My excitement knows no bounds

This is not a joke. I'm going to start planning a H.P. marathon for the day before the new on is released, then we're all going to the midnight premier. If you want to come, it will be AMAZING!! I'll probably have to start training Rachael to sit thru H.P. so she can join us. :) I'm going to watch this again.

Spray Park!

Rachael and I made a little trip to the park yesterday. I neglected, however, to bring her swimming suit in case she decided she finally wanted to run into the splash park. We headed over there, and it took her about five minutes to decide she wanted to participate in the fun. She plopped herself in a pool of water at the base of a slide, skirt, shirt, regular diaper, and all! She threw a fit when I had to take her out, I didn't want to get in trouble for her not being in a swim diaper. We went back later that day prepared, and she loved it! It wasn't as warm, and we ended up getting rained out (thanks a lot Rexburg weather) but she had so much fun! We'll definitely be making more trips back there, both in our suits.

My Princess and her Frog

While playing outside at G & G Meyer's house, we found this cute little frog!! Rachael was so excited! For frog, she says something along the lines of, "gwagght" instead of "ribbit" (hey, I've done my best) and she kept saying it over and over. And, since The Princess and the Frog is her current favorite movie, I had to have her kiss it. Don't worry, lips didn't actually make contact, just made for a cute picture.

Ring Around the Rosie!

After Nate's sister, Celeste, got married, Rachael had her fair share of cousins, cousins, and more cousins!! The year Rachael was born, me, 2 of Nate's sisters and one sis-in-law were all pregnant at the same time, all within a 4 month period. Now they're all older its so fun to see them interact! The three girls, Rachael, Kloe, and Aydrie, had a ball playing ring around the rosies. Aydrie (in the purple) has three older brothers so she knows how to play! She would drag Rachael and Kloe around like no ones business! And they loved it! Sad Josh wasn't there though :( Enjoy these three crazy girlies, destined to be best buddies someday!

Thank goodness for camera phones!

The little stink bug...

(We just got a new laptop, so my goal is to keep my pictures organized. Posts on the Cruise, Celeste's wedding, and other random things are to come soon(ish))

"There she is!!"

It is a BEAUTIFUL Father's Day here in Rexburg, so we decided to enjoy the sunshine for a bit. In grandma and grandpa's backyard there is a huge pasture of just grass. Rachael discovered that today. She loved to sit in it, then pop up and wait for us to say "There she is!!" before she went right back and did it over, and over, and over, for probably 20 minutes. She was such a good girl for Father's Day today!!

Happy Father's Day to Rachael's amazing father and to my father as well!! Love you!!

Mind swirlings...

First of all, I LOVE bargain shopping! I love it so much that I think I end up spending more money than if I just regular shopped. The purse-strings are going to be a little tighter this last stretch of the summer, so my D.I. visits and Saturday morning Garage Sale hunts need to be on hold. So sad... I feel no shame wearing clothes from the D.I., in fact, I feel PRIDE. This little outfit up there: $3. Yep, $1 garage sale shirt, $2 D.I. skirt. How cute is Rachael going to look in this?? The answer is ridiculously.
Even though we are SO far away from having a house, I still like to think about what it will look like. (When we build, not when we buy some little home that matches every neighbor within a 3 mile radius) I want my house to have CHARACTER, not just be a box. The above picture (a puzzle at the D.I. I snapped a picture of with my phone) is beautiful! I'd change the colors a bit, don't ask me to what, but there is something to look at. Another pet peeve of mine is when you look at a house an it is all garage! We'll turn ours to the side to hide it a bit... (I don't believe the above house has a garage, or a salon, both of which are musts)

Snapped a picture of this magazine cover today. Nate and I have already decided we want brushed copper appliances (basically the color of the pots on the stove), not stainless steel. I think that color will look beautiful with these cabinets. The only hurdle I can possibly foresee is Nate wanting wood-ish looking cabinets. We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I. Want. This. Porch. (The house isn't so bad, its got character) It is big and Nate could put ivey up the columns and we can have a beautiful patio set and eat dinner outside every night in the summer. Amazing. And I LOVE the little patio above it that probably connects to the master suite. And see that bay window off to the side? That's my salon. Just imagine that reeking of bleach and nail polish. Mmmmm!!

So, these are my someday pictures. Keep posted for when these dreams come to fruition! (You'll have to keep posted a LONG time!)

Summer Reading

So I've been reading a LOT these last few weeks. Mostly when Rachael goes for her naps, but those are three hours long, plus after she goes to bed. I had a lot of recommendations to read The Hunger Games, and for some reason I was hesitant. I. LOVED. IT. I don't even know why, the plot is kinda morbid, but I literally could not put it down. I finished it in two days, and that's only because I have a child to take care of. (I will admit, Rachael watched more T.V. for those two days cuz I couldn't stop reading.) Luckily, my mom had the sequel ready to go for me, so that took me four days. Amazing! Read them. The last in the trilogy comes out in August and I am SO excited! Since finishing those books, I've since continued reading in a "series." Some of you may know of my undying LOVE of Gone with the Wind. The movie is amazing, I wish I looked like Scarlett O'Hara, and the book is (obviously) 40 times better than the movie. While perusing the books at the D.I., I came across the sequel, Scarlett. It was written in 1992, while the original was published in 1936, so it wasn't the same author but you can't even tell. I can't put this down either. It is like 847 pages and I'm only on page 500ish so I'm glad the story is continuing! I would definitely recommend either of these series to spend your summer with.

Carrie Underwood!!

The Carrie Underwood concert was so fantastic beyond words. My cousin, Britni, has a sweet hook up and gets amazing concert tickets to some of the biggest concerts in Vegas. Thankfully she knows how much I LOVE Carrie and invited me and my sister, Lindsey, to tag along. Brit's little sis, Stephanie, was going to come, but she had to work (lame), so my Aunt Tonya came instead (not lame!). We had such a good time. There was a pre-show cocktail party we were also invited to, but most of the food was gone by the time we got there, but we enjoyed our Shirley Temples! (Sprite and grenadine syrup, delish!) We had amazing seats, floor level row J I believe. Maybe K, I'll have to check my ticket...

Ugh, she is so talented it is RIDICULOUS!! Lindsey even mentioned how she was better in person! Very true!
The truck she had go out over the audience was one of my favorite parts. So perfect at a county music concert!
Ugh, can we just talk about her legs for a second? AMAZING!! Seriously, her legs are my inspiration.

Of course, I was just getting over a cold and this night was one of the four times in my life I've ever lost my voice. So lame, I couldn't sing along. But I still tried, and no one even looked at me weird cuz no one could hear me. I would go to another Carrie Underwood concert in a second, even if I have to pay major moolah for it. I love her!!

(mini) Cruise Post

I'm finally doing this! posting about our cruise. Unfortunately, my camera and computer have a rocky relationship right now, so I only have a few pictures right now, but no worries, more will come, I just can't say when. Our cruise was AMAZING! We went with some of our really good Rexburg friends, Chris and Tani Bree Stevenson. Chris and Nate were roomies and once he and Tani got married we were all really good friends. They have since moved to Nebraska where Chris will start Dental School and they're having a baby girl in September. The above picture was taken in Mazatlan, our first stop. We basically played at the beach for hours which was AMAZING!! Hopefully once I get all of our pictures I'll post more in depth about our adventures.
Also in Mazatlan, we sure loved having our waterproof camera!
Just some night we were waiting for dinner to start. I think this was the night I was the only one appropriately dressed for our feast so everyone else had to go change. No shorts in the dining room!!
Just some random day at sea out in the sunshine on deck!
First night, and it was a formal night too. The meals were so yummy and it was so fun to get all fancified!