Having fun with family

Ok I know it has been forever since I posted last. I guess a lot has happened in the past month. I turned 26 on the 26th of April and was able to celebrate it with my parents. They came out for a few days to see me and the fam for my b-day. It was so nice to have them here. The trip went by so fast but we sure did a lot in that small amount of time. I forgot my camera the first day of touring around and the second day I just brought my point and shoot little one so the pics aren't anything great. The first day we went to the Museum of Art and saw famous paintings by people like Picasso, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, and Monet. I will have to say I like Rembrandt's work the best. It was neat to see. We also went to the Natural History Museum. This place was really cool. It had all sorts of dinosour bones and rare stones including the Hope diamond. We went to the Archives and saw the Declaration of Independance, Bill of Rights, and the Constitution. On the second day, we went and saw the Capitol Building, the White House, all the monuments, and Arlington Cemetary. Arlington cemetary was really neat. Anyway, that was pretty much all of our touring around. For my B-Day dinner we went to a resturant called the Melting Pot. It was a fondue resturant that was absolutely delicious. Anyway we had a really good time with my parents while they were here and can't wait to see them again this summer.
Other news, Josh's sister Alyssa moved out here with us for the summer. She has been here a little over a week now. It has been really nice to have her around plus she has been a really big help around the house. My house has not looked this clean since before I had kids. Arlie loves having her here too. She calls her Afeefa and they are good buddies. Josh is gone again. He left about a week ago. He will be back in a couple weeks. It definitely has not been as bad this time. For one, I have someone to hang out with all the time now that his sister is here. And two, all the morning sickness is gone!!! Yeah!!! I am so happy. We will be finding out what I am having here in a couple of weeks so stay tuned for that update.
Also today is my brother Scott's 22nd birthday! Happy Birthday Scott! I love you man. I can't believe how old he is. Time sure goes by.
Hope all is going well for everyone. We miss you all! See all you Idahoans here in about a month.

DC Touring

Nice Weather

We have been having such nice weather here lately. I am so excited for spring. So we have been spending a lot of time outside lately. My next door neighbors have a bouncy castle so we set it up the other day and let the kids play. They had a blast. Arlie is especially loving the nice weather. If she could she would stay outside all day. Here are some pics of Arlie playing in the bouncy castle. Her face looks a little rough because I put sunscreen on her and she rubbed her eyes and got it in her eyes. She does this every time I put sunscreen on her. Am I doing something wrong?

Cherry Blossoms

Ok so here are the pictures from the Cherry Blossom Festival. We had such a good time seeing the sights and enjoying the nice weather and the beautiful Cherry Blossoms. It was so fun to get out with friends too. I wouldn't have done it by myself that is for sure and Josh is not much of a fan of the big city life with crowds of people. So if it weren't for them I probably wouldn't have gotten to go. So thank you.

Our friends we went with:






The DC Metro- Arlie thought it was so much fun riding the train. She loved looking outside and seeing the world go by.


The Jefferson Memorial

The Washington Monument

Easter

This was the only picture I got of Arlie on Easter. Can you believe it? And we even went to a couple of Easter egg hunts and I forgot my camera. I am going to have to take some more pictures of her in her Easter dress though because she just looked so cute in it. So hopefully there will be more to come if I get around to it. Josh is finally home!!!! Yeah!!! Ok so he has been home now for a couple of weeks and I have just been preoccupied with other things including him to take the time to blog. It is so nice to have him back. It makes me see how much I really do love him and love having him around. More pictures to come. We went to the Cherry Blossom Festival down in DC yesterday and had a picnic. It was so much fun. I took tons of pictures.

More Pictures

So I was taking pictures for a friend the other day and while I was getting everything set up, Arlie saw me in the garage and wanted me to take her picture. So this was very spontanious. I was mostly using her to see if my lighting looked good but I thought this picture was so cute of her even though her hair looks like crap. I wasn't really planning on taking her picture so I didn't get her all ready or anything. In fact she was still in her pjs when I first started. So this was a very spontanious photo shoot. Just thought I would share.


Here is the one of Arlie in her pjs when we first started.

There are no Accidents

Yeah!! I am so excited! I have been working on potty training Arlie for the past two weeks now and for the first time yesterday Arlie had no accidents and she even pooped twice and every time she had to go potty she told me. I am so proud of her. Maybe we will have this potty training thing down sooner than I thought. I will hope. Josh will come home and be totally surprised. How lucky is he that he got to get out of this one. We are surviving without him but I miss him so much. I don't know if it is because I am sick and also that I can't talk to him but it has been harder than I thought it would be. I have honestly never missed him this much before. I know all you people whose husbands are gone all the time probably think I am a total woose but I am starting to wonder if I can handle being a military wife. We have been really lucky so far with his career in that this is actually the first time he has deployed in his 9 years of service and it is only for a few weeks. We will see. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't feel sick and he is not around to complain my sickness to. Anyway, I can't wait till he comes home. Soon I hope.

Potty Training

Yeah!!!! Arlie went pee pee in the potty twice yesterday! I didn't even have to ask her if she needed to go. She told me she needed to go. I am so excited. She has been showing interest for a couple months now and she likes to go sit on it and push but this is the first time she has actually fully gone on it. She has a couple other times peed or pooped out a few drops. But I wasn't really counting that. I haven't been too serious about potty training her yet. Just encouraging it and once in a while asking her if she needs to go potty. But I guess it is time for me to get more serious. I don't really know what to do since I have never done this before. My mom has given me some advice but I need all the help I can get so if anyone has any good ideas that worked for them, I would love to hear it. I really have no idea what I am doing.
Josh is gone right now and won't be back for a few weeks. I already miss him like crazy. In my normal day to day life it normally seems to fly by but the past few days seem so long and boring. I miss having him around. He is such a huge help. With him gone I see how much he really does for me and Arlie. Also it doesn't help that Arlie is sick right now. She has a really nasty cold. She has not been sleeping well at night and she has been throwing up from coughing last night and the night before and the night before. Plus she pooped in the bathtub yesterday. So she has been a lot more work for me than usual. Yesterday was the first day of my morning sickness. So far it is not too bad. I just feel a little nauseous. Hopefully that is as bad as it gets. I will keep my fingers crossed. Thanks to everyone that commented on my pregnancy. It's nice to know you all care so much. Anyway more to come later.
Have a great day!

Big News!!!!

So it might be jumping the gun by doing this so early into it but I was too excited to not share the news. Yeah!! I'm pregnant. And yes it was planned. We are both very excited about the news. I took the pregnancy test this morning. So I am guessing baby should be due end of October beginning of November time. So far I don't feel pregnant at all but I am sure it will come soon. I am so not looking forward to that. Anyway, just thought I would share the good news. Love ya!

Eclipse

I got home just in time tonight to see the Eclipse. I didn't even know there was going to be one tonight till I get out of my car and see my neighbors standing outside with a telescope and some cameras. So I grabbed my camera and took a few shots. It was pretty cool to see. So if you missed it, here are some pics of the moon that I took tonight.

My New Lights are here!!!

I finally got my new photography studio lights and a nice new lens for my camera. I have been super busy lately with taking pictures for people so I haven't had a chance to update my blog. I am so excited about how things are going with my business though. I am updating and getting better equipment and backdrops and I am really excited about how my pictures are going to look now. It is going to be so much better. By the way, if you haven't checked out my photography blog it is under my blogger friends links as TR Photography. Soon I will be updating it with more recent photos. We have been staying busy here. Arlie's new word lately is C-you. It is so cute to hear her say it. She says it quite often. She is so social. She has also been doing pretty good with her counting. We have been working on that one for a little while now. It is coming along. Right now her favorite toy is her stuffed bunny she got for Easter last year. She carrys it everywhere with her. It has taken the babys place in her baby stroller and she sets it up to the table to eat with her and trys to feed it fish. It is so cute to see her play. So here is a picture taken with my new lights today. Hope you like it.
Also here is an older picture that I never got around to posting. It was the first time I attempted to pull Arlies hair up. I have done it a few times since but it is hard to get her to set still for me. Plus it is barely long enough so I am kindof waiting till it get a little longer.

Our Christmas Vacation

Well we are back and had a great visit with family and friends in Idaho. It was so nice to see everyone and to have a break from daily life. Some of the highlights of our trip was going snowboarding. Josh went 3 times. I only went once. We also spent Christmas Eve in Island park snowmobiling. It was a lot of fun. We had several fun family parties and lots of good food. I think I may have gained a few pounds over the holidays. But the food was worth it. I wish I would have taken some more pictures the trip just flew by way too fast. The flight with Arlie was miserable and I am glad we will not be having her sit on our lap again. But we survived! Thanks to everyone who made our Christmas so nice. We love all of the presents we got and it really was so nice to be with family. Love ya!!

Check out my Slide Show!

Playing Catch-up

We had our ward Christmas party this past weekend and instead of having a Santa Claus they decided to have the three kings instead and they passed out treasure treats to the kids. They called us last minute to see if Josh could do it. We had nothing for him to wear so we wrapped a blacket over him and tied a belt around his waste. It was pretty getto. But Arlie sure enjoyed the candy.




We put our tree up the day after Thanksgiving. I bought it that day at 5:00 am at JCPenney. I was a little excited for the day after thanksgiving shopping. I got a pretty good deal on it. It wasn't the one that they were promoting. That one was sold out by 4:30am. Crazy! But it is nice and so easy to put up. I was having fun taking pictures of the tree and the ornaments and the gifts so I thought that I would share. We are going to celebrate our Christmas together as a family tomorrow. We are leaving on wednesday to go to Idaho. Yeah!!! We are so excited.

So I have had all these pictures that I wanted to post on the blog now for a while and haven't done anything with them. So today I finally had some time to go through them and add the ones I wanted to. It snowed here for the first time a couple of weeks ago. We got a few inches and they closed the schools down and everything just for a couple of inches. It was crazy. They really aren't used to snow like we are I guess. So it was exciting because Arlie was too young to understand what snow was last year and so this year I took her outside to see what she thought. You could tell by the look on her face that she was wondering what happened. And then I let her touch it. At first she didn't want to because it was cold but then she had fun smashing it in her fingers. All kids like to eat snow so I couldn't not let her try that out. She that it was pretty good and was stuffing her face full.