On Vacation: Part one

Sorry for being MIA for over a week now, we've been travelin' fools over here. Last week the little and I flew home to the Pacific Northwest, Seattle, and enjoyed a long week visiting family and friends. I love going home, I truly miss living in the Seattle area, even though I know we love Boise, i'm always torn, especially when I visit, it's tough not to want to stay. We had so many fun things planned this trip, and to start us off I've posted a ton of pictures from a road trip we took to a friends wedding. Saturday morning we packed up my mom's car and headed to Vancouver, Washington. 

It was a long drive, I got kinda bored and took a couple selfies :)

After 2 hours of traffic through Tacoma and Fort Lewis, we pulled into an adorable little town, Dupont, for some leg stretching and naked time. Stella had a massive poo, so she got to air out for awhile and let the buns get some sun, while mom and I tried to set her GPS to figure out where the heck in Vancouver we were going. 

We made it to the church with a half hour to spare... whew!! Neither of us expected traffic to be so bad, so we were happy to just be out of the car after such a long drive. We changed in the parking lot... yup, we were those guests lol. But at least we had dresses to change out of our jeans into. It worked out well, Stella got some more naked time before the wedding, then she slipped into her adorable little dress and headband, isn't she cute!?! She also got a new toy to play with during the ceremony, which only kept her entertained for about 10 minutes before she was chucking the thing into the aisle, where it would land with a huge thump and rattle... great. So I wore her in the sling, and danced around the back of the chapel for most of the ceremony. Stella really was pretty awesome throughout the whole thing, much better than her first wedding earlier this summer. She loved watching all the people up on stage, and loved when they had music and people singing, that got her attention with the first notes of the piano. 

After the ceremony, the bride and groom, Laura and Andrew, rode off in this awesome Plymouth! It was such a beautiful car! I just had to snap a few pictures to show my dad and Brent. 

My sister (the blond) was one of the co-maid's of honor. Laura and her have pretty much been best friends since high school, where they were co-yearbook editors for 2 years. And their yearbook teacher? She came to the wedding too! Her and her husband flew all the way up from Arizona to attend Laura's big day, that's Ms. B below Pammy and Laura. She was actually my yearbook instructor in middle school, almost 15 years ago! She said that she will be back for Pam's wedding when it happens and she wouldn't miss it for the world. 

Stell was quite the grump during the reception. She would not smile for anyone... well, except for Ms. B's (or now Mrs. Rodriguez) husband, Freddie, he seemed smitten with Stella, and she reciprocated that affection right back. It was pretty cute, I think she thought he looked like her daddy, because they both had facial hair... she has a thing for men with facial hair... it's pretty cute.

miss grumpy pants hangin out with grandma

and gettin some snuggles from Auntie

See, still grumpy

not even kisses will cheer her up

Stell finally told auntie off a little, lol, which shocked all of us a lot.

finally a happy girl with her mama

and no, my hair did not look like this the whole time, it was cute and down with a slight curl, but it was super humid and hot, so up it went when we got to the reception and Stella started pulling it.

awww, smooshy face kisses from the little, a mama's favorite

I love me some little snuggles

We had a great time celebrating Laura and Andrew's wedding, and I'm so thankful I was able to make it over for the event! Cheers to them and many years of love and happiness to the newlyweds!!!

Living room makeover

I've been trying to post these pictures for a few weeks now (ok, for almost a month...) but with many visitors, and a baby who is kinda a not great napper right now, it's been tough to get pictures with the living room clean, let alone in decent light... which i'm still not sure I captured. While my mom was here at the beginning of the month, we decided that my living room needed a little sprucing up. I've been tired of the red theme for some time now, and was thrilled when she suggested we tackle this big project! The new color theme?? Blue! I wanted something calming and beautiful, and I'm so happy with how it turned out! So, after looking through some recent Pinterest pins of things that had caught my eye, we got to work, and, I'm beyond happy with how things turned out! Even Brent likes it, Thankfully. He was out of town while we did all this, and it was a total surprise. I'm so thankful my hubby is ok with things I do to our home, he knows when I get a creative itch, it's hard not to scratch it, and that's just one of the many amazing things I love about him. So, want to see our new living room?? I'm sure you're dying to know how it turned out, It's pretty awesome. 

The Ottomans came from TJ Maxx Home Goods... probably my most favorite store, ever. 

The whole living room, well almost, minus the large sofa along the front wall, but you get the idea

Abby enjoying the new pillows, curtosy of TJ Maxx and Fred Meyers (floral print)

We added a few new "home" photos, prints that I've collected of Washington over the years from Pike's Place, they help us miss it a little less in some ways. We also bought new end tables (which I LOVE!) to help us be a bit more organized. and see the new lamps? Those were our color inspiration, the perfect shade of blue.

Pillows

Our new lamps, from Lowes. They are so perfect!

So, what do you think? I'm wanting to add a few lemon yellow accent pieces, but its really hard to find the right color for some reason. As always, the house is a work in progress, never ending, but so much fun to work on. 

Randoms

Not much has been happening with us this week, which is why I have had a lack of posts as of late. We've been taking it easy around our house, trying hard to get Stella on a regular sleep schedule, which she still fights like crazy at every nap, and every bedtime. Even if I lay down with her and nurse her to sleep, she wakes up as soon as I get up... lame. The other night she was awake for 2 full hours from about 2:30 til about 4:30.... again.... lame. She has such an active mind, and is such an active little girl, I think she just prefers going a million miles a minute, and we prefer her to chill out and nap at least twice a day, so for now were agreeing to disagree, and trying our best to get her to like sleep a little bit more. She is so active, that currently I am sitting out on our deck blogging (because it's finally tolerable to sit out here and there is an awesome breeze going through), which she bounces away in her activity jumper. I never thought I would be one of those parents who rely's on a big toy to keep their child happy, but seriously? She is so active, it's tough to put her down and have her stay happy for more than 5 minutes, even if surrounded by toys. She wants to be into everything, touching, seeing, biting, jumping. Her favorite thing to do is stand up on our laps and jump, she laughs and we get the biggest, gummiest grins when she's jumping, she just loves it. 

This little girl is going to keep us on our toes. We can already tell she's a mover, we've known this since the first ultrasound, she was wiggling all over, just this little embryo, standing straight up.  Where most babies at 10 weeks gestation are curled up and looking like a seahorse, Stella was dancing across the screen, even the tech warned us we were going to have our hands full. I wouldn't have it any other way though, She keeps me moving, gets me out and about, loves the park, loves being outside (literally, could stay out there all day) and is just our little firecracker. I cannot wait to see what her activity brings us as a toddler :)

I have a ton of pictures to share from the last 2 weeks, I am just now getting around to uploading them, and didn't realize just how many there were... Enjoy!

The little, or Gremlin as we affectionately call her when she's got this face/attitude going, is now into EVERYTHING. Fighting hard to reach things she wants, putting everything she successfully grabs right into her mouth, yea, it's fun

Daddy's cup is especially yummy to chew on

mmmmmm. cup.

Daddy trying to take it back... Stella was having nothing to do with handing it over though...

look at the sheer happiness and huge smile on Stella's face, you can see it, even though she's upside down, you can see it on Brent's face too, I love it. 

so happy!

Have you ever had an ORANGE watermelon??? We have! and it was delish!!

I've only dared take one photo of Stella sleeping... i'm afraid the flash will wake her. But isn't she so freaking adorable!?!
She's such a big girl now sleeping in her own crib!!

Last week I finally got around to painting our dining room chairs, yay! I had been wanting to for awhile, but it's tough finding extra time for crafty stuff with the little. So, I had daddy watch her, and I was able to paint all 4 chairs! I only got one coat, so they are a little rough, not as smooth as I had hoped, but at least they are yellow!! I love the color, it brightens up our kitchen a ton! 

We've had some pretty awesome sunset's lately, and I finally got a picture that turned out! For some reason the pink skies never look the same in the pictures, but orange? It looks pretty great! 

These next pictures are of Stella eating some of her first foods, I just loved the intense look on her face watching daddy scoop the rice, and how big her mouth gets as the spoon approaches, love it.

And don't you love her bib? Yes, my sister bought it for her, so it's totally ok that she is pretty much advertising her auntie is Hot... and Single. Her number is 555.... ;)

Our week

Sorry for being mostly MIA this last week. While the hubby was out of town for 10 days, my mom and sister came to visit us for a few days. I was so happy to have them here to keep us company and love on the little for a week! My sister was only here for the weekend, but mom drove over and stayed for a full 6 days!!! It was SO wonderful having her here all week, just someone to help out with Stella, let me clean, help me clean, and go do fun things with all week made Brent's absence much easier on us. Unfortunately, I forgot to charge my camera battery before they arrived, so as I was trying to click some pictures on Friday night, my camera went dead... then Saturday we went to the market, and as I pulled out the camera to shoot a cute picture of my sister wearing Stella at the market, I had forgotten to put the battery back IN the camera... fail. So, I didn't get any fun market pictures like I had wanted. Mom and I went to Sun Valley on Tuesday, I actually remembered to bring the camera, but, didn't take any pictures while up there... fail again. What did I take pictures of? Us hanging out at home. Lame huh. But there are some pretty adorable shots of Stella with our guests, she sure was lovin' her some family time!

Getting snuggles with Grandma

Doesn't Stella look so content! She really loves her Grandma's cuddles.

I love these series of pictures with Stella and her auntie. Bare Bum (naked time), Aunties cute braid (and little sneak of her newest tattoo!!), kisses and huge smiles! What more could a baby girl ask for!?!

Grandma gave Brent and I a date night while she was here, and apparently everything was great up until Stella started fighting sleep... Bath went great, naked time was awesome, the tour of the backyard went splendly, but sleep? No thank you Stella said. And she fought it like crazy I guess... We didn't get the "Having a meltdown" text until we walked in the door.... where we found this scene below:

Stella finally passed out, slung over mom's arms where she had been bouncing her trying to get her to calm down in between heartbreaking sobs mom said. It broke her heart but what a trooper!!! and for the record... Brent and I only went to get ice cream and were barely gone an hour... poor little just cant handle her evenings with anyone else but mama I guess, something were going to have to work on apparently. 

After Grandma got the little to sleep (yay!) She passed her off to dad for some snuggles, he had been missing his girl an awful lot while out of town. 10 days is the longest he's been away from Stella so far, and it was tough, so he's been catching up on all the lovin's he can get!

Don't ya just love sleeping babies?

How about a vote?