This and that

Here's a few pictures from some family time at home and a couple pictures from the past weekend in Yakima for the wedding.

Daddy and Anna-- bestest friends hanging out :)

Sweetest smile ever...

Wearing daddy's hat and loving it!

Me, Megan, Tara, Brittany (plus 1), Sara...the fab five. I love these girls!

Tara and Megan...the two smallest girls with a serious plate of fries!

Well, another weekend is behind us and it was a very enjoyable one at home...finally! These summer weekends seem to pass so fast because we are always on the go. We will be gone the next couple of weekends so it was nice to relax and get a few things done around the house.

Friday night Dane settled in for a "nap" at 6:30 and ended up sleeping the whole night! I watch "P.S., I Love You" while he slept and when my movie was over I had to wake him up to go to bed. The nice thing was that when Anna woke up at 6:00 am the next morning Dane got up with her feeling all refreshed and rested while I got to sleep a couple more hours. By the way, I LOVE the movie "P.S. I Love You". I highly recommend it for anyone that hasn't seen it...get your kleenex ready because it's a tear jerker. :) Dane worked Saturday during the day so Anna and I went over to my friend Lexa's house to hang out with her and her six week old baby Leah. Her husband was golfing so I think she enjoyed the company. I still have a hard time believing Anna was ever as small as Leah...I just don't remember that part. Then that evening, Dane, Anna and I went to a friends house for a bbq for a couple hours. It was a nice and relaxing day with friends.

This morning and afternoon we used to accomplish a lot around the house. Anna went down for a nap at about 11:30 and took a two hour nap (unusual for her...naps usually last only about 45 minutes) so we took full advantage of our time. Dane got the lawm mowed...or I guess I should say the weeds mowed. It's ridiculous...we don't water our lawn (nobody does around here) so all that grows is our dandilions. Our lawn is pretty much like hay during the summer. Maybe next summer we'll put some time into since Anna will be old enough to go outside and play. Anyways, while he mowed the "lawn" I cleaned our bathroom and picked up the house and then got three big bags of clothes together for The Goodwill. That felt great to get out of our house and now we have some room in our closets again. I've come to terms with the fact that my body will not be the same after having kids. The majority of my pre-pregnancy clothes were from the juniors depts. and they just don't fit me anymore. My shirts are too small and my pants certainly don't fit the same. It's sad really...I don't even think if I lost the 10 pounds that I want to that it would make any difference...so why try, right? :) After we got our chores done, we went over to our friends Adam and Courtney's house and hung out for the afternoon. They bbq'd a delicious "linner" (we ate at 3:00, so is that dinner or lunch?) and we hung out on their beautiful new deck that Adam build. It's huge and and they had some old toys of Jaxson's (their 21 month old boy) pulled out for Anna and we had a great time visiting and eating. I feel so lucky to have such wonderful friends here...some of our favorite times are just getting together and visiting. Dane and Adam took the boat our fishing so Courtney and I and Jaxson and Anna took a trip to Cold Stone Creamery for a delicious ice cream treat. I had some sort of concoction that was mint ice cream with chocolate chips, brownie and fudge. Oh my goodness, it was divine. What a wonderful weekend with our friends and our little family at home!

Some news on the Anna front...she is cutting her first tooth! I have been suspecting that it could happen any time and sure enough she was shoving one of my fingers in her mouth chewing aways, and on the bottom front I can feel a sharp tooth popping up. That isn't the only "1st" that happened this weekend...today daddy gave Anna her first haircut. It's hard for me to even talk about because it makes me want to cry. I seriously almost did while Dane was doing it. She had some "wing dings" that were seriously getting out of control on the sides...they were miles longer than the rest of her hair. So daddy just trimmed them up so her hair can grow out evenly together. Yes, it makes sense, but I still wasn't happy about it. It's just that it feels like such a big step. I've got to admit (don't tell Dane I said this) that it actually looks pretty darn cute...and much better. She doesn't look like such a rag-a-muffin anymore...it kind of makes her look more grown up.

Other exciting news...our good friends Ryan and Julie Stevens welcomed thier first baby on July 17th...a perfect baby boy named Brody Scott. He was 8lbs 8oz and 20.5 oz...big boy! Aparantly he was pretty snuggly in there because he gave his mama a pretty hard time. Poor Julie was in labor for about 15 hours and pushed for 4 hours!! They are at home now resting and doing great. We haven't met the little guy yet, but hopefully in the next day or so. We wanted to give them some time to get home and settled for a couple day...it can be pretty overwhelming with all the visitors so we're trying to space it out a bit. Congratulations Steven's Family!!

I guess I've rambled enough now...time to get ready for bed. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend as well!

Pictures

Here are a few pictures from our weekend in Yakima...Lianna looked absolutely beautiful and Aubrey and Nathan did a wonderful job...they are so adorable. There's a few pictures ofAnna's first swimming experience...how cute does she look in her swimsuit and hat?! She loved the water and especially liked to splash daddy! :)

Unfortunately my camera didn't make it out too much at the wedding and reception...we were a little preoccupied carrying Anna around and I was so focused on the fact that it was about 100 degrees at the reception and I had sweat beads running down my back. It never quite felt like a kodak moment. :) Then when Dane took Anna home to go to bed, I forgot to get the camera out of the diaper bag. I'm hoping a couple of the girls send me some pictures from the night (hint hint) so I can steal them. :) Thanks Sara for the above pics of the wedding. :) I'll post more if I receive some more.

A time to CELEBRATE!!

We were in Yakima this past weekend for Sara's sister Lianna's wedding. Not only was it special because it was one of the Montgomery girls, who are all like sisters to me, but she married Matt Sackmann, one of our dear friends from high school. What a perfect reason to celebrate! Matt and Lianna looks stunning on their big day and they were both beeming up on that alter. It was so much fun to see all of our friends from high school (a mini reunion, only to be followed by our actual 10 yr reunion in two weeks!)

Dane, Anna and I stayed with Tara and Mike at her mom's house and we had a great time. They have a pool there so we all hung out around the pool Saturday before the wedding and Anna went swimming for the first time and loved it! Dane and I took turns bobbing around with her in the water and she insisted on splashing the water constantly with her hands. It was so cute to watch...she looked so pleased with herself. :)

Again, Dane was a wonderful husband and after we ate dinner at the reception and Anna was ready for bed, he took her back to the house so I could enjoy the rest of the reception with my friends. We danced up a storm and had lots of laughs! We finished off the weekend going out to breakfast with all our friends Sunday morning and then Dane, Anna and I went to a friends bbq in Seattle. We had to be back in town so Dane could work at 3:30, so it was a whirlwind of a day. We are still not caught up on our sleep and I have yet to unpack and do laundry. That was on my list for tonight, but it looks like it'll have to wait until tomorrow. Off to bed for me soon!

I tried uploading pictures from the weekend and blogger won't let me do it right now. I will try to post them later or maybe tomorrow. I got some really cute ones of Anna in her swimsuit!!

My husband, my hero

Our poor Anna girl is sick with a bad head cold and has been unusually cranky and tired the past couple of days. Well, tonight we put her to bed at 8:00 and she fell asleep somewhat easily but about 15 minutes later woke up and was inconsolible for about 35 minutes. Now if you've been around an inconsolible baby, you know that 35 minutes feels like and hour and 35 minutes. I finally come downstairs after loosing most of my sanity and ask Dane to take a shot at it. After he's up there for about five minutes I hear Dane playing his guitar and singer to Anna...and silence from her. It was one of the sweetest things I've ever seen. I went up and peeked in the room and there's Anna with her eyes closed and her daddy playing her songs. It doesn't get much sweeter than that. He's such a great daddy and I feel so lucky to have him in this game called "life".

The 4th Festivities

We had a wonderful Fourth of July in Beaverton at my parent's house. Jason and his family came to our house Thursday night with all the girls and we had a fun slumber party that night! :) It was so great to see the girls...it always feels too long in between. I wish the drive to the Tri-Cities wasn't so long so we could see them more often.

We all got up Friday morning and headed to my parent's house. We had a fun filled weekend which included some swimming in the kiddie pool, which eventually evolved into a water fight. There was LOTS of eating (bbq hot dogs and hamburgers one night and bbq ribs and chicken the next!) and grazing the whole weekend, and my parents broke out their new fire pit for occassion and we roasted marshmallows and has smores before watching our 4th of July fireworks. My dad, brother and Dane put on a good show for the rest of us! Saturday we took a trip over to a go cart track and we had a blast. These weren't just measly little go carts...we're talking some seriously fast cars that required helmets! I took Samantha in mine and we had a great time! Dane and I and Anna left Saturday night at Anna's bedtime because we had to be back Sunday morning for Dane to work. All in all, it was a wonderful weekend...it's always special to get the whole family together like that!

Stats

We went to Anna's 6 month appointment yesterday (we're a couple weeks behind her actual birthday) and everything checked out great. She got more immunizations again which is never fun, but with a little lovin' and snuggling from daddy afterwards she calmed down and was just fine. Just as she was thinking she was done being poked and proded, they made us go over to the lab where she got her heel pricked for a blood sample. Leave my baby alone!

She's still our little buddah baby weighing in at 19 lbs. 6 oz. (95th percentile...she's back on the charts at least!) and measuring 26 3/4'' in length (only 50th percentile). I tried having a talk with her that this is not the body type to go for. :)

The doctor talked to us about introducing some table foods to her when we're ready, such as yogurt, cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, etc. That seems kind of early to me, but we'll see what she thinks. We're still trying to find baby foods that she likes...we've tried sweet potatoes, bananas, carrots...everything we give her she acts like I'm feeding her poop. I've been mixing it with rice cereal, and our nurse suggested trying it without mixing it to see if that makes a difference. Maybe it's a consistancy issue...who knows, maybe she's getting her Uncle Jason's picky palate. :) We'll keep working at it though and see if she can get use to it.

We're really looking forward to this weekend, when we'll be in Portland spending the 4th with my family. Jason and Angie and the girls are going to spend Thursday night with us and then Friday we'll all get up and head to my parent's house for the weekend. It should be a lot of fun and I think Grandma and Grandpa are going to be in heaven having all the kids and grandkids together! Safe travels to everyone for the 4th!