Andrew Walking!

Sorry it's so short, but it's the best I've been able to get!

Evan just loves his cousin Emma.

We had everyone over to our house this past Sunday to help us out with a project, more on that later!, so of course cousin Emma came to play! Evan just loves her!!

He really just wanted to be where ever she was, it was too cute. And if Katie or I rubbed her back or talked to her, he would do the same! It really was just so sweet and somewhat out of character for Evan. But then again he's used to his annoying little brother, so cousin Emma is someone new and fun...right?!

Emma didn't seem to care that Evan kept playing with his trucks and cars all around her as she just laid there laughing at her mom!

FINALLY!!!

I'm so happy...I finally caught Andrew walking on camera! I got a few short videos of him tonight and if I could figure out how in the heck to get them loaded anywhere I'd post them. I'll work on that tomorrow! But I'm just so excited that he's finally walking!! And he walks away from everything now, it's so cute!

Try this....

I was up late one night blogging and wasting time on the internet when I did something I'd never done before. When you look at someones blog page, at the very top is a menu bar. There's a button that says next blog. Me being the curious person that I am pushed the button to see what it took me to. Turns out that it takes you to the most recently updated blog, not of your followers or blogs that you follow, but of all the blogs on blogger.com. Who knew?! I spent two hours or more looking through blogs. I happened across a couple of good ones that I decided I wanted to follow, others were just interesting to read. I had a lot of fun reading about complete strangers lives...you should try it!

Playing with our camera...

I don't have the slightest clue as to how any of the features work on our camera. I know that the Auto setting works pretty good for most situations. Josh programmed the P setting for our usual every day photo taking so I use that a lot too. Other than that....I don't know Jack about our camera. So I decided to monkey around with it a bit the other night and this is what I got...still not better than any other pictures but I was just changing the color settings.

I do love these cute boys!

This boy and his tractor magazines...

What more can I say? Evan truly is his father's son. Whenever I go to Casey's for gas I always make sure to get Evan a new "Guck" magazine. It's free, so I figure what the heck?! Who cares if it gets torn to shreds all over my living room and dining room floors, it keeps Evan entertained for a little while at least!

ABC/123

So I finally started the fun task of taking pictures for Evan's ABC/123 album. I was hoping to have the album done by now, but I suppose it would make a good Christmas gift. I'll have to take a few more pictures of the page layouts before I start covering them with pictures.

Oh, and if anyone wants to make some suggestions for pictures I would love it! I'm planning on putting at least two pictures for each letter, if not more if there are a lot of good ideas that Evan would love. Plus, I don't want the boys' albums to be identical so I'm going to need at least five things for each letter of the alphabet! This sounded like it would be so easy when I first started, but I'm staring at a pretty blank idea page right now :s So any and all suggestions and ideas would be greatly appreciated!

My little man!

I was looking through all of the pictures I took of the boys at Old Settlers and came across this one. I just love it! It totally shows exactly what Andrew thought of the parade...boring!

Scrapbooking Sunday!

Today I got to do something that I don't get to very often...I packed up all my scrapbooking stuff and headed to Nevada to scrap with my club buddies. Don't get me wrong, we meet for a few hours the first Tuesday of every month but today was an all-day thing so we could really get things accomplished. And I got a lot done. I finally finished the pages for Evan's alphabet album. Something that I wanted to finish long ago and have been procrastinating about doing lately. Now comes the fun part of taking pictures of something for every letter of alphabet so I can hopefully get the album done soon. You would think I'd have had all that done by now, but I don't keep my camera with me at all times so I'm going to have to make a few driving trips with the boys the next few weeks to get some pictures taken. I also started working on our family album again...I'm still in February/March of 2008 so technically Evan hasn't been born yet lol! Gotta get to work on that!

Starting tomorrow, and for the next five or six weeks, I will have a 14-month little girl that I'll be watching full-time. She is a super cute little lady and I'm excited for the boys to have someone else here with them. I'm also excited to make my own fun money for a change :p

I've been doing a lot of cleaning and organizing lately, trying to figure out what all we need to get for additional shelving and storage for the computer corner and the basement. I've also been trying to figure out what I need in my scrapbooking corner to help keep things organized but not necessarily so spread out. We'll see what I can come up with :)

Sneak Peak of my Vacation!

Who knew that Fountain Hills is home to the largest fountain in the US!

I am definitely going to miss those beautiful Arizona sunsets!!! :(

This squirrel really wanted me to take her picture by the Canyon...I didn't have the heart to tell her she'd never get a copy...sad :(

Me being brave and going out on a ledge-literally-to get a good picture with the canyon.

Even in real life, it still looks like a painting. But it was so amazing!

Where does time go?!

I've been a slacker in the blogging department...sorry guys! I got home from Arizona Friday night...we had to go to Colfax and then head North from there to make it home because of all the flooding. Crazy! And then I spent all weekend cuddling with the boys and trying to recover from my long day of flying on Friday...left Phoenix at about 11:30(Western) and landed in Des Moines at about 6:30(Central). I was supposed to have an hour layover in Minneapolis, which I'd planned on using to grab a quick supper...WRONG! The flight into Phoenix was running late and the flight to Minneapolis was late due to some weather over the Twin Cities. We had to make a big circle around the city, not my idea of fun. I made it to my gate and only waited about 20 minutes before I boarded my next flight. Next time I'm booking my tickets a couple weeks earlier and getting the direct flights instead of having to make connections between here and there!

Tomorrow we're off to the fair. Josh and I decided that the boys just aren't quite old enough for the fair yet, so we're going alone. I'm really looking forward to going this year because I won't be huge and pregnant this time! Last year I was about 36 weeks pregnant with Andrew so being at the fair wasn't exactly my idea of a fun time. I think that was also the quickest we ever went through the fair...under two hours. We're kind of lame fair-goers though. We don't like to do any of the shows or concerts. We go in the morning to try to avoid the heat and miserable humidity. We stick around 2-3 hours, cruising through all of the different vendor booths and of course we go through the varied industries building to hit up Iowa Telecom for a discount and free stuff. Then we do something that a lot of people scoff at...we go to a nice Air Conditioned restaurant to eat lunch. We don't eat at the fair. Ever since we had Evan, going out to eat by ourselves to a nice sit-down restaurant has become a luxury. So we take full advantage of not having any kids and we go some place nice for lunch. Don't get me wrong, I love fair foods. But I'd rather eat in a climate controlled restaurant.

I promise I will do blogs later about all the fun things we did on my trip...there's just too much for me to tell about right now and it's getting late!

Hello from Arizona!

Well, I'm glad to report that I made it to Prescott safe and sound! My flights were pretty uneventful. I got to Denver 15 minutes ahead of schedule, only to get delayed 25 minutes for a safety check. So I ended up waiting in Denevr for almost 2 hours instead of just an hour & 15 minutes. I can't believe the difference no humidity makes in the air. Don't get me wrong, phoenix is hot, but without the humidity it's really not that bad. And I'm actually staying in Prescott (pronounced Prescut) which is at a higher elevation and therefore cooler. It was 82 degrees the evening we got to Prescott and it was absolutely beautiful!

I'm kind of glad to be missing yet another flood in Maxwell.

Cuz I'm Leavin' On A Jet Plane!

I just finished my online check-in for my flight and am super duper excited to get going tomorrow morning! I'm not looking forward to getting up at 5am, but it'll totally be worth it by the time I fly into Phoenix tomorrow afternoon! In about 20 hours I'll be on my way to lunch with my BFF!!! Eeeeek! I'm so excited! And I can't wait to do some blogs of all the fun shenanigans that Melissa and I will be having!

A little "Me" time!

Today I did something that I don't do nearly often enough. I went and got a one-hour massage, which my massage therapist told me I was definitely over-due for. I usually try to go every other month, but haven't been since April I think. I also got my hair cut, highlighted, and my eyebrows waxed. Ever since I had Andrew my hair has been a little funky. I typically always have super straight and thin hair. But for some reason my hair no longer dries straight, now it's really wavy, especially in the back. So today my stylist decided to put some mousse and hair spray in my wet hair and crunch it. Never in a million years did I think it'd actually do anything. But it did! So now I have a different way to wear my hair. I promise that this picture doesn't really do it justice. Now I'm just one step closer to being ready for my trip!

Packing...

Today I got my big suitcase out to start packing for my trip. I'm taking our biggest suitcase, not because I'll need that many clothes but, because I'm taking my own pillow-gotta have that!-a few crafty projects, and of course clothes, extra shoes, toiletries, etc., etc. Ugh! I hate packing, but it'll all be worth it!

Less than 7 days now until I fly out. By about this time a week from today I'll be on the plane from Denver to Phoenix!!!! I CAN'T WAIT!

The boys

Evan at about 11 months

Andrew at about 11 months

They aren't as identical as they once were! Andrew is much slimmer, and has a couple more teeth than Evan was at the same age. I can't wait to compare their one year pictures!

I almost forgot...

...besides doing a lot of house cleaning, laundry, and making what will probably be an entire novel of "directions" for Josh while I'm gone...I have two projects that need to be finished before I leave! One is the sewing project I mentioned a few days ago. And the other is top secret! =P The sewing project I'm hoping to work on tomorrow and possibly finish Monday. The other one just has a few finishing touches. Oh wait...I almost forgot that I have my monthly scrapbooking club Tuesday night, which reminds me...I'll probably need a sitter!

I'd better get to bed before I realize something else that I forgot or need to do in the next 8 days!