Happy Birthday, Chris!

Chris had a birthday yesterday.  We went to Ruby River for dinner, then came home for dessert with my parents and Jon and Crystal.  I made him cheesecake with ganache on top.  It was yummy!

My dad used the propane torch that I got Chris to light the candles.  Happy 28th, Chris!

Here are some pictures I took of M today.  She had just woken up from her nap, so she was a little bit out of it.  

August Updates

We've had a busy August so far!  Now that the month is halfway over, and Chris is done wiping all our computer's drives, I thought I should get back to blogging.  It's been a month of firsts for M.  She turned 18 months on the 10th, so she has been going to Nursery at church.  She still has a hard time with that, but we're working on it.

I finally decided it was time to cut M's hair for the first time, since she has started trying to push it out of her face when it's not in a ponytail.  We gave her some bangs and evened out the back.

I thought this picture was great because of the accidental thumbs-up.

We took M to Lagoon for the first time for Chris's work party.  Last year, she was just a little thing, so we left her with my parents.  I thought she would be into the rides this year, but she actually had a couple of meltdowns.  The rides that we could do with her were okay, but the Baby Boats and Bulgy the Whale were both no-go's. 

Chris put M in the boat, and things were great for a few minutes.

Once the boat started moving, M started screaming, and the lady running the ride stopped it for us after a lap and let M off.  Things weren't all bad, though.  M rode the merry-go-round with us and the Kontiki boat with Chris.

We took M on her first camping trip with Chris's family this last weekend.  The weather was really nice, and we had a lot of fun.  M woke up really cranky from her nap, but she did great that night!  We even woke up before she did in the morning.

We've had so much fun this month!  Thanks to everyone who was a part of it.

New Kicks

I have always wanted to get a pair of Van's slip-ons for M, like so:

Considering that they run about $30, I could never justify the cost, at least not while M is growing like a weed.  While I was out and about a while ago, I ran across some plain white generic brand slip-ons at Hancock Fabrics.  They were on sale for $7.50, so I took on the project to decorate them for M.  Here's how they started:

 And here's the finished deal! 

I did all the drawing and coloring with my pink and purple Micron pens, and my mom brought her bedazzling kit and set the jewels.  I am really happy with how they turned out!  The shoes are still a little bit too big on M, so she will be able to wear them for a while.

Hobos and Chum

This is Chris.  Audrey is much better at this, and will tell you that if you ask her. Portland left me with two impressions - Hobos and Chum.  I was very excited to see all the hobos living under bridges, sweeping the sidewalks in front of their habitat, and doing other hobo activities.  The Chum part stems from my experience going deep sea fishing.  I along with 12 of the 14 others on the boat decided to personally "chum" the waters.  I think since we were catching fish, the ocean decided to take our lunch and some of our breakfast.  We all did catch some fish, mainly sea bass.  I think by the end though, everyone was ready to go home.  We were also able to go to the; Portland zoo, Rose and Japanese gardens, and Zoom studio.  Anyway, Portland was great and it was good to see Clark and Kjerstin and hang out with Audrey's parents and Grandma.

This is Audrey and M on the Coast by Depoe Bay

This is M at the Japanese Gardens in Portland.  She loved the koi.

We also went to the zoo and saw a ton of cool animals.

Audrey's parents as well as some of M's favorite people.

4th of July

We had a great 4th this year!  We went to the Hooper parade, set up the pool in the backyard, had pizza, bbq, fireworks, and smores.  M got to stay up for our little fireworks show, which she really enjoyed.