1/2!!!!

{Vogue}

My baby is a 1/2! She turned 6 months old yesterday!!! For some reason I was fine with 1, 2, 3, 4 and even 5 months old, but I'm having a hard time accepting that she's 6 months old already! And she is just getting to be more fun every day! She babbles all the time, she can say "Dadda" (even though she doesn't really know what she's saying, it's still cute!), she can sit up completely on her own, and she can roll from her back to her belly, but she forgot how to go from her belly to her back, so sometimes she gets stuck and she doesn't like that. :)

She also LOVES to be outside. She'll just sit outside for as long as you'll let her! So I figured that a good way to celebrate her 6 month birthday I would take her to Willow Park Zoo! Since it's Memorial Day I knew it would be crowded but braved it anyway, and I'm glad I did! The zoo itself wasn't too bad and the weather was perfect! Anyway, there are a lot of pictures with this post (and this isn't even all of them!), so enjoy!

Sophia was playing with Grandpa's bear (long story) while we got ready to go to the zoo!

(She's staring at the cat right now, but I still like the picture) :)

All strapped up in her Baby Bjorn (LOVE THIS THING!!!) just about to go in! She was pretty excited...

Okay, maybe it was just me that was excited - she had no idea what we were doing, she just liked watching all of the cars and people go by!

First stop: The monkeys! They were all swinging around and playing, and Sophia just LOVED watching them! It was so much fun to see her reactions that it was hard to leave! But there were more animals to see at the zoo today!

Here's an ugly duck thing - Sophia liked him because he got close to the fence.

Pheasant

She was very interested in all of the different birds - Grandma helped point some out to her.

Can't remember what these are called, but they're from Africa and Sophia liked them because they kept puffing out all of their feathers (which I had never seen them do and was kind of interesting!)

She wasn't really interested in the Eagles - they were too far away. But I liked that they posed so nicely for this picture! (And I like that Jeffrey was there and was tall enough to take the picture over the fence so it wasn't in the picture as well!)

Great Horned Owl! Jeffrey took this shot too, and I love that he got the owl's face right in one of the diamonds from the fence without even trying! The boy has some talent!

Trying to see the racoon.

I just loved this picture. :)

So those of you that have been to Willow Park know that there is a TON of cotton from those dang cotton trees that fly around everywhere - well here is what it does to the fish pond! You couldn't even see the big ugly fish! But it did look kind of pretty with the Swans I suppose...

Just another shot of the fish pond - you can see the cotton falling into it.

This goose was strutting around like he owned the place and yelled at any other bird that got in his way - it was pretty funny and Sophia liked yelling with him.

This guy has had enough for today...

So this bird is some kind of Coot or something - He followed us around and Sophia loved watching him. He's really funny looking because he has a tiny head and beak, a medium sized body and HUGE feet! Funny looking bird...

This guy cracked me up! He was very prim and proper seeming - swimming around with his tail straight up in the air and would swim around causing a ruckus, and he just stayed right next to the pipe that fed the stream.

This guy was pretty cool too - he ran right up to the fence and looked right at us when we walked by. Then he followed us along the fence "eating" the grass, but he would keep glancing up at us like he was checking to see if we were still watching him. I'm convinced he was just putting on a show for Sophia. :)

After we got back from the zoo I decided to take some 6 month pictures of Sophie. The one at the top of this post is her "Vogue" shot. :)

Cutie! I love her chunky legs, they're already starting to go away though. :(

Pure innocence right there (actually she had just pooped, but that's alright) :)

Me and my Baby Girl

Well, while I'm still having a hard time accepting the fact that Sophia is a whole 6 months old, but I guess I'll have to live with it and just keep enjoying her while she's little. I still love all of the new things that she's learning and all of the fun things she does. I love you Baby Girl!

4 Wonderful Years!

I met him 5 years ago...
I married him 4 years ago...
We had our first baby 5 1/2 months ago...
And we still have eternity to go!

Jon and I celebrated 4 years of marriage on May 13! I love him so much and I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband! Even though we're really stretched on our finances right now (you know, having a baby and crappy medical insurance will do that to ya) he took the night off from studying and took me to see Iron Man 2 (SO AWESOME!!!) and take me out to dinner. It wasn't a huge thing, but we had fun and I really enjoyed just having a night for us. Thanks Rosanna for watching Sophia for us so we could celebrate! And thank you Jon for being such a wonderful companion, husband, and father!

*(I forgot to take pictures, so here are just some cute Sophia pictures I took during that week!)

Sophia sleeps in the weirdest positions sometimes!

But she's always cool like that. :)

Sophia loves playing with Daddy, and especially loves to eat those string things on hoodies.

But sometimes she doesn't like me to take her picture when she's not ready. :)

And she loves to feel Daddy's face when it has a little scruff on it - she'll do this for 10 minutes straight if we let her!

What can I say? She's just cute!

This time she was excited about the picture. :)
Awe, loves from Daddy!

She also likes to grab your lips, nose, and cheeks.

And best of all, she loves to drop Slobber-Bombs! :)

Happy Anniversary Honey!

Mother's Day

Okay so now I'm finally catching up! Here we go! :)

Mother's day was great! Jon was so sweet to me the whole day, even making me breakfast! I was even able to talk in church, which I actually really enjoyed! (We had "seasoned" mother, a new mother, and someone just about to get married talk and it turned out really good, even though we gave the councelor a hard time about it!) :) Jon had given me my presents early after I had a really bad day, which was a Diet Coke (Yum!), Caramello (Also Yum!), and Superman and Iron Man t-shirts! Unfortunately the Iron Man t-shirt was too big, and when we went to exchange it they didn't have my size, so we got The Flash instead, which turned out good because it looks better on me. :) (I know, I have simple nerdy tastes, but I'm fine with that!) :)

As we were getting ready for church there was a little knock on our door. Me being in a bathrobe with only half of my hair straight sent Jon to go answer it. It was our little neighbor Zander! He had come over to give me a Mother's Day card, how cute is that? (He's 5 years old with adorable little freckles and a mop of red hair - so cute!) So I now present to you - my first Mother's Day card!

Zander's mom later told me that he had spent all morning making these! He got a bigger card and very carefully folded it and tore it into about 16 little even squares, then he colored each one (but only had pencil because he didn't want to ask his mom for the crayons because it would ruin the surprise!), then he picked out who he wanted to give them to and gave them out to some of the people in our ward! (Most of them were in our circle actually, but that's alright!) I just thought it was so cute, and for him to do this all on his own was very sweet!

That night we had a big dinner at David and Rosanna's house which was so much fun! For some reason I can't find those pictures though, so once I find them I'll post them up. :)

On Monday it was time to celebrate with my Mom! Julie, Mom and I met up in Clearfield at my Grandma's house and then went out to dinner. We went to this pizza place that was SOOOO good! Julie is great at picking out yummy places to eat, and this one definitely didn't disappoint! After we ate we went and looked at the outside of Julie's new house (she hadn't closed on it yet and we didn't want to call and wait for someone to bring us the keys, so we stalked around the outside). It's way cute!

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures from that Monday:

Sophia playing while I pack up the diaper bag and Mom's present before heading to Clearfield. She's really excited to see Grandma! :)

She really likes her Bumbo chair and her basketball (Jon is very proud of the latter)

Playing with aunt Julie before going to eat!

This is at the restaraunt - my Mom decided to give Sophia a taste of lemon. Yeah, she didn't really like it...mean Grandma! ;)

Playing with Great Grandma Nielsen after dinner!

Great Grandpa Nielsen was fun to play with too!

I think this is one of my favorite pictures of my Grandpa. :)

All in all it was a great Mother's Day. I love my little girl so much, and even though Heavenly Father made us wait 3 years to get her and I was a little bitter about it in the past, I'm definitely happy that she's here now and so greatfull for the chance I have to be this little angel's mommy. I will say that she was definitely worth the wait! :)

Some Days, I Fail...

So some days I fail. Some days I think I have everything figured out and ready to go, and then I don't. Some days I feel like I'm on top of the world and everything is good, and then I'm not anymore. Some days I feel guilty. Some days I forget. Some days I make stupid mistakes. Some days I make not so stupid mistakes, and feel just as bad. Some days I hurt people's feelings. Some days I hurt my own feelings. Some days I try really hard and don't acheive what I wanted to. Some days I think, "How could I have done that?" Some days it's hard. Some days I wonder why. Some days it's hard to focus on the good. Some days I get exhausted. Some days I want to stay in bed. Some days I want to go out and get away for an hour or two. Some days I just don't know why. Some days I fail.

Then again, some days I succeed. Some days I do great things, in my own little way. Some days I believe it's possible. Some days I know it's possible. Some days I want to do more. Some days I feel great. Some days I make people happy. Some days I make myself happy. Some days I make all the right choices. Some days are perfect. Some days I can do no wrong. Some days I think "Yep, I did that, and it was good." Some days I'm alive, really truly alive. Some days I get motivated. Some days I know why. Some days I don't need to know why. Some days are just good. Some days I succeed...

Today was a mix of failure and success. I made people smile - success. I made people cry - failure. But that was today. All I can hope and pray for is that tomorrow will be a success.

My Head Might Be Spinning...

So I have had so many thoughts and emotions over the last week or so because of Mother's Day (didn't help that I had to talk in church and I got all sorts of emotional because of that!) and my 4 year anniversary that everytime I try to sit down and write a post about it I end up going off on this huge tangent about some of these thoughts and feelings I've been having and then it turns into a big mess that no one would be able to follow - including myself. So, until I can get my head sorted out and get my thoughts in line, here is what I will say on the matter.

1. Mother's day was really good - I enjoyed celebrating it for myself and not being angry that I wasn't a mother yet (yes, I was very jealous of other mother's the last few years and it led to bad feelings on my part which was very wrong and is one of the feelings that I was trying to figure out this year). Jon got me a Superman and The Flash t-shirts, which I LOVE!!! He also got me a diet coke and some candy. Man he knows what I like! :)

2. My anniversary was great! I really honestly didn't think that we would do anything for it because of school for both of us (Jon getting ready for his PCAT on June 19th - scary!) and because we're poor and all, but we ended up going to Red Robin for dinner and going to see Iron Man 2 - WHICH WAS SO FREAKING AWESOME!!! I LOVE IRON MAN!!! :)

3. Vampire Diaries ended the season with an AWESOME episode, and Smallville ended it's season with an even BETTER episode and I can't wait until September! (Dorky? Yeah, I'm okay with that just as long as Clark flies and wears the Superman suit before the series is done) :)

4. I love my family a lot. My Mom, Mom-in-law, husband and daughter are on the tops of the lists of who I've been thinking of the most right now, but I love everyone else in my family too. :)

5. Sophia is getting so big and doing something new everyday and it's crazy fun right now. :)

Okay, so that's as dumbed down as I can get it, so hopefully that will work until I can get my head on straight. Until then I'm going to work on homework and watch the Superman movies and the last season of Smallville because I am on a huge superhero high right now. :)

Peace out!