A new twist on Garage Sales

This weekend is Bloomington"s annual garage sales. I"m fortunate that I work evenings so can bum around to them Friday and Saturday morning. I know my mom would be grinning to know that I now like to Garage sale. I always love a good baragin and with 2 young children new toys and clothes are always needed. This year I have a fun new thing to make my garage saling more fun.... a GPS! What a great thing. I now do not need to print endless mapquest maps, drive around aimlessly following signs only to end up at a "not so good" sale. Just progam in my desired addresses and go on my way. I do admit that it"s hard not to divert sometimes and follow the signs but today I stayed on track and found several nice sales! I have also learned that Amelia is quite the little Garage saler. After each one she would say "more?" That"s my girl! This morning we hit 6 sales and found some nice treasures. 2 were church sales (one being our own church). My favorite were probably the Mary kay items I found on discount. Amelia enjoyed her 50cent Jasmine Barbie princess, and Samuel got some new shirts and a car. I also got creative memories stickers, a christmas platter, and a mat to a frame.
Here"s to more bargain shopping.

Another Doctor visit

No worries! This time it was for Samuel's 9 month check up. We are all finally feeling better after having this cold go around the family for 2 weeks. We still have some sniffles and coughs and generally fussiness (mostly just the kids). We are looking forward to resuming our normal activities and schedules soon.

Here are Samuel's latest stats:
Weight: 19lbs 9oz (50%) All that crawling around made him slim down. Now that he's feeling better I'm sure his good appetite will improve along with all the finger foods he is starting to enjoy.

Height: 29 1/4 (75-90%) A tall one!
Head: 18 1/4 (also 75-90%)
Overall a good check-up. Dr. Sheri thinks his ears may still have some infection and after the amoxicillin reaction we were not put on another medication so we will start on Zithromax. This may help with some of the general fussiness that Samuel still has and may explain his lack of nursing too. We are trying to decide if he is done with nursing or its his cold. Time will tell. We also had an xray to check his torticollus and initally this looked fine. The last several weeks have been tough trying to figure on whats going on with Samuel. Of course today at the doctor he was perfect, content, smiling and charming. It makes all my stories about fussy, crying babies seem made up! Oh well I have always said Samuel is my more laid back child but is definately one that likes people around him.

Such a big boy!! I can't believe you are 9 months old... where has the time gone. I love to see you happier and smiling little man.

Amelia giving sam some loving... or tackling him. She was excited to be mommy's helper at the doctor (and she was!) and even packed her own backpack for the trip.

Amelia style

Only Amelia would want to wear boots on an 80 degree day!

I can't wait to see what she will dress like when she is a teenager.

Lounging after a busy morning of playing.

I had to include one picture of my lilacs. This is one of my favorite flowers. My parents have a whole row of trees and I grew up loving this sign of spring. We were fortunate to get one tree outside our bedroom window that has them. After some carefully pruning the last several years the tree is making a comeback. Amelia had fun helping me cut and arrange them. This replaces the Danish iron candelabra that broke this week while Amelia was trying to "help" me dust. I should have learned that with kids in the house decorating is never the same.

Another First

The first year is always a year of 1st's ... 1st smile, 1st foods, 1st crawling, etc. Well, this week Samuel had another 1st... his first extra trip to the doctor, an ear infection, pink eye, and antibiotics. Actually this is quite amazing because by this time Amelia had 6 ear infections and multiple other "extra" appointments. Samuel has been irritable off/on for several weeks. I kept thinking it was teething, growth spurt, traveling, etc. Finally I took him in. What's funny is that he had no symptoms other than irritability until Tuesday when he woke up with sniffles, and a goopy eye. Anways, it has been a rather long week (or 2 days I guess) of staying in, and hopefully getting over this. Last night his eyes were looking worse and he was looking miserable so when I went to snap a picture this is what I got.... still his happy smile.

Mother Day in Fergus

I know I'm a little late with this post. We were able to spend Mother's day weekend with my family in Fergus. The kids and I headed up on Thursday to be with my mom. David, Jim, Cari and the boys headed up on Friday. As always Amelia likes being with her cousins.

A 3 generation picture... We love you Mom and Grandma

Going out for lunch at Valentino's.... a place my family went often when I lived in Fargo.

Amelia's friends at Pappa's church. The taller one in the white was a flower girl at our wedding.

Thanks for a fun weekend Mom and Dad. Hopefully see you again next week.

Mexican Food and Swimming in the pool

My cousin Erik lives in Houston with his family. We were fortunate to be able to see them. They have 3 chilren... one close to Amelia and one close to Samuel. It was again fun to see Amelia latch on to these 2nd cousins she had never met. We had dinner with them at a local Mexican restaurant they like. It was perfect... I had just been saying that I wanted good mexican food when I was down there and mamacita's was authentic. Thanks Erik and Amanda for meeting us.

Swimming in the hotel pool.... it was not heated but Amelia and Samuel did not seem to mind.

Relaxing by the pool

Princess Polka Dot

I'm sorry for all the Texas posts, but I did take a lot of pictures! Joyce, this post is for you. It was such a pleasure to meet you (and know that you read my blog). I can tell you and Chase are perfectly suited for one another. I wish you a lifetime of happiness.

Most of these pictures were taken at the reception. Amelia loves weddings as we found out (no surprise becasue she gets to wear a dress and see a "princess.") She loved Chase, Joyce, and Chase's adopted sister Kelsey. I'm always amazed at how quickly Amelia can find friends in new places. She loved the reception... mostly running around and finding new friends. I think she sat at several tables before we made her come and sit with us. My biggest concern was the cake. Only once did I find her with her finger in the cake! Thankfully pictures had already been taken with it and no damage was done. Another funny thing was Amelia loved to follow Joyce around with her dress. Chase and Joyce took pictures with every table. I will be curious to see when they get these pictures back.... I think Amelia will be in many of them.

The Gang (with wives)

This group has been together since Junior High. They would often play a Star Trek card game and just hang out. They were all sad because Bryan(David's brother) was the only one missing from the group.

They Happy Couple

The Main Event

Finally some wedding pictures! The wedding (the whole reason we went down there) was Saturday morning. We were so grateful to have David's parents there to help out with the kids. David was best man so had responsibilities. It was a beautiful Texas day.

Getting close to celebrating our 5 year anniversary. Weddings always make me remember ours.

Chase, David, Chase's brother Brandon and of course Amelia before the wedding started.

Joyce and her dad (sorry the photo is a little blurry)

Bridal party

Zoo part 2

Amelia up close to the animals.

Stopping for a picture in front of the reflection pool.

Samuel relaxes in his carseat and as usual won't wear his hat.

Amelia enjoyed the splash zone in the children's zoo. It was a nice way to cool off on a hot day.

Houston Zoo

On Thursday we headed downtown to the Houston Zoo. I was very impressed and the kids enjoyed it. It was a perfect, sunny day with a slight breeze to cool us off. They also have a children's zoo.

They had a nice aquarium section. One of my favorite things was a tunnel kids could craw through while fish swarm around. Amelia was a bit timid at first and it didn't help that older kids were going from both directions.

The fish tunnel

Our adventure begins

Here is the group at the airport getting ready to go. You will notice Amelia is sporting her princess backpack. She was quite a trooper and carried the pack through much of the airport. It was quite loaded with toys, and snacks but she insisted on carrying it! I wish I would have had a picture of our gear when we unloaded at the airport. You will have to have a mental image. Picture a double stroller with Samuel's seat in front, pack n play layed across Amelia's seat with her car seat on top. Amelia holding on behind, David rolling 2 large suitcases holding 2 backpacks and a bag and me pushing the stroller with a backpack and a purse. We got a lot of looks. Are other traveling families not this loaded down?

I had planned some special presents for Amelia on the trip. My mom used to do this as a reward for being good on long car rides. Here she is opening a princess floatation device to use at the pool.

One morning in Houston I found Amelia looking through our brocures as I was getting ready. I think she was planning the schedule for the day.