Kinsie's Announcement

A friend in our ward offered to put this together for us as a baby shower gift (Thanks Sandrine!!!!). I took the pictures of Kinsie and she did the rest and I think she did such an amazing job. This announcement is long overdue, especially now that Kinsie is two months old, but I wanted to make sure that our birthmom got a copy of it before I put it on my blog.
We love our little girl so much and feel extremely blessed to have her in our family. She is really turning out to be a daddy's girl and I don't think I'd have it any other way. She simply adores Chad and he's just as smitten. She's been a huge adjustment, as most kids are, but we're adapting and loving every minute of it. She's starting to interact with us and respond to things we do with her and can't wait for her to start cooing and laughing (she's really close). Anyway-needless to say, we're proud of our little girl and love her to pieces!


SIDE NOTE: If any of you are interested in having something like this done for a baby, wedding or any other type of announcement I would definitely recommend you give my friend a try. Check out these two links for more details.
http://sandrinesboutique.etsy.com/
http://creoleartphotography.blogspot.com/

Kinsie's Birthmom

This post is overdue, but I've been so busy lately. Anyway--we had the wonderful opportunity of having our birthmom, Danielle (Dannie), come over to our house for a visit right before fathers day. We have such a great relationship with her and have been emailing her every day since Kinsie's placement. Having her come to visit was like the cherry on top! We just love her! She stayed for about 5 hours and spent most of the time holding Kinsie. She even changed a messy diaper for me! We ordered in some dinner, sat and talked, took tons of pictures and had such a great time. We are so grateful to Danielle and the strong person that she is. She has done and sacrificed much in behalf of Kinsie and we couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity we've had in getting to know her and having her as a part of our family.

Mini Photo Shoot

I was able to have this mini photo shoot with Kinsie thanks to our upcoming girls camp. The last day of camp we're focusing on being "Treasured Daughters of God" and the entire Stake Young Women's Presidency will be speaking. So, our camp director thought it would be really neat if each of us had our pictures taken (professionally by someone in our Stake) with each of our daughters and then had them blown up and displayed while we each spoke. I'm really excited to see the final results and will post them once I get my copies. Chad was great to come with me and snap a few of his own shots. I have to thank Heather for jumping in at the last minute to help out with these pictures! You're amazing!

(I have to explain the last shot...I look really surprised because everyone told me that they were able to get a shot of Kinsie smiling really big)

The fruits of your labor

You all remember what our humble garden looked like the day we planted our veggies right! Well our garden is still humble and modest, but starting to bring forth it's fruit. We had a little problem with our watermelon plants and one row of beans that never came up, but other than that things are really starting to grow. We did two rows or radishes (far left), two rows of carrots, green beans, a bell pepper plant, a zucchini plant, and two tomato plants. I can't wait for my tomatoes to get ripe and I'm really excited to see how my carrots turn out. I have three bell peppers getting bigger each day, but so far the only thing I've been able to harvest are a few of the radishes (which came up super fast!).

HAPPY GARDENING!

Reunions and Riding

We've been having lots of family fun this summer and I've neglected to blog about some of it. So, before I jump into our 4th of July fun I thought I'd mention the family reunion we recently had on Chad's side of the family.
It was just a one day event, but enough time to see family and have some fun. We spent the afternoon at Mutual Dell in AF canyon doing a variety of activities. One of those activities included a zip line. It was so much fun and was probably the highlight of the entire day. We all took turns and enjoyed a good laugh watching all the little grandkids and aunts and uncles take a spin. Kinsie was great and slept the entire time allowing Chad and I to have our fill of fun too.

We also had a great 4th of July weekend. Normally we head to my grandparents cabin in Cedar City for a big family reunion, but a couple of things (broken A/C and Kinsie) had us double think that trip. So, this year we ended up staying closer to home for the holiday. We decided to spend some of the daily festivities with Chad's family which started out with a huge and delicious family breakfast at his grandparents place. After having our fill of yummy food Chad's grandpa got out the horses so everyone could go riding. We made sure Kinsie got her turn as well. We stayed for a few more hours and just chilled at Chad's parents and then headed home. Unfortunately we didn't get to see any fireworks, but that's what happens when you have a little girl who is ready to be home and in bed.

Impressed with myself

I know that sounds a little arrogant, but I can't help it. Since becoming a full time mommy I've found it very difficult to get anything done in a days time. I have several things that need to be done and my "to do" list has become a little overwhelming. I've found that if I'm able to accomplish one thing on my list during the day, than I feel I've had a very successful day. I know how pathetic that sounds, but that's just how it is. I take what I can get in between the feedings, changings, burpings, naps, and whatever else Kinsie decides to throw at me. (Don't get me wrong--I love every waking minute I have with her, but I just didn't realize how demanding a new little one can be.)
Well, today I feel pretty darn proud of myself. I was able to sit down, plan out a monthly dinner menu, go over to help a neighbor put together freezer meals, and then take Kinsie grocery shopping for my menu items. I did all of that and even fed Kinsie a bottle while while at the grocery store. Now, I don't claim to be any type of a super mom, not by a long shot, but I am super pleased with what I was able to accomplish! And I'm stoked about my monthly menu! I've been dying to get one done for years, but I always figured it would be too hard to commit to it while I was working. Now that I'm home full time, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Tonight was our first planned meal and I can't tell you how refreshing it was to have dinner all planned out. There was no thinking involved. I just went to the kitchen, got all the items I needed (pre-purchased of course) and made a nice family dinner. I'm kind of wishing I'd started this sooner though. It saves me so much time and it was even better to have a strict grocery list to shop from.
Here's a look at what's on the menu for the rest of the month. I did all of my shopping for the first two weeks and hope to cut down my shopping to every other week.(Click on the image to enlarge)

I know many of you probably have a great system already in place and I commend you for being on the ball, but right now I just have to revel in my little moment of triumph....yeah for me :)