Stair Scare & Others

This is going to be a rather random post....

• A couple days ago, I heard Katie's footsteps on the hardwood floor back towards her room. I went to follow her, thinking she was heading to play with her toys in her toy basket. To my surprise, as I rounded the corner, she had actually gone towards the garage door, OPENED THE DOOR, and was about 3 steps away from tumbling down the stairs into the garage. Talk about your heart pounding out of your chest! I have since locked the door and plan to buy one of those babyproof doorknobs. I had no idea she was tall enough to reach the doorknob...and skilled enough to turn it!
• In the car yesterday, she started saying truck and bubbles.
• The expression on her face when we go to the pool and she "jumps in" is priceless.
• I really wish I could figure out her nap schedule. She is the middle of taking 2 naps/day and going down to 1 nap/day. Yesterday she took 2 naps. Other days, just one. That makes it rather difficult to make any plans!
• Is tomorrow really July 1?! How in the world did that happen??
• Katie has discovered her love for grabbing all the pillows off the couches, throwing them on the floor, and falling on them. I love it!
• There is a country song that is popular right now and I love some of the lyrics in the chorus: "Be a best friend, tell the truth, and overuse I love you; go to work, do your best, don't outsmart your common sense; Never let your prayin' knees get lazy; and love like crazy."

I think that's it for now. I know I have a lot of other catching up to do, but that will have to do for now :)

4 Years Already?! (Almost!)

Since we will be on the road tomorrow, I wanted to do this post a day early. This time four years ago, I was at a bridal luncheon because I was getting married the next day! Wow - how is it possible that I have been married for four years?! It has truly been an amazing ride full of ups and downs and I am so blessed to have such a wonderful man by my side through it all. We have accomplished a lot, and I can't wait to see what the future holds!

Our wedding day: June 24, 2006

Celebrating our first anniversary in St. Thomas (we had some professional pictures taken as a couple - we don't typically dress alike!)

June 21, 2008 - this was at some of our best friends' wedding 3 days before our anniversary!

I had to laugh because we didn't have any pictures together around our third anniversary - this picture was taken on our anniversary. I'd say it is rather symbolic of what consumed our time around then. Gosh, she was so tiny!

And clearly, I don't have any pictures from our fourth anniversary just yet. We are heading to Chicago tomorrow so I can be a bridesmaid for one of my best friends. I can hardly believe their big day is already upon us and I'm so thrilled for them. It is also the first time that Brad and I will have gone somewhere just the two of us! I know Katie will be well taken care of (and that we will miss her for sure)! Stay tuned for a great big Chicago post that will include my trip up there last month for the bridal shower/bachelorette party and our trip this weekend!

Memorial Day Fun

Yep...still playing catch up with these posts. We had some friends over on Memorial Day weekend to grill out and visit - it was so fun! While I love my sweet baby, it was fun to hang out with childless friends....Katie was the only kiddo (and luckily goes to bed fairly early!). She thoroughly enjoyed all of the attention before her bedtime though, that's for sure. We definitely are blessed with some fantastic friends. And it was great to hang out on the deck - we don't do that often enough! Here are some pictures of the gathering...

Katie playing with one of her birthday presents from Andrew and Ashley

CHEESE!! .... or, well, mandarin oranges! ;)

The crew eating dinner (Brad and I were inside while Katie ate her dinner)

Brad and myself

Me and Blondie

Some of the excitement of the evening surrounded watching Katie wiggle in her crib on the monitor - it was hilarious to see how everyone wanted to watch her scoot around in her sleep!

Daily Verse

I just wanted to do a quick post to say that I really love this Bible verse:

Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. - Proverbs 22:6

A Different Perspective on the Ride

At the end of May, we decided it was finally time to install the new carseat. Katie had been in the rear-facing one all her life and looked a bit cramped. We didn't want to change it out before we drove 10+ hours to the beach - we wanted her to be comfy and familiar with her carseat for that. But I have to say, I think she loves facing forward and kicking around. She loves looking out the window and pointing at things. As you can see, she also likes playing with and grabbing the chimes on her little toy. I am sure it took a little bit of getting used to as far as facing forward instead of backwards, but she has loved it so far!

Going, Going, GONE!

Well this post has definitely been a long time coming, and it is late (as usual, these days). Our sweet girl started walking - finally! For the longest time we thought she was really going to do it! She just was not confident enough...until recently, that is. On May 27, she took 40 steps without holding on. That was sufficient enough evidence to me! After lots of practice, she is now almost running. I love that she can explore even more turf now, but it also means you cannot take your eyes off her! She is into everything - in a good way of course. :) Here are some pictures (though, yes, I understand it is hard to get still shots of such an important action):

I think this is one is my favorite - it looks like she is saying she's #1 at walking, doesn't it??

Doing a little high-stepping....

Going to explore Mommy & Daddy's bathroom (we now keep our bedroom door closed so it is one less place to have to chase her to!)

Digital Scrapbooking Makes Me Smile

First, let me say that I absolutely love digital scrapbooking. I need to write that down and keep it in my wallet for the next time I venture into Michael's and leave after having spent $50 on scrapbooking stuff that I will never use. Anyway, I just made this layout, along with two others, and I love it! I used this particular website to create a digital scrapbook of my pregnancy with Katie up to the day we came home from the hospital. You can order the pages and they are so professional! Anyway, I have been meaning to create some more pages and finally made myself sit down and do it. The other two pages are about her birthday party (they turned out pretty fabulous as well). Anyways, I just wanted to share my creation!

Now, if I can just figure out what to do with all of this scrapbooking stuff I have and focus my energy and money on doing this digital scrapbooking.... :)

Reunited and It Feels So Good....

Once again, in an effort to catch up on what's been going on in our lives, I wanted to do a post that actually does NOT involve Katie (*gasp*)! Well, aside from the fact that this was the first time for me to leave my sweet little baby for more than a few hours. And let me just say, it was a much-needed break and I had a great time, but I definitely, definitely, definitely missed my sweet girl. It was sort of a girl's weekend getaway for one of my college roomies' wedding! Us two Ashleys left our hubbies and my baby girl at home and headed south to Ft. Lauderdale! We arrived on Thursday so that we could have time at the beach and then get ready for Robyn's bachelorette party, have the rehearsal/rehearsal dinner on Friday night, and then the big day on that Saturday!

It is amazing that the three of us are all married. Oh, we've been through so much. I wanted to post a couple of pictures - one of us from my wedding, and one of us from Blondie's wedding (we ended up deciding, in college, that going by hair color would be easiest!).

The three of us at my rehearsal dinner

The three of us at Ashley's rehearsal dinner

And now for more on the exciting weekend at the destination wedding. First off, it was a super fun weekend. It definitely took some time to recover from three nights in a row of staying out til like 2 am!! I hadn't done that since Katie was up in the middle of the night for feedings! But it was so worth it. All of the details were beautiful - I know Robyn worked so hard to coordinate everything. Her dress was perfect, the venue was great, the band at the reception was so fun, the food was good....definitely a success!! And I was sore for like a week from dancing! Here are some pictures of the excitement...

We stayed at the W Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale since that was where all of the festivities were held. You could walk down through the pool and go to the lobby - so neat! It kind of felt like you were in an aquarium of people since you could watch them swim around!

The three of us before heading out for Robyn's bachelorette night out...

The whole group in front of the limo before heading out

Taking a break from dancing at one of the oldest bars in Ft. Lauderdale - The Elbo Room!

The bride and groom!!

My date for the weekend - what fun!

The three of us at the rehearsal dinner

The beautiful bride - she looked absolutely stunning!

CONGRATS TO MR. & MRS. MAY!!! It's definitely about time :) They met because we were all neighbors starting sophomore year of college....so fun!

I Won! I Actually Won!

Well, I quickly wanted to point out that I do love free stuff, especially when it is cute. I have never really won any contests that I can remember, but I've decided that whenever I have the opportunity, I should at least try. I mean, the worst thing that could happen is I enter and don't win...so a loss of maybe 5 seconds. Well over the last couple of months, I have gotten really lucky! I have won three different, cute items - and I wanted to show pictures since I am so proud.

First, I entered a giveaway from Tootlebugs for a Big/Little Brother/Sister shirt - and I WON!! How cute are these?! Amy, the owner, is letting me wait to order until we decide to add to our fun family. I am sure Katie will look cute in a Big Sister shirt one of these days :)


A few other items I have won include a cute frame from Delta Girl Frames, as well as a fun wine glass from Polka Dotz! And the fun part for these two items was that I got to choose the colors and design - how perfect! I can't wait to find the perfect picture to put in this frame (which does have dots, as you can see). And I have yet to use the wine glass, but I will! And no one else will mess with it because it is clearly mine :)


So how did I win these cute things? Well, I am a fan of each of these places on Facebook - and each of these places often hosts giveaways on their Facebook page. For each of them, I either answered a question correctly, or even just posted a comment as my "entry" .... and I won!! So, needless to say, I am much more enthusiastic about trying to win things these days. I wonder how much longer my luck will continue??

Beach Bums 2010

About a month ago, we headed to the beach! We won the stay at this awesome condo at the conference I planned (really, at the silent auction). So we got this condo for an AMAZING rate and it benefited a great charity!! We decided to drive down so we'd have our own car and not have to pay for airfare and a rental car, so that meant a 10.5 hour drive down. We decided that driving at night was our best option so that Katie could sleep through most of the drive, or so we hoped. I was a bit worried about the long drive, but Katie was a champ!! She slept almost the whole drive - we had to stop for gas/bathroom break/a snack on both drives and she woke up, stretched, and we changed her diaper and she was back asleep. Whew - thank goodness!!

We had a great trip - the area we visited was perfect! It was mainly retirees and young families, so it was nice and quiet. The seafood and local restaurants were amazing! And I definitely could get used to that daily schedule. We would all sleep until about 9:30 (it was eastern time), get up and have breakfast, and get ready for the beach! After a little while playing in the sand and the ocean, we would go play in the pool for a bit. We would then head inside for Katie to take a nice nap and we would relax (nap, read a book, etc). When Katie would wake up, we'd feed her lunch and then relax and get ready to head out that evening for dinner. Man, it doesn't get any better than that! Since I had time to read my camera manual, I took TONS of pictures. I tried to pick some of my favorites to post below, so enjoy!

Sweet Pea ready to hit the road! "Beach Bound" is oh-so true!

Our view from the condo - perfect!

Katie's first time to play on the sandy beaches...

Daddy and his girl...

She loved finding shells and looking at them (as we made sure she didn't try to eat them)...

Beautiful ocean....and I think this was as crowded as the beach got!

Another shot of our amazing view - and perfect weather!

When we would go to the pool, Katie discovered that she absolutely loved "jumping" off the side of the pool! We would say "Ooooone, twwwwooooo, threeeeeee, JUMP!" and she'd hold onto our hands and "jump in"....

"OOOOOONNNEEEE....."

"TWWOOOOOOOOO...."

"THREEEEEEE......"

"JUMP!!!!" (insert Katie's great big grin and giggle here!)

Me with Katie at dinner one night

I love this one...this was before dinner another night...

Walking on a dock with Daddy

Katie's favorite activity - reading a book! I love her expression when she touches all the animals in this book.

Cutie patootie with her momma

We decided to head outside for some evening pictures on the beach

For some reason, I just love this picture. I love the coloring and how Katie is at the bottom corner...if only she had been sitting and smiling! Oh well, this is more realistic - on the move!

"Coulters, 2010"

"CHEESE!!!"

Giggling at Daddy

We got a man walking by on the beach to take a family picture of us, and this is what we got - not too shabby!

I absolutely love this one - she loved being outside and going swimming!

I tried to do a self-timed picture and this is what we got - not the most flattering, but it will do - notice how tired Katie looks...she's definitely in a fog!

I think this is my favorite ocean shot...so pretty!

Look at this great picture of Daddy and his girl - adorable!

And I love this one of me and Katie - she's so happy!

Going exploring...she really did look like a little sea turtle crawling around in the ocean!

I love this shot - the last picture of the trip!