My two loves

Mya loves to play with her daddy.

*Keep reading. There's also a new post below.*

All I can say is...

Wow!  My little family has been in Topeka for almost three weeks now!  It has been so much fun to be closer to family and friends, but I feel like we have just been on the go constantly since we moved.  I can't wait for things to slow down a little bit.  Here is just a snapshot of what we have been doing with our time.   I'll start with how Dan and I celebrated out fourth anniversary.   
Dan took me to Kansas City for a night.  It was our first night away from Mya, it was hard but it was very nice.  We stayed in Overland Park and then went to a town called Parkville.  It was such a cute little place.  There was this huge "castle" in the hills that I just loved.  
Dan took me to a wine tasting, which was so cute.  I have been telling him for the last, um, five years that I wanted to do a wine tasting.  He doesn't even like wine, but took me anyway.  What a thoughtful guy.  We had to snap a picture by the Missouri river.  It was such a nice day!

Gotta love girl time!  My friends: Cassie and baby Ethan, Laurel, Lindsey and baby #2 inside, and of course, me and Mya!  I just love those girls so much!  It's amazing how we can just feel so comfortable with each other when we don't get to see each other very often.  

And here's my sweet girl eating at the table like a big girl!  Guess what she's eating?  Pancakes!!  I gotta start her early eating pancakes because that's one of her mommy's favorites!  She ate hers plain, but when she gets big she can have pancakes with peanut butter and syrup.  Yum.

Now I just have to show you my happy clothed baby in her car seat.  The reason I point out that she's clothed is because of the next picture down below.

Here's my naked girl in her car seat.  Here's the totally embarrassing story.  We were eating at a restaurant with some friends and friend's parents.  Everything was going well enough.  Mya was a little fussy but that's because she hadn't gotten her morning nap.  That's not unusual.  When I went to get her out of her high chair to play with her a little, I spotted it...poop.  All over my child's leg and now on my arm.  Nice.  So I take her to the bathroom to clean her up and only have two wipes.  Even nicer.  And no change of clothes for her.  Great.  She's crying because she has strangely developed a hatred for commercial changing tables and people are coming in and out of the bathroom staring.  I did manage to get Mya cleaned up and wipe the poop off my arm and shirt.  Yes, it was on my shirt too.  Here's the best part: as we're getting ready to leave, Dan tells me that not only had Mya got poop all over her and me, but the waitress had to clean up a pile of poop off the floor.  That's how it was described to me...a pile of poop.  Yuck.  Then we walked out of the restaurant with our naked child.  So there she is.  Asleep and naked.  But isn't she just so cute?

I promise to update soon...

Dan, Mya, and I have been in Topeka for over a week now and are still settling in.  We are loving being closer to our families!  There has been so much going on that I haven't had time to do much of anything.  But I promise that when things settle down, I will tell you all about our move, our new home, my new job, and of course, I'll post pictures of everything!  Until then...

Our Firecracker

Mya celebrated her first Independence Day. She stayed up late, played with friends, said the Pledge of Allegiance, sang The Star Spangled Banner, watched fireworks, and enjoyed her freedom! At least until 10:45 when mom and dad said it was time for her to go to bed, which she did very easily... she was so tired after such a long night! I was so worried how she would do staying up so late and being around such loud noises, but she was great. Dan and I were so proud!Here she is watching her first fireworks with Daddy. He was even nice enough to cover he ears.

Mya loves her friend Kaitlyn. They had such a good time hanging out together before the fireworks started. She is going to miss Kaitlyn so much when we move!
And just a couple of photos of Mya Jae in her fourth of July gear. So cute, right?
Another one of my precious girl. Such a sweet face!
And this picture was taken today but is my new favorite! She was eating her whale squeeze toy she plays with in the bath. Can we say teething? Will it ever end?

8 x 8 plus mini update

So I was tagged not once, but twice to do this eight by eight thing a while ago, but because life is always crazy, I am just now getting to it. And because I am lazy, I am only doing it once! So Anne and Haley, this is for both of you!


EIGHT Things I Am Looking Forward to:

1. Moving closer to family

2. Having more kids... or at least one more, we'll see

3. Staying home with kids full time

4. Going on a vacation with Dan someday (even just a night out would be nice at this point)

5. Owning a home

6. Living a debt free life, including student loans and a mortgage(which is weird since we don't even have one yet)

7. Buying a bigger vehicle

8. It kind of goes along with number one, but getting to see my nieces and nephews way more often

EIGHT Things I Did Yesterday (Warning: my life is kind of boring)

1. Played with Mya

2. Went to work

3. Sent a friend a birthday gift

4. Scheduled a hair appointment

5. Ate some Swedish Fish

6. Watched wipeout

7. Went on a walk

8. Caught up with a high school friend

EIGHT Things I Wish I Could Do:

1. Sing because I love to sing, I just don't have any real ability

2. Own a zoo because I love animals

3. Get on a plane or be in any small space and not freak out from claustrophobia

4. Get paid for being home with Mya :)

5. Own a cool cafe that would be a teen hang out at night

6. Get my hair cut and get a pedicure once a month

7. See old friends from high school all the time, not just once every few months

8. Run everyday... yeah right!

EIGHT Shows I Watch:

1. Jon and Kate Plus Eight, although I wish they would stop doing more seasons for the sake of their family

2. Lost

3. My Boys

4. Bachelor/Bachelorette

5. Wipeout

6. Grey's Anatomy

7. Friends

8. The Soup

EIGHT Places I’d Like to Travel to:

1. All 50 states and that's really about it because I can't stand the thought of flying overseas. BUT, if flying for 18 hours didn't scare the poop out of me, here are the other seven places I would like to go.

2. India

3. Rome

4. Spain

5. Japan

6. Ireland

7. Brazil

8. Australia

EIGHT Places I’ve Lived:

1. Clay Center, KS

2. Abilene, KS

3. Manhattan, KS

4. different part of New Jersey

5. Phillipsburg, KS

6. soon to be Topeka

7. who knows

8. who knows

EIGHT(ok, I only have five, who cares) Others that I want to do this 8 x 8 thing:

1. Sarah

2. Tiffany

3. Mom

4. Tracy

5. Laurel


And a mini update for those of you who care... which better be all of you! Dan and I are officially moving to Topeka in the next couple of weeks. We are so excited to be closer to family and friends! Mya is excited to be close to her cousins in Manhattan and Topeka! So my blog updates will probably be few and far between for a while with life being so crazy right now. But I'll do my best to update as often as possible! Oh, and I have tons of new pictures but no time to put them up right now, so I promise the next update will have some!

Just a few favorites

Mya was dedicated at church this last Sunday. It was nothing too fancy, but it was so nice to have her prayed for and dedicated to the Lord at her very first church home. Everyone there loves her so much and is so sad to see us, mostly her, move away.

Here she is in her pretty dress she wore to church. My mom bought it for her for Easter but we already had a dress and it was too big for her anyway, but it worked perfectly for this occasion.

And of course, I just have a few candid shots. Isn't this just such a precious face?

And how about those eyes? My goodness!

And our hilarious girl started screaming this week...for fun! I bet you can imagine how great it is to hear over and over and over. It really sounds like she's throwing a fit, but she's just making noise. I can't say that it's really cute or anything, but it's funny, and it's great to watch her discover new things every week! That's all about Mya for now, although I could always go on and on and on.

In other news, our family is headed out for a long weekend on Friday. I am going to spend Friday and Saturday with my family and Dan is headed to T-town to play in a golf tournament with his dad and brother on Friday. Mya and I will meet back up with Dan and his parents Saturday night and spend Sunday relaxing and visiting family and friends and then... I have an interview on Monday in Topeka. Hopefully it goes well so we can get moving because being far away from my family is really driving me crazy. It was my sister's birthday yesterday and I just hated that I couldn't spend it with her. Next year I will spend it with her for sure!

We're Still Here

I know it's been a while since I've updated, but we are still here! I have so many pictures from the last couple of weeks, so I'm just going to let you take a peek at them and I'll give a few details about each photo. So here they are!Dan's family came to visit over Memorial Weekend and we had such a great time with them! Above is Matt, Sarah, Camdyn, Silas, and me, Dan, and Mya! It's the best you can get when you have three wiggly little ones!

I was taking pictures of Mya the other day(big surprise, right?) and I just thought she looked so cute in this picture. She loves the camera and I'm pretty sure she was trying to get it in this picture!
Dan, kissing his baby, and Mya looking like she wants to get away! Dan thinks this picture is funny!
Beautiful cousins! Mya loved having Camdyn and Silas around for the weekend. And they got along great. Camdyn wanted to hold Mya and she did such a good job, sitting so still, and keeping her on her lap. It was absolutely adorable!
I love this picture of me and my sweets! I love playing with her!
Another great picture of Grandma, Camdyn and Mya. So cute!
Mya hangs out in the hallway in the morning while I get ready for work. She was sitting so cute and she was wearing the outfit her Grandma Barnes had gotten her, so I had to tae a picture. I know you can't read it, but her shirt says "Going Green" under the turtle. Adorable!

Another favorite pic! It's so hard to get what we call a "sweet" smile out of Mya, but this is definitely one of them. She actually has her tongue in her mouth, can you believe it?
And here's Mya, just lounging! She fell over and just stayed like that. She is too funny!

The last picture is amazingly not of Mya, but of my hubby. He had the opportunity to coach the freshmen boys at a tournament in Nebraska. It was a long couple of days of what seemed like never ending games, but they had a great time. They only won one game, but the competition was pretty tough. Anyway, it was a great way to end his coaching experience in Phillipsburg. It was a pretty good weekend. Mya was good and I got to go shopping for a little bit, which was some much needed retail therapy! Well, that's all for now and I'll try not to go so long between updates next time!