A visit to grampas house

Picture this: Myself. Dustin. sister Cassie. Samantha. Niece Mariah. In one car. For a very long trip.

So we've got me driving. Dustin in the passenger seat. Cassie in the backseat with the 2 girls.
It's a FULL car. We have a 7 hour 10 hour! drive ahead of us. So we leave after I get home from work, take a nap, finish packing, get the car loaded up, stop at Walmart... longest "get ready to go time" ever. Anyways. We finally are on the road! YAY! Then my sisters phone is dying. And she needs it. So we stop at Target (about a half hour from home). She buys a phone charger. We continue driving. We drive about another 30-40 minutes. Samantha starts screaming at the top of her lungs. What is wrong with my poor child!? So I get off the highway, pull in to the gas station to see what the problem is. She is a little wet. But all that screaming due to a wet diaper? hmm... weird. Anyways... I go in.. change her. she screams some more. I give her some tylenol. WHAT is wrong with my child!? Doesn't help. Give her some mylocin. She seems okay while someone is holding her, but we have a very looooong car ride ahead of us. I spot a Dennys. YES! We go get some food and let the girls stretch out a bit. Samantha goes "potty". Messy, but she seems to be feeling much better! So we get back in the car and head back to the highway. Drive for a long while. Kids are sleeping on and off. Stop to get gas. Mariah wakes up screaming at the top he HER lungs. Stop at a rest area. Contemplate getting a hotel so she can sleep in a BED... decide no. Too expensive. Call around when she continues yelling. Find a motel for fifty bucks a night. Perfect. Right? Nope. still too expensive for me and I just want to GET there already! So we keep driving. About 5 miles down the road of the motel exit, what happens? The only thing that could possibly happen to make this drive ANY worse. Cop. Cop.. Cop. uh oh. Did I slow down in enough time? Um no. Here he comes. Lights on. Crap. Pull over. Cry. Yes, cry. Pay the cop for the ticket (kinda convenient if you ask me, but still a pain). Ticket = 75 dollars. Crap. It would have been cheaper to get off and sleep at a motel. ugh. So we continue driving. Oh, there's our exit (2 hours later). YAY! But no. We still have an hour and a half before we get there. Longest drive EVER. Finally get there at 5am. YES! Set up Samanthas pack and play. Go potty. Go to bed. Wake up around 11:30ish? Jeez. Anyways, we just pretty much relaxed all day on Friday and hung out... we went to see the farm across the street. They have horses, cows, chickens, roosters... Samantha had fun. Mariah loved it. We went back to grampas house. Had lunch. A big yummy sandwich from the deli. hung out. Went to Walmart and the Chinese Buffet for dinner. yummy food. Headed back to grampas house (anout half hour drive). Hung out and went to bed. Saturday woke up with a burst of energy. Made a yummy breakfast of eggs, hash browns, bacon and toast. (FRESH farm eggs!) hung out and visited. Grampa, Dustin and I went to the casino and left the girls at the house with Cassie. Had some fun. Lost 20 bucks. oh well. Headed back to grampas house and had a yummy steak and baked potato dinner, complete with corn and a salad. Had delicious strawberry shortcake for dessert. Some pop corn later. went to bed. Woke up on Sunday with a slight "I don't want to go home yet" feeling. Got all ready to go and we left around 10am. Got home around 8. I won't torture you with the details of the ride home, but it did go better than the way there. We made it ticket free by 8pm. We stopped A LOT to let the girls stretch out and exercise their legs. We had a GREAT time and I can't wait to go back (although, when we do, I think it's going to be a 2 part trip!)
Here are a couple pictures from our visit:



My grampas backyard. Completely 100% gorgeous out there!

Fun on the trampoline!

A walker? Not quite, but ALMOST!

Samantha has been taking a couple steps at a time for a little while now... but never more than 3-4 at a time... She does stand all be herself for up to a minute at a time, before she realizes it and then falls down.

Dustin and I dropped her off at my parents house on April 14th so they could spend some time with her (and maybe we had something to do, I don't remember!) Anyways, I went to pick her up and my mom said "She walked" and i couldn't believe it. I told her... she has been doing that for a while... because she would lunge for you and kind of fall forward. But she said, no. She is walking. She was walking back and forth between my mom and dad all night. So I got all excited, sat down on the floor with my mom and tried to get her to show me. She wasn't being cooperative. So I made my dad come in and try with my mom. And sure enough, there she goes! like 3-5 steps at a time and so steady! I was amazed and instantly sent Dustin a text letting him know that we have a walker! So I took a few videos, and headed home. Since then, she is very picky on when she "walks" but she does stand on her own for a while. I couldn't believe that my baby was SOOO big. She is growing before my eyes and it's CRAZY!

Anyways, the posts are going to come pouring in for a little while, because I have so many things I want to update everyone on!

And since I'm lame...

This is my 5th post of the day.
BUT I wanted to share some pictures.
So here they are.

And yes... April 2010 and we are wearing Santa jammies.


My broccoli lover

What was that mom?

well that's funny!

Does this bowl make my head look big?

And last, but not least... this is how I found her sleeping one night when I checked on her before I went to bed...


Oops... and one more.

Another post? YES!

Another post to link up to a new giveaway!




Check it out. Blog makeover. Fun! Mine totally needs a re-vamp, as I said here

New blogging goal

My new goal is not to post regularly, at least not quite yet. It's to make it look PRETTY! I figure, maybe once it LOOKS pretty, I will WANT and be MOTIVATED to keep updating it. So we shall see. It's going to take a while, since I have NO idea what I'm doing, but google is my friend, so we shall see what I can find!

blogging? my friend or enemy?

We shall see. Only time will tell.

Check out this link

Piggy Paint nail polish! How neat? Who woulda known? Surely not me?!

Anyways, I also adore her blog, and with time and practice hope to get into the same routine as her and Ann Marie (remember this link here

Well, I JUST found out how to do that fun linky thing, so woo hoo for me and woo hoo for google! haha. Google is my best friend most days :-)

oh jeez

So it's been a little while yet again, but here I am. Posting as promised. (way late though, so does it really count?)

Anyways, this past week we were ALL sick. No fun. Flu. Gross.
So Samantha has been pretty fussy lately off and on, but we all seem to be 100% now. Yay.

I was off work for a whole week, and although that sounds like oh so much fun, it's really not. Being sick kind of takes the fun out of it.

My new goal is to head out to garage sales this summer and also the goodwill store. I want to start finding some good bargains, like my pal Ann Marie. Found here . She is oh so talented!