Amelia update, and the week in review

We have had a great week.  Nothing particularly special, but lots of fun and time spent together.  There are so many pictures and things that I want to share.  Let's do a week in review:

I made a delicious thai peanut noodle dinner.  So good that it made Brandon dance.

Amelia wore her new 6-9 month adorable pajamas.

She also wore another adorable outfit...one that she wore to Brandon's school for a surprise visit. 

Can you see her two bottom teeth?

She likes her teeth.  She plays with them a lot by tucking her bottom lip in and rubbing her gums.

See?  This was her 2nd Halloween costume.  She was a flower.  We went to a new Mom's group Halloween party that was really neat.  All homemade decorations with creative games in an old schoolhouse.  I wasn't able to meet anyone new, and Brandon was in school, but we still had a good time.  

This game was, "can you throw the duct taped paper towel roll through the toilet seat?"  

There were even clowns.

We also went for a long walk in the beautiful fall weather.  I'm trying to soak it all in before the rain comes to stay.  

These are the trees outside of our house. 

This tree was so pretty that I thought we'd stop and take a few pictures.  Of Amelia.  Sitting up by herself!  Well, she'll sit up for 30 seconds or so and then slump down like this:

I think she still has fun though :) 

Speaking of lovely photos, we got a few sneak peeks of our professional session a few weeks back...and LOVE them.

And we got a new swing, in hopes of having a few more "hands free" moments. 

And took a few more naps :) 

Hope you had a great week!

A randomly boring weekend

I had all sorts of plans for this weekend.  Finally, I was going to have lots of lots of help with Amelia! We were going to go to the museum, or maybe the zoo!  I was going to cook delicious meals, because I finally decided to let some meat back into our house!

Come to find out, Brandon had a paper that was due at noon on Sunday.  But, it looked fairly easy and probably wouldn't take long....12 hours later....

So, that's not random.  I'd say that's more along the lines of boring.  Definitely boring.  And tiring (for me w/ Amelia and him w/ the computer).  Here's the random part.  This is what I came home to on Saturday:

If you're wondering what this is and why it's on our front porch, you're not alone. It's a dirty razor scooter.  

Then I went to the bathroom and found this:

A dirty cooler.  In our bathtub.

What in the world happened while I was at the gym?!  Apparently, Brandon got distracted on his bike ride to study and went dumpster diving.  Not that I'm complaining.  He found some good stuff.  Random stuff.

His best find?

A grill!  For those of you who know Brandon, you know that he likes to clean.  Before we could even discuss what activities we could do today, he was out on the porch scrubbing the crap out of the "new" grill. That was over an hour ago.  

My plans for delicious dinners?  Out the window.  Brandon had a bag-o-salad from Albertson's where he was studying.  Here was my dinner date:

Amelia didn't see that box of macaroni and cheese, but not to worry, she made up for it today.  

I heard a laugh from the kitchen.  I'm guessing it was because of this:

Apparently, she chewed a hole through the box.  Great.  

I'm looking forward to our next adventure....outside of the house! And, on a random note, I'm SO getting that peanut butter banana smoothie at the gym tonight.  After this kind of a weekend, who am I to say no? 

The day we forgot the stroller. and the wrap. and the baby bjorn.

Last weekend was Brandon's guard weekend, meaning he worked Saturday and Sunday on base (next to the Portland airport).  Saturday was his first day, and also happened to be family day. He had to be at work at 7am, which is really early when you have a 5 month old who goes to sleep between 11pm and 1am.  So, in short, he took the car.  Then came to pick us up and take us to family day.

The last time he took the car, we forgot to take the stroller and wrap out so I could have something to do while he was gone (we have 1 vehicle).  There was no way we were going to make that mistake again.

Wrong.

We took the stroller out, but forgot to put it back in.

So, that meant a day of holding Amelia.  All day.  Meet and greet with new co-workers?  Holding Amelia.   Walking around base in knee high boots because I was tired of these "old" moms showing me up?  Holding Amelia.  You get the idea.

We definitely took turns, but it still was tiring.  On the way home we stopped to get some work out shorts for Brandon and somehow made our way into an ice cream shop.  I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Tired mommy.

Oh, that's cute. Kind of.

Not cute.

And....it's your turn. 

I really hope we learn from our mistakes.

Oregon Zoo!

A few weeks ago we went to the Oregon Zoo and had a great time! We ended up getting year round passes and Amelia and I have already been back.  It's a pretty nice zoo, especially when you compare it to the Alaska Zoo :) It always makes me feel sad to see all of the animals caged up, but from what I understand, most of the animals at the Oregon Zoo are rehabilitated and wouldn't be able to survive in the wild in their current condition.

Here I am with a zebra:

And here Amelia is, driving a tractor:

The tractor was next to this garden, which reminded us of Dad and Ruth's house...and, of course, her fabulous garden.  

Here's Brandon in this dome thing that is meant for kids to climb under.  He's got Amelia in the baby bjorn, so that counts....right? (he's on his knees in this picture)

And the rest of my family in front of those heat sensor cameras.  Looks like Amelia's hat was doing it's job!

And last but not least, one picture that sums up our relationship.

Haha.  So typical.  We had a great time, and look forward to going back again zoo-n! 

Before Amelia....

I took a trip down memory lane tonight, and came across some pictures that were taken before Amelia's birth.  It seems like so long ago.  Can you believe that just this year I got married, graduated college, had a baby, and moved to Oregon?! In case you wanted to take the trip with me, here are some pictures from this fabulous year:

On our wedding day getting my hair did:

Growing a baby (isn't my belly HUGE?!)

On our honeymoon cruise...and I thought I was big then!

Baking everything under the sun, 39 weeks pregnant:

And graduating! (May 2nd) I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who smuggled snacks into the ceremony...

And, of course, had a beautiful baby girl:

Columbia River Gorge!

I've been looking at "Travel Oregon" and other similar magazines recently to try and plan our weekends.   There's just so much to do around here.  We try and do one adventure a week (either on Saturday or Sunday...whichever is not rainy :).  This week it was Columbia River Gorge.  The pictures of Multnomah Falls are just breathtaking, and I'm so glad that we got to see them in person!  I didn't know that there were so many waterfalls out there....all within a mile or two of each other.  We had a great time hiking in and around them.

Before the falls, we stopped at the Vista House to meet Mikey, Marie and their son Finn (Amelia's buddy). It's called the Vista House for a reason.  Check out these views!

Here's Amelia, reunited with her friend Finn.  Can you see the excitement on her face?  I really think she recognized him. 

Warning - this post has a TON of pictures. 

Here's Amelia at the first waterfall we stopped at.  Isn't she cute? :) 

Go Blue Bees! 

I know that it doesn't look huge, but let me tell you....this waterfall was ginormously tall. There was a little path down to the base of the waterfall and I could tell that it was killing Brandon not to go down there.  So, down he went.

I made the mistake of saying "wouldn't it be cool the be BEHIND the waterfall?"  Apparently, he thought the same thing.  And, apparently, it was pretty sweet.

Next stop? Multnomah Falls!

We tried to hike up to the top, but I was hungry.  We all know how I get when I'm hungry, right?  We turned around pretty quick and I finally was able to eat the banana that was waiting for me in the car.  This was our turnaround point.  Pretty high up there, huh?

I was so glad that we made it out to the falls.  It probably took an hour to get there, and was well worth the trip.

Next adventure - corn maze, pumpkin patch, hay ride and caramel apples this Wednesday!