Mom R.'s Birthday Weekend

The last weekend in February, we made the 16 hour drive to Houston for Sam's mom's big 70th birthday bash! We stayed from Wednesday night til Monday and it was well worth the drive! Every single one of Sam's siblings came into town for the weekend and it was so exciting and fun to see everyone! It is rare that all 9 siblings and spouses are in town at once. We spent Thursday and Friday playing with everyone and then Saturday was Mom's all day party. It started with bowling at a nearby alley, then the rest was at Jeff's house with lots of games, yummy food, cake, and music for dancing. It was so awesome to spend time with everyone playing games and laughing our heads off. Sam's family is hilarious. Now for the pics..

We finally put some of our movies and a few Little Einstein episodes on the ipad so this trip was a breeze. Ivy was a great traveler this time around:

Spending time with my seester, mom and dad on Thursday. Not all of Sam's siblings had come into town yet so it was nice to have a day to go see my fam:

Target run. Naturally:

This is what Sam was up to with his bros for much of the weekend. Obsessed much? I'm only half kidding, lol:

Friday night we had to opportunity to go see Sam's old high school perform the musical Guys and Dolls. Sam was the star of this show at his school 10 YEARS ago! It brought back lots of great memories and we were able to catch up with lots of people. The guy who played Sam's part of Sky Masterson is actually the younger brother of one of Sam's friends from high school who was in theater with him. Small world!.. Sam is next to his awesome voice teacher from high school, Darlene James:

With his lovely theater director Kathy Powdrell, next to their State Champion sign (She still teaches at the school). They won when Sam was a senior.  My husband was quite the celebrity in high school, hehe. People actually kept coming up to him all evening that we couldn't quite remember at first but they knew exactly who he was. (right pic is his block backstage, everyone signs them):

Bowling for Grandma's birthday! So much fun! We let Ivy try it every so often and she loved it. My bowling skills seemed to escape me that day.. I remember being decent in the past; not sure what happened to my skills. I blame the fact that they had no adult balls smaller than 10 lbs, haha:

With cousin Jessie.. She was Ivy's best buddy for most of the trip:

Back at Jeff's house for the rest of festivities. Lots of cousins to play with: 

 Picture time! Mom with the brothers:

We were only missing Christine. She had to head home early that night.. Still, having 8/9 isn't bad:

And just a few more of my pretty girl. She was obsessed with the trampoline. She'd stay on there for 30 minutes at a time sometimes, lol:

These next photos of my goofy girl are by cousin Jessie.. Thanks Jess!

Many thanks to everyone for all the hard work y'all put into making this weekend so much fun! And a very happy birthday to Mom! We love you and hope you had a great birthday!

Valentine's 2013

This Valentine's was pretty low-key but still very fun. Ivy and I loved getting into the festive mood by making decorations, heart valentine's, and baking up a storm the whole week leading up to the actual day. Then we enjoyed Valentine's together by going to the library and afterwards having lunch with daddy. Later that evening, we just stayed in for the night and watched some movies together. It was perfect. :)

Thank you pinterest for helping us decorate for Valentine's day in the easiest and cheapest way possible. Made some cute paper heart chains.. 

I've seen this yummy recipe from ourbestbites.com (recipe) for a few years now and I finally decided this was the year I'd try em out! They were soo yummy... sugar cookies, strawberry jam, cream cheese, and chocolate drizzle? Can't go wrong. I made them for my students, neighbor, and a few friends:

Ivy and I went to a fun Valentine's day party at our local library's toddler time.. They always have such fun stuff planned and Valentine's did not disappoint. Sticker crafts (perfect for this girl!) and lots of yummy treats and Valentine's from friends... One of the moms had the genius idea to make cake pops instead of cupcakes. Ivy was a big fan:

Who knew all this girl needed to make her day special was a sucker and a $1 balloon from her daddy?? She thought that balloon was the greatest thing in the entire world:

Our gifts to each other... Sam got me my favorite-- all red roses, and I made him a fun little coupon book ;)

We celebrated later with a delicious steak dinner and finished off the evening with this awesomeness, also courtesy of ourbestbites.com (recipe):

Hope everyone had a great holiday! I loved spending the day with both my loves! I feel like it just get's more fun every year as Ivy gets older...

Tri-State Peak

This has been a particularly rainy/snowy winter so we take any chance we can get to do something outdoors.. A few weekends ago we finally had a day or two of sunshine. Saturday morning, we didn't have anything planned so we packed up for a quick hike up to the Tri-State Peak (in the Cumberland Gap park near our house), just a mile or so up... Wasn't too difficult of a hike but still very nice to get out and about after being cooped up in our house for a few weeks.. 

Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee.. Pretty cool:

View of the Pinnacle Overlook on our way back.. We've driven up there to take pics.. maybe sometime we will hike it:

Counting the days til it finally stops raining for good and we get some springtime sunshine!

Ivy Lu, 21 months

My baby girl is growing so fast! Can't believe it's almost time for her second birthday! She has changed a lot in even the past few months. She talks like crazy, understands almost everything I say to her and has definitely become a lot more vocal about her opinions. Haha! Just some updates...

She has started talking a ton lately.. Her words aren't pronounced exactly right so it's still her own language but I can understand most of it. :) Some of her everyday words include: ya, no, hello, thank you, yummy, help (hap), uh oh, block, snack (nacks), water (wabuh), star, moon, sock, shoe, yellow, fishy (sishy), cracker, bubble, balloon, drink (dink), coat, bye bye water (in the bathtub), night night, i love you, and most animal noises.

Still not a very good eater but I've accepted the fact that she is probably going to live on fruit, yogurt, snacks, and puree pouches for a while longer. She still won't touch cheese, eggs, rice, any greens, or pbj on her plate (or any bread type food). Occasionally she will eat ramen or chicken rice type dinners. And she loves macaroni or chicken nuggets so at least she isn't completely picky to just sweet things. 

She has been a great sleeper these past few months. Knock on wood! Even sleeps til 8am some days (even if she goes down at 7pm). It is awesome. Only have a little trouble when we are traveling. 

Dance class! A girl I know gives dance classes and we've been going to her toddler class lately. Ivy did not want anything to do with it the first two weeks but I knew she just had to get used to it before wanting to participate. Sure enough, this past week, she was out there doing almost every activity with the girls! She had a blast. And I just can't get over how cute she looks in her leotard and teeny tiny ballet shoes. And so grown up with those pigtails!

Some favorites lately:

-blocks, asks to play with them every day
-puzzles
-STICKERS (she's obsessed)
-little people stuff, but not as much as her blocks
-BALLOONS
-bubbles
-Little Einsteins (obsessed would be an understatement, she asks to watch it every single morning)
-Elephants, it's her favorite animal noise lately
-singing songs together- popcorn popping, if you're happy and you know it
-Hot Dog dance on Mickey Mouse

Funny things:
-Loves to say her own name and loves when people call her name to her
-Learned to do summersaults on her own. Now she knows how to do it on command, haha
-could not say "yeah" or "yes" for a very long time so her answer to every question was "no." Fortunately this has changed lately and communication is so much easier now, lol..
-Says "I love you" or "love you" before anyone leaves or before bedtime
-Pretends to put on mommy's makeup while I do her hair. And tries to put our shoes on all the time.
-Carries her leapfrog table around the house. It's back in her bedroom normally
-Sometimes will walk around the house saying "Daddy, where are you?"

Now for some fun videos.. If you don't have time to watch all 3, at least watch the last one. It's so funny. She thought something on tv was hilarious so I kept rewinding it haha.. I just think it shows off her personality so well. :)

Talking:

Ivy's summersaults

Laughing:

Instagram Update

So I haven't felt the desire to post as much on my blog lately because I've gotten pretty into the Instagram app on my iphone. It's been so fun to post a picture every few days about our daily life and to know that only people I approve of can see it (my account is private so people have to request to be my friend, so NO spam. yeah!). Anyways, just wanted to include some fun ones, along with their captions from the past few weeks... I feel like it is a nice little peek into our daily life. :) Sorry if you already follow me on Instagram.. these will be redundant, haha. And if you don't have Instagram, get it! lol.

This girl decided she didn't need a nap today. Sat in her crib and talked for 2 hrs without going to sleep. Lovely. #earlybedtimetonight! #toddlerproblems 

That tongue!! Silly girl inherited dad's concentration face. haha. #didntknowthatonewasgenetic #likefatherlikedaughter

Apparently organization is very important in this family.

Spur of the moment trips are always the best. Decided to head down to Knoxville today and ended up reuniting with my old BYU roomie! The stars finally aligned for us to spend some time together. It was long overdue. Thanks for having us, Mindy and Ryan!

Guess it's a full bed tonight. #littlepeopleadventures #beastdoesntlooktoothrilled

Practicing her scales and arpeggios, of course. Starting her early. :)

Ok. I'm not even going to admit how long I was looking for these remotes. #toddlerproblems

...just doing some morning reading...

 Had so much fun shopping with friends today! Much needed trip away from Harrogate. #nohusbandstoday #weekendbeforetestday

Finally got my hands on one of these bad boys. #chocolateheartattack #magnumbarsforthewin

 Woo!! All pairs matched. #rareoccasion #itsthelittlethings

Woke up with a sty this morning. No contacts no makeup for the next day or so. Lame. #atleastmyhairlooksdecent #otherwisewedbeintrouble #iam12again

Nice day for a hike. #cumberlandgap #tristatepeak

Official!

We found out recently that Sam will officially be starting medical school this coming fall at DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine and we are SO excited!! He had been doing very well in his post-bac program (first in his class, actually) and scored a significantly better score on the MCAT last fall.. So we had a good idea of his chances but just had to wait for the official word. He finally had his interview a couple weeks ago and the following weekend, the dean called to tell him that he was accepted! WAHOO! It's so nice to have a plan and to know that we are staying put for the next 2 years (at least until rotations in his last 2 years). Way to go babe!! I think Sam is such a hard worker and has really shown what he is truly capable of in this past year. I know we have a long road ahead but we are very excited.  Sam has always loved school and has always been so eager to learn so I think he is going to do great. And I know we will have to live pretty frugal for a few more years but it will be so worth it. SO it looks like we are here to stay in our little town of Harrogate and we couldn't be happier. We've made some great friends and love how beautiful the countryside is.