6 Months!

Our sweet baby girl is 6 months already! We weighed her on her birthday and she was 18 lbs. 6 oz. so she has officially doubled her birth weight and is growing like a weed.

She is, as it turns out, the cutest baby I have ever seen.

And the sweetest.

And the happiest.

We celebrated her 6 month birthday with our usual monthly photo shoot, dinner out with her Grandma who was in town, and of course, felt food.

It doesn't get much better than that!  :) 

Family Vacay

This weekend Brett had some extra days off, so we decided to head up to the Grand Canyon since we have not been since we moved to Arizona.

It was fun to take Hailey on a trip, even if it was just a short one.  The Grand Canyon was beautiful, and pretty much exactly how I remembered it.

We obviously did not do much hiking with a baby in tow, but we enjoyed walking some of the easy access trails along the rim and taking some pictures.

Hailey did well and was adorable, as always.  She attracted many ooohs and ahhs from passersby. 

My baby carrier was put to the ultimate test and Hailey loved riding around in it!

Grand Canyon Baby!

I took a rapid series of pictures.  All put together she looks like a tour guide: 

On my left you will see the Grand Canyon...

And the Colorado River...

So cute.

If you'd like to see more pictures from our trip, you can check them out here:

Grand Canyon 2011

Baby Shower

A couple of weekends ago we had a baby shower back in San Diego--  It was wonderful!!

I wish I had thought ahead and taken more pictures of myself with people, but pictures of people will have to do.  :) 

 We of course had to play the "how big is the baby belly?" game...

...which Brooke won!  And, in case you are wondering, NO she did not cheat using her own baby belly.  She won fair and square, and was seriously within about 1/4 inch!  Way to go Brooke! 

Later I got to enjoy opening all the cute pink girly things, and visiting with friends and family that we don't get to see often enough. 

Thanks to everyone who came and made the day so special! 

Okay, Okay, Okay!

Okay!!  I will FINALLY blog about Easter weekend.  Here's what we did:

1.)  We drove back to San Diego late Friday night.  No pics of that, sorry.

2.)  We took my Grandma out to Black Angus for lunch and to visit.  We had delicious food but terrible service.  That seems to pretty much be par for the course at Black Angus. 

3.)  We colored Easter eggs with Travis, Alex and Cindy:

(I made a special one for Moose since he couldn't be there)

4.)  My beautiful niece Natalie was born!!  Which was fabulous timing.  We went to the hospital to meet her on Easter morning:  :)

5.)  We hung out with Brett's fam' on Easter, and the kids had their Easter egg hunt.

(This is part of the fam.  We'll call this a fam faction™)

6.)  Everyone got jolted by a 7.2 earthquake, or whatever magnitude it was, I just remember it was a lot.

7.)  We went to the San Diego Zoo!!

(Here I am just hangin' with the monkeys.  Pun totally intended)

(This is me communing with the wildlife.  I look so comfortable in this situation)

(You Takin' to me?  Man I'm on a roll today.)  

8.)  Then, we met Travis for lunch @ the Zoo.

9.)  We went up to Carlsbad to visit my Dad & Margie and had a yummy dinner.

10.)  We decided on the drive from Carlsbad to Alpine to drive home late that night (Monday) rather than getting up super early on Tuesday to drive home.

11.)  Got a speeding ticket for going just a teensy bit over the speed limit.  In the middle of the desert.  In the middle of the night.  With no one else around.  It's ok.  I'm not bitter. 

And THAT is our Easter Update.  :)

Last Weekend

Last Saturday while Brett was at work, I went to Glendale with his Aunt Judy and cousin Jenny to have lunch and check out some antiques.

We started out at this cool place called the Brass Armadillo that has just about everything you could ever imagine and then some. 

After the Brass Armadillo it was definitely time for lunch.  We had planned on eating at a mexican food restaurant, but as we walked toward it we noticed that as soon as you crossed the railroad tracks you were definitely in a different part of town, and perhaps not the safest part of town, so we turned around and decided pizza sounded just as good.

We had lunch at La Piazza Al Forno which was featured on Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives.

We had this pizza:

It was AMAZING.  No red sauce, just butter, huge chunks of garlic and feta and mozzarella cheese.  Absolutely to die for.  We also had some delicious ravioli that was probably the best I have ever had. 

After we has fully loaded on carbohydrates it was time to walk around and check out more antique shops.

 

Judy and Jenny decided they did not want to take a picture with me.  :-P  I think it might have had something to do with the fact that they knew it would ultimately end up on the internet.  That's ok though.  I love them anyway.  

Picture or not we had a great time and will definitely need to plan another "girl's day" sometime soon! 

Brett's Graduation Party

I don't have a whole lot to blog about Brett's graduation party, except that we had a really fun time. Mostly, I really like this picture, and wanted to share it with you. See?

Awwwww......

Such a cute couple.

Why thank you, I agree with you.

But seriously, it was a really great day and it was so much fun to get together with everyone. It felt like one big family and friend reunion, and we got to see many people that we had not seen since our wedding almost four years ago.

Here's our guest of honor:


...and again with his brother:


Then I jumped in there just for fun:


Brett's mom & Melissa, the blogger behind Darby's Daily. I'm sure Darby would blog herself if only she had thumbs:


And Brett with Melissa's husband Glenn:

It was nice to catch up with my cousin Kellie, and I'm so glad my Grandma was able to make it:


And we got to see Karen! We haven't seen her in quite some time, either:

Here's Brett's cool display with all of his smarty-pants awards that he got for being such a Smarty-McSmarterson:


A big thanks to all our friends and family who came out to celebrate with us that day!

Sea Life Aquarium

When we were in San Diego a couple of weeks ago Margie treated Brett & I to an afternoon at the Sea Life Aquarium at Legoland.


The first thing we did was head upstairs to see the seahorse feeding:

Then we saw the cool stingrays. They actually had signs saying 'do not pet.' No kidding.


They had all these bubbles where you could stick your head up into the aquarium. Naturally, we all had to take a turn in the bubble:






We got up close and personal with an octopus...


...and said hello to an extremely large lobster:


There were lots and lots of pretty fish:


And cool moon jellies:


And these bright red shrimp were really pretty!

I'm pretty sure the tunnel ended up being everyone's favorite part of the experience:


Thanks Margie!!