Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique

This was the highlight of the trip for the girls. Thanks to grandma for making it happen. A salon where fairy godmothers in training do little girls' hair, makeup, nails, and more. You'll have to decide for yourself, but personally I think they look a little scary (although these pictures don't give you a good look). It was fun to see Dani with long hair. They sure felt pretty the rest of the day getting oohs and aahs from every one on the street. Taylor asked me to do her hair the same way the next day, but since I didn't plaster it with hair spray, it didn't stay very long.

Parks and pools

The playground at the resort was really neat. It was themed as ancient ruins and had swings, slides, sand "boxes," typical toys, and very nicely decorated. The biggest pool had a pyramid and included a spa and kiddie pool. There was a water slide that Taylor insisted she needed to try out. We look back and decided it would have been a good idea to rent a life vest. Daddy, not realizing Taylor could not swim, stayed in the vicinity to "catch" her, but once she came down he was too far away and the life guard ended up jumping in and saving her. Oops - lesson learned. She probably won't we going down any of those any time soon. The girls got blisters from their flip flops the first day and ended up having to wear their tennis shoes the whole trip, oops, make sure you take sandals with straps on trips with a lot of walking.

Our motel - Coronado Springs

Our favorite part of the trip was staying at such a nice resort. It was so relaxing and since we had nothing else to do (besides Mark in his conference) we went exploring and swimming and enjoyed the scenery. It was so beautiful there and the weather was gorgeous. It stayed in the early 80's the entire time we were there - not too hot, not too cold!

We're Back! At the airport.

On our way out. The girls were so excited to ride on an airplane. Oddly enough, even though the thoughts of Disney World were exciting, Taylor had a melt down before leaving. She wanted to stay home and was really distraught about leaving. It was hard to see it, because we had been anticipating the trip for so long seeing her so excited. Once there, however, all these feelings dissapated.

Climbling Trees

The girls were a little nervous at first to be so high off the ground in Grandpa and Grandma's tree, but then they decided it was kindof fun (as long as they held on for dear life). Luckily they can only get up with help, for now. Sam absolutely loves being outside and let's us know when he wants to be out there.

Tribute to my Grandma

I just wanted to take a minute to let everyone know what a wonderful person my grandma is and also realize how much we love her. She is an amazing, caring women whose greatest love and devotion is to her family. We're grateful for all the love and support she has generously bestowed on us and look forward to spending life throughout eternity with her. She has courageously fought her way through countless trials in her life. To name only a few, she laid her husband to rest at an early age as well as the passing of an infant daughter, fought breast cancer, and now cancer in her liver. She has been strong and has fought a good fight and will continue to do so until the end (which is only the beginning)! We love you Grandma and keep you in our prayers!

Portraits of Sam

Sam's 1st haircut

Before and after

Sam has had a trim around the ears and bangs before, but this time he got the razor. There really wasn't a whole lot to cut (as you can see from the pictures), but it needed to be cleaned up a bit. I was a little scared to do it (especially since I've never cut anyone but Marks and Mark was gone so he wouldn't even be around to fix it). I think it turned out decent enough, we'll just have to wait and see what Daddy says when he gets home to know for sure - I'll at least get an honest opinion. I didn't do it before we got his 1 year pictures taken in case I butchered it, but now I wish I had because he looks a lot cleaner now!

Sam's 1st birthday

Sam's first birthday with several "parties." He really didn't get very messy and prefered the plate to the cake.

Happy Easter

Meeting the Easter bunny, egg hunts, stealing friends eggs, matching outfits, and more egg hunts with Cousin Masen.

Zoo

We went to the zoo with Grandma and Uncle Matt. It was the only day of the week that didn't rain and it was quite beautiful outside. Boise Zoo is not much to talk about, but we will be getting giraffes and lions this summer and that will be huge. Right now the tiger is the most exciting thing to see.

Family and Birthdays

With Uncle Matt
I know they look like an item, but it's just my brother and sister.


My mom and brother came up to visit for the week. Tonight we celebrated 3 of our birthdays. Mine was last week, Matt's is tomorrow and Sam's is on monday. We didn't even eat the cake because we stuffed ourselves at dinner. I'm sure it will still get eaten.

Happy St. Patricks Day

Grandma was here to celebrate St. Patrick's day with us. It was pretty green around here. We even had green pancakes for breakfast and green shamrock jigglers for snacks.

Sign Language: more & finished

I know this seems to be a monopoly of Sam on this blog, but he's learning and doing so many new things every day and they grow up so fast. Grandma doesn't get to see these milestones and neither do a lot of others, though they see him frequently. Both of the girls spoke at least a little sign language and I believe it helped their speech development. I hope to do the same with Sam, although I haven't been as diligent with it. He has been saying "finished" for awhile now, but I don't believe he has connected the sign to the meaning simply because he does it frequently and not usually when he is actually finished. This was the first time he has said more though, he finally figured out he could get more if he did it. I guess we just needed to give him something he liked enough. He doesn't have the fine motor skills enough to make it "understandable," but as long as I know what he's saying, that's all that matters. What word should I teach next?

Driving

We decided to bring in the car from the garage so Sam could actually enjoy it. I remember when the girls loved riding this around our apartment (the days before we had a yard to play in). He of course loves it.

Which one is plugged?

Can you tell which eye was not fixed? This is how Sam wakes up every morning (sometimes worse). Now that he's sick again he wakes up with both eyes matted shut. He's had a fever the past three days. What does it take to make him well?

Walking - almost, okay not quite

The videos I take at night always turn out real dark, sorry. We really want Sam to start walking before our trip because I won't let him do any crawling at the park and he's going to get real ancy. He's come a little way because he can keep up with the lion most of the time as opposed to a month ago when he would fall the minute the lion started to move. He still gets too scared when he finds himself standing alone and immediately sits down. Taylor is in the background talking to the video camera. She thinks she is recording. One of Sam's upper teeth is finding its way out. He once again has a cold/fever. I really don't like this time of year. It appears that Sams tear duct is plugged still in at least one eye, but you won't see me going back. Supposedly it's supposed to fix itself of the problem eventually, so I'd rather let it take its course then go through that again. Once he's past 13 months I don't think they would do it anymore anyway and it takes almost two months to get into his doctor.