Spring Seattle Sunbreaks

I know that April is supposed to bring showers, especially when you live in the Pacific Northwest, but we have had some great breakthrough days over the past few weeks. This was a couple of Sundays ago and we all just had to go out and lay in the grass. I love the little look on Adelyn's face here with Kathryn...like she's got something up her sleeve.



My grandparents and aunt and uncle were visiting that weekend, so the next day we headed out for an awesome scenic drive to Mt. Saint Helens and Mt. Rainier. Good timing for Aaron's birthday! Somehow he always gets sun for it.



Here is St. Helen's.



This week we have had some more good weather, so we had a little picnic down on the sound for FHE. There was an awesome view of Rainier, but we couldn't get a shot with the mountain and with Adelyn smiling at the same time. We did manage to catch a lot of slobber though, if you like those sorts of pics!

This one is a good still shot of her after we filmed the video from my last post.

This is her with mommy in her Easter (blessing) dress. When she gets older, please don't tell her how I deprived her of two separate dresses for her special days!!

Fun Videos

Since moving into our new house, we haven't been able to find our USB cord for the camera, so posting has been a bit slow. However, today I finally found it at my parents' house so I thought I would share some stuff. This video is from the first time she laughed, but we didn't actually catch the laugh because we were too slow with the camera. We did catch her suspicious look at the camera, which I think is priceless in its own right. She still isn't too trusting of the camera.

This is another, more recent attempt to film her laughing, and yet again we failed. It's still fun to watch though, if you can handle the fact that I filmed it sideways. If I were smart enough on the computer, I could fix that up for you. Any tips?

Baby Blessing

I can't believe that I haven't posted these sooner. I uploaded them right after the blessing and then just left the post in my draft file. So sorry. I waited because we were going to take a picture of the little lady all by herself in her blessing dress (which we forgot to do on the actual day), but since we have still yet to do that, I figured I will go ahead and post these and add that later.

Here we are with the little runt not looking at the camera.



In our church, we like to have the fathers give the babies a name and a blessing shortly after they are born. We had hers on March 15th, in honor of Erika's 29th birthday :) and so that Aaron's family could come over from Idaho for it. We were lucky enough to have all the Anderson crew here for the long weekend, except for Brady who is on a mission in North Carolina. For more pics of their visit, you can ceck out my facebook.

Aaron's aunt and uncle also drove all the way down from Camano Island...in the SNOW at the crack of dawn Sunday morning, so we were glad to have them there as well.



Now here's a shot of the Baria clan, minus Ben and Liz who were away at school. You can see that Jadyn was having a bit of a fit getting her picture taken for some reason (usually her favorite thing), so we're a bit rushed!!



And here is the yummy spread of food at the brunch at our house afterward...and Jenn and Michelle who did such a great job making it look so pretty. You guys are the best!!

We are so grateful to have such a cute little papoose and thank our family for coming and helping us celebrate her birth. Can't believe she is three months already!!!

Adelyn's First Road Trip

Last weekend Aaron had an event in Portland, so Adelyn and I decided to go along and make an adventure out of it. We had never been to Washington Park that overlooks the city, so here we are in the Japanese Gardens there.



According to the Japanese Ambassador, these are rated the best Japanese Gardens outside of Japan. They were really pretty, but I'm sure would have been even nicer (and more worth the money) if we had gone a little later when things were in bloom.

As you can see, it was a gorgeous day and we were able to catch an awesome glimpse of Mt. Adams. It isn't every day in the Pacific Northwest that the clouds allow that sort of thing, so I thought I'd share it.

Saturday after Aaron finished working we decided to take a little scenic drive to give Adelyn her first look at the Pacific Ocean. Here we are at Cannon Beach, where Goonies was filmed.



We didn't get a picture of the big Haystack--it was freezing cold and Adelyn wasn't enjoying the blustering wind. All in all though, she was a good sport on her first road trip, though I couldn't get a smile out of her, here is the little cutie close up.

Not So Secret Obsessions

I saw this picture on facebook and of course had to click on it and find out what it was all about. Apparently someone has been kind enough to set up a facebook account for The Chocolate Chip Cookie. I immediately became a fan.



Most of you know that I have a cookie obsession--they are my favorite dessert by a long shot and I find every excuse to bake them. The chocolate chip cookie's page has a link to an article in the New York Times about some tricks to making the perfect cookie. I thought I would share it with all you bakers out there. Have fun experimenting!!

Our New Home

Some of you have already heard, but some of you haven't, so I thought I would share the good news with everyone...we are officially homeowners!! We have been shopping for awhile, and a LONG time ago back in August we put an offer on a place that we liked in Olympia, WA. Like so many of the homes on the market these days, it was a short sale, which really means it's going to take a long time. But I'm happy to say that our perseverance paid off and we got it!!

Here is a picture of it the snowy day that we had the home inspection.



We looked at a lot of other places, but in those five months of waiting, we never found anything we felt better about. And after five months of waiting, we heard from our realtor on a Friday night that we were okay to move in the next day if we wanted to even though everything wasn't final. So we took the challenge, started packing at 5 pm that day and had our stuff in the garage of the new place by seven pm the next night. Yeah, that was an experience that I hope to never repeat.

My parents were nice enough to let us crash with them while we were waiting for all the paperwork to be finalized. We took advantage of that time to paint the hideously pink walls a more soothing color, and give Adelyn some bonding time with all the relatives. Then we signed the papers on Friday, moved in on Saturday (happy Valentine's!!), and got the word that every last thing is said and done this afternoon.

Now if we could only get all our boxes unpacked...I'll post more pictures and have all you locals over when we finally get settled in.

Six Weeks and Smiles

To the long distance grandparents, aunts, and uncles, I'm sorry we have slacked in our posting of cute pics. Things have been a little crazy around here the past couple of weeks. I'll post more about the craziness soon, but I wanted to get some pictures up of Adelyn for you. I can't believe she is six weeks old today!! I thought I would help her celebrate by sharing her latest development with you...smiling!!

This is the day I decided she was smiling for real...and not just from gas or drifting off to sleep. It was about two weeks ago when she was about a month old and she was sitting on my lap and would smile everytime I touched her cheek or nose.



This is later that same day when Aaron was playing with her and confirmed my conclusions about her smiles being for REAL.



Here is a week after that...half smiling...half ready to give a knock out punch. She's a tough girl, I tell you what!



Adorable!



We decided we needed more pics of the three of us, so Michelle helped us out on Sunday. It was Adelyn's first time to wear a dress to church and I'm sure she loved it, despite her tights being way too big.