2009 in pictures! 4-5

April

In April we had a short break, so we ran over to Kansas to visit my sister and her family and my brother and his family. (so handy that they live so close to each other!)

We got to play with our cute new (ish) nephew,

and Daniel got to play with a bunch of his cousins. He was in heaven!

My brother acted as our tour guide and took us to some of the church historical sights. It's always a sobering experience for me to see how much those who came before sacrificed so that we would be free to practice our religion. Amazing. I'll never get over the trees that covered the temple plot at Far West. Insane, I can't believe that the men had to work so hard to clear those for the site. I would not want to step anywhere near where one of those spikes could be!

We found the grave yard where some of the saints were buried. It was really interesting to note that they were buried right along side the people who drove them out. I guess death makes all men equal.

After Far West we traveled over to Haun's Mill. They tell you not to go when it's rained unless you have four wheel drive. They weren't kidding. We slid all over the place in our little Honda accord. I was convinced we'd end up stuck and with no cell service. We drove back to Columbus (10 hrs away) and I washed the car twice and all the dirt still didn't come off.

It's a very sobering experience to walk that ground. What a sad situation.

We also spent an evening at the Plaza. Such a fun place to go for a night out.

With the weather warming up, we had fun playing at the parks

and having Easter Egg hunts.

We hit the zoo one last time before we left town. Columbus seriously has the best zoo!

Daniel posing as the stinkiest flower ever. (a little too fitting :) )

Daddy's almost as big as a Tiger!

May

Daniel discovered McDonald's Ice Cream cones. Love at first sight.

We had fun watching hot air balloons and guessing where they would land.

We made our way to the west coast by way of Kansas. Of course a light saber battle ensued. ( I love little boys!)

When we got to Utah the first thing we did was hop into the pool, Look at that little tadpole go!

Thomas was in town so we trucked on over and spent the day in little boy heaven.

2009 in Pictures! 1-2-3

I thought it would be fun to do a quick year in review through photos. Enjoy!
January-
We finally got to see a bunch of cousins that we hadn't seen forever. It was such a fun evening and it was so nice to catch up with everybody. Hopefully next time I won't wait so long to see them all again!
Kourt, Travis and Will

Emery, who you might recognize from way back here

The twins, good friends of mine since birth. The one of the Left is Nate and the one on the right is John. (he he, I wrote that for my mom, who still has problems telling them apart!)

My cute cousin / college roommate Erin with her cute little girl...

whose hair I just LOVE! Seriously, I would just sit and play with it all day, irresistible!

When we got back from California there was a ton of snow to play with! A bit of a shock to the system, lol.

February

I love it when our Amaryllis finally blooms! Bryan's paternal Grandparents give us one every year and it always gives us so much joy when it finally blooms!

I started writing/creating patterns. One of my first ones was a bottle cover. We've switched over to glass bottles, so I thought this would be really useful... maybe once we start making more outings?? We'll see.

I started a quilt for Daniel. He got to choose the fabric and the colors. I've gotten pretty far on it, but definitely need to get back to work on this one!

I spent a lot of time sewing. I made a bunch of bibs for my sister and some for me to just have on hand. Love making bibs. So relaxing.

Daniel started taking piano lessons. He really liked it, but it didn't last long. He was still a little bit too young to pay attention for 1/2 hour. I'm wondering if we should try again now, but for like 15 mins at a time? Anyone have any ideas what we should do there?

Daniel learned how to write his entire alphabet and his name! He was so proud!

March

We learned all about primary colors and secondary colors with food coloring and pop bottles.

A leprechaun visited us!

We spent some time in the German area of Columbus. This is by far our favorite part of Columbus.

Schmidts's

This is the crazy big bookstore that has over 30 rooms of books. You can find anything here! So fun.

2 Months!

I cannot believe that our little Samy is 2 months old already! I've got so much blogging to catch up on, but can't seem to steal myself away from his scrumptious little cheeks! I'll be back soon, I promise! (ICPC still has not cleared, which I'm not going to talk about because I'm tired of whining! lol)

Forever Thankful

I'm totally bummed that I didn't finish my month of Thankful posts. I still have a lot that are in the "draft" stage and may post them later. It's never too late to be Thankful, right? You may be asking yourself why I couldn't keep up with such a small task. I have asked myself that same question time and time again. Maybe I've been having too much fun with the freedom afforded me by a second car? Oh yeah, the car! What a wonderful creation! I'll just show you some of my favorite things about this car. First, as you can see it is immaculate! I always worry that buying a used car means that it'll be all gross and stained. Not so. We've lucked out twice with both of our cars and I am sooo soo happy with this one!

It's got all of the standard amenities of an Odyssey. It even has the little flip up cup holder in-between the two front seats. Love that.

All the knobs and dials work and again, they are so clean!

But my all-time favorite feature on this baby is the sliding doors! I'm sure you think I'm a bit of a geek for loving these so much, but I really do!

I mean, how great is it that you can be walking with your arms full and press a button and by the time you get there it's open and waiting for you?

See what I mean? Look ma' no hands!

Oh, uh, oops.... I forgot that was in there.....

Nothing to see here folks.... just uh, keep scrolling.....

Wait, what? You've already seen it, so I have to tell you what it is?? Really?

You sure you want to know?

This folks, is a baby. OUR baby. And he is most definitely the reason I didn't keep up on my Thankful posts this last month. ;) Can you forgive me?

Because once I saw this face I was a goner.

We still have until 5pm December 4th until he's definitely ours. (they've already signed, it's just an additional waiting period)

We are waiting (definitely waiting, I'm stuck in Tennessee forever) and praying. If you'd like to add your prayers to ours I know it couldn't hurt. ;)

Samuel 11/17

We had the best Thanksgiving ever, with so much to be greatful for and will be forever Thankful for Sam and his loving Birthparents.