The Knowles Family

Friday, September 4, 2009

3 Wonderful Years

Well, first let me just say that this has been one CRAZY, PACKED, FUN-FILLED summer!! I've been putting off posting because I don't know where to start, but I decided to start with our Anniversary Celebration! Steve and I had our 3rd anniversary on August 18, and unfortunately we weren't able to celebrate it on that exact day because I was up in Seattle visiting my family and helping with my sister's wedding reception. (Which was a blast, and I'll do a post later about that!) BUT we still had to celebrate, of course :), which we did this past weekend in one of my favorite places in the whole world (well, at least in the U.S., haha)..... SAN DIEGO!!! But before I talk about that, I just want to focus on August 18, 2006, the best day of my life. On that day I married my best friend, Steve Knowles, for time and all eternity in the Salt Lake City Temple. I really cannot put into words how I feel about Steve, except for he is the best husband I could EVER ask for. It is such a relief to me that the biggest decision I could ever make turned out to be such a HUGE success!! I think we really compliment each other, and when one of us falls short somewhere along the way, the other is right there to pick up the slack :) Which is important, because no marriage is perfect, but what matters is that you can get through the hard times TOGETHER. I'm so grateful that I will be able to share my life with my best friend, not just on earth, but for eternity. And that makes me grateful for temples, and the gospel, and the priesthood, and eternal families, and the list goes on and on and on... I guess "grateful" is the best word to describe how I feel about Steve, too. Thank you for the BEST three years of my life :)

Coming out of the temple, right after our wedding!

A few wedding pictures...

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Ok, so here are some pictures of when we celebrated last weekend! I had no idea what we were doing, it was all a planned surprise from Steve :) We started out by going to Old Town San Diego, which was SO COOL!!! I had no idea this place existed (we're still learning the SoCal area), it was a blast! We started out by eating lunch at this authentic Mexican restaurant called Casa de Reyes, and it was mmm-mmm- GOOD!! Jake really enjoyed it, too :) Then we had to hurry to catch a Harbor Tour boat which took us up and down the harbor in between San Diego and Coronado. It was beautiful. I seriously love that place. After that we drove over to Coronado and walked by the beach for a while, enjoyed the sunset, and then ate at my FAVORITE pizza place of all time (I think I like it better than Craigo's) called Village Pizzeria. If anyone ever visits San Diego, you HAVE to head over to Coronado and eat here!!! It was the perfect way to end a perfect day :) FUN FUN FUN!!!

At Casa de Reyes

They had real Mexican dancers at the restaurant, it was awesome!

This was Jake's expression the whole time he was watching them, haha. He didn't quite know what to think!

Enjoying the Harbor Tour

Beautiful San Diego

The famous Coronado Bridge that takes you over to the island

Two love-birds walking to Coronado Beach :)

He LOVES stroller rides

Mommy and Jakers (sorry, I always forget to turn the picture)

There was a GREAT sunset, this picture doesn't do it justice at all.

The Del Coronado Hotel, also famous ;)

A short clip of the Tour! What a FUN day!!!!! Thanks for planning it, Steve... Happy Anniversary!!

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Wheezing

About a week ago, Jake started making this weird wheezing noise a few hours after I fed him a new food, I think it was peaches???, and I was worried that he might be having an allergic reaction, but then when I picked him up he was just fine. Of course. I kept an eye on him for the rest of the day, but it ended up being yet another new noise. For a couple days, he used this noise when he wanted my attention, but now he makes this noise all the time, whether he's playing with his toys, getting his diaper changed, eating in his highchair, in the tub, after he wakes up and is waiting for me to come get him, whenever!! It's hilarious!! He is a crack-up.

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Another Month Down

It seems like just yesterday I put together Jake's 6 month post, and now I'm doing his 7th!! Time is just flying by, and Jake is not slowing down for a second! He is such a funny little guy, you can't help but laugh at him. We still continue to see his strong-willed, persistent personality shine through, and even though it frustrates me sometimes when I want him to do something and he wants to do the opposite, I know that someday these traits will make him a more successful person, hopefully :), and I hope that he will continue to be a go-getter and self-motivated person throughout his life. I just hope I can channel him in the right direction! But along with all this, he really is such a fun, happy little boy, he loves to smile and play with his toys, and he has developed a love for stuffed animals, haha. Being his mom gets more and more fun the older he gets! The new happenings of this month are:

he can crawl!!
he pulls himself up on EVERYTHING
he's getting his two top teeth in
he's learning what "no" means, haha
he likes to crawl over to people and climb up their legs as if to say, "hold me!," but then when you pick him up, he just wants to be put back down again and keep crawling, silly kid!
I've noticed that he is becoming a picky eater.... not too excited about this one :/
he can use his finger and thumb (pincer grasp) to pick things up, so he is able to feed himself soft finger foods
he's matured socially, it's hard to explain, but he's just more into people now, if that makes sense!

So, yeah, it has been a pretty eventful month! Steve and I are having so much fun with him and are really enjoying him, he is a great kid!!! We love him more and more every day.

Steve's new way of "lifting weights," hehe

Helping Mom with laundry....

....until he caged himself in! HA!!

Playing with Dad on his little scooter thing

Enjoying graham crackers, what a ham!

He loves to stand up in his crib, he thinks he's pretty hot stuff :)

One of his new favorite places to play! Yeah, he doesn't like to be put in his exersaucer anymore, but he still likes to play under it and stand around it.

Haha, Jake was off in his own little world, just "chatting" away to himself. It was too cute to not get on tape!

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Birthday Boy

So, today Steve turns 25!! Jake and I are excited and blessed to be able to share his special day with him. For those who don't know Steve, I just want to take a few (or more than a few) sentences to try and put him into words :) I'm obviously biased when I say that he is the most amazing person in the whole entire world, but really, he has so many gifts and talents that I could only dream of having! He has such a gentle heart, and he could be anyone's friend. He's self-motivated, driven, hard-working, and seriously successful with ANYTHING he does, and I'm not exaggerating! He is SUCH an awesome Dad, he is Jake's favorite person. He's also the best husband I could ever ask for, and he inspires me to become better. He's patient, loving, a big goof-ball, spiritual, he loves to learn (a big part of him was sad when he graduated college), he's an EXCELLENT piano player, and he makes me laugh so much that I should have awesome abs, but I don't, sadly enough, haha. He's the most even-tempered person I know, other than my mom, and I wish I could be just like him!!! Steve is definitely my better half!! I am SO lucky to have him in my life, I am thankful for him every day. Well, my explanation doesn't do him justice at all, but there's my attempt!

I love you Steve, you will always make my heart smile :) Happy Birthday!!!!!

I added some baby pictures of Steve..... hmm, let's see, who else's baby pictures look like him????

The winner: ................. Jake!! The only difference is his brown hair and brown eyes :) And Jake's hair is a little more spikey, haha.

Friday, July 17, 2009

Milestone

Introducing: The Little Mover............. :)

This just happened this morning, and I am so happy for Jake!! He is just loving life right now!

Monday, July 13, 2009

Knowles Family Reunion 2009!!!

This past weekend (July 9th - 12th) the Knowles side of the family had our annual AWESOME family reunion! We all headed up to Idaho Falls, ID to Steve's parents' house to spend a long weekend there. It was so fun to see everyone, it's hard sometimes to be far away from family, and we missed everyone so much. It's true that you don't realize what you have until it's not there anymore. Steve and I enjoyed watching Jake be able to interact with his cousins and vice versa. They all had a great time with each other, with minimal fighting, which is always a plus! :) With a house full of 27 people it can get pretty crazy, but we like it that way, most of the time, haha. We also got to meet little Savannah for the first time, and she is a DOLL!! She's 3 weeks older than Jake, so we got to enjoy TWO new additions to the family. The weekend was complete with a day at the lake where we did boating, tubing, swimming, eating and chatting; we had a fun afternoon at Tautphaus Park with tennis, Fun-Park rides, horseshoes, softball, more eating :) and relaxing; we played games, had a BBQ, watched movies, made s'mores, did some more eating, and most of all, we laughed a LOT!! We had a great time with each other, and made some awesome memories. We are already looking forward to the reunion next year!!!

Sadly, one of Steve's sisters, Natalie, and her family were not able to make it.. :( We missed them SO SO SO much, and it was definitely not the same without them. So, I've included LOTS of pictures for them, and to (hopefully) help them feel like they were actually there! :) We love you Natalie, Josh, Adam, Faith and Leah!!!!!!

Jake enjoying the view out the airplane window on our way to Idaho!!