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Peppermint Dots Christmas Card

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Last 6 Months, Where Have You Gone??

Since it has been many months since I have blogged and many things have happened in those 6 months, I am going to attempt a paragraph for each month to hit the highlights. So Here Goes:

January started out really busy with a long trip back to MI to celebrate Megan’s 1st Birthday with family and friends there as well as Christmas. Megan was a really good sport with all of the driving, 2 Birthday parties, a photo shoot, and 2 Christmases. Here are a few photo highlights:

Here is Megan with her friends Sydney and Owen. Them alone with Auntie Leslie had a nice little party for her.

Then came our 1 year photo shoot with my friend Jen from Captured Memories, she does an AWESOME job and Megan just loves her, almost as much as she Loved this cake!!

We had one last 1st Birthday celebration with Mike’s family and Megan’s Aunt Renee hosted a Great Party.

Megan Loved her gifts and of course there were more cupcakes!!

Last but not least were 2 Christmas parties in one day at Megan’s Grandpa and Grandma Stormes where  Baby girl was again spoiled. It took a force of nature to get all those gifts home in our SUV.

That trip to MI and a lot of illness took up most of our January. The only other, I guess you can call monumental event, in that month was…

Megan started WALKING. That’s right 2 weeks after turning 1 Megan decided that she was sick of crawling and furniture surfing and took off walking. It was hard to get a good picture of it right away, but I think these 2 together tell the tale. Look out World, Megan’s ON THE MOVE!!

February was a very low key month at the Stormes house. Other then Daddy’s 33rd Birthday and a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Stormes, we spent most of the month sick. We were able to get out sledding once and took Megan to the Dells over night. We didn’t take any picture on that trip, but here are a few of Megan’s first sledding experience and of course there is Valentines Day.

Megan’s Valentine for friends and family.

March was another slow month, once again we were all sick. It seemed that we just kept passing around the Ick. The main highlight was St. Patrick’s Day, this holiday always holds a special place in my heart. My Dad’s B-day was March 16th, so his Mom always had a Green Birthday for him. This time always makes me think of him and remember the good times. It is also the month of Gram’s Birthday and we had a GREAT girls night out for dinner and a play. Love You Gram!!

Megan dressed up pretty for her Papa and tried  walking on the grass for the first time, she was not so sure about that.

April was definitely a busy and exciting month. We took our first trip as a family to TN, celebrated my 32nd Birthday, and of course Easter was thrown in there. Here are a few photo highlights:

Here are a few pics from our photo shoot in TN with Mck Mama, We LOVE them and think it was a Great way to commemorate our first family vacation.

Easter was really fun this year. Megan loved visiting the Easter Bunny and hunting for eggs. She looked so sweet in her little Easter dress.

May started out with another trip to MI. This time we took Megan to her first Tulip Time. It was something that not only represents my heritage, but a memory that permeates my childhood. This happened to be over Mother’s Day, which was even more special for my Mom and I to introduce Megan to together.

Pictures of our Little Dutch Girl and our family, again taken by Jen from Captured Memories, she is the best!!! Look at that hair in the last photo, WILD!!

June was a HOT month, so it involved lots of playing outside, bike rides, and trips to the pool. We also threw in Father’s Day, a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Stormes, and Megan’s first concert.

Megan loves playing outside after dinner with bubbles, balls, and bubbles, Oh My. She is also learning to golf with Daddy, not sure the ball is regulation size though.

Our gift to Daddy this Fathers Day was a bike and a trailer for the little one. Now we are all ready to ride

Megan loves the park and recently we went with her Grandparents who enjoyed pushing her on the swings

Megan is a HUGE fan of pools, big and small, so we enrolled her in the Shrimp Dip swim lessons at the Y. She was the only Shrimp in her class that didn’t cry and floated on her back, first try.

The last weekend in June a local church has a free festival called Freedom Fest, this year they brought in Mathew West. We went with our friends the Krueger’s and even though it was Megan’s first concert, she raised her hands in the air and cheered after every song. That girl loves her some music!!

On June 28th Megan  turned a year and a half old. Since her Birthday is 3 days after Christmas and gets somewhat overshadowed, we started celebrating her half Birthday. This way she gets to have a day free of other Holidays, there are no other parties to stress out over, and who wouldn’t want a Summer Birthday. This year we are making it a Family Fun Day and Momma, Daddy, Gram, and the Birthday girl are heading to the zoo, out for a late lunch, and to an awesome cupcake shop that we found on a recent trip to Madison. I promise it will not be 6 months before I blog about this special day.

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Chalkboard Heart Dad Father's Day 5x7 folded card

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Home Sweet Home

After 3 hours in the car today we are finally home and unpacked. We are enjoying our last night of vacation as a family, Daddy has to go back to work tomorrow, but Momma has the next 2 days off.

When we got home we were so glad to see Gram, Megan especially. She missed her best friend and was so excited to tell her all about our trip (in Megan speak of course). Gram commented how much she has grown in the 9 days we were gone and it really is true. She is getting to be such a little person of her own, not just a baby.

Speaking of our little person, we were excited to see a sneak peak of some of the photos that MckMama did in Knoxville TN. We anxiously looked through through them and came across this cutie:

Does anyone recognize her??

What do you think? We LOVE it and can’t wait to see the rest of the pictures of Megan and our little family. I’ll share as soon as I can, but for now I am going to snuggle with my family and enjoy those last few hours of Storming the South 2011.

Storming the South Day 7

Due to the fact that I am really tired tonight and trying to pack up, as we leave tomorrow, this will be a short, picture heavy post.

Today we decided to check out 2 state parks not far from our resort. We started with the closest one which had a lovely lake to walk around and a bridge/dam that created a beautiful waterfall.

Don’t try this at home!! Megan and I did some serious off roading to check out the waterfall.

But the risk was worth it, what a view!!

Continuing with what turned out to be a waterfall themed day, we headed over to “the highest waterfall this side of the Rockies.”

Falls Creek Falls really is the highest waterfall east of the Rocky Mountains measuring an astounding 256 feet. It was truly breathtaking. For such a large waterfall it was hard to tell where the water went, it seemed to just go into the rocks below.

Over the past 7 days I have been amazed time and time again by the beauty of this great state of TN. We are sad to be leaving tomorrow. Everyone here is so friendly and nice and the time we have spent as a family is truly unforgettable.

Since this is our last night we decided that we couldn’t leave TN without trying some local Bar-B-Q, as well as indulging in some ice cream from a cute stand we saw on the way into town.

Both were absolutely wonderful, though I am ashamed to admit we did eat our ice-cream first. We had to be sure we had room.

Tomorrow we will be heading out in the morning for the first half of our trip home, we are hoping to spend the night in Indy again, as long as the weather and Buggy cooperate.