Beanie Baby

This cute design is by Mindy Strauss on her Design website.

Yes that's right, we are pregnant again! We are only about a month and a half so please be praying that the Lord will bless us with a healthy pregnancy. We are due on or around Christmas. I know I should not be saying anything so soon, we were going to wait, but I can't keep a secret so between John and I, everyone knows anyways, lol.

This week, baby is about the size of a small lentil bean.

Not just any Spaghetti...

Friday night last week (I know I'm a little behind with the blogging lately) we had some friends over to make a spaghetti dinner for the guys. But not just any spaghetti dinner, this one was totally from scratch, and I mean totally! Brea made homemade spaghetti noodles and we all took turns cutting it by hand. Sarah made an amazing family recipe sauce with fresh (from her garden) herbs. And I was in charge of the meatballs, we ground the pork ourselves and added fresh herbs and spices. The only problem with this meal was... if you were to do it all yourself it would take about 4+ hours we started making dinner at 6:15 and ate it at about 8:30! Luckily we had the fixins for bruschetta and Sarah brought a cheese tray with crackers to snack on ahead of time, phew! I must say, it was totally worth the wait!!

Tulip Festival

My Mom, Grandma, Taylor and I all went to the Tulip Festival last week and here are some photos of Taylor throughout the day. It was overcast most of the time, but no rain! We were lucky. :)

Game Advice?

John and I need a fun stradegy type game to play that is fun with two players besides Cribbage. Since we don't have TV and good rental movies are few and far between, we like to play cribbage & sudoku, but after 3 years of that weekly, it's time for a change!! Please post your favorite two player game so we can get something new! :)

As a side note, we played Ian & Mindy's new game: Espyonage and it was totally awesome! We can't wait to buy a set! Check it out!

Sunny Day

Taylor and I went on our usual walk but today was so sunny and warm that I had to snap a few of her in her cute little tank. In the upper left photo she is making her "Uh-Oh" face.. she will drop something (in this case it was a rock) and say loud and clearly "Uhh Ohh" It is so cute! She is my sunshine.

Beach Vacation

John took Taylor and I to the beach for a much needed mini vacation over the weekend. My parents let us stay at their beach house in Oceanside and it turned out to be a perfect weekend. When we were driving down, the ground was covered in snow, then once we got there, it was clear and sunny! While on the beach Taylor could not stop saying "doggy doggy doggy" to all the passing dogs, it was really cute. She had so much fun!

Happy St. Patty's Day!

We had the family over for our traditional St. Patrick's Day meal. This is the first time my Mom as not made this meal, it's one of my favorite dinners of the year. We had irish soda bread, corned beef, cabbage, carrots, red potatos, and green beverages, then for dessert we had a bailey's chocolate mouse pie, all while listening to some traditional irish tunes on Pandora (check out the "music" link on the right)

We went over to my parents house on Sunday to help them get ready to move and have some yummy spicy sausage chili. Taylor had a blast in their red wagon and being chased by Kona. My parents also have a Lama next door, she thought they were pretty interesting.

Here are a couple photos of the guys working.. they built two planter stands for the back porch and replaces about 5 windows!

This is just a portion of my parents amazing backyard. In 2005 John and my Dad built this pergola from scratch! I'm totally amazed at how beautiful it turned out and how talented they are! We had our wedding here and it was absolutely perfect! We could not have had it at a more romantic location. My Mom planted almost 800 flowers that year for the big day and John planted a 15 plant rose garden here for me for our wedding... aw. :) It was stunning!

We finally sold our Triumph Spitfire. :( It was sad to see it go because it was a great little car with lots of memories. While we were making the sale in Jantzen Beach, we noticed there was a carousel, so of course for $2 we couldn't resist taking Taylor for a ride. It was a bitter sweet day.