Beautiful Pictures

On Tory's birthday we got to go have 1 year pictures taken along with some of her and I. By chance I came across this amazing photographer(Amy Waddington) when I was pregnant. She did my belly pictures, Tory's new born pictures and now these. Amy is so cute and bubbly. She has a sense of warmth about her, when you are around her she make you feel like family not to mention she ogles Tory and gets her to smile. I think that she does an amazing job. We can't wait until the next pictures are done.

A gift from Heaven

Yesterday at 6:18pm I got the amazing opportunity to experience a miracle, Chrysta gave birth to her and Bryan's beautiful baby boy, Braeden. It's was so amazing to finally meet him. He is perfect in every way. In the beginning he didn't seem to excited to come out, Chrysta was admitted to the hospital Wednesday night and after a long wait he came out with out any complications. Chrysta is doing well, tired but good. It was the sweetest thing to see both her and Bryan all choked up when baby Braeden entered the world. Alright so there wasn't a dry eye all the way around. They are going to be such amazing parents, they have so much love for each other and now for their baby boy. I'm so excited for them and all the wonderful memories that are ahead of them and their new little family. I'm going back today to visit I'll be sure to get more pictures as I sure he is changing already.

Polar Bear Plunge 2009

Once again the tradition of the Polar Bear Plunge continues. This year Jordan, Ian and I got Hunter, Jen and Kaid to do it with us. It was exciting and refreshing just like I remember. This year it didn't hurt as bad as it has in the past, usually your toes and feet hurt so bad that you just want to cry. This year though it wasn't like that at all. Maybe I was just so excited to part take in the excitement. Carl and Tory along with my Mom watched us all on the beach all bundled up nice and warm. Mom was the official picture taker and towel holder. Carl just kept reminding us that we were crazy, secretly deep down inside he was wishing that he would have brought his shorts so that he could do it with us :) Anyway it was great and I'm so glad that Ian, Jen, Hunter, Jordan, Kaid - who said that next year she was going to be the official towel holder, I think it was a bit to cold for her. She's a trooper, how many 12 year old would be willing to do this with her crazy siblings, not many. I'm so glad we got to do this together. I'm looking forward to next year.

This man is my hero, he is 80 years old and still excited about the PLUNGE!

A New Year Challenge

I'm really torn about New Year's resolutions, I usually don't keep them, even though I have good intentions and then I feel guilty about not completing them. So in lieu of that I have come up with a plan for this year or goals I guess would be better to say. These are not my ideas so I can't take credit for them. I am however surrounded by great people that inspire me. I have a great friend who always seems to be doing one crazy project or another who this year is going to take a picture or 5:) a day the whole year, so at the end of the year she has a picture book of the year. Now that kind of stresses me out but, I liked the idea and thought that I could commit to one picture every week and try to do it on Sundays. I'm not quite sure why Sundays but it works for me. The picture of Tory in the bath would be my first picture of the Sunday pictures. Next, I read somewhere that instead of one year resolutions, you could do monthly resolutions and I thought YES that would work great for me. So far I haven't gotten to far with these but, for January I hope to get better at updating this Blog/journal and read the lessons for Sunday school . Hopefully in doing that it will motivate me to go to class. We have a wonderful teacher and her lessons are great but with Tory not quite old enough for Nursery and sometimes to rowdy and distracting we don't usually go. I want to though and so we are going to do it. Once I have the rest of the months figured out I'll post them maybe that will make me more accountable too.

Our First Christmas at HOME

This year for Christmas Carl and I decided that we would stay home. I was a little hesitant I have to admit, we have never done this. It was such a perfect relaxing day though. We got up in the morning, opened gifts, had monkey bread(a tradition in my family) and then took a nap. Later we that day we went over to ride the snowmobile at Owen and Shasta's. It was Tory's first time on one and she did great. Thanks to Owen and Shast, Carl and I were able to go for a ride by ourselves, it was so fun. It brought back memories of our dating months where we would always go out on the 4wheeler together. Owen and Shasta also gave us this great white hot cocoa. Carl and I are still talking about how great it was. We finished up the night with lovely ham dinner and the Christmas story from the Bible. It was such a wonderful Christmas full of family time, being lazy in our jammies. Just what Carl has always dreamed of, me too I just never knew it.