hello pearly whites

a few days ago ainsley's top teeth finally cut through her gums. poor thing. she's been so good through it all. she just drools a lot and chews on whatever she can.

she's got both coming in together, so that's 4 teeth already. then today i noticed....she's got 2 more moving in right next to the top ones.

i can't believe how fast she's growing. six teeth at seven months!

i'll miss her gummy grin.

let the games begin

its finally happened. i knew it would happen sooner than i'd like. but its just so cute i dont care.

ainsley has been on the verge of crawling for the past few weeks. she's been sitting up for a while and progressed to go from sitting to leaning forward and getting on all fours. she's been able to move from side to side and then backwards, but never quite mastered forward.

then today it happened.

she saw something she liked, and just went for it. it was amazing, there was no army crawling, no scooting, no falling over. it was like she already knew how to do it and just did it.

i'm realizing how unprepared i was for this. she's already getting my cell phone, the remote, and poor little oscar. sorry buddy, life is quickly changing.

another milestone...and so fast! a few days shy of being 7 months old! i was thinking i had at least another month before she should be crawling. so cute though. she just gets the biggest smile on

her face when she crawls and gets to where she wanted to go. i'm so proud.

first family vacation

to celebrate 5 fabulous years we decided we should take a trip. we didn't know where.

we thought about everything.

maybe go back and visit NYC again

maybe paris again and eat all of our favorite foods

we thought a cruise could be fun

we had lists and lists and to shorten it we decided we should go somewhere we hadn't been yet...and somewhere we wouldn't have to fly over 7 hours to arrive.

we decided on seattle/vancouver. i think a lot of it had to do with the fact the olympics had just ended and we had seen all the cool places vancouver had to offer.

so april 30 - may 9th we saw and ate as much as we could.

a few highlights....

we got to see matt and mel and their adorable children for a few days in seattle. probably my favorite part.

then we traveled up and spent a day in gorgeous victoria with corrina and family. it was wonderful seeing her and her cute family.

last stop was vancouver where duben's family joined us.

vancouver was beautiful. it was amazing having the coast and mountains all together. for our anniversary we went on a seaplane around the city and up in the mountains. it was beautiful.

ainsley did fantastic and loved getting out and seeing so many fun places and people. and the people just loved her everywhere we went. we joked that we went to the mall which should have taken 30 minutes, but ended up over an hour because of all the people who wanted to stop and talk to her.

it was a wonderful trip. fun to see new places and be with friends and family.

the first 5 years

may 5th was our five year anniversary. amazing.

in 5 years we have:

lived in 8 states (CA,AZ,NV,UT,ID,VA,NY,AR)

moved 13 times

visited 14 countries

owned 3 cars

graduated college together

both got jobs at walmart

bought our first home

had a beautiful baby girl

not too shabby.

thank you duben for an amazing 5 years. it has truly been the best years of my life. i can't wait to see what the future holds for us.

maybe this is my favorite stage....

being a mom continues to be better than i had expected. i wasn't sure how i'd deal with the not-so-fun parts of motherhood, but there really aren't any. ainsley deserves a lot of credit for that. she is an amazing baby.

i can't believe six months have already passed since she arrived. she already has such a personality. she loves to interact with anyone and everyone.

thanks for an amazing six months. i love you more.

a mean trick

i came home from running some errands this afternoon and had a scary surprise waiting for me. all the bedroom doors in the house were open. i was scared to death.
the back bedroom doors were open - we never go in those rooms - and even the closet doors were wide open. i hurried and called duben to see if maybe he had left them open for some strange reason. nope. so i made him stay on the phone while i checked each room and waited for a scary burglar to jump out at me.
nothing.
then i saw him.








oscar.
oscar has taught himself to open doors. that was a mean trick oscar.

forever. forever ever. forever ever.

duben and i went out to dinner today to celebrate his promotion.
way to go duben.

little miss 'a' decided that she wanted to talk...and it wasn't her church voice. we figured it was probably because she's teething. (she has her two bottom teeth in, and we think the top two will soon be arriving.) she was content in her car seat until dinner arrived....of course. so i held her while duben ate for a bit and then we switched so i could eat.
we were finishing up when this older couple across from us finished and the wife came over to look at ainsley. she left to go to the restroom and the husband told us about how they went to dinner a week ago and saw a couple in a similar situation as us with a little fussy baby. except the wife held the baby the whole time and got her food to go. he told us that when he saw duben take ainsley he told his wife, "that couple is gonna last." (people are so nice here)

i always knew i had a great marriage, but it is always nice to know that other people see it too. thanks duben for being a great husband.