Summer

Wow I haven't updated here in a long time. Brayden is getting so big, rolling over and jabbering away. Hard to believe he is already 5 1/2 months old. He is just over 20# already and growing like a weed.

Summer is in full swing and keeping busy with work. I am really enjoying the summer program, taking the kids to the park and pool. Really trying to teach them to use the social skills that we have been working on to learn to play with other kids. I am amazed how many kids just don't know how to play and interact with other children because they don't really do it anymore. They don't "play" together, but rather sit and watch each other do video games or watch tv when they are at home.

Hard to believe that school will be starting back up in just over a month. Summer has good really fast this year. Amanda, Brayden and I did a trip out to Wisconsin in June. In July, Sam, Jerad and I took a vacation down to Rapid City and Mt. Rushmore to watch the fireworks. So not a fun time as we had to hike about 3 miles from our vehicle up the hill to Mt. Rushmore, than wait in the grass sitting with thousands of other people for about 5 hours till it got dark enough. Just as it was time to light the fireworks off, the fog rolled in and we didn't even get to see anything except the fog turning differnt hues of the colors. So we had to hike down the road again to our car. The fireworks would have been spectacular if we had gotten to see them. The day was beautiful though, and our trip was great, relaxing and enjoyable just getting to hang out.

Holy Cow

I am so bad about updating my blog. I have found facebook and am loving staying connected to my friends and family on a daily basis. Spring is in the air here in eastern Montana. I spent all last weekend working on my garden. Last year I just had a smaller garden and found I needed a bigger one this year. Sam helped me drag railroad ties around and set up a much bigger raised garden.

My neighbor has a tractor so he was nice enough to come over and dig up dirt and move it around. I got some of my cucumbers and squash planted. Sam helped me get some flower beds dug up and stuff moved around. I can't wait to have some nice weekends to get some stuff growing and planted. Too bad this coming weekend is supposed to be rainy and even a chance of snow.

So now for some Brayden news. He is growing like a weed. His eyes are still a vivid blue and this grandma is hoping they stay that way. Hard to believe he is over 2 months old already. He is so much fun to hang out with becuase he giggles and smiles about everything.

He is a month old already!

I can't believe grandma's little guy is already a month old as of yesterday. He is growing and changing every day. I just can't believe how fast this first month has gone by. I am so thankful that they live here in town and I get to see him often.

He is 1 week old!

You have to know that this blog is going to be all about Brayden for awhile! He is already a week old and adjusting to live. He gets to go in for his first Dr. visit on Monday and hopefully he is gaining weight. He doesn't like to suck on anything, he is really lazy and thinks someone else should do it for him or something.

More on Brayden

Baby Brayden is hopefully being released from the hospital today. He wasn't sucking well enough yesterday to be released. Today he is sucking the bottle well enough to hopefully go home. He was born with a heart murmur, but Dr. is hoping that closes up by the time he is released or they will have to head to Miles City for an ultrasound to check the murmur.

Full details on Brayden Michael,
Born at 2:29 pm, weight 8# 14 oz., 21 1/2 inches long, 14 1/2 inche head. Amanada is doing good and getting excited to get released today.

He is here!!

Brayden Michael Burley made his way into the world today. He was born at 2:29 pm weighing in at 8# 14 oz. He is just perfect and looks like his dad. Mom and baby are doing great!!

What a great day! It is very hard to watch your child go through the pain of labor, but it was so worth it in the end.

Baby Showers

I am throwing a baby shower for Amanda next Saturday, January 31st. I did a lot of the prep work this weekend to get stuff ready since I work all week and than the party will be on Saturday afternoon. We are having it at the motel where she works so that will be great. I decided to make a diaper cake for her as a table decoration and than she will have diapers afterwards. I still have to get a little stuffed animal to sit on the top of it, but I think it turned out pretty dang cute. I also made these cute labels to go on top of bags of microwave popcorn. I mounted the labels on some colored cardstock and wrapped the popcorn with some scrapbook paper and some ribbon. I will take a picture of them completed next week when I post some shower pictures.

I am done!!

I am so excited to finally be finished with the new quilt I made for our bed. The colors aren't really something I would have picked out normally, but when I walked into the quilting store these red and black colors just looked so cool together. Now that it is all together, I really love it. I am going to give my bedroom a paint makeover this summer, so wanted to have a new quilt to go with it.

This is the first time I have made a king size quilt and quilted it on my machine. Boy would it be nice to own a long arm sewing machine at times.

The other picture is yagger, he is Amanda's puppy she got for Christmas. He can't live in their apartment and has come to live with us until they are able to find a house to buy or rent. He is just a ball of fur and so fun with all his energy.

Well I am off to work on two more rag baby quilts today. Hopefully I will get at least one of them all finished and done today.

Quilting up a Storm.

Well I am trying to finish up all the unfinished quilts I started years ago and never finished. I have several quilt tops and quilt kits that I purchased years ago and never finished so my goal is to work on them over the coming months.

I did start a new quilt for my bedroom. I went out on a limb and choose colors that weren't really my style but now that the top is together. I love it. The colors are red, black and silver. Very romantic. I love my quilt now that it is together. I am working on quilting it now and than I will take a picture of it once it is on my bed and post a picture.

Megan heads back to college tomorrow. It is hard to believe she has been home a whole month already. She probably won't be back home now till next month when Amanda has the baby. It is hard to believe that Amanda will be having her baby in just a few short weeks now.

New Year

It is the beginning of a new year. New Years bring with it the new resolutions and goals that I would like to see come in the new year. My goal this year is to really work at getting fit. That goal includes loosing weight, which I hope comes a long with getting fit. My goal is to devote 45 minutes a day to exercising on my treadmill, glidder or just taking a long walk.

The Wii is in the house and Sam is addicted. We got the Wii fit and have been having fun trying to beat each others scores. Sam took the top skiing score and I just can't seem to beat him, but I have him on so many of the other balance games. I would have never guessed my husband would be addicted to a video game or even want to play one, but he has been having fun with the wii.

The new year will bring about a new stage in our lives as we will be welcoming in our first grandchild in just 4 short weeks. It has been different watching my own child go through the challenges of pregnancy. Her and Greg are getting ready for the baby at home. But to prepare they decided to welcome a new baby puppy into their home that Amanda got for Christmas from Greg. Yager (hummm Greg picked the name) is a brichon frise and is just a little tiny white fur ball. I think he looks like a snowball running around the house. He has been coming over and we house sit when they are at work.

It is hard to believe my two week vacation from work is over and I need to go back to work on Monday. I was just getting used to sleeping in and getting so many things done around the house. On this vacation I got these projects done and several others started. I finished the dark leaf quilt I had started about 10 years ago. I am so excited to FINALLY get it done. I also made a rag quilt for our living room and I made one for my neighbor who just had a baby.