So last night Dave and I went to eat at Red Robin for dinner and Samantha had been a bit cranky during the day, mostly because she's getting some molars. So she cried the whole drive to the restaurant and I brought a bottle of juice and a bottle of milk just in case she wasn't happy with one or the other. I guess she couldn't decide between the two because while we were sitting at our table, she kept trying to put both bottles in her mouth at the same time. It was pretty hilarious! And if she could only drink one at a time, she kept the other bottle cradled in her arm just in case she changed her mind quickly! Luckily, it kept her appeased while we were there eating.



Samantha loves to be outside, as most babies do, and she has a swing in the front yard that she could sit and swing in all day if she could. I had to take a picture of her the other day because she was so relaxed drinking her juice and wearing her sunglasses.

A Beautiful Little Lady

The other morning I was dressing Samantha for the day and thought I would put this cute white dress on her that my mom had bought for her. It was really cute, so I decided I should take some pictures of her because she is a year old now and I really should get some pictures taken of her. But since I am a cheapo I didn't want to pay someone to take the pictures for me when I have a very nice camera of my own. So I took her in the backyard by Nancy's pretty flowers and took a couple of pictures of her myslef. I think they turned out really well considering it was a spur of the moment kind of thing. Of course being cute helps, so it wasn't too difficult to get a good shot. So here are a couple of the pictures that I took of her.








This week hasn't been as exciting with Allison gone, but it did cool down a bit at least. Instead of 100 degree plus weather, we've been enjoying high seventies for a couple of days. Also the Oregon State Fair started and on opening night they had Bill Engvall perform, and we really wanted to go but tickets were too expensive so I thought, "hey maybe we should go to Vanessa Hudgens concert tomorrow instead!" yeah!! Fun! :) (But only if she brings Zac Efron) :) not so much.....so I think we are going to go sometime next week. Actually on Wednesday they are having Garrison Keillor perform with his Prairie Home Companion group which I would love to see, I guess it just depends on how much tickets are. Either way it will be fun to go and eat a lot of food, and take Samantha to the petting zoo, but not to the goats! I don't like goats.

At Last.......

Silver Creek Falls


This has been a week I have been looking forward to but wasn't sure was going to happen. Allison was the first person to come and visit me up here in Oregon! (I know who really loves me!:) She brought her friend Marissa with her and they drove the approximately 13 hours to get here last Wednesday, and they actually made very good time. But of course of all times to come up, they are here during our heat wave of over 95 plus degrees or more each day without the air conditioning! I feel a bit bad for them but I guess they are pretty used to it coming from Utah.

We have been doing all the Oregon fun things. Since it has been so hot, of course we had to go to the beach so that is what we did on Thursday. The weather was great, probably the best of any time I've been to the beach. We pretty much relaxed on the beach for a while, ate at Mo's, and drove to Depoe Bay to TRY and see some whales. On Friday we went hiking and Saturday we had to go to Saturday's Market of course and spent some time looking around downtown Portland. It was very very hot but fun! Tomorrow we will probably go do some shopping at one of the outlet malls up the road. It's been fun having them up here and besides the heat, I think they have been enjoying themselves too!

Sammy at the beach



Marissa and Al at Mo's

One year ago today...

Today I feel very grateful because one year ago today was the day we got to bring Samantha home from the hospital. It was the longest 3 weeks of my life when she was there, and I just remember that day bringing her home. We were supposed to get a special carseat where the baby can still be in a reclined position, but they were all out of them! Seriously? But they cleared us to go home anyway with our carseat. I have never seen Dave so nervous driving a car before. We took the LONG way home and didn't go on any freeways because Dave said it was too dangerous. But we did make it home safely and found the outside of our house decorated, thanks to my sister Natalie, and I think Allison too. My family came to visit that night, and we ate Chinese food! The rest of the night Dave and I were a wreck trying to decide how and where we should put her to bed. She ended up right next to my head in the bassinet for half the night, and the rest of it next to me so I could make sure she kept breathing. It was a bit stressful but after that first night, we felt a lot better aftwerwards.

A year later I think of all that has happened and how healthy she is now, and I feel very grateful to have been blessed in so many ways and had many prayers that were answered.

I am a "sucker" for her books!

My life these last 4 days has been ruled by 2 things: Samantha, and Stephenie Meyer....well her book...Breaking Dawn.

Yes I am a Stephenie Meyer geek! And if that is wrong, I don't want to be right! I am an uber nerd when it comes to her books, but at least I know I am not alone in this respect! Thankfully my two sister in laws Tracee and Lacey are right there along with me. To the point where in the last few days, Tracee and I have adopted to sitting together in a room, reading each chapter and discussing it after each was done so we could contemplate on what was going on, and what will happen! Yes, I know...we are teenage girls! But it was fun!

Last night we stayed up till just after 12:00 so we could finish the last of the book because we couldn't put it down and it was sooooo exciting we had to know what happened! Was Bella finally going to end up with Edward forever? What about Jake, and the Italian vampires, and her dad Charlie, and Alice and Jasper......I told you I was a dork. And I will say, it did not disappoint! And my favorite book of the series! There were a couple of...."awkward" "mormony" parts, but if you had read the previous books, you knew it was coming. The reason I liked this book over the others was that in this book, it wasn't like you were leading up to one very dramatic point, much like the others, but there were a lot of dramatic parts in this book! Wow! Tracee and I were talking and I don't think I ever got this excited over Harry Potter! (I know blasphemy!)

Even the rest of our family was making fun of us for how nerdy we were. Instead of saying, "dementors, dementors!" Nancy was teasing, "Vampires, vampires!" Yep, even she was teasing us too! Like I said, everyone! But it's okay. We still had fun. At least we didn't build a fort with cushions, and put a sign on the front saying "no humans, or boys allowed!" I was close though!

So if you are a fan of the books and haven't read the last one yet, do! It was good!

I finally finished my big quilt project yesterday! I started working on it about 2 months ago or so and I got it back from the quilter just this week. I was very happy with the way he quilted it, it looks really good. So yesterday my sister in law Tracee and I sat in the living room watching movies and she worked on her new quilt for her new apartment, and I worked on trying to finish mine by cutting off the excess fabric and slip stitching the fabric to the ruffle. I love the way the ruffle turned out but it was a big job to do making a ruffle for that big a quilt. I am very happy the way it all turned out though, and I've never made a quilt this big before. I plan on using it for Samantha's bed when she gets bigger. Now with the extra fabric I can make a pillow to match her blanket!


We decided it would be a fun idea to put a strip of squares on the back to make it more exciting than just the white muslin. (I actually got the idea from my sister in law Lacey). It turned out very nice.
. With as big as a quilt it was, I was glad we took it took a quilter to do, because if I would have tried to quilt it myself, it would not have looked as good!