5 Things...

...before I head off to bed:

1. Sophie is 11 months old today! I can't believe she'll be ONE in a month! AHH!

2. We got back from vacation in Wisconsin today. Fun trip!! Will post more about that soon...so make sure you check back.

3. I caught a cold on our trip. Not feeling too hot right now. Boo. Looking forward to my own bed tonight.

4.

(Just a sneak peek from our trip.)

5. I'm sad. I'm sitting here at 8:45 watching the finale of "So You Think You Can Dance," with tears streaming down my cheeks. No...not because I love the show so much, and not because I'm getting all choked up at the amazing talent, but because I just realized that one week from today I'll be sitting here having spent my first full day back at work. I only have one more week with my baby girl. I know, I know...don't be so dramatic, Katie. But I love being a full-time mom and it all just hit at once, and I can't help think about how much I'm going to miss her until next summer. (Again, I know this is a bit dramatic, but remember...I have a cold and everything is amplified when you're sleepy and sick.) By the time she's one I'll only have worked for 6 months of her life (because of maternity leave, Christmas break, spring break, and summer break.) I know this is a huge blessing, and that one of the great things about my job is the time I get off, but still... Teaching is exhausting and time-consuming, Sophie's a grump by the time I pick her up in the evening, and I just know she's going to take that first step and reach all kinds of milestones that I'll miss. I'm not going to be there for all of the "firsts" and it just makes me sad.

And on that note...sweet dreams of summer bliss are calling out to me.

Family & Friends

We went on a family hike the other day and Sophie loved it! My mom found a backpack carrier at a garage sale for $5 and it's awesome! About 15 minutes into the hike, we heard a rumble in the sky. Airplane or thunderstorm? Since there was barely a cloud in the sky when we parked and started hiking, we figured airplane. A few minutes later another distinct rumble. Definitely NOT an airplane. So we turned around, picked up the speed a bit, and kept our eyes on the sky. Definitely darkening. A few hundred yards from the car we felt sprinkles and right as we started buckling Sophie into the car seat the sky let loose. Perfect timing! We managed to get a few pics in beforehand:


Today we had a lovely visit from Lauren and McKinley. Sophie slept, McKinley ate; McKinley slept, Sophie ate; Sophie slept, and then finally they were both UP! We got to have some play time on the quilt and then we went for a nice long walk. Our girls love being outside! Here are a few pics of our cutie-pa-tooties side-by-side:

My apologies, my little climber, and a birthday shout-out!

Okay, so the Sophie's lucky break thing was a gimmick and I fell for it. There really is $5000 to win, but the voting process is ridiculous and is a scheme to get people to register for a stupid website or something. Anyway, if you voted, thank you. If you got to it and thought it was a waste of time, I totally don't blame you. I had no idea you had to register, then check your e-mail, then go back to the website, blah blah blah. Annoying.

So...to make it up to you, the start of today's Wordless Wednesday (which isn't really going to be wordless), is of pictures of my little nugget. I've just got to say, I fall more and more in love with her every day. I didn't think that would be possible, but it is. She is just so G.R.E.A.T and such a blessing to our lives. So, enjoy these:

In the past few weeks, Sophie learned how to climb stairs, which transpired the love of climbing on ANYTHING. The following pictures are a progression of her latest love of climbing on the block pile. Enjoy.
"Here I go."


"Hmm...I might want to take one more block with me up here."


"Woah...gotta get my balance."

"Finally...seated on my throne. Now I'm going to kick back and chew on a block."

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Okay, now moving on to a post that is way over-due! My friend Erin celebrated one of those milestone birthdays last week. Not only was the birthday itself a milestone, but also the fact that she achieved a HUGE goal of losing 20 lbs by that said birthday! (Click here to read about it on her blog.) Anyway, there are numerous people out there who think Erin is awesome and several of us wanted to show that to her with a little surprise get together. We enjoyed some delicious desserts and I'm sure she savored each bite, seeing as how she deprived herself of that kind of thing to lose the weight! Erin, you deserve it and we're all thrilled for you! Congratulations and Happy Birthday (last week)! Here are some pics of the gang as we enjoyed our friend and our sweets!

She is very excited about the mountain of goodness in front of her!

I must say, Erin pulls off the sweet smile you have to hold for the entire duration of the "Happy Birthday" song VERY well! I always feel incredibly awkward in those moments.

This was how Erin satiated her sweet tooth all of those months of dieting with WW.

The group.
Beth is to the left of Erin, and she organized the whole sha-bang. Erin was totally surprised!
On the far left is our friend Sarah who just had her baby girl, Charlie, last night!! Congrats Sarah and Scott! We can't wait to meet her. (She was 2 days away from her due date in this picture, but Charlie decided to wait another week to make her grand entrance!)

And this is where I'll cut myself off. Sorry for the long post. You may not return to your regularly scheduled day.

Sophie's Lucky Break

I entered Sophie in a "Beautiful Babies" contest!! My friend Erin took this gorgeous photo of Sophie and I think it should win a contest!!

You may have already received an e-mail from me about this, but I want to make sure I catch everyone! We have the chance to win the grand prize of $5000 and a professional photo shoot! Voting is on now through Monday, August 4 Midnight EST. So, here's what you need to do:

Click on THIS LINK to cast your vote (and you may need to register, I'm not sure) and be sure to pass this along to anyone else you think might want to vote!

Thanks for your support!

Hey, You!

Yeah, you...You know who you are. This post is for you. And just for the records...I made it before midnight.

To all the rest of you: enjoy this silly, beautiful, and all together irresistible face.

Not Meant to be a Baker

First of all, may I just say that I'm on a roll with blogging. I don't think I've blogged this frequently in a long time.

Okay, funny story (clarification: may only be funny to me). Last night at 9:45 I decided it was a good time to bake some gluten-free cookies. (For those of you who are unaware, I have Celiac Disease and have to eat a 100% gluten-free diet. ) Not sure what possessed me to do such a thing, but I pulled out all the ingredients and went for it. There is a really great company that has a gluten-free all-purpose flour, and I had some in the fridge.

My college roomies can testify to the fact that I am a horrible baker. My cookies have ALWAYS turned out completely flat, unless I'm using the slice and bake kind. I haven't really attempted making GF cookies from scratch, but for some reason I was feeling especially optimistic last night. I really thought these were going to turn out all fluffy and gooey. How very very wrong I was. This was the result:

I was minorly disappointed when that is what I saw in the oven. However, they weren't burnt and I knew they would be edible anyway. I started scraping them off the pan and stacking them on a plate. They didn't really stay whole and rippled up as I scraped them off, so I pretty much just had a bunch of globs.

It was getting pretty late at this point, so I covered the plate with some foil and went to bed. It was nice to fall asleep to the smell of cookies! :) In the morning, I uncovered the plate and noticed that they were crumbling apart as I tried to pick them up (yes...I may have had a few bites with breakfast). So I just went with it and started crumbling them into a tupperware dish.

My solution: a GREAT topping to ice cream! I threw the tupperware in the freezer and now I can just put some in a bowl, heat it up for a bit in the microwave, and eat it with some vanilla ice cream. YUM!

Disaster thwarted.

Out of Control!

We planted our garden on Mother's Day. Here are some "Then" & "Now" photos. It's pretty much out of control. We've already used some squash & zucchini in a stir-fry dish. YUM! I'm so glad we decided to try this! Not too bad for first timers.

THEN:

NOW:

THEN:

NOW: