Happy Birthday Shannon!

How has a year already gone by? Is it even possible? Apparently when people tell you that the first year is gone in a blink of an eye, they aren't lying. As hard as this year has been, I'd do it all over again. Shannon is such a blessing in our lives & love that I get to be home with her to watch it all happen. Kudos to Tom for allowing me to be home with her.

A timeout for a family photo:

My "Sweet Pea" cake before I destroyed it:

Yes, I am into this cake thing:

And I am a mess:

But clean up of the high chair is easy when you a own a Titan:

Fox Hollow Farm

Today we visited Fox Hollow Farm!  It was really fun to watch Shannon look at the animals she's only seen so far in books.  She was fascinated by the pigs.  The farm is fabulously clean for being a farm.  There were peacocks, horses, miniature horses, goats, lambs, goslings, kittens, a puppy, bunnies, even a large Tom turkey!  When she's older, they have mini tractors to ride & even pony rides!  Here's a sampling of Shannon's visit:

Blogging again

Yes, it has been a while....sorry!  We moved into a rental home at the beginning of April, and it has been hectic getting organized.  The blog went by the wayside as we organized and settled into our rental home for the year while the new home is being constructed.  Here's our rental:

It isn't super fancy & we lost 1,000 square feet of room, but it will suffice for a year.  Right now, our "new" home looks like this:

There are homes directly behind our lot...well, there were homes when we bought the lot.  They are in the process of tearing the old homes down & a new neighborhood is going to be constructed directly behind us.  We are going to be living in construction noise hell for quite sometime I fear.  Oh well...nothing like the sound of a nail gun all day long, right?  Ugh.  

They continue to sell homes & construct in our new neighborhood which will be 38 homes in total.  There are only about 6 or 7 at this time that are actually built, and only 1 which has someone living it in it so far.  We are a long way away from having that "neighborhood feel" we are moving there for.  Fortunately, our rental house is in a wonderful neighborhood that has super neighbors.  We can walk to the grocery store, bank, and Starbucks from our house now.  That won't be the case when we move unfortunately....but oh well!  Here's the neighborhood map of our under construction home (we are "lot 8").  I use the term "under construction" loosely here folks, they just applied for the permit to build on Monday, so it is a field until they get the okay from King County to build.