Joshua has started to ask that we lay with him when it is time to take a nap, or for bed. We really don't mind. He will only be little for such a short time that we will take the cuddles while we can. We do try to avoid having him be dependent on having us there to fall asleep though. Usually we will wait until he is really sleepy and then leave the room so he can fall asleep on his own. The other afternoon, Joshua asked for Daddy to lay with him. Cody is a little tall to fit in Joshua's bed with him and all of his stuffed animals, the guard rails, and his blankets but he makes it work. So he climbed on in bed along side Joshua and tried to help him wind down. Apparently it worked a little too well. After quite some time, I went in to make sure everything was ok and see if I could help. I found a very tired little boy and a Daddy who had conked out beside him. I grabbed my camera and snapped a quick picture to remember the moment. It's not a great picture because I was trying to avoid waking them up, but it's enough to capture the memory. I thought that it was pretty sweet and wanted to make sure I documented these quickly passing moments. He sure is growing up fast...

Our family had a really fun time celebrating independence day. We drove down to Safford to spend the day with my family because Safford had all of their festivities on Saturday the 3rd instead of on Sunday. We started out the day at the parade down Main Street. There is just something about a small town parade. Joshua loves parades and other than the heat, he had a great time.
My mom wasn't able to make it because of the heat, but we spent the morning with my Dad, brother Richard and sister-in-law Kara. During the parade, one of the floats handed out otter-pops and Joshua really enjoyed it! Uncle Richard was a big help with the popsicle. After the parade, we walked over to the fire house to cool off a bit while we waited for traffic to die down. Joshua was one lucky kiddo and got to spend a little bit of time in the fire engines while we waited. It sure was a fun 4th of July activity.

Later that day we barbecued at my parents to avoid the crowds out at the fair grounds. The food was super yummy and definitely met the expectations for a great 4th of July BBQ. As the day wound down, we loaded up the ice chest with cold drinks, and watermelon and headed out to the fair grounds to grab a spot for the fireworks.

It was a great show this year. We park at the church across the highway from the fairgrounds because the seats are great and the crowds are much more bearable. Josh was getting pretty tired and a little cranky as the night went on, but once the fireworks started he was much happier.
And, as the day came to an end, we got Josh into jammies and buckled in for the ride home. He was out within 10 minutes. All the fun had definitely tuckered him out.

The next day, we attended church and had a quiet day. We ended the weekend by watching the Willcox firework show from our front yard. They have them at the high school which is only a couple of blocks from our house so we had front row seats. It was a great weekend!

Josh likes to watch T.V., but more often than not he just likes it on for background noise. Today though he decided to have some quality time with his good friend Elmo. I walked in expecting him to be reading a book or playing with his coloring pad and found this...

He had propped Elmo up using his ball to watch Elmo in Grouchland with him. I just watched him for a little while and pretty soon he started to hold Elmo's hand and talk to him. It was just too cute! I went ahead and got one of him looking too just for fun. I love how imaginative he is. He has such an active mind that I can barely keep up. I count my blessings everyday that I was blessed with such a smart and creative little one to keep me on my toes. He helps me to find the good in everyday. Love you Joshua!

I had a great birthday this year. Cody went above and beyond like he always does. It was a quiet day, but he got the day off so we could celebrate. We opened presents at home, and then we drove down to spend the evening with my Mom and Dad. Birthdays have always been a big deal to my parents, especially my Mom. I always feel very special on my day even now when I am grown up with a family of my own.

As I mentioned before, Cody went way above and beyond and spoiled me rotten. He got me a book from the Percy Jackson series I've been reading, the first half of Glee season one, a new set of headphones, and AN IPOD TOUCH!!! It didn't make it in the mail quite in time to open, so Cody was creative and printed out a picture of one, cut it out, and wrapped it. Cody is the best and I loved all of my gifts.

At my Mom's, we had a lot of fun. My parents are always very generous and I got even more wonderful gifts. I got a cover for my new ipod, some new pj's, a dress for church with matching jewelry and a flower hair clip, and an ipod home! I even got a balloon from Joshua that he wasn't quite ready to give up. They were all awesome! My mom made me a special dinner, and we had birthday cheesecake to finish off the celebrations. Yes, with 26 candles and all.

My In-Laws are also great and made me feel very special on my birthday. They were so sweet and got me two gift cards! One was for itunes to use with my new ipod, and the other was to KOHLS. I had been wanting a new pair of running shoes for a while and I was so excited to use my gift card towards those. I am a really lucky girl to have such a wonderful family on all sides.

It was a great birthday and I am so blessed to have the family that I do. I can't believe that I am 26 and getting older by the minute. I guess we all have to grow up!

For our first anniversary, Cody decided to get red and yellow roses to symbolize our wedding colors. I loved the idea and hoped that he would do that every year. He has stuck with the tradition and this year, he got me some beautiful red and yellow roses after we got back from our mini vacation. Here they are! I loved them and can't wait for many more red and yellow anniversaries.

About a month ago, Cody called on his way home from work and told me that he was going to be out of town for our anniversary on the 31st. I have to admit, I was pretty upset. He had just gone up to Snowflake for work and I didn't think that he would be going away again soon. I think he could tell I wasn't very happy because he said, "Don't worry though! You'll be with me." At this point I was just really confused. I didn't want to spend my anniversary on a work trip, but you do what you have to right? Well Cody went on to tell me that he was told by his boss that he had to take a vacation. Cody's boss really is great and I am thankful that he appreciates him and knows that he needs a break from time to time. He told Cody that he would not work his best if he worked all the time. Well, they are getting ready to make a huge upgrade and implement some new things at work in the IT department. It's a massive project and will take upwards of nine months. It will be starting soon so Cody needed to take his vacation time before then. With other vacations on the schedule and projects already in the works, it worked out that Cody could take the week of our anniversary off. I started to cry when he told me. I don't know what was wrong with me. I think it was the initial shock of hearing Cody was going to be out of town combined with the disappointment that the trip we wanted to take would probably not be possible because it was so close to when the vacation was that there was not time to plan or save for a more extravagant trip. I could tell Cody felt bad, but I got over it quickly and told him I was excited and that we could plan something fun. We decided to just go up to Phoenix and stay at the resort we stayed the night we got married. It worked out perfectly because we were going up to help Shannon move the weekend our vacation started.

The day before Cody left for the week his boss pulled him into his office. Cody was a little worried but he had no reason to be. In fact, it was great news! Something that Cody really wanted. With the new things happening at work, they opened two new positions up in the IT department. One was a position for a specialized programmer, and the other was for a systems administrator two position that will be specialized in the program that they are implementing. I obviously don't understand it in detail. Well they took applications for both and found a programmer right away, but they were not finding anyone to fill the sys admin two position. In fact Cody was the highest qualified based on the applications, and they have come to really like his work ethic and company at work. So.... THEY GAVE CODY THE PROMOTION!!! We are so very excited and realize that this is an enormous blessing. However, it is going to be a lot of work and will require learning and growth. Which is a good thing. In the end, Cody will become a very specialized type of administrator. This confirms for us even further that we made the right decision in moving to Willcox.

A week or so before this all happened, I was contacted about taking over the Executive Directorship for the Miss Graham County Scholarship Pageant. They needed a director to take over for the pageant in August and even though along with everyone else I think I am a little crazy I am very excited about it. Miss Graham is a preliminary in the Miss America Organization and I had the great blessing of being a titleholder in 2005. Graham County's pageant is a little more involved than a lot of pageants in the state so I am going to have my hands full, but I also have a lot of help and support behind me. I had such a great experience that I didn't want to see the pageant stop because they were not able to find a director. Here I am way back in 2005 when I was Miss Graham. It was a lot of fun and I'm sure being the director will be too.

With all of the new things we have taken on, decided that it was important to get away for a few days and just RELAX! So that is what we did. We started off by not relaxing, but still got away a day early. Joshua had a doctors appointment on Friday afternoon and then I had a photoshoot in Tucson that evening. Josh's appointment ended up being cancelled and rescheduled for Thursday of the next week so we just spent the morning getting ready and packing up the car to head out. The photoshoot went well, and then we hung out at Cody's parents' for the night. It was a lot of fun and we were ready to get the relaxation started. We headed up to Phoenix and got Shanny all moved and then she kept Joshua Saturday night for us. It was his first full night away but I was so tired it didn't even phase me. She took him to church with her that afternoon and Cody and I spent the day together which was WONDERFUL!! It's been a very long time since we have had a date that was longer than a two hour movie or dinner. We had lunch together at Sweet Tomatoes, went and saw Iron Man 2, went and did a little shopping for new beach towels, and then got ice cream at Cold Stone. It was so nice to just be together.


We picked Joshua up and then we headed back to our hotel. We stayed at the same resort we stayed at when we got married. We loved it then but only got to stay the one day before we headed to our reception and then to California for the week. It was perfect for relaxing and made our time away even nicer.

We decided to go for a swim after we got back and Joshua LOVED the pool. He wasn't very happy about the cold water at first but he got used to it, and after that it was all we heard about for the next few days. He actually loved the hot tub. We didn't let him stay in very long, but in the evening if he got cold we would let him go in for a few minutes.



Cody and I celebrated our third anniversary on May 31st which was Monday. We have a very relaxing day of swimming, watching movies, and just hanging around the hotel. We did go to Oregano's for lunch where Shannon works and it was very yummy! That afternoon Shannon came over and hung out for a bit and then she took Josh for us that night so we could go out and celebrate. We went to Olive Garden. It was the same one we ate at the night we got married. We have some really fond memories of that meal. We had an awesome server and he and another guy sang their "celebration" song for us. It was AWESOME! It was just the two of them, but we have still never heard anyone do it nearly as much justice and those two. We headed out a little late so we cut dinner short and headed over to the theater. We went to see Robin Hood and even though it was pretty violent we really liked it. It was definitely different than the traditional story of Robin Hood and Maid Marian. We headed home and found a sleeping little boy. It was a great day and I am so very grateful for my husband and our loving relationship. I see so many couples who argue and fight, or lose the friendship that they used to have and I am so thankful that we are not in that situation. Sure we have our moments just like everyone else, but I know that they never last long because we don't want them to. We usually talk about it and it's over in just a few minutes. I'm glad we can still laugh together, be silly, and dream big. I love Cody so very much and I know that he loves me. It's pretty wonderful and I am looking forward to many more years and eternity together.


Here we are at dinner. We didn't take a whole lot of pictures during vacation. I probably should have taken more, but it just got away from me. This is on Cody's iphone like a lot of the other photos we got while we were there.



The next day we decided that we wanted to get out and do something fun, so we thought we would try out Castles and Coasters. We picked Shannon up to go with us and grabbed some lunch at Subway and then headed into the park. It was a lot of fun. They had one big roller coaster, another smaller one, bumper boats, go karts, a free fall, a water ride, tons of other smaller rides, and then the arcade and miniature golf. We bought unlimited passes so we just kept getting in line and we would switch off who would stay and take Joshua on the smaller rides like the Merry-Go-Round. That was his favorite and it got plenty of use from us that day. Joshua's face was priceless on the bumper boats. I was laughing so hard I thought I was going to fall in. He has so much personality and it just makes us happy. It's hard not to smile around him. Here are a few pictures from the day. Again, they are from Cody's phone so they are not the greatest but I figured they were better than not having any at all.






Our last day there was Wednesday. We decided to just stay in again and have fun at the pool. It was a nice ending to our time away and even though I wished we could stay longer, I was also ready to head home. I'm pretty sure Josh was too. It was great to take some time for us and get away.

Thursday we took Joshua to his doctors appointment in Tucson. He is doing great. He is 25-50% for weight at 25 lbs and 75% for height at 32 inches. His doctor raved about his language skills and said that he is WAY ahead of his developmental age. She was very impressed and told us to keep up whatever we were doing, and that we should be very proud of him. It was so funny because she could hardly get a word in. He was talking up a storm, telling her colors that were in the room, naming butterflies and bugs. It was pretty funny. We were happy to hear he didn't need shots for a couple of months so that made the visit a bit more pleasant. Friday we hung out at home and spent some time resting up while we can. That weekend we were did another photoshoot, and caught up on homework. Still when Monday rolled around the next week, we were still not ready to get back to work. We are very grateful for our jobs and the many blessings we've been given. It's still nice to get away once in a while and this mini vacation was definitely much needed and appreciated.

Joshua adores our dog Maddie. She is a sweet puppy and we love her an awful lot. We have another dog for the time being Sadie who is a bit rambunctious and full of energy. And she is a bit bigger than Maddie and she is not even a year old yet. Maddie has been with our family almost as long as we have been a family. Cody and I got her when we had been married for three months and she fit right in. There have been some changes with a new baby (Joshua), a toddler, and a move. She used to sleep in our bed but that just doesn't work anymore. With Sadie being around she has spent a lot of time outside with her and less time inside. We miss having her around at our feet and trying to steal treats. We have started bringing her back in more and I was shocked to find this...

Maddie just fell right back in with the routine of things. As I said, Joshua adores her. She had curled up on the couch after a bath and Joshua climbed up and just found a comfy spot. Maddie didn't mind at all. She just wiggled in even more. They stayed like this for just over an hour. I really thought Joshua was going to fall asleep but he managed to keep his eyes open. Our little Maddie is so patient and sweet. I am glad that Josh can be a boy around her and that she lets him chase and pester her. She's just another one of the family.