8 Months old and wiggly!

This is the first time she hasn't held pretty still for her photos...she was all over the place! I managed to get these (below) from the 30 I took and they really show her personality, and that is all I really wanted from her. It was kind of funny that I had to use my sports mode to get any good picts...she was such a crack-up that day. I love that she makes me smile! If only she would quite drooling/puking long enough to get a photo with a clean and dry outfit on! LOL

7 months old...I know, I know, I'm late again

They aren't very good pictures, but she is getting very wiggly these days and it's getting harder to get her to sit still. I also need to work on finding a better lighting solution. Nonetheless, she is still super adorable, atleast in my opinion.






She turned 7 months old while on our vacation, though these photos weren't taken until a week later. She loves to look at her new Yellowstone shirt whenever she is wearing it, it is pretty funny to see her pull it out and stare at it. Hopefully I will be on the ball and get her 8 month photos up in just 9 short days...I can always dream. LOL

Summer vacation comes to an end...

I'm a little sad to see it end, all the while being thrilled too, yes I'm nutty. Even with all the financial stress, it has still been a good summer. I didnt' get everything done on my to do list, but we did a lot and manged to have fun too. My new background is just one of our pictures from Yellowstone Park. I have always loved looking at/taking pictures of clouds and my hubby thought I might like this one, he was right.

As for the last month or so, things have been busy around here. We have been cleaning out drawers and rooms and packing for our trip, then on the trip, then unpacking and recouperating.

Packing our camper trailer and ourselves for our trip took a week. We headed to Idaho Falls for a 50th Wedding anniversary party, then my hubby's family reunion in Swan Valley for a couple of days and then from there we were off to Yellowstone Park with my sis-in-law and one of our neices for another couple of days. We camped at Madison Campground, near the west entrance to Yellowstone. It was nicer than I expected and only lacked showers. We got in kind of late, so we set up camp, had sandwhiches for dinner and headed to bed. The next morning we hurried through breakfast, secured out campsite and then started exploring the park. Our first picture spot was just along the road on the Firehole River, between Madison and the Fountain Paint Pots. I LOVE this funky tree!

Our next stop was the Fountain Paint Pots. These are my favorite picts I took there.

After that little hike we climbed back in our truck and headed to Old Faithful. The only other two times I have seen Old Faithful were in August 1992 (when my oldest son was only 2 weeks old) and August 1995 (while on an insane motorcycle day trip). It was nice to bring all of my kids to see it. Here are some of our picts. We ate in the Yellowstone Lodge Cafeteria, pricey but not too pricey, 7 to 10 bucks per person. Then we let each of the kids spend $20 in the gift shop.

Our next stop was Yellowstone Lake along the West Thumb portion. We just had to stop, it was so beautiful there. I stayed in the truck while my hubby took these. He did a pretty good job.

Next we drove to Hayden Valley along the Yellowstone River. My hubby took control of the camera there too and got some nice shots. (I was in the truck with a sleeping baby.)

We saw a few Buffalo just before Hayden Valley, in Hayden Valley and on the way to Canyon Village. We thought for sure we would see more, but not many were out and about.

At Artist Point, one of the lookouts spots for Lower Falls, took some great shots. I LOVE waterfalls and I plan to blow some of these up for framing on my walls. The canyon it is in is pretty cool too, though I got a little woozy looking down into it.

Then we headed to Upper Falls View and got to see a couple more animals, up close and personal...they walked not 5 feet in front of us. The falls pictures are great too.

By this time, it had been sprinkling off and on for a while and right after we left the falls it started to pour off and on. It took us another hour or two to get back to camp and everything was too soaked (including our firewood) to deal with making dinner so we headed into West Yellowstone and found a little diner, it was good, but not cheap. I'm sure anywhere we went would have been the same, and at that point we were too tired and hungry to care. After we headed back to camp and went to bed...it poured most of the night, I should know...it leaked through the camper's roof onto me! The next morning we secured all the wettest stuff into the back of the truck and loaded all the drier stuff into my sis-in-law's car and the camper trailer.

Dead tired and dying to take a shower we headed back to my other sis-in-law's house. Luckily she has a good hot water heater, we used a lot of hot water that afternoon. Then we cooked dinner for everyone, we made what we were going to make while camping, chicken cordon bleu. It was yummy! We all got a good night's rest and headed home last Saturday. I didn't get any pictures, but we did stop in Twin Falls to go on the tour of the LDS Temple there. It is beautiful and I highly recommend it to anyone.

I was very grateful to get home and it has taken all this last week to get things unpacked and sort of back to normal. I still have a bit of laundry, but that never ends anyway. The kids are ready for school, atleast as far as I know of, and I'm just hoping to enjoy my kids this last week before school starts.

Now if I can just find a job... ;)

Cutest giggles...

I don't know how well you will be able to hear this...but I had to try.

Happy Independence Day everyone!

I'm so thankful I live in this great country. I hope all of you are having as great of a day as I am. I got up about 8am and rushed to my friend's house to color her hair and it turned out fabulous if I do say so myself. Then after a much needed chat with her, I got back home to leftover ribs for lunch. They were the yummy ones my hubby makes.

We had 3 other couples over for dinner last night and were lucky to have any ribs left...they were just too yummy. Luckily everyone else's food was just as delicious and we filled up on everything.

During lunch I got to chat with another friend. I have felt very loved today by friends and family. Nothing big just little things they said or did.

Then I did something I would never usually try. I made something kind of gourmet for dinner. A few weeks ago we had a great coupon for Murphy's Seafood & Steakhouse on Broadway (in Boise, Idaho), so we ate out for a date. It was pretty yummy but very pricey. I had a Steak Oscar dish and my hubby had Prime Rib. While I was eating I kept thinking..."I wonder if I could make this?"...well I came home and did some online research and I made it for dinner tonight.

YES...I really did make this! 6 of them cost me less than just one at the restaurant and it was so easy! Now convincing the kids to try it was another story.

I first only made up two of them and then my hubby cut each child a piece to try and if they liked it, they got one of their own and if not, they got a sandwich. They all liked it! If you don't know what Steak Oscar is then I best explain it.

On the top you have barely boiled asparagus (about 5 minutes), crab meat sprinkled sparingly (ours was the cheap kind, lol), Bearnaise sauce (easy mix packet at the store), grilled steak (your favorite cut, just not too big of a piece), all on a bed of garlic mashed potatoes (mine were instant, easy)... so yummy!

I CHALLENGE ALL OF YOU TO TRY MAKING SOMETHING NEW (OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE, COMPLETELY DIFFERENT FROM ANYTHING YOU WOULD NORMALLY MAKE) THIS MONTH FOR DINNER and then share how it went. Good Luck!

6 Months Old Today...Captivating!

Love this smile!
Just chillin' out.

Such a serious look...it always makes me wonder what she is thinking about.
We can't help it, we get lost in her eyes everytime we look into them. She has stolen our hearts with her smiles and cooing. We love her so much. I can't imagine life without her in it.

5 Months Old

I'm way behind in things around here, so I'm going to play catch up a bit for a few days. Here is Little Princess looking way too cute as always. I found this outfit on clearance at Target and just couldn't resist, though i never thought she woud be wearing it so soon. It is a 12 month size and I hope it fits for a while, 'cause I love it.

ICE ICE Baby!

The "ICE (Inspiration Celebration Experience) a Scrapbooker’s Escape" was a great time! My main goal was just to get tons done, but I got even better than that out of it.

Friday
7am-Up and getting everyone out the door
8:30-Dealing with baby and making my list of what needs to get packed
10:30-sent dog off with hubby to vet to see what is wrong
12:00pm-ate lunch with hubby and scrambled to get packed while baby sleeps for a few
2:40-picked up dd at Jr. High
3:40-boys are home and my ride to escape is here
4:00-got to hotel and unpacked in room and crop space
started scrapbooking!!!
5:20-went to Olive Garden for dinner


Saturday
4 to 6am-got super silly with my cohort Bob, did crazy LO and left fun notes all over the room
8:15am-haven't gone to bed yet, ate yummy provided breakfast
9:00-headed to other room to hear Melody Ross (Chatterbox) speak, got totally inspired, won some of the newest, not released yet product from her
10:00-headed back to scrappin', and shopping the vendors (great stuff, made my list of what I wanted and bought it later in the day after I narrowed my list to the "can't live with outs")
11:00 ish-showered off my no sleep stink
noon ish-Lunch from Taco Bell, then back to scrapping and shopping
6:00pm-Dinner at Joe's Crab Shack
7:30-the rowdy scrappers got the party going...still scrapping (totally in the journaling zone and everyone kept thinking I was getting sleepy...NOT!), still haven't slept...in fact wide awake!

Sunday
12:39am-got to a good stopping point in my scrapping and decided I should try to sleep, even though I was totally wide awake
1:00am or so- I have been awake 42 straight hours, time to try and sleep, boy did I zonk!
8:50am-We all get up, didn't plan to sleep that late, oh well. Packed up stuff in hotel room.
9:10am-bought hot chocolate to have with the banana and dry Fruit Loops I brought...back to scrappin'
3:00pm-Bob brought me to my house to get my car so I could stay later, then back to scrappin'
3:40-started packing up all my crap so I could go have delicious pulled pork sandwiches, coleslaw, watermelon, and chocolate chip cookies at the park with friends (a couple of the hubby's made it all and it was so good)
5:40 or so-back to my house and thankfully it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been, they at least managed to get the dishes done and half the laundry washed, dried and folded...not bad for amateurs.
10pm-headed to bed

Monday
I did my best to get the final things ready for my hubby's pending suprise birthday party monday night...it was hard, I finally had to clue in the kids so that they would help me. They nearly spilled the beans 3 times. Finally with the house as clean as I could get it (without being too obvious that people were coming) and dinner started, I just had to wait until 6pm (ok, I was so busy all day that we only had to wait about 20 minutes, LOL). Our friends showed up and we had a good time, I think I managed to suprise him, though he said he knew something was up, he just didn't know what.

As soon as everyone left, I sat in the recliner around 9pm and don't remember much of anything until I woke up about 11:30pm and then headed to bed. I have never been so tired in all my life.

I slept until 7am Tuesday morning, dealt with getting everyone off their separate ways and as soon as Aila was settled down, I sat to watch a movie and crashed again. I didn't wake up until I heard her screaming. Now I'm wide awake from all that sleep and it is almost 1:30am on Wednesday morning...man my system is way screwed up! Well I best head to bed before I mess things up even more.

I had a great weekend and I will take some picts of what I got done and post them here sometime this week or so. We have lots of baseball and end of year things at schools to deal with, so it may not happen until the weekend, but I will try my best.