My 24th

This past Saturday, I turned 24. It was odd, because for the first time in my life I wasn't focused on my birthday when it came, and actually at times forgot it was my birthday. For the first time I discovered what happens to a selfish person when they have kids...they learn to forget themselves a little bit. A LITTLE bit. Don't get me wrong though, it was very amazing that I ever forgot it was my birthday, even for a moment, because Mike spoiled me rotten! My oh my,was it ever a wonderful birthday!! It started on Friday night. Mike came home and said "Go change into something 'business casual'." I was taken aback and confused, because I had

literally just woken up from a long nap and still wasn't quite awake. After about 10 minutes of "waking up" I finally realized that if we were going somewhere "business casual" we certainly wouldn't be able to take Diana. So, when Mike came back in the room I said "What are we

going to do with Diana? Certainly where ever we're going we can't take her." He just smiled and said "Clara's [my youngest sister] on her way over." Sneaky boy! After Clara showed up and I gave her the low-down on Diana's dinner & night-time schedule, Mike whisked me off on our date. I had no clue where we were going and I didn't bother trying to guess because, if you know Mike, he's a great liar & secret-keeper. Finally we showed up at the Stratosphere Hotel and Mike lead me by the hand to our final destination: the Top Of The World Restaurant at the top of the Stratosphere! Mike had called ahead a few days before to make reservations, so all the staff knew it was my birthday and they were all courteous enough to wish me a happy birthday individually. It was so weird but so fun to be so well-treated! We enjoyed our very fancy, very romantic evening dinner overlooking the entire Las Vegas /Henderson Valley. It was BEAUTIFUL and the food was absolutely AMAZING. Portion sizes were perfect, everything was perfectly cooked and delicious, and the staff was AWESOME!! I would HIGHLY recommend this restaurant to EVERYONE. It's pricey but SO worth it!! I've never had more delicious food or a better time in my life! We even got pictures taken at the restaurant, but I'll have to post those later when I get them put on my computer.

The next morning we woke up early to get our fruits and veggies from "Bountiful Baskets" and when we got home, Mike says, go put on some pants. "What?" I said. "Go put on some pants." Ok. --I was wearing shorts, by the way-- so, I went upstairs to put on some pants as Mike unloaded the stuff from the car. When I can downstairs, I discovered Clara Anne in the kitchen with a large bouquet of pink roses for me for my birthday!

Isn't she so sweet?? So, by her presence there so early on a Saturday, I deduced that she was watching Diana for us again, and I was correct. So, off we went on our next adventure. We drove west up Blue Diamond, and I tried not to guess where we were going, but my mind couldn't help itself, so I figured a hike. Finally we arrived at Bonnie Springs.

Okay, I was stumped, I had no idea why we were there. We parked and went inside the little

restaurant next to the zoo, and Mike talked to the man behind the counter about reservations for...the Breakfast Ride. Horseback riding. Yup!

Now, for those who don't know, I LOVE horses and have my entire life, but have never rode a horse...ever. My honey knew this, and so he took me to Bonnie Springs for an hour and a 1/2 horseback ride, just him, me, and our guide, who was great!! It was BEAUTIFUL up there and SO much fun!! Oh man, I loved it, I had the most wonderful time!! After the ride, we went back and ate breakfast at the restaurant and it was so yummy!!

Ok, quick side-story: while we were eating, we were looking out the window at the pond outside filled with duck and a bazillion turtles. Most of the turtles sat in the water with their heads poking out as they tried to warm up, but there were some who made their way onto the rocks to warm up. I looked over at one and burst out laughing because this is what I saw...

Apparently his undercarriage was cold, because he stuck his leg straight out to warm it up and kept it there for the rest of our time there. I about died laughing, it was the best!!

Once we were done, we left and went to get DiDi (She was at Tina's house at this point because Clara had somewhere she really had to be at the last minute) and she was so happy to see us, and I was glad to see her, I missed her! Thank you so much Clara and Tina for watching my little boolah-boo! She loves you guys!!!!

We spent the rest of my birthday just chillin' at home (awesome!!), watching movies and shows and eating pizza (mmmmmm!!!!!). Along with the extravagant dinner the night before and the marvelous horseback ride and breakfast, and the SCRUMPTIOUS pizza for dinner, my lovely honey also bought me Beauty & The Beast (for those who don't know, by far, my ABSOLUTE FAVORITE movie EVER, always has been!), a plush bathrobe (I've been wanting a bathrobe FOREVER!!!) and he had a beautiful flower "cake" delivered to me.

It was the BEST birthday EVER!!! My goodness, am I ever lucky! I had such an awesome day, and I have the most perfect husband, and the most beautiful daughter! I'm the luckiest person alive!! Thank you to everyone who wished me a happy birthday and gave me presents! My birthday was beyond spectacular and I love you all, especially YOU, Mike!! Thank you, again!

My life lately

It's kind of crazy what can occur in such a short amount of time. Diana is already over 7 months old already, where did time go?? She's finally crawling (although it's either a "Quasimodo" or "Spider" crawl that she does), but much prefers to try to stand up and walk to things. Yes, our child wants to skip the crawling stage. Now, she IS crawling, but tries to avoid it if she can. She's odd. I always said that I wouldn't be surprised if she was walking at 9 months and now I see that that is a 99.99% possibility at this point. I would be surprised if she WASN'T walking at 9 months.Along with trying to walk she is, of course, constantly using EVERYTHING (including me, the ground, her toys, literally, everything) to stand up. She loves to stand up and try to walk. She is doing it CONSTANTLY. I have mixed feelings about it. I'm excited that she's so determined and advanced for her age, but nervous about the accidents that come with so much mobility. But honestly, I want her to learn how to walk, it would make her so happy to have that much control over her mobility. I'll just have to learn to keep a better eye on her, which literally doesn't seem possible at this point.

She also LOVES to give kisses. Apparently when you spend half of your day kissing on your baby, they pick up that habit and return the favor. She will both kiss of demand AND kiss at random. For example, I was walking up the stairs with her the other night to put her to bed and she turned to me, leaned over, and planted a big one on my cheek. I freaking love it! And they are REAL kisses....ON PURPOSE! Sorry, it's just amazing to me that my kid has gotten old enough to understand us. We took some video of her giving Mike kisses, but the video is too big to upload so once Mike compresses it for me I'll post it.

Speaking of understanding us, she also understands the word "No", and she HATES that word, naturally, but, like a good girl, she is VERY obedient. Like, today, she was going for a computer cord, and as she reached out to grab it I said "No! No! No!" and she started to whimper and looked at me. I gave her a firm look and said "No." again. She got mad, flailed her arms, and "cried", but she did NOT touch the cord. That's my girl!

She still says "MaMa" and "DaDa" a lot (and has for many months now), but whats ironic is WHEN she says them....she says "MaMa" usually only when she is sad or stressed, and says "DaDa" when she is, you guessed it, HAPPY! Of course she does! Why would anyone say MaMa when they're happy?!? Yes, I have very "happy" feelings about it.

Diana is also feeding herself finger foods, and she loves it. She's been eating the finger foods for about a month and a half now, but was never very good at the self feeding thing, but within the past two weeks she's really gotten the self-feeding down. She still occasionally gets the puffs stuck in the palm of her hand, but generally she does pretty well. I'm so proud of her accomplishments!

But, along with all the good must come some bad. In her 7 months of life Diana has already had 4 colds and has vomited (Literally, projectile vomiting) several times. Colds suck, because when she catches a cold, so do Mike and I, and we're all getting pretty sick of being, well, sick! But, I guess the sickness is all good in the fact that it builds her immune system and makes her healthier. It's just so hard seeing her sick and unhappy. Every Mommy understands how that feels to see her baby or babies sick. It's such a painful, helpless feeling, I hate it! :(

Aaaaand, my baby still has no teeth, but I'm really hoping one pops out soon. Her teething has gotten worse lately and I can seriously almost feel a tooth in there. I would swear that's what I've been feeling lately, so I'm hoping that the tooth is on it's way through the skin. We'll see though.

As for what I've been up to, this weekend I broke out the fall/Halloween decorations and decorated the house, it was fun! My house isn't SUPER decked out, but it's got that Halloween/fall feel, I love it. Fall if definitely my favorite time of year, and I'm so glad it's finally come! I am just waiting now for the cooler weather to arrive, this 100 degree weather is killin' me!!

Mike has been working hard on school and work and his calling and has been staying nice and busy. I love my handsome hard worker! I don't know what I would do if I were married to anyone who was any less of a hard worker or any less wonderful to me. Honestly, I'm terribly spoiled. I get the best of EVERYTHING with my Mike!

That's been our lives lately. We've just been enjoying life and taking everything one day at a time! :)