Baby Steps

BIG NEWS!!!

Mais took her first steps last night! She took 4 from my mom to Shaun. And guess what? I totally missed it because I was coloring some stuff for my mom. But she has done it a couple more times!

We just got back from our trip to Utah and are spending some time with Janel, who came to visit. On Thursday of next week, Janel, Maisey and I are headed up to Seattle to meet Shaun and watch a Mariners/Yankees game, and then the U of W play BYU in football. This has been a busy summer!

Girls Just Want to Have Fun!!!

The 5 girls just hanging out in Maisey's room!!!

Great News

My sister, Kelsey, made it home from Jerusalem Thursday night. Maisey got to stay up past her bed time to go to the airport to pick her up! We are so glad that she made it back safely!!!

3 years and 1 baby later... I still fit into my wedding dress. Happy Anniversary Shaun! I love you!!! So... there is a story about this. My mom really wanted my sisters to try on my mom's dress, my older sister's dress, and my dress. So we had a fun fashion show with the girls, and then I wondered if I could still fit into it! It was a great self-esteem booster to know that I can! Maybe I should try it on more often!!! This is what girls do for fun when there are NO boys around!!! :)

Today was my LAST day babysitting. I was only doing Monday's this month, but we will be gone next Monday, so today was my last day!!! Mais is going to miss her friends coming over to play.

We are seriously house hunting right now. We have until October 1st to close on a house so we can take advantage of some first-time home buyer programs. I am pretty stressed, especially with Shaun being in Seattle and I am leaving in a few days for a whole week!!!!!!!! Wish us luck!!!

My One Year Old!

I can't believe that one year ago from this very hour I was having horrible contractions (only to get worse) and was preparing to go to the hospital in a few hours. CRAZY!!!!
I remember the days when my baby would just lay there...
...and look so cute... and do whatever I made her do...
... NOW my baby, or actually now a toddler, is quite the DIVA...
...with an ATTITUDE...
...and the SWEETEST spirit and personality any little girl could have.

Maisey is really developing into her own person! She LOVES purses, shoes, shopping, and eating. (OK, maybe she's not her own person, she's ME!) She totally knows what she wants and is a very determined individual. I love her more than I did 1 year ago, which I didn't think was possible. She is such a blessing in our little famliy.

Sleeping in Seattle

Shaun and I had a great time in Seattle! We did some really fun things, but the best thing about the whole trip was that I got to sleep in 2 days in a row. One day til 10:30 and the other til 9:30. It was so nice! I also shopped a lot and ate some yummy food. On Wednesday night, we headed to the Cheesecake Factory for my "birthday dinner!" It was delicious as usual! Thursday, I met Shaun in down town Seattle for lunch. He took me to a place that he frequents often. It was this little bakery that had delicious sandwiches and the best Chocolate Peanut Butter cookies. We headed to the Mariner's game Thursday evening. It was a pretty slow game until the 7th inning, when the Mariner's tied the score at 1-1. In the bottom of the 9th, Rual Ibanez hit a walk-off homer to win the game. It was pretty exciting! On Friday I picked Shaun up from work and we headed to the Space Needle for some lunch. There is a restaurant on top of the space needle that rotates 360 degrees in about 40 minutes so you can see the whole city of Seattle as you eat. It was an awesome atmosphere! Definitely something I have never done before. It was a little disorienting at first, but I got used to it after a while. Here are some pics from the trip!

Our seats were just slightly to the right of home plate and about 30 rows from the field! They were AWESOME!

We were decked out in our blue and white!

The team after winning the game in the bottom of the 9th.

This was our view of Seattle from the Space Needle Restaurant!

This was our table, with Seattle in the background. It was really a neat experience.

Thanks Shaun for a great few days! I miss you!

August = The Birthday Month

Shaun's Dad's birthday was yesterday, and Maisey's birthday is next week! So we headed up to Spokane for the weekend to celebrate! It was a short weekend, but we were able to do some fun things.

On Saturday afternoon, we went boating. This was Maisey's first time on a boat. I was even brave enough to put her on a tube with me for her first tube ride. She didn't like when it got bumpy, so we stopped pretty quickly, but she did enjoy riding on the boat which put her to sleep! Her life jacket was a bit snug, so eventually we had to undo the top strap! But we had a great afternoon!

The Fam
Mais and Mommy on the tube!
The Fam again!
Mais and Mommy again!
" Thanks Grandpa, for my first boat trip!"

When we got back from boating, we had a nice BBQ with some yummy steaks. I made an ice cream cake for Maisey's birthday. We let Mais dive into a piece, but she wasn't in a very good mood because it was way past her bed time!

Yummy & Messy!

Happy Birthday Grandpa! You look exhausted!

Mais opened a few gifts from the fam! Shaun's family gave her lots of stuffed animals and a book! Mommy and Daddy gave her a baby Elmo that she LOVES, and some other fun Elmo things! She is totally into Elmo right now!


On Sunday, she enjoyed everyone's attention as she swung!

Maisey is really going to miss her Uncle Ryan in a few weeks!

On our way home Sunday evening, I dropped Shaun off at the Portland airport so he could fly to Seattle! It broke my heart to hear my little baby crying for her daddy after he left for the 6th week in a row. She really misses him and loves him so much!

My birthday is on Wednesday, so I am going to drive up to Seattle to spend a couple of days with Shaun! I am really looking forward to relaxing, shopping, eating, and sleeping! My mom is going to keep Mais for me! :) Thanks Mom!!!

Happy Birthday to anyone else who has a birthday in August!

Maisey Facey!

So I have given up the idea that I can't post until I have like 5 hours so I can catch up with everything that I have missed since July 5th. Wow, that was a long time ago. But finally tonight, I decided that even though I don't have a lot of time, I will NEVER have a lot of time. So I better quit putting it off and just see what I can get done! This next series of pictures were taken in a period of like 15 seconds and I thought they were so cute! So I will share them with all of you. Our little Maisey is growing up to be such a big girl. I am working on planning her 1 year old birthday party. I can't believe she is almost 1 already. She is in to everything and she is a PRO at stairs. She loves to eat anything from all natural cheeto puffs to bark chips. She is CRAZY but so much fun. Check out these AWESOME facial expressions! We always call her Maisey Facey, and now her name really fits.

Maisey's daddy is famous for these eyes in his pictures! :)


So life for us seems to always be crazy! I always think to myself, "If I can just make it through this or that, then things will start to slow down." Well, I've been thinking that pretty much since my dad passed away in December, and things have never really slowed down. Actually, they just seem to get crazier. I think I may have finally accepted the fact that once we throw more kids into the mix, things will be at the all time craziest level, so I should just be happy with the normal amount of craziness that I live in now. (Does this even make sense?) Anyway, very briefly (if that's possible) this is what we've been up to all month!

*Shaun is working in Seattle right now. Actually he pretty much has been ALL month and will be through September. So I am pretty much a single mom, except for Saturdays and Sundays. Then Shaun is pretty much a single dad on those days so I can try to get all of my things done that I couldn't during the week. He doesn't really like what he is doing in Seattle, but they let him start 3 months early, so we kind of have to do what they say for now! We are looking forward to the end of September when we are all together again!

*Thursday is the last day of July, so therefore it is my last day babysitting my cousin's 2 kids. The extra money has been nice, but right now, the extra time will be even better. And Mais would argue that she could really use the extra attention. I will still babysit every once in a while during August, but not everyday from 8-5.

*Upon returning from our trip, I started a new sleep program with Mais because her sleeping habits were getting worse every night. Now she is a great sleeper again. I put her in bed at 7:30 pm and don't hear from her again until around 7 the next morning. This has been a huge relief to me because I was so worried that she wouldn't develop right without the sleep that she needs. I would recommend the book "Good Night, Sleep Tight -- The Sleep Lady Solution" By Kim West. It's a great program! Also, since she's been sleeping well, she has been so much better behaved!

*My mom decided to do a garage sale last weekend. We had one week to go through our whole house and get everything ready! Not to mention that Shaun was in Seattle and I was babysitting the two kids. It was a pretty hectic week with lots of late nights. In the end it was worth it. I've never been in charge of a garage sale before, but I have to say, it was very successful.

*I tried the Cheesecake Factory for the first time for my mom's birthday! One word: DELICIOUS! I can't believe I've never been there before, and I will now be a frequent visitor. Good thing there is one in Portland. :)

*We are starting to search for a house! I don't really want to buy one until Shaun gets back from Seattle, but we are hoping to be in one by the end of the year. This is one Stressful thing! My mom is also starting to look around for a new house. We'll see what happens, but things get crazy when we are both house hunting.

*We are headed to Spokane this weekend for the last time that the Grimmett family will all be together in 2 years! Janel is coming up from Utah before she leaves for Brazil. We are looking forward to a fun time. We will celebrate Maisey and her Grandpa Grimmett's birthdays while we are there.

*I hope to be posting more often again! See you soon!

4th of July Fun

We started off this fun day playing inside the house! My sister built a fort for Shayla and Maisey to play in. They had a great time. We played inside for most of the day because is was SO hot! Maisey kept playing with this wheel barrow, so I decided to put her in it. It wasn't very sturdy though, so we snapped a quick picture and got her out!
In the evening we had some of my sister's friends over for a BBQ and some fireworks. Maisey was pretty cranky, but I gave her a piece of watermelon which seemed to do the trick.
Maisey loved to watch the fireworks. She really liked all of the bright colors.
She was a brave little girl and kept crawling away from me towards the fireworks. Then when a loud one went off, she would come back to me pretty fast!
This is most of the group that came over! We had a great time!

So Mais has been incredibly cranky this week. I know part of it is separation anxiety (she won't go to anyone. Not even my mom), teething, and being away from home, but she has been throwing some MAJOR fits. It's actually pretty embarrassing. She doesn't even enjoy walks anymore. I need some help! Any tips for 10 month old CRANKINESS?

Our Trip Thus Far

We survived camping! Mais wasn't too sure about all of the people and spent the first night sleeping with Shaun and I. But the second night she spent the whole night in her pack and play and did a great job! It was incredibly HOT, in the high 90's and even up into the 100's. When you are camping, that is too hot. But the evenings were really nice, and the smores as always were excellent.
Here's a pic of Mais checking out all of the people, but still clinging to Mommy.

Mais and Daddy found some shade and took a little rest.

On Sunday, my sister Katelyn and I made the 10 hour trip to my sister's house in Colorado. The trip went pretty well minus the speeding ticket I got! In the four years I have been driving the stretch between Boise and Provo, I have never been pulled over! Well I guess I learned my lesson and will no longer speed as much as I was. (Notice I didn't say no longer speed. It's impossible not to speed in Utah!)


Maisey and her cousin Shayla weren't too sure of each other at first. They didn't like to get close. But they both liked to sit on the Dora couch.
We threw my sister a baby shower on Tuesday night. It was Red White and Blue themed. We had fruit pizza, cheese and crackers, and a veggie platter. It turned out really well.

Mais and Shayla are quite the musical duo. We've got Shayla on the Piano and Maisey singing and dancing. They are so funny to watch.

Maisey has gone on lots of walks since she has been here. We tried her out in the wagon, but she was too close to Shayla so we moved her to a stroller.

Today we went to a park for a picnic and to feed the ducks. Mais was more interested in eating the bread then feeding it to the ducks. She is so funny.

Also, since we have been on this trip Maisey's top two teeth have come in. She has been pretty grouchy because of it. But her smile is as cute as ever with 4 teeth now!

My much needed VACATION!!!!

We leave in less than 24 hours for my much needed 2 week vacation! I am so excited for a break from everyday life. I have spent the last week shopping, doing 10 loads of laundry, shopping, setting up a tent, shopping, planning our meals, shopping, and packing. Planning a vacation with several stopping points is actually a lot of work, which made me stop and thank my mom for always taking us (my siblings and me) on fun family vacations.

The Itinerary:
Thursday-Sunday - Grimmett Family Reunion in Hagerman, ID (We will see how camping with a 10 month old in 100 degree heat goes, needless to say this is her first camping trip)
Sunday-Sunday - My Sister's house in Colorado (I am throwing her a baby shower while I am there so I had lots to plan for that)
Sunday-Wednesday - Who knows?
Wednesday - Saturday - My Grandma's in St. George, UT (Every once in a while my mom and her sisters do a big sisters weekend at my Grandma's house. This year my sister Katelyn and I are "lucky" enough to be able to attend. Good thing there is a pool because that is where Kate, Mais and I will be living!)
Saturday-Sunday - DRIVING HOME. Boooooooo.

At least when I get back, I only have a few more weeks of babysitting! YAY! There is something to look forward to when I come home!

I am sure I will update sometime in between, but if not, see you in 2 weeks!