Busy, busy April!

I haven't blogged in awhile and it's because April was a whirlwind of events. It started with Easter when we went to Utah to visit Chris's family. We had a wonderful time. I didn't take as many pictures as I should have, but here are the ones I got...

 Sadie got to meet her great-grandparents in Salt Lake. We had a nice little visit.

 Sadie fell asleep in Kevin's arms. What a nice uncle!

 

I think Sadie's favorite part about Easter was playing with that plastic that was wrapped around her basket. Why is it that babies love plastic and wrapping paper so much?

 

This is right after the Easter egg hunt where I basically picked up eggs for her. 

After Easter, Kevin and Lori drove to Colorado to visit us. I couldn't believe how sweet Eric was with Sadie! He kept asking if he could hold her, it was so sweet. Such a great cousin. Sadie was so happy during their visit. I think if she had her way we would have constant visitors so she would have someone other than boring mommy to play with during the day. :)

 We went to Boulder and did a little nature walk down a pretty path before going to dinner at The Cheesecake Factory. Yummmm....

After Kevin and Lori's visit, my parents came in town and we all went to Steamboat Springs with Ben and Allison. We went hiking, swimming in the hot springs, played card games, went hot-tubbing, and ate entirely too much Coldstone ice cream cake.

 Lori brought me a starter kit for Amish Friendship Bread; it takes 10 days to make and was absolutely DE-licious!!

 Sadie with Grandma and Grandpa at Steamboat Springs.

On our way to the hike we came across a baby bear crossing the road, only to be followed by momma bear and another baby!! It was so cool. I think the only time I've ever seen a bear not in a zoo or on tv was at Yosemite once as a kid, and it was nighttime so I don't have a very clear memory. This was crazy.

 There's the first bear cub.

 

There's momma and the second cub. She wouldn't cross the street to her baby until we drove away. Smart momma bear.

 

 Check out how close we were!! I can't believe what a good shot we got. Oh how I love having a camera phone. :)

Here are a few pictures from the actual hike. And, no, we did not run into any more bears, thankfully. 

haha, Sadie fell asleep on the hike. What a great face!

Ok, I just realized that these 3 above pictures are from a different hike we went on a couple weeks ago in the Flatirons near Boulder with Ben and Allison, NOT Steamboat Springs. I don't feel like copying/pasting them to a different part of this post, so there ya go. 

Now these are all Steamboat Springs!

 

     
 

Sadie got in some good play-time with Grandma. And Grandpa too, just not in this picture. :)

After a wonderful week at Steamboat Springs, I hopped on a plane and went to Riverside/San Diego for the weekend for my friend Liel's wedding. It was a fast paced weekend---I rented my first car, experienced the legendary LA traffic where it took me an hour and half to go 30 miles, visited Riverside for the first time (it was surprisingly beautiful, much more than I expected), visited San Diego and the temple there for the first time, and had some good "me" time. My friend Kate was supposed to come too but got strep at the last minute--total bummer.

 My outfit for the wedding, aside from the flip flops. I wore some snazzy Sarah Jessica Parker-esque shoes, but they didn't get put on until the last minute.

 Me and Liel, the beautiful bride. I was impressed by how poised she was; very gracious and collected in accepting compliments and making conversation with wedding guests. I was privileged to get to share the day with her. I also forgot how much I really like Liel and how much fun she is to be around. We really must have a roomie reunion sometime in the next few years. It's just so hard to get everyone in the same state...

 Liel and Will after getting married in San Diego.

 Not the most flattering picture of me, but I like the angle of the temple.

What a beautiful temple! I definitely would like to go back and visit San Diego again someday. 

After coming home I got to spend the rest of the weekend with my parents, Ben and Allison, and Daniel and Becca (they came out for the weekend, though, since I was gone Friday and Saturday for the wedding, I only got to see them on Sunday). We spent the day having a weenie roast in B&A's new fire pit, with s'mores for dessert, then playing Bang! and Scum in the basement while the kids slept. It was a crazy busy weekend (and week) but lots of fun. 

So that's our April in a nutshell. I'll do another post about Sadie's achievements this month, and there have certainly been many of those!! I can't believe how fast she is growing. I wish she'd just slow down a bit...

Tutu Cute!

Here are some videos I took this afternoon. Sadie was being super cute and I had to document. The three videos are pretty similar, so if you get bored you don't have to watch them all. :)

Hiking the Flatirons

On Saturday Chris and I decided against our typical lazy weekend behavior where we basically just watch tv all day and drove to Boulder to take a hike in the Flatiron Mountains. The trail we hiked was the Royal Arch trail; it was 4 miles long and took us about 3 hours to complete, including food breaks for both Sadie and ourselves. It was tough, I definitely sweat a ton, but it was so, so much fun. I think I enjoyed it so much because I got to spend the day with my 2 favorite people. After a long week of not seeing Chris a whole lot, this was a perfect Saturday activity. I definitely want to go back and check out some of the other trails!

Spring photo shoot

2 weekends ago we went and had photos taken by a friend of mine in Aurora, CO. I figured Sadie was 7 months old already and we hadn't had any great shots taken yet, so we buckled down and made plans for a photo shoot at a park. It was really windy and Sadie, for some reason, got camera shy. She's the most smiley baby I've ever seen so I figured getting great smiles out of her would be no problem, but of course, when it came time for real pictures she got shy. It took her nearly the whole session for her to warm up to the camera. Oh well...we still got some great photos!!

I think this last one with the bear is my favorite. So sweet. :)

Tag! You're it!

So my sister in law Emily tagged me and since I enjoyed reading her responses I decided I'd do it too. I usually don't do these kinds of things, but I figured I don't have anything else interesting to blog about so this will do nicely. :)

Here are the rules:
1-Post these rules.
2-Post a photo of yourself and 11 random things.
3-Answer the questions set for you in the original post.
4-Create 11 new questions and tag people to answer them.
5-Go to their blog/twitter/facebook and tell them you've tagged them.
6-No saying "If you're reading this, you're tagged!"

Here's my random photo:
This was taken in San Francisco around the spring of 2007. I don't remember exactly when but I know it was before I got married but there's a ring on my finger so it was sometime between December 2006 and June 2007. Anyway, it doesn't get much more random than that.

11 random things:

1-I just ate a Fiber One 90 calorie brownie and it was delicious. Surprisingly delicious for something that low cal and that high fiber.

2-I love the color yellow. Not mustard yellow, or sports car yellow, but sunshine yellow, and crayola yellow. It's just so bright and happy.

3-I can't wait to see the Hunger Games. It comes out tomorrow; we'll probably wait a week or so to see it to avoid the opening weekend crowds, but regardless, I'm really excited.

4-I wish it were summer so I could take Sadie swimming for the first time. I think she'll love it.

5-I wish I could find some way for all my family to live close by. Now that I'm a stay at home mom I find myself missing family (my family and Chris's family) more than I ever have before. Living so close to Ben and Allison has kind of made me realize how cool it could be to live close to everyone. haha, then I'd have more options for walking buddies and I wouldn't be bugging Allison all the time to work out with me. :) If only there was some kind of invention that would make it possible to cross large distances in minutes...that'd be cool.

6-I've had a hankering lately to go on a cruise. This summer will be our 5th wedding anniversary so I'm toying with the idea of a cruise this summer. Like most of my ideas it probably won't happen, but it's still fun to think about.

7-I've recently discovered Zumba and it is way fun. I have the Zumba Fitness 2 game for the Wii and do it about 4 days a week. Great work out and lots of fun.

8-I kind of want to learn something about photography. We recently had photos taken by my awesome friend and I felt bad because Sadie got super camera shy. She's such a smiley baby and will smile and anyone at anytime, but for some reason she wouldn't crack a grin for nearly the entire session! If I knew something about cameras and editing photos I could get some great shots.

9-Sometimes I wonder why anybody chooses to be vegetarian (don't want to offend any vegetarian friends out there!). Meat just tastes too dang good to give up. Plus it's a fantastic source of protein. Plus it tastes good in just about anything. Plus if no one ate meat we'd have cows ruling the world. And who wants that, really?

10-I love being a mommy. It's the best!

11-I need a new phone. Seriously, it's time to upgrade. I've had the same phone for nearly 6 years now and it wasn't a top of the line phone when I got it. I've been waiting for it to die and it just won't. I've made a deadline to get a new phone before we go visit Utah because I need a way to track my eating (I count calories--myfitnesspal.com--it's amazing) so I can keep losing weight. We're going to Utah in a few weeks so I think I'm gonna finally buckle down and get one.

whew!! It got kinda hard coming up with random things. It's kind of fun typing my random thoughts. :)

Now to answer the questions from Emily's post.

1. What is your favorite animal, and why? --I haven't seriously thought about this question since I was a kid. When I was a kid my answer was always a horse or a wolf. Now I don't really know. I always considered myself a big animal lover, but as I've grown up I'm learning that I'm not really sure if I like animals all that much. They smell, leave hair all over the place, you gotta clean up their poop, etc etc. I think I may still say horse because they're fun to ride.

2. In your opinion, what is the best board game ever made?--Ok, this is a really hard question because there are a ton of great games out there, but I LOVE the game Ticket to Ride. Whenever I meet someone who has it I want to play it. We don't own it because it's ridiculously expensive for a game and we've just never put the money down for it. Someday we'll probably cave. Also Curses is fun (more of a card game) and Bang (also a card game).

3. Carpet, hardwood or tile?--Carpet!! It's cozy and you can play on the floor with the kids (in my case just one kid)...it's just more comfortable. If I were to own a house though I would make it a combo of the three: tile in kitchens and bathrooms, carpet in bedrooms and other less formal rooms (rec room or whatever) and hardwood for others.

4. What are you/did you look for in a spouse?--someone who was my best friend, who understood me, made me laugh, balanced me out.

5. What is your favorite food/dessert your mom makes?--my mom makes awesome desserts. Snickerdoodles, chocolate chip cookies, cherries jubilee, texas sheet cake, chocolate pudding yumminess... Even though I use the exact same recipe and follow it to a tee, her cookies are always a zillion times yummier than mine. I don't understand it.

6. What is the first FUN thing you would buy if you won $1,000,000 dollars?--Hard question. I first think of paying off student loans, then buy a house, new cars, etc. All practical things that a family needs. Then I think of all the books I would love to own, but those aren't particularly expensive. Maybe clothes, I haven't bought new clothes in a long time, but that's kind of practical too. If we're being really ridiculous maybe a private jet so we could fly wherever we wanted whenever we wanted. That'd be sweet. :)

7. If you could choose anywhere to move to raise your family, where would you go?--We've already moved there, Colorado!

8. What is your favorite memory from high school?--I think about all the hours spent swimming. I had a lot of good times in the pool. Also stake play my junior year was super fun; that was a very social year.

9. What is your dream pet?--see question 1. I always wanted a dog (or a horse, but really, I'm never gonna have a horse) but now that I think about it, I don't really want to take care of a dog and they slobber all over you. Cats are more independent so I wouldn't have to do much, but I don't really like cats. They're mean. Maybe we'll get a hamster or something small that will stay primarily in a cage.

10. What is the best book you have read in the past year?--that is a very hard question. I keep a blog documenting all my books that I read. (sninny.blogspot.com) This last year has been a bit slower on the book reading front, what with having a baby and all, so I think my favorite from this last year was the Percy Jackson series. I know that's technically 5 books, but they're written for kids so I'll count them as one. :) I borrowed them from Lance (Chris's youngest brother) and they were really, really fun. Year before last had a lot more books that I would call "favorites": Hunger Games, Fablehaven, anything by Shannon Hale.

11. What is your dream date/favorite date?--Ok, dream date here, and maybe this isn't really a date but more of a vacation, but I'd love to go traveling with Chris through Europe, Italy especially. I know Chris wants to take me to Spain so we've fantasized about traveling across Europe together. Who knows when that will ever happen. We have a hard enough time taking little trips together, let alone a trip across the ocean. And then add kids into the mix...maybe when we retire. :)

Ok, now to post 11 new questions and tag people to answer them.
1-What is your favorite color and why?
2-If you could travel anywhere in the world, where would you go?
3-Do you prefer the beach or a lake?
4-What's one of your most embarrassing moments?
5-What was your favorite subject in school?
6-When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up?
7-What is one goal you have for the future?
8-What is your favorite book of all time?
9-What is a recipe you can make really well/your favorite recipe to make?
10-Who is someone that inspires you?
11-What kind of animal are you most like?

I tag Allison Meakin, Michelle Ryan, Alexandra Wink, Diana Hawkes, Liel Boyce, and Kate Challis. BTW, ladies, I won't be offended if you don't do this, so no worries. :)

a little bit of this, a little bit of that

Ok, so I've been doing pretty badly with updating this blog. Apologies to anyone who has been wanting new pictures of Sadie. Sadie went to her 6 month appointment a few weeks ago and here are her most recent stats:
Height--26 inches / 50-75th percentile
Weight--15 lbs 2 oz / 25-50th percentile (she went up a percentile!!)
Head--16 3/4 inches / 50-75th percentile
I'm so proud of my little bug; she gained 2 pounds since her last appointment just over a month ago. She's no longer the tiniest baby around and finally has some good chub on her body. Such a cutie.

In other news Sadie has officially moved into her own room and into a nice new crib. That's right, she is no longer sleeping in a pack n play at the foot of our bed. While it's not as easy to give her her binky in the middle of the night, it's so nice to have our own space again. And she LOVES her crib!!! There's so much more room for her to roll around and play. Plus we get to use super cute bedding we got from Teresa.
We've been nice and busy this month; we've had lots of snow, some sunshine, library trips, hospital trips to visit Sadie's poor cousin Rosie who had pneumonia,
lots of trips to the store, and lots of family time. We splurged this month and bought a new tv, finally laying to rest our huge, boxy and heavy tv. I bought Zumba Fitness 2 for the Wii and have been enjoying working out with latin dancing for a few weeks. It's a great workout!! Sadie had become comfortable with solid baby food and really likes her vegetables; she doesn't spit them at me anymore. :)
She's also become comfortable with sitting up
and has really strong arms and back when she has tummy time. In addition to her Exersaucer, which she still loves, she likes to play with water bottles, the tags on her stuffed animals, electronics cords, the basket that holds her toys, and lots of other things that she's not supposed to play with. She enjoys reading before naps, baths, having her picture taken, watching daddy make silly faces, going for drives and walks,
and chewing on my sweatshirt's hoodie strings. She hates having her face cleaned off after eating and having the boogers cleaned out of her nose. We have lots of fun together each day. She's my best little pal!! Such a sweet little girl. We love her.