Big Bear!

Tai and I have been saying for awhile that we wanted to take Sam to the snow. And I have a friend who graciously said we could use her house in Big Bear (she let us use it when we went a year and a half ago too!) so we decided to go over the 3 day weekend up to Big Bear! We had a blast. My friend also allowed a couple of our other friends to stay in her house as well, so that was extra nice! We got up there early Saturday morning and stayed until the afternoon on Monday. Although it was a quick trip it was an awesome weekend getaway!

Not surprisingly, Sam did not like the snow. LOL. It took her awhile to warm up to it enough to even stand in it! HA! But eventually she made it onto the sled for a couple trips down the driveway. My friends house is on a big hill and the driveway is a perfect sled track. It made it nice because we really didnt have to leave the house at all!

My friend Kristi's house




All bundled up to go out to the snow for the first time! (it really wasnt that cold out... but I bought the snow clothes so she was going to wear them LOL. Plus I didnt want her to get all wet.)



Sam and Emma



Sam, Emma and Allison


Walking out... thiking she is going to love the snow


But......nope. She didnt like it! :)



Allison and Emma going sledding!





Daredevil Emma even went by herself!





Watching everyone else sled


And then Sam fell in the snow and was not happy



She eventually went in the sled though




Notice where she is standing? In the one spot without snow. LOL




Here are some pics of the kids just playing

Allison




Allison and Anthony










Sam and Emma




Sam and Allison


All 3




With Taylor




Lindsey and Kennedy










Emma and Taylor builing a snowman. Sam wanted no part in this because she did not want to touch the snow!



Kim and Ava


Sadie all bundled up to go outside!





me and Sadie


The Fam


Tai and Sam sledding


Keith and Taylor decided to take the sleds out and find some bigger hills to go down






Keith


Kim and Ava and Shana and Sadie.


Then Sam asked me to take her on the sled. So I did (and Tai took like a million pics of us on the way down. He likes our new camera a little too much. LOL)















and then I crashed us into a little hill and Sam got snow all over, so she wasnt happy with me





Taylor and Emma


Anthony and Allison


We also had fun inside the cabin. We had a fire going, music playing and the kids running around like crazy! There is no TV in this cabin, which is actually fun because we sit around and talk more, play games and the kids are forced to play with their toys and not watch TV! We had fun cooking dinner together and just hanging out.

Sadie passed out




Sam and Lindsey (we moved the couch back like that so the kids were blocked into the room. lol. The staircase is pretty steep and we didnt want anyone to fall down, so we locked them in!)





Sam and Allison


Sam was obsessed with the high chair.







Sadie and Ava


Taylor with all the girls. LOL. They just kept climbing on him


Sadie and Ava again


I guess I didnt get as many pictures of the kids playing inside as I thought. LOL. But trust me, they all had fun!

Yesterday when we were packing up everyone was saying how much fun we had and that we wished we were staying a couple more days. It was just a great time relaxing with friends in a gorgeous place.

KRISTI- STOP READING NOW IF YOU ARE READING THIS! :) I dont want to spoil the surprise.....
















Did you stop reading Kristi?? Hope so! So as a thank you to Kristi for letting us use her house, I made her kids some hats. She has a little boy Griffin who is Sams age, and then she also has a Samantha who just turned 5.





I hope they like them!

Some Cuteness....

I was able to upload some pics last night from our week!

Sam playing dress up







our friends Keith and Lindsey came over for dinner the other night with their daughter Kennedy, who just turned one. Sam wanted to show Kennedy her new trampoline! Kenndey was having so much fun, and Keith was in there to help supervise (Sam sometimes feels the need to just push Kennedy down for no reason... we are working on this!). Sam has a little crush on Keith so she was having a blast with him in there too!









Sam still loves her swingset and slide too!



Here she thought she would be brave and go down face first....







And then she decided she actually wasnt that brave and went down normally! LOL :)









I do take pics of Sadie too... promise!





And finally, I hurt my finger the other night (actually I broke my nail so low it took a chunk of my finger with it) so I needed a bandaid... and Sam wanted on 'like mommy' so we had matching thumbs :)

Back to Work...

I started back at work last Monday and it sucked just as much as I thought it would, not going to lie. BUT- my girls are with my mom so that makes it bearable. I dont know if I could do this if it werent for her watching them. So THANKS MOM! :) Sam didnt care at all though. LOL. We got to my moms at 5:20 Monday morning and when I left I told her I loved her and I would miss her and she told me "Thanks for bringing me to my Nanas!" with a huge smile on her face. And it made me smile too. I am glad she is so happy! The week went ok and now we are on to week 2!

Since I am back at work I have a lot more free time to browse the internet- kinda ironic huh? When I am at home I have no free time, but when I am at work I have lots! :) Anyhoodles... since I have this free time, Sams party planning is is full swing! (Can you believe my baby is going to be THREE in just a couple months??? Geesh! Where did my baby girl go?! She is growing up so fast!!! ) I am SO excited to be planning her party this year! So excited in fact that I have a to-do list about a mile long... no joke! I have high hopes of getting it all done too to give my baby girl the Pink Princess party of her dreams!!! (Are you shocked at what kind of party she wanted? LOL. She is ALL GIRL that one!!!) Most of the things I am planning on making myself... so I started this weekend with the invites! Only got one made so far-A LOT of trial and error and nothing was striking me as THE invitation... so after a few trips to Michaels I think I finally have one I like! I will post some sneak peak pics of the progress soon!

Sorry for the no pictures in this post. I am at work and havent had time to upload them at home yet! (LOL see! More time at work than at home!) I will try to do it this week because I am going to have a ton of pictures from this coming up weekend! We are taking the girls to the SNOW! FUN!

And one lsat thing. When I was pregnant with Sadie I stumbled across this birth story on a blog. (WARNING- must have kleenex handy if you are going to read it. Its a tear jerker!) http://www.kellehampton.com/2010/01/nella-cordelia-birth-story.html And ever since I read that story I was hooked on this blog. The woman (who has an awesome name I might add *wink wink*) is a wonderful writer and has 2 of the cutest little girls. The second daughter was born with Down Syndrome. If you havent read this blog yet, I highly suggest you check it out! You will get hooked like me I know it! She seems like such a fun mom, something I strive for as well! And she loves her girls. I tear up in almost every post she has. She loves her girls like I love mine, she is just much better at putting it into words than I am! But I feel the love she has for them, and it mirrors the love I have for my girls. SEE- I am tearing up writing about it! :) Anyhoodles, the point to all this was her second daughter Nella is turning one in a couple weeks. And in honor of her birthday Kelle (the writer/mom) is trying to raise $47,000 for NDSS (National Down Syndrome Society) Here is her post on that http://www.kellehampton.com/ Anyways- I just donated and think its a great cause. I have been hooked on this blog and love reading it, so I thought making a small donation was the least I could do.

Happy Monday everyone! I will try to get some pictures up soon! Sam is LOVING her trampoline, so most of the pics of her lately are in that! LOL!

Happy New Years!

Hope everyone had a great New Years! We went over to our friends Kim and Taylors house. We had a blast. It was a kid friendly night so there were a ton of kids running around. :) Sam was the only one who lasted till midnight though! It was pretty low key, just some snacks and drinks and watching the ball drop on TV... it was still a great night!

Sam and Emma







This is our friends Shana and Anthony's daughter Allison. She turned one on the day Sadie was born!





Zack. The only boy. LOL



Shana and Allison











This is Jay and his new daughter Olivia (Jay is Zacks dad).



Our other friends daughter Madi. She is 2 months younger than Sam



Sadie





Allison is obsessed with trying to get into all the baby stuff. She is always trying to climb into a swing, or the baby car seat... LOL







Taylor and his new daughter Ava who is 10 weeks younger than Sadie (Taylor is Emmas dad)



Taylor, Ava and Kim



Me and Shana (Sadie is sleeping in the wrap!) And that is Shana's hubby Anthony in the background



Sam LOVES Shana and is always climbing on her



And here are some of Sam enjoying her Trampoline :) She loves this thing!











And the girls together