Shelby is ONE today! :-)

OUR LITTLE TAZMANIAN DEVIL IS ONE TODAY!!!!

It absolutely AMAZES me how fast time really does fly by. I can't believe Shelby is one... I'm so happy and yet so sad. She's growing up too fast! I just want to scoop her up and keep her like this forever. :-)

I took Shelby to her One year doctor appointment. She's super healthy and just such a good baby. She's strictly on soy milk now. Yay! And she no longer uses a bottle either. She is 100% on a sippy cup. She eats 2-3 Gerber Toddler meals a day, at least 3-4 sippy cups of soy milk, AND she always eats whatever we're eating. :-)

She weighs 20lbs, 13oz. FINALLY! Man, this kid CANNOT gain weight. I try everything. She's just too active! Shelby take 1 - 2 naps a day, each about 30 minutes. On a really GOOD day it'll be an hour. But that is very rare. lol.

She is sleeping through the night! yay! She no longer drinks any milk at night. I do leave a sippy cup of water with her though in case she gets thirsty. It's been super hot lately.

She is also getting a little better every day on her potty. She still doesn't fully grasp what is going on but she still uses it. I figure it'll still be a few months.

Shelby's stitches were recently removed. The scar looks great! You can barely see it. Oh, and Shelby has an INCREDIBLE threshold for pain. She got 3 shots today and only cried the first prick. Then she went back to normal and went out to the lobby to play with the kids. :-) Super cute.

On another note, Shelby's FIRST Birthday party is THIS Sunday! WOOHOO! We are so excited and are looking forward to seeing some of you there. :-)

Hope you like the pictures!!!

Shelby and I at the track enjoying some down time with Lily, Adina, and Ezekiel. :-)

A picture from our photoshoot. :-) This is the only picture that's ready right now but it's one of my favs! I love it! :-)

This is at the Virginia Park which is right by my house. I like to stop by on my morning runs with Shelby. :-) Makes the run seem so much more fun!

Today's doctor visit. Just waiting to get her shots.

Mary and Shelby spending some quality time together. :-)

Happy Hump Day!

Shelby's ALMOST a year old!

I have NO idea where the time has gone. My baby is no longer a baby! She's a toddler now. :-( Life happens too fast sometimes.

SO...a little update. Shelby is going to be ONE on the 24th of this month. We're throwing her a big bash at Oakmeadow and if you did NOT receive an invitation, PLEASE let me know ASAP so I can get you one. If you have received one, PLEASE RSVP!! Thank you!!

Shelby is running, walking, jumping, screaming, talking, laughing, eating, running...(did I say that already?) haha! Yes, she is QUITE the mover. I have to go, go, go all the time to keep up with her. She is having so much trouble trying to gain weight. She can't seem to keep any of it on. She's still at 20lbs but she's 31 inches tall now. :-) My little giraffe.


Here's a picture of Shelby and her first barbie. She wasn't too fond of her though. She started whacking her head on the stairs. hahahaha!

Shelby and her friends at the Campbell Community Center park. :-)

I LOVE HER HAIR!!! HAHAHAHAHAHA! She's such a cutie pie. She has Geoff's looks and my hair. :-)

Here's the before picture. :-)

THIS is the after picture. Shelby has recently learned how to get naked and even take off her diaper. So here she is on the loose. :-)

Shelby wearing a sound proof headset. It was funny to see her slightly freak out because she couldn't hear anything. :-) Super cute picture though.

Shelby loves going to Mel Cotton's with us and found a pink fishing pole that I think we should get for her. She played with that thing for almost an hour.

Shelby and Jamison goofing off after a fun filled day of shooting clays. :-)

Shelby having fun at the park. She loves making a mess and loves being able to make BIG messes when she's outside.

So, today I went shopping for birthday presents for Shelby and some of her friends. :-) WELL, she walked up to this toy, climbed on, and proceeded to chase me in it. I bought it for her. :-)

Shelby is such a good sport. I know she hates sitting in the car when I'm working (doing inspections) but she is such a good girl. I make sure and take her out whenever we drive by a park and play for a while. Here's just a nice picture of us getting ready for some fun in the sun.

I am a fruit freak! So every morning (while working) we share a nice BIG bowl of Strawberries, Pineapple, Grapes, Bananas, and Apples. :-) Strawberries are her favorite!

Shelby fell asleep on our walk at the track with Lily and Adina. Adina is getting so big! She's 16 months old now! Wowza!

Shelby and Rachel goofing off at Tina's house. :-)

I hope you enjoyed the update!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. So, Shelby's vocabulary is starting to slowly develop. She says "mama", "dada", "hi", "UP", "down", "car", "push", and "potty". :-) She's getting SO big and she's SO smart! I love my little tazmanian devil. :-)

May Update

I know I haven't done much updating lately. So let's see...Shelby is almost 11months old now. WOW! She has been walking for quite some time now. She took her first steps when she was 8 and a half months and now she is a PRO walker. She also is starting to learn to run. She NEVER crawls anymore. She rarely sits. lol. She's always on the go and can take our clean house and turn it upside down in 5 minutes flat. She is the best! She enjoys working out with me. I do daily workouts and she LOVES doing squats with me. :-) And whenever I do push ups or sit ups or anything that involves me being on the floor, she finds a way to climb on top of me and force me to use her as weight. She has 7 and a half teeth right now (7 fully in and one almost all the way in) and she has 2 more teeth coming in as well. She'll have 10 teeth by the time she's a year old. She eats a lot of solids now (no more baby food) and she drinks her milk and juice out of a sippy cup (except at bed time). She is sleeping through the night except on nights she's sick (she's been sick twice now) or on nights she is teething really bad. She LOVES being outside and WILL throw a temper tantrum if we don't take her outside. It's quite cute. She loves grass and loves rocks. She will pick up any and all rocks and put them in her mouth. She can climb up the stairs standing up and crawling up. She can climb down crawling backwards and is in the process of learning to walk down them while holding on to the wall of my finger. If there is a railing or bars, she'll use those without any assistance. When we go to Gymboree, she likes to walk there from the moment we get in the building. She'll start flailing til I put her down. She loves all the rides (the horsey rides in the mall, or the mini cars). She's getting better at letting me know when she has to go potty. She'll either bang on the bathroom door or if the door is open she'll bang on her little potty. She doesn't always go on cue but she's getting better. I hope to have her trained by a year and a half. :-) She loves bathtime and loves the bubbles. She is now in a front facing carseat and is finally over 20lbs. Hopefully we'll buy her a bike for her 1st birthday and she can start learning to ride a bike. :-) So I think that's it...Yup. I'll do another update next month. Hope you enjoyed it!

Shelby with her newest cousin...Forte. :-)

Our Trip to New York

Our trip to New York was quite the adventure and probably the most fun we have had in a LONG time. :-) It was 10 fun filled days of everything you can possibly think of. I've uploaded a TON of pictures but they're all out of order.

Here's a little bit about out trip.

Tuesday, April 21st: We arrived at SFO but had a bit of a problem. So Jamison dropped us off and we went to check in. Well, silly me...I left my wallet at home. AHH!! Yes, it was chaos. So Jamison rushed home to get my wallet. In the meantime I proceeded through some INTENSE security. They checked me not once, not twice, but THREE times! It was really amusing. Once we finally got passed all that we went to the waiting area and just waited for our plane. Once Jamison arrived back at the airport Geoff ran out front and got my wallet. Shelby and I boarded the plane and were able to finally relax once we saw that Geoff got on as well. It was a little cramped (the flight was full to the max) and it was after 11pm. So Shelby fell asleep in my arms and stayed that way the entire flight. :-)

Wednesday, April 22nd: We arrived at JFK International at 7:30am (which was really 4:30am on west coast time) and got our bags. Once we had them, we went to Enterprise to get our rental. We decided to upgrade to a JK Jeep Wrangler. Shelby and I both passed out pretty much the moment we got in the car. I tried REALLY hard to stay awake since the scenery was GORGEOUS! Anyways, Geoff decided to wake me up and surprised me by taking me through some of his old town. We even stopped off at a deli that he used to go to and got some lunch. Then we stopped by his old stomping grounds, Lake Kitchowan. :-) That was a lot of fun. We then headed to our hotel and got settle in our room. We then decided that the Jeep was a POS so we traded it in for the only car they had, a NEON blue PT Cruiser. lol.

Thursday, April 23rd: Today we drove to Pelham, New York to visit Geoff's Grandma Kniesch and we were lucky enough to also see Aunt Lenor and Robin. :-) Geoff's dad went with us as well and we all decided to go to Robin's Husband Dave's Deli and get some good food. By the way, the Chicken Po'Boy is by far the BEST sandwich I have EVER had!

Saturday, April 25th: Shelby is 10 months old!!! I somehow managed to totally forget what we did Friday. So we'll do Saturday. Today was a day of moving. Geoff's cousin Billy and his wife Kristin were moving, so we decided to help out. They're new house is super cute and on an acre of land. :-) After a few hours we had moved them in and were ready for some grub. So we walked across the street to...a deli. lol. I have NEVER seen so many deli's in my life.

Sunday, April 26th: We went out to breakfast! We went to this place called the I-84 Diner because it's literally off of the Highway. It was pretty good food. Then we went to Herman and Nancy's house (Geoff's dad and stepmom) and went to Cabela's. Cabela's is an outdoor store that has just about EVERYTHING you can possibly imagine. They even have aquariums and animal statue things and stuffed deer and yeah, it's cool. :-) Then after a long day of driving, Cabela's and more driving we went out for some Mexican. woohoo!

Monday, April 27th: Today was a day of EXCITEMENT! We took the train from Newburgh to Grand Central Station in New York City. Then we hopped on the subway and went to Battery Park. From there we got on a ferry and went to the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island. Did you know that the Statue of Liberty is made out of Copper??? I didn't. I guess that's why it's green. It's oxidized. lol. The things you learn. After admiring the statue and the island itself, we took another ferry to Ellis Island and got the opportunity to see all the names of the people who traveled from all over the world to come here. It was really amazing. After that adventure we took yet ANOTHER ferry back to Battery Park and got ourselves some "Dirty Water Dogs." :-) They are skinny and long and REALLY good! Not healthy but good. :-) Then we took the subway to the train and the train back home and then went to Billy and Kristin's house to meet up with them and go to dinner. They took us to go get some good Mexican food too. :-) Then we went to Cold Stone Creamery and ate some super good ice-cream. Ahh...the life. :-)

Tuesday, Aprill 28th: So Geoff, Shelby, Herman and I all took a little road trip to Pennsylvania. Yup. We drove all the way there to go fishing on the infamous Delaware River. It was SUCH a nice road trip. We stopped at yet another Deli and had lunch and then went fishing for a while and hiked down a cool trail. And Shelby went swimming in the Delaware. It was freezing but she didn't care. :-)

Wednesday, April 29th: We FINALLY got to sleep in. :-) It was so nice and refreshing. Then we went to the SmokeHouse for Breakfast. Then we drove to Sports Authority to go visit Gramps. :-) Geoff bought me some RollerBlades for Mother's Day. :-) Afterwards we went to a cool grocery store called "Stew Leonards." It's a grocery store with all these cool extra things. Like a singing chicken. lol. They even have calfs and baby goats outside. Then we went back to Geoff's old Lake Kitchowan and went fishing for a few hours. Then we got to go visit his friends that he grew up with. The Wetzels. They're super cool and we had a blast hanging out with them. Then we went to Mike's house and had a mini bonfire in his backyard.

Thursday, April 30th: We got to sleep in again. :-) For breakfast we went and had a hearty breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. lol. We then headed out and started our road trip. Our goal was to go to a couple states. So we drove to Vermont and then headed south for Massachussetts. Once we got back in to New York we went to Pizza Village for some Sicilian pizza. Super yummy. Then we hung out at Herman and Nancy's the rest of the day. Oh yeah, and we got to eat at Red Robin. Yummm! :-)

Friday, May 1st: Today is our last day in New York. :-( We're gonna miss it here. So this morning we finished packing and loaded up the car. Then we checked out at 10am and headed to Perkin's for some New York Breadfast, aka Super Fattening but Super Yummy. Herman came with us and we got in as much time with him as we could. Afterward, we went back to his place until it was time to leave. Then we drove to the airport, flew to San Francisco, met Jamison there, and then came home. :-( I miss it there. It's okay though, we'll go again soon. :-)

Shelby in a super cool CAMO chair at Cabela's

Shelby and I at Red Robin

Shelby likes to stand while she eats

A really cool moose we found on our way out of Vermont

Geoff with Mike and David

Geoff and Mike

Geoff and David

Geoff's old house

Lake Kitchowan

Geoff ran in to an old friend so we stopped by

Stew Leonard's

The Delaware River

At Herman and Nancy's

This is a statue that used to be at Ground Zero and is here as a monument in Battery Park in it's original state after the attacks.

The End.