Potty trained!!

Never thought this was going to happen, but someone is finally potty trained!!! It took a little longer than we thought and had a few false hopes, but we can now officially say that no more diapers are needed!! Now it's time to start working on the second one :)

We told him that if he fills up a few of his potty charts, then I would take him to his first movie in a theater. It wasn't hard to decide which movie to see - Planes is done by the same people who did Cars, which is only his absolute most favorite movie ever! I was actually pretty excited to go, too. To go to the movies is a big deal, even for me at this age! And I loved having a mommy/son date :)

A little blurry, but it shows that he had to wear his Cars shirt and bring two of his favorite Cars with him!

My little man :)

Love this little guy so much.  So proud of him!

Corrados in Bend!!

This past weekend, we had our good friends, the Corrados, in town!! And not just Jenna & Sam, but their cute little guy, James, as well. It's always a good time with them, no matter what we do! We miss these guys so much. Just when I feel like we are settling into our Bend life here, they come to visit and makes musiss our life in Portland more than usual. But, I'm glad we don't live too far away and still get to see good people like them as much as possible :)

So much fun watching all of our little ones playing together.  Warms my heart :)

Apparently a helmet is needed when playing in our playroom :)

Sam seems to have a way with little kids.  I have an exact same picture of Sam with Tristan when he was Talia's age.  So cute.

As luck would have it, they just happened to be in town during the Brew Fest.  Of course we had to try it out!

Can you say mini-Sam??

Playing along the Deschutes

Like father, like daughter.  Seriously.

Such a fun weekend with good friends! Love them so much :)

Portland & Camping Weekend Disaster

Well, that didn't go as planned.  When we made reservations at this Mt. Hood campsite 4-5 months ago with my family, there was no way we could have forecasted a huge thunderstorm drowning out the campground minutes before we got there. What are the odds??  Maybe that's what we get when we overplan and overpack for a camping weekend.  The trailer we pulled behind us that was filled with all of our bikes, two kids' motorized cars, cornhole, etc. seemed like a great idea when we knew we had a whole weekend to use them, but then seemed a little foolish when we saw branches littered everywhere and piles of hail all over the ground where we would have played.  Oops.

Since I was also supposed to go into Portland on Saturday for a baby shower and we had already driven 2 1/2 hours, we decided to go the rest of the way and stay at my brother's house.  Luckily, my brother's family had their RV and my parents had their truck, so they all decided to stick it out for a night.  Our tent wasn't going to make it.  And I'm glad that we decided for the warm, dry bed and the shower the next day.  Sleeping in a lake wasn't on my list of things to do that weekend.

Here are some pics to document our short time at the campsite and then my fun brunch with my girlfriends at Ali's shower.  Better luck next year!

The very cute preggo lady :)

Cannot wait to meet Aubrey's "lil bro"!

The girls celebrating Ali's baby boy.  Our 11th baby shower together - wow :)

On our way back to Bend from Portland, we stopped by the campsite to see how everyone was doing.  My parents had already gone back to Seattle, but the Danners were still there trying to make it work.  Even though most of the water was gone, we all decided (after roasting a few marshmallows, of course) that it was time to go home.  Can't say we didn't try!

16 months!

Even though I usually only post on half-birthdays after turning one, I thought she needed a 16 month posting considering how much she has grown in the past four months! 

*She can now say hot (while sticking her hand out in a "stop" kind of way), please (which sounds more like "peacsh" - the cutest thing ever!), cheese (when getting her picture taken :) and uck (which comes up a lot since she's constantly getting into/touching things she shouldn't)
*She can also pretty much understand anything we're saying now and will do things for us when we ask/tell her.  She's seriously 16 months going on 3.  I'm sure it has a lot to do with being around three older kids all day, but she acts so much older than being just over a year old.
*Speaking of older kids, she really wants to be one and follows her older brother and cousins  everywhere!  She also tries to keep up with everything they're doing, whether it be going up the stairs, jumping off the couch, racing through the house or outside.  This girl has no fear!
*She also loves to watch Team Umizoomi (cartoon) and gets so excited when she hears its opening song and starts dancing.  When they ask questions throughout the show, she always answers with a "cha" (ya).
*Since she's now "one of the big kids", she refuses to sit in her booster seat and stands on the chair at the table while we're eating.  She's fallen off quite a few times, which has made me force her to sit in the booster afterwards, but it doesn't deter her.  She's determined!
*She now eats anything we are eating and, like her big brother, so far has liked it all!  I'm sure the pickiness will come soon, but I'm enjoying this phase right now! 
*She can also eat with a spoon on her own.  Not that it always goes into her mouth, but at least she wants to do it by herself. 
*Our daily walks are getting harder now since she refuses to sit in the stroller halfway through a long walk.  Which means Tristan has to go at a snail's pace on his bike.  And then I usually end up having to carry her the rest of the way back.  Good for the biceps, I guess :)
*Along with having no fear, she can also be a dare devil.  Climbing onto the table, "jumping" down the slide, jumping ship off the stroller mid-walk, running at a million miles an hour and then biting it on the concrete.  You know, the usual :)

Sweet picture of Talia and her doggy cousin, Stella.  And, you can also see the road rash that is still apparent on her face :)

This is how she eats.  Standing at the table with food all over her face.  Hot mess :)

Hours after she jumped off a stroller, face first onto concrete.  This girl is tough :)

This is also how she does craft projects lately.  The art ends up more on her arms than on her paper :)

Brotherly/sisterly love.  This is really how these two feel about each other :)