Chillaxin In Minnesota

Piper and I decided yesterday to take a road trip to Minnesota. Josh has lots of studying to to do for work so we wanted to get out of his hair. Piper's super excited to get to see all her Grandparents and Taco. I'm excited that I was able to plan a trip to Minnesota in less then 24 hours.

We miss Josh but are having lots of fun!

The internet also seems to be faster in Minnesota so I thought I'd share a video of Piper doing her Irish Dance that I tried to post a few weeks ago. Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday

Recent Reads

Piper's First Birthday

We celebrated Piper's 1st birthday this weekend. A bunch of our family came over and we had so much fun.

Piper ended up running a low grade fever on her actual birthday so we had to make up for it during her party.

She had so much fun playing with her cousins. She also was ecstatic about her kitty cake, the decorations, and all the balloons.



I have to say getting to eat her first piece of birthday was a highlight of the day. She ate her whole entire piece. She loved it so much.



She made a big mess.


I gave her a bath after the cake but today a day after her party she still smells like birthday cake.

It was the first party in our new house and I am so happy that Piper was able to celebrate her special day with so many of her relatives!

Happy Birthday Piper!!

Slice of Life

This weekend we celebrated Piper's first birthday. It was a blast and there are a ton more photos to come!The theme for I Heart Faces photo challenge this week is slice of life. The goal is to post a more candid, journalistic photo. I was going to post a picture from our trip to the pumpkin patch last fall but as soon as I took this photo on Saturday I knew it would be perfect.

The photo is of Josh showing Piper her cat cake. She was so excited to see the kitty, little did she know at that point how good that kitty cake would taste.

I promise the next post will have photos of Piper eating her cake. Until then head over to I Heart Faces and check out the photos. So far the photos I've seen are amazing!

First Trip Around The Sun

Today is little Piper's first birthday!


It's been quite the first year of life for this little one. She's lived in 3 states, lived in one apartment and 3 different houses. She's been on 6 airplanes, on top of 2 mountains, and has seen the Pacific Ocean.


Piper has brought so much love and joy into the world and I don't know what I'd do with out her.


It has been so much fun watching Piper grow and her personality develop. She is extremely laid back, she loves commotion, and she loves to socialize. She does have a bit of a temper but she is so lovable.


She's a great little eater and her favorite foods are pineapple, pickles, chicken, and guacamole. When she really likes something she'll yell "NUM" and kick her legs while she's eating.


She loves her pink bunny, she's crazy about cats, and loves to look at and read books.


Happy Birthday Piper!!! Love you so much and I am so excited to celebrate your 1st birthday with you!

Wordless Wednesday

Thank you window

for being a wonderful distraction after a tantrum.

Piper Knows a New Word

The word is duck.
She points ducks out everywhere. She found some on one of her blankies, they're in a ton of her books, she saw one on TV and she even saw one at Target.

She likes her new word so much that she decided to start sporting a duck tail.

Sioux Falls Saturday

Good news!! I'm off the crutches!!! I started walking without them yesterday and it feels so good to have two free hands to carry my baby girl and do random things like clear the table.
Here's Josh and Piper messing around with my crutches before I put them in the closet.
Piper kept crawling after them saying mum mum. Yep she associates me with my crutches...nice.


We've had some really great weather lately so that means we pretty much don't have any snow left. Yay! The snow does have to go some where and right now it's show flowing down the Sioux Falls Falls. Since I can somewhat walk again we decided to head down to Falls Park.
It was really busy and windy in the park so after some fresh air and a quick walk we headed off the dollar store and then home.


This evening Josh decided to put together his mountain bike. His bike has been in boxes under our bed for many years. We brought it out to Portland in the boxes and we brought it back from Portland in boxes and it was never put together in Portland.
I brought Piper outside to watch him test it out. She loved watching him and kept screaming and giggling as he road around.

It was a fun day and it got me super excited for spring and summer! I can't wait to spend lots of time outside on the bike trails and in the parks!!!

Saturday Inspiration

"You can be too rich and too thin, but you can never be too well
read or too curious about the world."
~ Tim Gunn

Photo taken March 31, 2009

Happy St. Patrick's Day

I think today was my favorite St. Patrick's Day ever. Piper got all dressed up for her first St. Patrick's day. She's a touch Irish and I didn't want her to get pinched by a leprechaun.
We had lots of fun dancing to Irish music and...
eating Irish food. Josh made me corned beef and cabbage this year after many years of begging for it.
When I was around 9 or 10 I went to my Grandma Becker's house for St. Patrick's Day and she made us corned beef and cabbage. I loved it! I think this is the first year since my Grandma's meal that I've gotten to eat corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day. It was so yummy!

Wordless Wednesday

Who needs expensive toys

when you have an empty Kleenex box and a Godfathers Pizza coupon.
Seriously why do I worry about what to get her for her birthday when she's just going to play with the paper and bows.

Also here's a photo just for fun.

I'm still on my crutches, I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be off them by the end of this week. Since I'm still not able to walk around real well I have lots of time to process photos. I made lots of black and whites today, I love how they make her eyes pop.

Nap Time

We thought Piper was ready to switch to one nap a day versus a morning and an afternoon nap. Today was day 3 of one nap and we realized she's so not ready.

I'm looking forward to two naps tomorrow and a lot fewer mood swings!

I Heart Sun Flares

I took this photo a few weeks ago when a water main broke down the street. Piper was loving all the commotion and trucks with flashing lights. I was hating the fact that we were going to be with out water for an extented period of time.

What I did love though was the flairs I was getting while taking photos of her. I have to say I love the light in our new home. The light in the house is seriously a photographers dream. Everyday I find a new nook that offer great light.

This week the I Heart Faces challenge just happens to be sun flares. I love playing with the sun and seeing what kind of fun effects I can get. It's also fun to see what other cool things other people can do with the sun so make sure to head over to I Heart Faces and check out everyone's sunny photos!

Having fun in Piper's Play Room

One of the really nice things about our new house is the bonus family room in the basement. Since we currently only have enough furniture for one living room the big basement room has become Piper's playroom.

Here's just some of the fun Piper and her dad have had in the playroom. He was jumping over her and she thought it was pretty hilarious.

We are enjoying our new home and all it's space. It's so nice to have such a large safe place for Piper to play.

Sharp Little Teeth

Piper's growing and so are her teeth. She's a really good listener and if we hand her something and tell her not in the mouth she will control herself and manage not to put the object in her mouth. Most of the time though she manages to stick what ever thing she has in her mouth before we get a chance to tell her not to.

Yesterday while playing with her dad she took my get well soon balloon and bit a huge chunk out of it. She cried as her toy deflated and we tried to explain to her that's why you don't bite balloons.

Then later in the day I was letting her crumble up the Rolling Stone magazine my sitter had left for me to read, she all of a sudden she took a bite out of one of the pages.

I took the magazine away and wasn't really to concerned until I realized what she was looking at when she took the bite.

Okay, so I'm still nursing. I really hope that she wasn't trying to tell me something. Yikes!

Since we're on the topic of Portland.

Thank you Mo Rocca for doing a story on such an important part of Portland;)

The Daily Show - It's Not Easy Being Green
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Josh took me to Mill End's Park for my 26th Birthday.

Missing Portland

Sometimes I miss Portland so bad it hurts. Yesterday I saw this blog post of a walk in my old neighborhood. You can actually see my old apartment in the last photo. Things like that give me little twinges of homesickness.

But then I realize my family is so close...
and they can stop by for a quick visit every now and then. That always seems to make the homesickness go away.



Portland Photo taken by me November, 2008