Sometimes life gets a little bit crazy...

So it's been awhile since I've posted...life's been a bit crazy this summer though!! First off, the one thing that occupies the majority of the craziness in our lives is that we are trying avidly to move back home!! We've made probably five trips in the last three months back and forth...most trips are a day of driving there, a day there to interview and a day to drive home! Sheer madness!! We should know in the next few weeks or so if our madness paid off :) So...in preparation for moving we've also been working a lot on packing away our house (or at least the things we don't use on a daily basis) and trying to finish the twenty small projects around the house so we can put it on the market :)
Well, the kids are growing like weeds!! Eli's approaching 20lbs and isn't even 6months old yet!! He's crazy big!! Needless to say, he LOVES his food! He's eating all sorts of fruits and veggies and rice cereal and loves pretty much everything :) He's becoming a pro at rolling over and already has figured out how to move his legs and scoot on his back! When he's on his tummy he looks like he's trying to swim...maybe he'll crawl before a year like his sissy ;0)
Sam is talking a lot more, proficiently uses a spoon (finally!), can drink out of a normal cup without spilling (yay) and will soon be smarter than her parents on our phones!!! That girl can navigate through my phone, find the game she wants or use netflix or get the the camera or pictures...she's pro at taking pictures and video of the floor and her feet :0) Her hair is long enough now for a regular pony and french braids :) She loves shoes and is particular about which pairs she'll wear (not a battle worth fighting). She loves pretty much any and all toys that are less than two inches tall (I'm sure that'll be fun when eli starts crawling!!). She's widened her horizons when it comes to tv/dvds, Dora and Veggie Tales are still highly ranked, but she now loves Team Umizoomi, Bubble Guppies (Eli loves this one too!), and Kai Lan!!
These two are so much fun and keep every day interesting!! Here's a few pics from the past two months....

Camping with our friends, the Rosenaus...

This was our first attempt at taking Sam camping...
We went up near Hailey, Idaho and found a spot right off the road with lots of trees and a creek that ran along side of it, it was perfect!! The only thing that wasn't perfect was the weather! It was pouring rain and hail the moment we pulled in, which in turn soaked all of our stuff in the back of the truck! Unfortunately our suit case had a hole in it and everything was soaked by the time we set up camp, so we had wet clothes all three days :) As we unpacked we realized we forgot our camping chairs as well as all of Sam's warm clothes...I had them all in a pile on her dresser to go but forgot to put them in the suit case. :( So, Michael and Kirk went to town as soon as we got there and picked up a sweatshirt and a pair of "pants" for Sam, they were really capris for a much larger child, but did fit her like pants. They looked for camp chairs but the cheapest they could find were $60 a piece!!! Needless to say they were smart and did not buy these, so they called dispatch and ended up getting hooked up with a Blane county officer who let us borrow his....so wonderful!! Thank you officer we've never met, I greatly appreciated it!! When it came time to sleep the first night, Sam decided she was going to lie awake until after five am and if she caught eye contact with Michael or I she would start jabbering, otherwise she just laid awake looking at the top of the tent. The second night she fell right to sleep, but woke up screaming in the middle of the night, I assume she had a bad dream...from then on she cried any time I took her into the tent :( We got rained on off and on the whole trip and the last night we were supposed to stay all we could see was clouds so we decided to pack up camp and head out a night early...after stopping for ice cream in Hailey of course :) We had a lot of fun and had some great fellowship with some really good friends that we don't hang out with nearly enough!!

Mommy and Sam on one of our hikes...

Sittin with dad by the campfire

This was Sam's favorite way to hike!

S'ghetti-Os!!

Sam loved sitting in the middle of the creek on this rock!!

And this is what happens when she's told no...

The lid was really on, she just thought she was drinking it...

Walking through the puddles with dad...

Putting rocks in the creek

Mommy and Sam by the campfire

Two out of three of Kirk and Kira's kids with Sam on the rock in the creek

Kira and her daughter, Andi, who is just about the same age as Sam

A fun summer day...

Today was soo much fun!!! Summer finally decided to show up here and we took full advantage of it! We began our day at the lake where Sam LOVED being in the water!! We had a picnic in the park then went home for a much needed nap for all of us! When we woke up from our naps it was time for Michael's softball game, Sam and I watched about the first 15 minutes then proceeded onto the playground area where she finally got up enough guts to go down the slide!! ...until she accidentally went down backwards as shown in this first picture and scared herself half to death!!