Father's Day

So today's Father's day, which also happens to land on my birthday this year. Unfortunately for Michael and I we are both working today, he is working 6am til about 630pm and I will leave for work the second he flies through the door so I can make it on time for my night shift :( ...but I wanted to take a moment and talk about my dad and husband...

My dad...my dad is one of the smartest people I know! It doesn't matter the subject, he is usually extremely knowledgeable about everything!! He is always a very honest, patient man with a good work ethic and an extremely generous heart! The one thing I remember about my dad from growing up is every morning he would sit at the kitchen counter with his breakfast and his Bible doing his devotions! He was and is always there for all of his children, he is an amazing dad!

My husband, the father to my daughter...People always say girls marry someone similar to their dad...that statement might be true! Michael is a very honest, patient man with a good work ethic and an extremely generous heart...see the similarities lol...but he's more than that, he's gracious, loving and pure!! I have loved him for so long, but when I watched him transform into a "dad" it made me love him even more! He is a great father to little Sammy! He is loving and patient...even when she has her ever so dramatic girly moments!!! Watching him interact with her makes me love him even more! So Happy Father's Day baby!! I love you so and thank you for all you do, you're the best!!

This is what Sam and I made for Michael while he was working on Father's Day!

Our not so summer, summer days...

Even though our weather has been less than hot for this time of year, Sam has still loved very much playing outside and in the water!! We have taken her swimming twice over the last two weeks and she's loved it! Hopefully the weather catches onto the fact that it's nearing the first day of "summer" very soon and warms up so we can play out in the sprinklers more often!!

So this one's a little overexposed...darn sun...but it really captured her excitement!!...

Package from Grandma

We got a package from Grandma C yesterday, so this morning I let Sam open it up right when she woke up. First she pulled out a tshirt and realized it did her no good at the given time, so she promptly threw it to the ground and dug into her box once again. This time she came up with a few stickers that Grandma had gotten at the doctors office, a Dora or "Doda" as Sam would call it and a Veggie Tales one (both shows Sam LOVES!!). She carried these stickers around for hours, she wouldn't even drink her morning cup of milk or break into the bag of M&Ms in the bottom of the box because each hand was occupied with a sticker! Finally amidst her walking through the house one got stuck to the kitchen floor and the other is somewhere unbeknown to me. The moral of the story, my child will pick the free stickers over the tshirt and candy anyday!

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!!