HAPPY BIRTHDAY MYA!!!

My Mom and sister, Holly, had come on Tuesday to help celebrate Mya's birthday with us that coming Saturday. It was so nice to have them come and stay at our little apartment! It was a full house, but everything seemed to work out just fine. We played a lot of card games after Mya had gone to bed and ate a ton of ice cream! We were all anxious for Saturday to come and could hardly wait! 

Later that week, Shelynn, Amanda, and her friend, Erica, arrived to also celebrate Mya's birthday. I can't tell you how pleased I was that we had so much company! I'll tell you this though, it's a good thing that Daneile and Chris are here too because we wouldn't have any room to put everyone! So Shelynn, Amanda, and Erica all stayed over at Daneile's apartment. 

The plan with Mya's birthday was that we would all go to the park just down the street from our place and have dinner and cake. Well, Vince and I ordered the chicken on Saturday morning, hoping it would be ready by 6:30 that evening. (You have to give them a 24 hour notice if you want a large chicken order) Sure enough we got there at 6:30 and they didn't even get our order written down, but the people there were really nice and told us that they could get our order done within 20 min. 

We then got to the park to set everything up, but all the tables were being taken up by other families and their birthday parites. So when we headed back to our apartments, Amanda found a small table area that we could have our party at. (Thank you Amanda) 

                                                          Just look at all those presents!!!!

It was a hectic start, but everything seemed to fall into place in the end. We had an enjoyable dinner and a wonderful show!

Mya unwrapping her presents was just the cutest thing ever! She didn't rip into them like I would have liked and we did have to end up helping her. But when she saw what was under the wrapping, that was a classic look! She would hold the box and just stare.

Her favorite toy ended up being the baby stroller that Vince and I got for her. 

After her birthday presents, we went straight for her cake! This was the part I was most excited about! I wanted her to just dig in and tear that cake apart!

She liked to eat the top part of her cake, which is totally disgusting, so I pulled off the top and showed her the best part of the cake.

She didn't really dig into it, but she did eat a lot of it. She wasn't afraid to get messy. She even sat in her cake to eat a cupcake that we had make for everyone else. 

As Mya sat eating her cupcake, Chris and Amanda were in the back making evil plans. I saw Chris holding the camera right at Vince and I knew right then that something was going to happen. Sure enough Amanda comes running up and grabs Mya's cake and goes to throw it on Vince, but Vince, being the fast guy that he is, dodged that baby and it went sailing through the air and landed SMACK on the ground!

After that it seemed to turn into a cake war between Amanda and Vince. Those two are just too funny!  :) 

Saturday was the highlight of my week and having both our families there made it even better. I just want to say Happy Birthday, Mya babe, you are the best! 

A Little Blogging Break

Hey everyone!! Sorry it's been so long since I've updated this. I just haven't felt in the mood to blog. However, I believe that I will be back to work on this and update everyone in just a few days. If everyone could wait, as you have to, then we won't have any problems! Be back before you know it!

Road Trip!!

Alright, I know it's been a very long time since I last updated the world on our family. I'll start with an all girls road trip. Daneile, Mya, and I went back to Pocatello for Amanda's graduation.

We were going to be driving for 10-11 hours with Mya. It was going to be an interesting journey, but Mya surprised us all and turned out to be a pretty good traveler! Apart from her occasional outbursts, she did a great job and I couldn't be more proud! She might not be her mother's daughter when it comes to traveling after all! :)

You may not know this, but you also might say "that sounds like Ashley" when I get into different situations I either talk a whole bunch of nonesense or I won't talk at all. The first situation is when I know someone, but not well. I get nervous and that leads to my jibberish talks. The second situation is when I don't know the person at all or I don't like them. I'm happy to say that I was in the first situation.

I warned Daneile that I might talk nonesense and to just tell me to hush if I got out of control! :) haha, she didn't say anything about me being a pest. She would talk very little, but it was enough to keep me babbling on. It was a very fast drive.

My family was extremely happy that we had come.  We had a good time just being together as a family:

Here is me and Lindsay brushing our teeth and making weird faces at Mike who likes to take pictures at the wrong time! It was silly!

As you might notice by now, Mike has very large hands and my camera is very small. He can't quite get his finers out of view. As for my facial expressions, lets just say I was really happy to see him! My dimple is really deep here too.

And for the whole reason why we went back for our short trip. Amanda. I just want her to know that I'm very happy and proud of her. It's a fun thing to be graduating and moving into adulthood. It gets scary at times, but she has a brother that really watches out for his little sister and cares a great deal for her. A sister to talk to and confide in. And a mother that would do absolutly anything for her daughter. (Plus the best sister in law there is!) She is a lucky girl to have such a great family. I wish her luck in college and I tell you Amanda, you can be anything you want, so have fun with it! 

I'm sad to say that I forgot my camera charger and my battery died during the graduation, I got the pictures I needed before it went. It was a good weekend, nice to get away. But before I knew it, we were packing up and leaving to go back. I missed Vince and so did Mya. Part of us wanted to stay, but a bigger part wanted to get back to Vince. It was a longer trip going back, we were both anxious to get back to our men. And I'll end with "Congrats Amanda, I'm proud of you!"

heat+water=SWIMMING

We're getting ready for another swim trip!! It's awesome to have a pool right close so that when it's a very hot day you can get out and take a dip in the pool. 

Here we are going out to swim. As you might notice, I'm wearing make up. I was trying to look nice that day and Vince suggests we get out to the pool. Well, I don't want to get my make up all ruined so I couldn't dunk my head. Stinky! It was fun though! 

Vince doesn't look too happy out there, neither does Mya. But just you wait, they will have a totally different attitude as the time progresses on.

Mya mostly wanted to stay out of the water and play with her tubie. She kept trying to throw it on Vince and sometimes she succeeded:

She would throw it on him and then try getting in the water all carfully. Vince had to make sure she didn't fall in!! Don't worry, we don't let Mya just run up and down the side of the pool unless one of us are in the pool going along with her and one is out of the pool to go along the other side of her.

She isn't running like the picture looks like it makes her. She is actually walking. She holds her hands up like that to keep her balance. As I was saying before, we let Mya wander around, but we are close by. I want her to experience new things and that sometimes means letting  her venture out of our arms and on her own. She's a very careful thing, so I'm not too worried about the trouble she could get into, but I still have to keep in mind that she is still a baby!

Well, I eventually got into the pool and me and Mya had the time of our lives!! I took her out of her floatie and held her like she should be swimming and told her to kick her legs as fast as she could and splash her arms, to my surprise she did what I asked! She was kicking and a kicking. Just has hard as she could and splashing her arms and she just had the biggest smile on her face! We chased Daddy everywhere in that pool! I think Mya is going to be a little good swimmer!

It's just an average day

Nothing new has happened so far, just the same old stuff and doing that same old thing. Now, before I continue on with my little story with Mya today, I would like to let every one of my readers know that I ran 3 miles today! Count them, 1.2.3!!! Not all at once though, I wish. I first ran a mile and half, took a break and did some weights, then I got back on the tredmill, very reluctantly I might add, and did another mile. After I finished that mile I was so beat, but I went back to lift weights and for the 3rd time I returned to the tredmill only to run half a mile. Thank goodness it was only half a mile! I almost didn't make it! The air was hot in that gym and my legs were weak. BUT I made it. I finished the last half mile and called it quits for the weekend!

After that little show, I would like to let everyone know what Mya likes to do during the day: She'll first get her little baby to go along with her, then she makes her way into the kitchen.

She then usually will open all the cupboards and somtimes crawl into them. (this is from a different day, but she does it almost everyday, if I don't catch her in time)

She then makes her way out of the kitchen and towards the bedroom. Which she then loves to open and close the door and giggling while doing it.

Open and closed, over and over again.

After she has gotten her fix of opening and closing doors, she moves to the dresser. And there she pulls out all of her clothes and scatters them across the floor.

This will happen everyday, just before her afternoon nap. I have to chase her out of the room and then chase her around the house, which she finds so fun! She giggles the whole time! I love my little girl! She is so much fun and I'm glad I have her here with me this summer to keep me entertained. She's such a cute thing!

Mya's new car

So today me and Mya went out splurged a little and we bought her a new car! She loves to play in it and loves the color as well! I think we spent about 1 hour straight playing in that car. The whole time she was in it she had a cheesy grin on her face. I love these pictures!

Doesn't Mya just have such a cheesy smile. She makes this smile almost everytime you pull out a camera and say "smile Mya!" 

Mya hasn't gotten any more teeth, just the 5 she's had for awhile, and when she smiles, she likes to show off all 5 of her teeth. Usaully it's the bottom 2 that stick out more!

Vroom Vroom went the car as Mya zoomed on by! Everyone watch out for Mya out on the road, she's a crazy driver and doesn't care about what she runs into!!! Man I love my little girl!

River Trip

We were very unprepared for this river trip, but it was fun all the same. We couldn't really do anything since we didn't have our bathing suits on or sunscreen for Mya. But we did get our feet in and it was sure cold! I could barely get in past my ankles! And Daneile was going almost all the way up to her knees! We didn't stay long, but I still managed to some pictures!

Vince had to give Mya his shirt. We dipped it in the river and then put it on her so she wouldn't get too hot and so the sun wouldn't get at her. As you can see, no one is in very deep.

I was trying to get Mya to smile at me and everytime she would smile and I would go to take the picture, I would miss her smile. She just looks so tired and when we got back, she slept for a long time!

It was a short trip, but it was nice to get out of the apartment and enjoy the very hot day. Did I mention it was VERY hot? It was 104 yesterday. I got a nice sun burn to prove it!