Changes, changes everywhere

I have made a few changes to my blog, including my web address...
since the last one had my daughters full name, I changed it. So my links to my older posts are not working at this moment. I will try to get those updated shortly.

Edited to add:
The links are FIXED!

random thoughts

I want twins.

Not really. But I really want a cute little "twin" nursery. So cute! Little matching cribs and all this cutesy matching stuff.

But no. no twins. thats a lot of work.

Birthday Pictures

So you may remember my post about her birthday here

But it is lacking pictures.
So here are some. very late. pictures.

These were taken courtesy of JcPennys Portrait Studio







And these are from her birthday party!
Auntie Megan and the birthday girl!

The gorgeous present that my niece, Mariah decorated for her

Singing Happy Birthday

Digging in

Giving mommy a bite

Daddy and the birthday girl

Uncle Matt sits in

Uncle Adam and Auntie Amy

Using a spoon!

Fun smiles!

My little driver?

Yup. Thats right. Samantha drives now. She even has her own car. See?


She loves driving around in this thing, honking the horn and drinking her juice. (She gets sooo mad if her cup is not in the cup holder). She sometimes will bring her baby and she will sit on her lap or on the floor by her feet (I told her she needed to use a car seat, but so far, no luck on that one). Or sometimes she will bring her cell phone and talk while driving. But the best one so far... talking on her cell, drinking her juice and driving. Well... I think we might need to put off on getting her license for a while. lol.

Gramma and papa bought her this car and she adores it.
So thank you gramma and papa!

To Die For Blueberry Muffins

Do you like blueberry muffins? And do they normally come in a package and look like this:
(the one on the left, Otis Spunkmeyer muffins)

hmmm... well after looking at that picture, I can't help but think "That looks good!"

But how about this:


It might not be as perfectly formed, but it is 100 times better tasting! 100% real blueberries and from scratch! And sooo easy! Here is the recipe

A tip: My muffin liner muffins came out great, but I ran out of liners and had to do a couple in a greased muffin cup. These ones didn't turn out so "pretty" I would recommend only filling the cups 3/4 of the way instead of the "right to the top" they call for.

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!