loves to work on "projects" with my brothers.

12. These "projects" usually involve a motor in some way.

13. He is a great motorcycle mechanic.

14. He loves to be at the races.

15. He loves taking trips in the motor home.

16. Especially to the Oregon Coast.

17. He loves seafood.

18. He has always been able to make me laugh when I'm mad or sad.

19. He loves to tease.

20. He loves to "hook us"

21. He is more of a romantic then my mom is.

22. My boyfriends were always scared of him...and I never understood why?

23. He always has a new toy of some kind.

24. He loves American Idol and Survivor

25. He is very smart.

26. He thinks he is hilarious.

27. He loves the gospel

28. He loves hanging out with my brothers.

29. He is good at playing sports.

30. But he won't admit that hes not as good as he used to be.

31. It's easy to tell how much he loves my mom.

32. It's easy to tell how much he loves his kids.

33. He hates losing at anything.

34. He gets extremely car sick if he's not the one driving.

35. I have never been in the same car as him where he is not the driver.

36. He is very even tempered.

37. He thinks he can dance...but I'm not so sure I agree. :)

38. He loves to sleep in.

39. He never judges other people.

40. He loves to play golf.

41. He is really loud when he talks on the phone.

42. He can still beat my brothers in arm wrestling.

43. He loves to eat snack foods.

44. He loves to take naps.

45. He gives really good advice.

46. He is the best dad ever!

Elfs

2007-11-28T10:37:00.000-08:00

I saw this on Julia's blog and I had to do it!! I thought it was so funny! Check us out!

http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9623876845

Edit

2007-11-26T11:39:00.000-08:00

This is for you Carole! I don't know how to go back and edit in a picture I forgot in my last post, so I'm just going to do a new one for this picture! I know Stevens aunt Carole checks out the blog and in my Thaksgiving post I some how forgot to put in this picture with Nana and Grandpa Jerry! I know she would like to see them, so here you go Carole! :)

Nana, Grandpa Jerry, cousin Erich, dad-in-law Lynn, and Steven all hanging out before the feasting!
Okay, that's it for the Thanksgiving weekend! :)

So very blessed....

2007-11-26T10:09:00.000-08:00

I have lots to update from our Thanksgiving weekend! We've had a lot of fun the past few days...so here is a little recap.
We had Thanksgiving dinner with Steven's side of the family, so we went over to my parents house to visit with them for a while in the morning before we headed over to Stevens aunt Robins house for our Thanksgiving feast. (Love the fact that both our parents live in the same town as us so we can see both families for the holidays!

This is a picture of my cute mom with Turbo...just hanging out at their house that morning, watching the Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Steven checking out the adds for all the Black Friday sales. He was doing his very best to not watch the Parade on TV, hes not much of a parade kind of guy :) I didn't get any pictures of my dad and brothers while we were there, they had been out fishing most of the morning...by the time they got back I forgot to get a few shots of them.

Charlee taking a nap on my parents floor, with his toy close by of course!

Here is a new "baby bump" shot of my growing belly. I think its funny how big my butt looks in this shot, I think it was a mixture of how I have my hands and the shirt I was wearing...or maybe its just my butt getting bigger? I'll go with the first thought ;)

One of Steven and I together, as you can see Steven was really into having his picture taken, lol!

We had to borrow my brothers truck that day for some tools and things Steven was getting. We forgot about the fact that Charlee can't fit into the cab with us so we had to use motorcycle tie downs to tie him up in the bed of it, he wasn't very thrilled, but Steven and I got a good laugh about it. And it got him home safely.

We are now over at Stevens aunt Robins house, this is my mom-in-law cutting the turkey, my mouth was pretty much watering at this point! We had soooo much good food!!

The tables that cousin Emma decorated so nicely...they were very festive. And that is Skylars face in the corner of the pic.

The other table...unfortunately I didn't get any shots of us gathered around the tabling eating all the good food! I'm still working on my picture taking skills ;)

My brother-in-law Devan some how climbed up to this built in wall shelf thing, so had to get a shot of him being goofy!

My sis-in-law Cassandra helping with the after dinner clean-up...always a fun time.

Robin, Emma Mae, Emma-Leigh, Devan (looking oh so happy), Thomas and Steven hanging out after dinner.

Another after dinner hangout picture, everyone resting after filling their belly's! It was a really good day with lots of good food and good company. I have so much to be Thankful for in my life, I am a very blessed girl!

My mom and I at the beginning of our traditional Black Friday shopping!! We didn't start till about 8am, so we weren't too crazy this year. We started out here in town got some good deals at Target and then headed down to Roseville to do our traditional meet up with my aunt Joanne and my cousins for lunch and some shopping at the Galleria!

Here is a group shot of all of us at the food court having lunch. It's always so fun to see all the girls since we don't get to very often.

We got a lot of shopping done that day, found some good deals and had a lot of fun! I got a really good start on my Christmas shopping and don't have much left to buy! yay!

Saturday we got the tree up and all the Christmas decorations!! I love this time of year and the warm feeling I get with all the lights everywhere! I am feeling the Christmas spirit! I know this is a very blurry shot, I am a horrible photographer and our camera isn't the greatest, but I wanted the flash off so you could see all the lights on the tree.

So here is another shot with the flash on so you can actually see the tree and the decorations around the piano. I'm still working on my decorating skills but I think it turned out pretty good.

Gotta get one of Charlee with his new sweater on, he has such short hair he gets so cold in the winter! He loves wearing his sweater!

These are my newest additions to my decorations, they are so simple, but I love them! I love how the light illuminates through the glass, so pretty!

Yes, another bad photographer shot, I was trying to get me in there by the tree so you could see how excited I am, but it's dark, oh well! haha, you can all use your imaginations.

The Game Of Life! Our newest game addiction, we played this several times over the weekend, don't know what it is, but we love this game!

Another shot of Charlee with is his new toys...let me tell you this dog gives us all kinds of entertainment!

Steven was trying to teach him to catch his toy in the air, as you can see he has some practicing to do. He is up high and his toy is already half-way down his back, lol! He did finally get it a few times though.

One last shot at the end of the day of my two boys. We had a really good Saturday, Steven got a lot of much needed yard and garage work done while I got the house cleaned and the decorations out. That night we did a few errands together had some dinner and then hung out with Stevens brother Thomas and his wife Cassandra for a while. All in all it was a great weekend!

We have lots going on over the next month, I'm gonna do my best to have my camera with me so I can keep you all updated with all the happenings! So check back often and happy holidays!!

I've been tagged...

2007-10-31T11:21:00.000-07:00

So now that I have been tagged I guess I'm supposed to write 6 facts about myself. Here we go...

1. I love playing games with our families. I could seriously play for hours! But I have a very hard time doing the "every man for himself" while playing. And everyone knows this about me, so I'm always the one being guilted into helping someone else out. If ever do a move/play (depends on the game) that causes someone else to fall back I instantly feel bad! I just can't be mean! lol.

2. I love a clean house! But I hate the process of making it that way. There is nothing better then coming home from work or waking up in the morning and having the house "perfect." I usually spend the first few hours of my Saturday mornings cleaning the entire house, I always feel so satisfied after! Even though I know it's only a matter of time before it's starts to get messy. But, the good thing about not having kids yet is that the house will usually stay clean for most of the week. We all know this is soon to change though. :)

3. I can't go to bed at night without having the bed all neat and tucked in. I don't always get to make it in the morning because either Steven is still in it when I leave or I run out of time, but no matter what I have to have it all straightened out again before I can go to bed. I seriously get sleep anxiety if the bed's not fixed before I get in it. Steven thinks I'm crazy or maybe a little OCD about it. Oh, and I hate it when Steven is in bed before me, I like to be the first one in, don't ask me why, cause I have no idea?

4. After about 8:00pm my mind shuts off. If there are any projects to be done or anything that involves too much thinking I can't do it at night. I am not a night person. If Steven and I start talking about, lets say our finances after 8pm I can't do it, I just get really frustrated. Any hard thinking my day might require has to happen earlier in the day. But that doesn't mean I can't get into a good board game after 8, go figure?

5. When I'm getting ready for work in the morning I do everything in the exact same order everyday. If I do something out of order I'll forget something. I don't know why I'm like this, but I've been this way since high school. My hair stuff and make-up even the stuff I use in the shower gets put back in the same spot when I'm done using it everyday. That doesn't mean my bathroom counter is perfectly clean when I leave in the morning, it just means I set my hair straightener down in the same spot on the counter everyday and such. After writing this out I'm starting to think I'm a little weird...I have never thought of myself as having OCD tendencies, but I think I have a few. hmm...

6. Lets see one last fact, I love to crack up laughing, the kind of laughing that hurts your stomach and makes you cry. It's seriously one of the best feelings ever. I have certain people that when I'm with them this almost always happens, I love it!

Okay that's it, there are my 6 random facts. I'm going to tag everyone listed on my blog, I don't have very many of them yet, so all of you can do it! :)

It was a great day...

2007-10-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Time Out for Women and Girls was really great! There was awesome speakers and amazing music! The day just went by way too fast! I really hope they come again, I would go every chance I could! We left very early that morning to get a good spot in line so we could get a good seat, and what do you know, we were first in line! We had about an hour before they opened the doors so lucky for us Cassandra had Uno cards in her never-ending-bag-of-supplies! So we of course had to get a shot of us sitting there playing while we waited.

I didn't do very well with taking pictures but I did manage to remember to take my camera out once during the conference, so even though this shot makes me look huge it is the only one I have to show of us actually in the conference. This was during one of the 20 min. breaks, you can see the line of people behind us waiting to get autographs of the speakers and musical artists they had there. I didn't do the whole autograph thing, I'm not really into that, but I did get to give Hilary Weeks a hug! She is one of my all time favorites, so that was cool! Oh, we also had perfect seats! We were center stage third row back, and the only reason we were in the third row was because the first two were reserved for Time Out people. It was really cool!

Afterwards we went out to ice cream, and we had to take a picture because they were huge! But very yummy! All in all it was a great day, we had a lot of fun together!

That's all for now....

Time Out...

2007-10-19T10:06:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow I'm going to Time Out for Women and Girls with my mother-in-law and my two sister-in-laws. It should be a really fun day! We went last year and I loved it! If any of you women out there have never been to a Time Out for Women you should try to go, it's really great! I'm going to try to remember to take my camera with me tomorrow so I can get some pictures, but I make no promises ;) Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Excited!

2007-10-13T18:09:00.000-07:00

I'm so happy to have found so many of my cousins with blogs! I had been wanting to start a blog for a long time now, but didn't know anyone else who had one, so I'm glad I finally just did it. I knew there had to be other bloggers out there that I wanted to keep in better touch with. :) Now I just need to get my friends going...
Looking forward to staying in better touch with everyone!

The past two years....

2007-10-12T09:57:00.000-07:00

It's crazy to me that we have been married for a year and a half now! So for those of you who we don't get to see very often, here are a few shots of the past couple of years and our family of two. I have loved this time with just Steven and I, and I am sure I'll have times when I'll miss it, but I am soooo looking forward to our family of three!
This was one of our engagement pictures taken almost exactly two years ago! (I just realized the date is still on the picture, oh well.)

Another engagement picture. Wasn't that orchard soooo beautiful! There is no color editing in this picture. Oh, and I have to add, our engagement pictures were taken by our lovely friend Ashley!

Our wedding day! It's still crazy to me that we have been married for 1.5 years! It really doesn't feel like this day was that long ago. This was taken on the top of the Oakland Temple, it was such a clear day you could see all the way to San Fran. behind us, that doesn't happen very often!

This is one from the reception with my girls. You can't tell from this picture, but the gym was decorated so beautiful! It was especially pretty when the main lights were off, so the only lighting was the white christmas lights and the lamp posts we had around the room.

This is one from our honeymoon, if I remember correctly this was the day after we got married when we were still in LA, I believe this was taken on Venice Beach.

Another honeymoon picture, we rented this little peddling cart thing to ride around the island with. It was a lot of fun, but our legs got a little tired at times when we were trying to go up some of the hills.

This was taken about 2 months after we got married. We were at the Oakland Temple, Steven was in one of his old missionary companions wedding.

This one is us at the beach in Oregon. We went in July of 2007 with my family on their annual trip to the Oregon coast. I believe this was at sunrise. This trip is always tons of fun!

And then finally, this was our 2007 Christmas card picture. Our first Christmas as a married couple, about a month after we moved into our house and about 2 weeks after we got Charlee. We had a lot going on at this time last year! I still can't believe this was taken almost a year ago!

So that's it, hopefully I didn't bore you with all of the pictures of just Steven and me. But it was fun for me to look back on the last couple of years and see how much has happened in such a short time!

p.s. if you click on the pictures you can see them in a larger view.

Baby bump

2007-10-12T09:39:00.000-07:00

I have had a few requests for e-mailed pictures of my growing bump, so I decided to post the picture on here in hopes that it will get those people checking out my blog! My real hope is the more my family/friends check out my blog it will get them to want to start one of there own! hint hint... ;)

Anyway, so here I am, at the end of my 16th week. Sometimes when I look at myself I think I look "normal" for this stage of pregnancy, and then other times I feel like my belly looks bigger then it should be, and that scares me, as I'm still not quite half way yet. I want to keep my weight gain in the healthy range...guess I better not go over bored on my eating and make sure I get my evening walks in!

Slow start....

2007-10-11T14:03:00.000-07:00

I realize that it's been about two weeks since I last posted, and in my last post I had said that I was going to post everyday or close to it. Obviously I haven't started out too well. But, my reasoning was because I really wanted to have some pictures to post the next time I wrote and I have been horrible out trying to take pictures! So I figured at least some of an update with our without pictures is better then none at all!
So, lets see, what's been going on? Mostly just enjoying the fall! I am loving this time of year when its not hot, but not freezing cold and a few rainy days thrown in every once in a while. But I know winter is going to be here before we know it.
This last Tueday for YW we went to the Pumpkin Farm, it had been a couple of years since I had been there, and going just made me that much more excited for this baby to come! I can't wait till Steven and I can take our kids there, I loved going there when I was a kid! So I have decided that we are going to carve pumpkins this year, which may seem kinda silly since we don't have kids yet, but I really want to and I want to have them to put on our front porch! :)
As far as baby news goes, I am 16 weeks and at this piont my due date is March 28th. We have the ultrasound scheduled for Oct. 29th, Im so excited! I can't wait to actually see the baby and find out whether or not we should be calling it a "he" or a "she"! I feel like my belly has grown a bunch lately, and I have to admit, I'm not feeling like the "cute" pregnant girl I was hoping to feel like, I just feel rather large. My dr. did say at my last appt. that I need to watch my weight, oops! :)
Well I can't think of anything more to write about at the moment, I don't even know if I have any readers yet, which makes me feel kinda funny, like I'm just telling all of this to "internet land" but hopefully I'll get some comments on here soon!

Happy Hump Day!

2007-09-26T13:36:00.000-07:00

I am going to try to post everyday, or at least close to it. I want to also use this blog as a type of journal as to what our everyday life is like, so I can look back on it and remember the little things.
Today there is nothing too special going on, just work as usual. But, it is Wednesday, so that means Americas Next Top Model! I don't know why I love that show so much! But before that is dinner...if I could only think of what to make for dinner??

P.S. Not all my posts will be this boring...I'm just getting into the swing of things with this blogging business. And I really need to get used to taking my camera with me everywhere--that way I'll have pictures to post with most of my blogs.

New Beginings

2007-09-25T10:38:00.000-07:00

I'm working on getting this blog going. I've been wanting to start it for some time now, for friends and family to see what's going on in our lives. And hopefully to get some of YOU guys starting your own blogs, I would love to know what's going on with all of you! But until then enjoy and leave me some comments!