Such a girlie girl

SO Chloe has taken up a liking to purses. I find her carrying one around with her all around the house. Either it is in her hand or appropriately over her shoulder. Now this was not my doing or coaxing at all what so ever. One day she found one of my smaller purses and wore it on her shoulder. Now she has two of her own to play with. Brett and I get a kick out of it and he started to put things in them for her. So now she has her set of keys, her cell phone, a squirt gun (provided by her father for protection), and a snack for when she gets hungry. Oh how I love her new stages in life.

Birthdays Birthdays Birthdays

Well only two birthdays, but it seems like we have been having one every week. Oh wait, we have. I celebrated my 25th Birthday on the 18th of July and Chloe turned 1 on the 26th of July. So our lives have been filled with what seems like party after party.

My birthday:

Even though I spent the evening with some of the friends that I have made down here, it just wasn't the same as when I celebrated it with my family and friends. However, it was a good night. My neighbors took Chloe for the entire night. It was weird not having to go home to my baby or having to wake up 3 times in the night with her. Trust me, I loved that idea, a full nights rest, but it was the first night without my baby. I later came to realize that I was able to handle it and I actually enjoyed the break. Anyways, we dropped her off at 5:00 and took off for dinner. We went to a local Thai restaurant and had such wonderful food. Afterwards we went over to our friends house for some drinks, rock band and Mario kart. Later in the evening we were planning on going to go to a bar in a neighboring city to sing karaoke, but by the time we got there they were no longer doing it for the evening. So we instead danced to some songs on the jukebox and the guys played darts. Oh and I got a full nights sleep and didn't have to pick up Chloe until 3:oo in the afternoon. My neighbor wanted to keep her even longer, but we had to take her and get ready to go camping over the weekend. (More on that later)

And now what you were really wanting to read about...

Chloe's FIRST birthday

It started and ended a crazy day.

8:00am wake up / get ready for the day

9:00am go to farmers market

10:00 am go to grocery store

11:00 am drop myself and Chloe off at the park with all the stuff and set up for the party

11:30 am Brett go to Costco to get cake and pizza for party

12:00 pm party started

So it pretty much went like that, not all entirely smooth, but it went alright. We had people arriving around 12:30ish and ate pizza, salad, fruit and of course for desert, cake and ice cream. My poor baby needed a nap all through her party. But I guess that is typical of first birthday parties. She only wanted to be held and only on a rare occasion she played with the other kids. It was in the high 80's low 90's and just wonderfully hot. We had our own private picnic area over by the duck pond at a local park. It was wonderful. The kids could run freely, the guys could play...well pass the football around, and the moms could chat with ease.

Cake time!

Brett helped her blow out the candle because she had no idea why we were hovering her over the cake.

When we gave her the cake, she just sat there and stared at it. Cadence came up and helped show her what to do.

She preferred to eat the filling of the cake and only with a spoon. Amazingly she didn't get that dirty. I was secretly happy that she didn't just dive into the cake.

After cake, we opened the presents and got some really neat toys. Then we cleaned up and headed home for a nap, then went to Jimmy's place to do some swimming and cooling off. It was a full day for the little girl, but she was a trooper and enjoyed every bit of it.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY my love!

This speaks for itself!

Please turn up the volume to get the full experience!

We were not able to catch her first few attempts at walking on film because she just did them at random times. So today I sat down with Brett and we played the come to daddy / come to mommy game and she really loved doing it. When I got out the camera to record the event, she was a little tired of walking (she already did 3 laps) and all she wanted to do was look at the camera. But I think that we got some ok footage of her doing her newest trick. Hope you enjoyed this.

Sorry

for the slow to no posting that my sister and I have been doing. we are aware that we have been slacking and will try our darnedest to do better. But we feel that during nap time we should be cleaning, showering, or napping ourselves. But we promise to try harder to get things up on a more regular basis.

Visitors

Two days after we got back from visiting my sister and her family out in Iowa, my parents came down to visit us. They were able to stay for an entire week. I loved it. I got to spend 2 weeks with my sister and then a week with my parents. They were much needed visits.

While they were here we had a lot of down time. Just spending time together with no major rush to go places or to get things done was really nice. Plus the fact that we had a major heat wave while they were here made us not really want to do much stuff.

We did take them to the Jelly Belly Factory so my dad could check it out. The rest of us have already been there. It really is neat to see how the plant runs. Plus you get free Jelly Bellies!


Another trip that we took them on was a trip to the beach. I love the beaches down here in California. They actually ship sand in so that you are not stepping on any rocks, wood, or well anything but sand. That is unheard of in Washington.









Chloe really loved the beach. She liked to play in the sand as well as eat it occasionally.












Chloe also started to play peek-a-boo with my mom using a sand sifter. It was the cutest thing ever.


My dad was able to get in somewhat of a nap while we were at the beach, but Chloe didn't let him sleep for too long. She wanted to play.













The week went by too fast, but I enjoyed every moment of it. Can't wait to see them again. Sorry I didn't get more pictures than these, but you know how it goes. You are living the moments not photographing them.

Photo time

Here are some bloopers...well i guess they are all bloopers of the kids. We learned that you should not wait until the last night, around bedtime, and when the kids want to nurse to take a group photo of the kids.

I hope you enjoy these.

Boy have we been busy

Since Brett has this summer off, and it might be his last, we took a family trip to Iowa to see Tracy, Phil, Ryan and David. We were able to spend a whole 2 weeks with them, but it still felt like no time at all. I want to go back already.












While we were there we had many... lets just say experiences. It was what I would have to say storm season in Iowa and as most of you have heard, the state pretty much flooded. There were places that were hit pretty badly, but fortunately Tracy and Phil's wasn't really affected by the storms.












At night we had some awesome lightning storms with the occasional thunder rumbling in the background. Luckily for us, the storms usually hit while we were in bed and went away during the day so we could play outside.












This is supposed to be a corn field!











We got the garden turned over for Tracy so she could start to plant her fruits and veggies. (Just to let you know, Iowa dirt is not like Washington dirt. While in WA you have sand/dirt that is really easy to turn even if it is wet, in Iowa you can forget about turning dirt if it has rained within the last 24 hours.) It took Brett, Tracy and myself a good 4 days to turn over their garden. I don't know how big it is, but it was a lot of work. I am really glad that we could help with that. Oh and Tracy....don't move your garden again next year. LEAVE IT!!!




Since it is a widely known fact that toads like moist weather with puddles to play in, and boys like toads, you can imagine the fun Ryan had with the toads around their house. He carried this poor toad around for a good hour and a half jumping over things and rolling around on the ground saying "Isn't this fun toad?" after everything he did. Oh if only that poor toad could talk.










Ok, since I have more things to post while Chloe is sleeping, I will summarize the rest of our trip.



We celebrated Phil's birthday with a trip to the local pool, dinner at Hickory Park and had a surprise cake and ice cream celebration at a friends house. We took a trip to the Amana Colonies and barely made it out before a major storm hit and would have flooded us in. We did some shopping trips, showing Brett that there really is civilization out in Iowa. Ate breakfast with the locals at the Monday community breakfast in a neighboring town.









And the most important thing we did while we were in Iowa....we spent time with our family. Game night pretty much every night and I would like to brag that us girls kicked butt at pinochle. We watched movies, ate wonderful meals, and watched the kids play together.










It was such a wonderful time and I can't wait to go back.