Playing with toys and helpin Daddy fix the sprinkler system...

People always say that children grow so quickly...but I don't know that anyone really understands until they have a child of their own! This last week Michael and I have really been noticing our baby girl growing up! Not only is she looking more like a toddler and less like a baby, but she's also acting a lot more grown up!

So my daughter's a Dora freak! Notice the toy she is playing with of course has "Doda" on it and in the picture below you can see the Dora towel and pjs that Sam found in my nicely folded piles of clean laundry (that aren't so nicely folded now) and has drug all over the house all morning long!

Ah the infamous sprinkler system...each year there's a new problem that arises. Usually it's a cheap fix...but always seems to be time consuming. This year Michael has thus far spent three nights working on it and informed me that he needs to redo the pipes you can see pictured
below :) But boy do I appreciate when it does work because I am terrible at remembering to water my lawn and garden...yeah so that garden I planted a week ago hasn't exactly gotten all that much water and is really looking more like sticks than plants :( Oh well...next year I know to wait until the sprinkler system has passed it's test run I guess!

Sam started out playing on the half built deck...but quickly figured out Daddy was playing with something that looked much more exciting...the sprinkler system. As Michael was replacing the wire caps Sam was picking them up and they kept her occupied for the rest of the night! It's so neat to watch her try and fit the caps together and then figure out they're just big enough to fit her fingers in...I love watching the wheels of her head turn!

Odds and Ends from Seaside...

Peering out longingly at the swing set on the beach from our hotel living room...

Michael testing out his submarine skills at the Maritime Museum

One of Sam's two favorite pastimes...SWIMMING!!!

Being brought in, still in her carseat, on the luggage cart because...

We had gone out for a nice dinner and Sam had been so good... After dinner I went to put her in her carseat and as I reached back to get the strap from behind her back I stuck my hand in a whole bunch of...well let's just say she DEMOLISHED her outfit and carseat!! We couldn't think of a better way to keep the mess down then to just tote her in while she was still in her carseat :) I bathed the little girl and Michael and my mom cleaned the carseat :) Ah memories...

Playing on the beach...

Swinging away on the beach...the best place in the world to swing!!

And this is what happens when we take her off the swing after an hour of swinging...

We were able to take a full weeks vacation with my family on the Oregon coast at the end of April! It was so much fun!! We stayed in Seaside and took day trips to Cannon Beach, Tillamook, Astoria and into southern WA to see a few lighthouses. Sam loved the beach...well she loved to walk on it, she could've cared less that there was a mass amount of water and had no interest making a sand castle with Daddy and Auntie Mak! She did love to just walk around and SWING!! The beach right out off our hotel room had a swing set and she LOVED it!! Often times while in our room I would catch her just peering out the window longingly at the swing set :) Between the pool and swing set that girl had a BLAST!!!

Visiting Cape Disappointment and North Pointe Lighthouses

We were able to visit the Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon just prior to going to see this lighthouse and learned all sorts of cool things about how the lighthouse was built and about all of the hundreds of ships that had wrecked here! These waters are supposed to be some of the most dangerous in the entire US, in fact they do their Coast Guard training near here because of that. The day we went the water was beautiful! And we got quite the workout carrying the stroller up the hill!!

A day at the park

So Sam was a little grumpy today so I thought to cheer her up we would go to the park and get a happy meal. Well it worked...she loved the swing! In fact she loved it so much that she threw a major fit when we left! Not only that but she was pretty stylish in her shades...and she knew it!

Sam's first time baking cookies...

Samantha and I were bored while Michael was at work tonight so we decided to bake him some cookies and go visit him. Well, Mom did most of the baking, Sam mostly played with all of the measuring cups and spoons and did a whole lot of taste testing! When we were done we took Daddy a plate to work and Sam got to see the lights on Daddy's police car... she loved looking at those flashing lights! It's funny how intrigued kids are with something so simple!

The best part....licking the beater!!

And the final product...

Baking cookies is apparently quite exhausting...

Ahh the quiet times...

This is what happens when mommy takes a few minutes to check her facebook on the computer...Sam managed to unlatch my ribbon bin, empty it out, climb inside and she attempted to unroll as many spools of ribbon as possible before mom found her!

Getting out of the bin apparently wasn't as easy as getting in...this picture is kind of blurry because it was taken as I was running to catch her before she fell. My attempt to catch her was unsuccessful as she hit her head on the floor before I could catch her... :-( Poor little girl!