Pleasant surprises

I've been feeling a little bit spoiled lately. Not only did Steve get me the cutest card out of nowhere last week, but this past Saturday he came home and surprised me with flowers!! I'm beginning to think he made it a personal goal to surprise me every now and then because Steve never does this kind of stuff and here he's done it two weeks in a row! 

I'm definitely not complaining :) 

I thought the card was so sweet and the flowers...oh my goshhhhhh, I forgot how nice it is to have flowers in the house. When he surprised me with them I was like a giddy little girl (silly and cliche of me) 

And for the past few days I can't stop myself from taking pictures of them. They're just so pretty and perfect! And they seem to make our home feel that much happier :) Plus, on top of that, they fit perfectly in the mason jars I spray painted this weekend. So, it's like a whole new feel to our home now, with my pinterest crafts and the flowers displaying in the kitchen. I love it :)

On the road and in between....

This is my in between post. In between Washington and Utah. 

If you've ever driven from Washington to Utah, or vise versa, you've probably stopped in Dell, Montana, population 35, to get gas. {POPULATION 35!!!}

That's exactly what we did on our way down. We spent 20 wonderful minutes in this tiny little place in the middle of nowhere and let Cole run around on the quiet train tracks and stretch his legs. It might be a tiny little place in the middle of nowhere, but it sure is beautiful :)

For the record, Cole  was the perfect little traveler on this 10+ hour drive. He only took a one hour nap at the very beginning of the trip, Dell was the only place he was able to get out and stretch those legs and the rest of it was spent watching movies on the lap top and playing with his Uncle Ben! I have to say, I'm pretty proud of how well he travels :)

Washington, the Evergreen state

Just a few pictures from our time in Washington last month. It's such a beautiful place and we're excited to move there eventually. 

While we were there, Steve and I were able to go and look at apartments we might possibly live in when we move up there. It makes everything seem a little more real, even if it is still pretty far off. 

We were also able to spend quality time with Steve's family. We did lots of different things but one of them was renting us bikes so we could all go on a family bike ride! I couldn't remember the last time I was on a bike. Luckily, it's true, you never forget how to ride a bike because it had seriously been years since I was last on one but you wouldn't have been able to tell. Only my bum could tell...yeah, bike seats are not the most comfortable thing to sit on for 8 miles. We rented bikes right there in downtown Spokane and then started our ride from there. We rode through downtown Spokane and then up into the hills. It was sooo beautiful! I love it there! Cole loved the little trailer Grandma and Grandpa rented for him! He eventually laid himself on the floor of it so he could fall asleep and it was really cute to see him peek out. Silly baby!

And I only have pictures of Cole with his Uncle Craig, but Cole had a blast with everyone there! I think he's a bit bored being home now and not having so many rooms to roam and new things to get into!

Thank you to Steve's family for their generosity and for making it such a wonderful time. We are lucky kids, to be sure :)

Silverwood

Amusement parks, train rides and huckleberry ice cream. 

These are things I hadn't experienced in a looong time and that Cole had never experienced his entire life until last Wednesday when we went to Silverwood (a little amusement park in northern Idaho) with Steve's family where the only ride I rode was the merri-go-round with Cole. 

It was also our anniversary and since it was spent all day at the park, we actually celebrated the next day, Thursday, by going to see a movie all by ourselves! Steve and I hadn't seen a movie together since long before Cole was born so it really was a treat for us and I'm so thankful to Steve's family for watching Cole for us! Our movie of choice was The Bourne Legacy and I LOVED it! I thought Aaron Cross was way cuter than Jason Bourne ;)

And these are my instagram pictures to document. As we walked into the amusement park, Steve told me that this might be something better left for instagram instead of lugging my DSLR around. I love how he understands my need to document everything in my life ;)

So In LOVE!

Three years ago today I sang this song I wrote for my love on our wedding day. This is the first time I'm posting this footage for the whole world to see and it's nothing less than a little embarrassing!!!!!

I'd like everyone to know that I prefaced my song by saying:

"I don't exactly have a performing voice so we'll just take this as a sign of my love for Steve."

Of all things, this phrase was cut out of the video (not by me), I have no idea where it went. While I'm at it, I'd like to add that Christian hummed a harmony during each chorus, his mic just wasn't loud enough so no one heard. It was so pretty though! Oh well.

In any case, it was so fun to write this little song the week before our wedding as I road-tripped with my family from Utah to Washington. Every time I hear it, I remember myself coming up with lyrics, making changes, switching words around as I looked out on the Idaho/Montana countryside. 

To a real song-writer it might not be anything special, but to me the words were from the bottom of my heart. I love Steve so much. I feel so lucky that we have each other forever. We both make each other want to be the best people we can be. I'm so lucky because if nothing else in this life, I know what it's like to truly love someone, and to be truly loved by someone else. And plus, we have a really cute kid too :)

Ok, that's all of my sappiness for now.

Happy 3rd anniversary, Steve!

So please, lower your volume and watch me sing this little love song ;)

"So in love"

by Lauren Allred, music by Christian Allred

I lay my head down

and shut these tired eyes

Rewind, let's hear it again

You say I'm too pretty for this

You say I'm too pretty for that

And suddenly 

there I was so in love, so in love

And suddenly 

there I was so in love, so in love

My thoughts go back once again

a silly love song stuck in my head

I know I took my sweet time

good-bye babe, thank you for the ride

as he pulls me back in

and plants one right on my..chin!!

And suddenly

there I was so in love, so in love

And suddenly 

there I was so in love, so in love

I'll happily hold you while I focus on forever

and I will love you even longer than that

I'll happily hold you while I focus on forever

Forever

and I'll love you even longer, I'll love you even longer than that

And then I roll over again

Once more, in my head

blue eyes, so intently

at me, looking so kind

there you are on one knee

asking me

will you forever be mine?

And suddenly 

there I was so in love, so in love

And suddenly 

there I was so in love, so in love

And suddenly

here we are, here are

here we are so far

Will you forever be mine?

Coeur d'Alene

Ahhhh. We are on vacation in Spokane right now and yesterday we spent the entire afternoon at lake Coeur d'Alene and I was in heaven! We've somehow managed to come here every summer since getting married and I have no idea how we even did that. 

The water was the coldest water I've been in for a loooong time, but I still got in, more than once! We played ultimate frisbee right there in the water and the score was 5-0. (take a wild guess which team I was on.) Running around in water/sand is quite the workout! Cole hated the sand and therefore hated the water. He warmed up for about 2 seconds and then wanted out again so my anticipation of him being a fish in a real body of water was not fulfilled. He loved the seagulls though! He followed them around, trying to feed them the frisbee (I'm not sure where he was going with that...)

ANYWAY, I had this whole cute little video put together of our day at the lake and then before I could save it, Steve's computer died on me and I lost it and I was soooooooo mad. And now I will probably never ever put that video together ever again. So sad, I know, you will just have to picture footage of Cole running around, Steve and his dad and brothers playing ultimate frisbee, handstand contests, cartwheels, and Cole digging in the dirt. Yep!

I really like being on vacation here, seeing family, having a handful of babysitters on hand all the time and riding in the back seat with Steve by my side. :) 

ps, thanks to "Uncle Ben" for taking the pictures of me and Steve!

learning to swim!

Ok, so I hope that I wasn't misleading when I said we're teaching Cole how to swim. Obviously he can't really swim yet, but he can put his head under the water which is HUGE to us. This has been going on for the past month or so. We started out by watching a few youtube videos that gave us a few pointers.

First of all, if I had known that babies just naturally have this instinct that they know not to inhale when they're submerged under water, I would not have been so crazy paranoid when taking Cole to the pool before. So that was the first thing that I needed to get over which made it really easy for me as his mom (believe me, my job is hard) to let Steve put his head under water. 

Another pointer from the video was to just make it fun. Steve was really good at this. The first thing we did was sing "Ring around the rosies" and when we got to "...we all fall down!" we would put his head under water. Cole loved that! He wanted to do it over and over and before we knew it, he had no problem with stepping off the ledge and going completely under water.

And that is pretty much where we are still at. He does kick his legs when we tell him to, and he's started wiggling his whole body when he's completely submerged so that's a step in the right direction; he just doesn't really swim yet. But we're getting there! And I feel so much better about being at the pool with him now! That little boy loves the water! And he loves that silly tennis ball :)

Ok, now you can watch the video. There's actually not very much footage of him "swimming" at all. Sorry :/