Amazing

Thank you to my wonderful sister-in-law Nora for taking such amazing photos while we were in Oregon. It's too hard to choose, they are all my favorites, here are just a few of what will be in frames soon :)

Bella Story Time

Bella likes to tell us her own stories now, seriously I think in the past two weeks this little lady has grown up a lot. All of her songs make sense now too, I'm going to have to get some video of her storytime and new songs :)

Here is the story she told mommy last night:

"Once upon ago you were a princess waiting in your castle for a shiny prince. The shiny prince came and you got married. The end."

So cute :)

First Pitch

Saturday we went to a Cedar Rapids Kernels game, we had tickets through Enterprise and Kyle's employee Ian still has connections with the Kernels so he got Bella signed up to throw out a first pitch. She was super excited about it.

We didn't realize that she would have to go out on the field without Kyle or I, she was a champ! She didn't mind at all and did awesome, she marched right out there and threw the ball :) For some reason I'm not being able to upload the video on here but I do have some pictures that Ian took for us. I'm so glad Bella was able to do this, such a great experience for her :)

My Beautiful Bella

Vacation was a BLAST!!!!

We had so much fun on our adventure to Oregon. Bella did AMAZING in the car, she is just the best three year old ever ;) A couple melt downs, but that's not too bad for a 27 hour stretch. We did great on the drive, it was beautiful and neat to see the country that way.

Our days were jam packed so of course the vacation just flew by. We had a family picnic, went to VooDoo Donuts, had some delicious prime rib, headed to Multnomah Falls, the Portland Rose Gardens, the Portland Zoo , a Portland Timbers game and just enjoyed the amazing scenery of Oregon. I cherished the time we had with our Griffin family, I love them all like crazy and miss them just as much.

Our mini vacation with the just the three of us was so much fun in South Dakota, just way too much to do there!! We definitely want to go back and spend a week there to do more. Bella LOVED the Reptile Gardens, she did so well and really liked the giant tortoises.

I have way too many pictures to share so I've picked a few favorites. I'm awaiting a thumb drive from my wonderful sister-in-law who snapped some amazing photos of Bella, I can't wait to share those too :)

Sadness...

Bypass this posting if you don't want to be brought down.

I need a little release and always find it through my blog when I really need it. Please keep a dear friend of mine and her family in your thoughts and prayers as her baby girl was stillborn today. Luka Louise was 7 lbs., 8 oz and 21 inches long, life was taken from her before she even had the chance to know the love of her family. She is now in heaven surrounded by the love of our Lord.

All Better

Bella is feeling 100% better!!! We still have no clue what she had exactly but the antibiotic definately helped. Now it's time to get things ready for our big adventure, our roadtrip to Colton, OR :)

We leave tomorrow afternoon, I have Bella's items packed but need to get to work on my own stuff. I've got our maps and route printed off, the hotel reserved for the way home when we stop in Keystone, SD to see Mt. Rushmore and hit the Reptile Gardens. Our time will be jam packed with family fun, our wonderful California Griffin family will be there as well, we can't wait to spend a week with everyone!!!!

28 hours in the car on the way out there, it will be interesting but we're set with portable DVD players, snacks, games, etc for a hopefully great drive. Thankfully Bella LOVES car rides, especially when she can watch movies in the car :)

It's been years since I've taken a road trip like this. My Stephie and I made the road trip from Seattle to Iowa and it was wonderful. Much different this time around, I won't be driving 100 mph and it won't be a stick shift that I can kill ;)