Happy Birthday, Jared!

My nephew turns one today.



Isn't he cute?

I remember the first time I met Jared.  I was scared, so afraid of what I would think/feel when I held him.  I had miscarried a baby that was due around the time he was and I didn't know what to expect when I finally saw him.  I had mixed feelings of happiness for my sister and sadness for me.  But the moment I saw his sweet face and held him in my arms, I knew that I would never be able to have bad feelings about him.  I was so glad that he was a part of my family.

And now he is 1 year old!  He's a cute, fun, silly boy!  He was absolutely precious the first time he saw Aurora - he wanted to touch her so bad!  But he was sweet and gentle.  In fact, it took him a couple of days before he got the courage to actually touch her. lol

So, here's to my nephew... Happy Birthday, Jared!

Two Months Old!

That's right, my baby is two months old already!  I can't believe it was two months ago that I delivered our beautiful little girl.  What a great two months it has been! 

I feel a little bad because it was not this fun with Acadia.  She was colicky and crying so much of the time.  I was tired and didn't know what to do to help her, it was frustrating.  People always said, "Cherish this time because they grow up fast."  And I thought, "Good!"  I was looking forward to her outgrowing that colic!

But with Rori, she is such a joy!  I DO want to cherish these moments, I DON'T want her to grow up too fast!  That's probably one reason why I haven't posted on my blogs as much lately.  I'm busy and a lot of what I'm busy with is snuggle time. :)

Each month, we will be taking a pic of Rori with a cute little teddy bear that we have "on loan" from Ryan's mom.  Each of their grandkids have done this with this bear, now it's Rori's turn. :)  Here are some pics from today's photo shoot:







Then Rori had some play time and I got a few more pictures:









Rori loves these fish!  The green one is her friend and she sometimes talks to it.  It's very cute.  The swing "sings" and lights up too, she likes to sit and just watch and listen.

If you want to see more pics of Rori, check out her album on Photobucket.

Family Portraits

Last night we had family portraits taken.  They turned out pretty good.  I was a little bummed because the girl I usually go to is the manager and this time of year is too crazy for her to be behind the camera AND do all her manager duties. :(  So, we had a different girl.  She was good, but our usual girl is GREAT!  We're still very pleased with the pictures we ordered (and we still spent a lot of money! lol). 

We bought the CD with the original poses, unedited.  The pics we ordered will be here in 2 weeks.  I used a program I have to attempt to enhance the pics the way they did at the studio, but it didn't turn out quite the same.  Still, I saved the edited versions and uploaded them as well.  I am really looking forward to getting my REAL portraits from the studio!  For now, here's a peek at some of the pics that were taken:



















Okay, I love how these looked cropped like this!!! 





If you want to see all of the pics I have uploaded (includes originals and ones I edited), just go to our PhotoBucket Album.  When I get the actual pictures from the studio, I'll scan them in and upload them as well. :)

O Canada!

I am FINALLY getting around to sharing some pics from our visit to Canada last month!  Sorry it took so long.

We love going up to Waterton Lakes National Park.  It is so amazingly beautiful and peaceful!  Plus, we always have a fun time when we're hanging out with Landon!

We arrived Sunday evening and set up camp.  Some campers near us told us that 30 minutes before we had arrived, a moose had walked through our campsite!  Cool!  (Cool as a Moose, lol - I crack myself up.  You have to have been to Bar Harbor, Maine to get that one, sorry.)  So, we set up camp then went to find Landon.  He decided to camp with us the entire time since he was done with work.  Yay!

The first few days were pretty laid back and not too organized.  Landon had some running around to do that we helped out with and we just kind of "hung out".  The last few days we did more in the park - a couple small hikes, visiting the lake, etc.









Our tent was HUGE!  It's a 3 room tent that we bought just before this trip.  It's great - we fit our queen size air mattress, Cadi's child size air mattress, Rori's playpen, Landon's foam mattress, 3 suitcases plus a duffle, and STILL had room in the middle to move around/change/play cards/ put a heater at night/etc.  Plus, it was tall enough that Ryan could stand up without bending over!  Look -



Of course we hiked up Bear's Hump again this year...





We made it to the top!









This was Rori's first hike :)



The view:



This is my favorite spot in Waterton, can you see why?







Eating lunch by the lake:







We had a fun little hike in Red Rock Canyon:







This girl is crazy!



Yep, that's cold!



Random pics:









While we were running around doing errands, we drove by the Cardston Temple and decided to stop by for a minute.





And finally, just a few incredible pics that your's truly took during some of our drives while doing errands...









Wow, it was such a nice visit.  We had really nice weather almost the whole time - just one night of rain and really cold temps.  Thank goodness for camping heaters! :)

 I took a ton of pictures and so many of them are simply beautiful.  Not necessarily because of my awesome picture taking skills, not even because of my awesome new camera, but more because Waterton is awesome and simply beautiful.  You can't NOT take beautiful pics there!  So, feel free to peruse the hundreds of pics we have on-line.  Just make sure to click on the sub-albums so you can see them all. :)