Adalee..

One of these days I'm going to set up a separate blog for photography.. until then.. deal with it. :)

This is Adalee.. my sister Shonni's husband Josh's cousin's and his wife's baby.. say that ten times fast. (I wasn't so sure about punctuation in that sentence, so I opted not to use it at all.) She didn't like curling up in any way shape or form.. her mom, Maggie, said that she's been stretchin' out since she was in the womb. That makes for harder "naked bum" photos, and we don't need anyone coming after us for inappropriate pics. We got some really cute ones.. and a lot of not so cute ones. Here are a few out of the bunch that turned out pretty alright..

Girls 'n Tutu's!!

Shonni and I had this brilliant idea (we have a lot of those) to make the girls tutus.. and of course, take pictures of them. Shonni made the cutest FREAKING tutu's I've ever seen!! I've wanted to put pictures up in Kapri's room for a while now, I so I decided to coordinate her colors with her room.. Thanks for making it Shonni!! The pictures turned out awesome and I can't wait to put them up!!

















There are so many more that I love!! I might just keep adding them!!

Zuri.. the elephant!!

So Cody, Kapri, me and Deana went to the Hogle Zoo on Sunday. The new baby elephant was "revealed" on Friday and we were really excited to see it. I don't know what I was expecting.. but they said the thing was 306 pounds.. I think I thought it would be a lot bigger.. and just sit there. Oh no.. it proved me wrong. It was really small!! It ran around the entire time we were sitting there!! If you have the chance you should go see it.. really cute and very entertaining.



We were rained on a little, but overall it was a nice cool day to spend at the zoo!!

A few days ago me and my friends Kim and Bree went out to take some pictures of our kids.

Bree has Reese, who's 4,


..and Stella (side note: Stella has become one of my favorite names lately) who's 11 months.


Kim has Ethan, who's 10 1/2 months.


And I have Kapri, who's 9 months. (Okay, she's ten months in three days, but I want her to stay little dang it.)


Bree was telling us about this awesome field of sunflowers by her house. She thought they'd make for some great pictures. Now, you all know MY obsession with taking pictures, so it didn't take much convincing for me. Bree got a new camera recently and was itching to practice with it. By the way, you'd never even know she's a beginner.. she got some AMAZING pictures.

Sadly.. the sunflowers were bigger than she thought they were, so Reese was the only kid that was actually able to "get all up in 'em" ha ha. The babies were too short.





When we were done with the sunflowers Bree took us to a great park to take some more. Ethan is pretty much the ladies man.. he's surrounded by girls. These kids are gonna be great friends, even if its not by choice.



Stella was REALLY upset when her mom took away the stick she was muchin' on..






I love that we're all hanging out more.. I guess having kids all around the same time will do that to you. Maybe we'll have to plan it that way the next time around too... girls??

DECK the halls with boughs of holly!!

So, first off, I just want EVERYONE to know that I have the greatest cousin ever!! On this planet, in this world.. heck, in the UNIVERSE!!! Jared.. let me count the ways I appreciate you!!

We have lived here for two years now.. and until now, had the lamest backyard on the block. When we first moved in there were wood chips all out back, but dogs and wood chips don't mix too well. Dogs=Pee=STANK!!! We got rid of the wood chips and have just had dirt and weeds since then.

When we went to California this summer I saw some handy work, in the form of a deck, that Jared had built in his garden. I asked him if he would wanna come build one for me. He agreed.. and said his only requirements were that I stocked up on gatorade. DEAL!!

So.. he came to Utah and built me a deck. (I wonder how many times the word "deck" will be used in this post. So far.. 4.) He did it quick, efficiently, and marvelously.

Here are a couple before pics..



The frame.. (I guess that's what you'd call it)

Notice the above mentioned "gatorade".. I held up my end of the deal. Not to mention he got a couple of GREAT steak dinners while he was here.. and pancakes.

THEN.. he got a sliver.. or a splinter if you ask him. Puhtato, Puhtotto.


It was a big one.. and between his surgical skills and my tweezing skills, we got it out. Then he was right back to work.



...and TA DA!! We caught Jared just finishing up..


We told him to pose for us, and this is all we got..


After a little bit of direction he got more confidence and gave us this great pose..


Here's a picture of the deck after I put the first coat of "weatherproofing" stuff on it.


Let me just tell you all of the "restrictions" this stuff gives you. You can't put it on if its 90 degrees or hotter.. hello every day right now. You are supposed to do two coats within 48 hours of eachother (I won't mention that I did the first coat last Thursday and still have not completed the second coat. Its now Tuesday.) Oh, and the greatest of all, don't do it if you expect rain within 24 hours. Now, I wasn't expecting rain, per say. But, the sprinklers do come on everyother night and they hit my back yard. It was nearly impossible to follow those directions. So I didn't.

PS.. he also built me a great little "garden box".. so I can plant tomatoes and cucumbers and such next year. I still haven't weatherproofed that either, but atleast I can take it in my garage and omit all of the other "problems" I was having to deal with.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU JARED!!!

Obviously, I'm a slacker...

I haven't been posting anything lately, mainly due to the lack of time, computer usage and.. well life. Life has been keeping me busy. Cody has been working from home for the last three weeks while his car was getting fixed. The transmission went out and Ford was hum hawing about paying for it. No worries.. three weeks and a lot of STRESS later, we have our car back. And its running better than ever. Cody uses our computer to work, obviously, which prevents me from using it. Sure, we have a lap top, but its a pain in my butt and.. okay, I could sit here and give a million excuses, but I'm not gonna. I'm going to sum up the last month or so in a short (yeah right) post.. maybe two, or three. We'll see how long the kid sleeps, not to mention, my house is a total wreck.

So... Kapri has two teeth!! Yep, chompers!! She's eating all sorts of foods now.. and is the best chewer!! I very rarely have choking scares with her, thank goodness. She has been sleeping through the night for quite a while now.. at six months she was sleeping from 8 or 8:30 until 7 in the morning. The older she gets the more she sleeps. Now going about 12 hours a night.. lucky me!! In fact, this morning she slept until 10!!





She is crawling now, getting into everything. She's also pulling herself up on anything she can get to.. coffee table, entertainment center, dishwasher.. me!! That kid is everywhere. She's had her fair share of tumbles.. even got her first bruise from wacking her head the other day. Does every parent have a fear that people are going to think they beat their child because of all the bruises??



She's VERY patient with me and my crazy picture taking obsession..




She puts up with me.. until she can't take it anymore.


We went camping with my family.. and I'm happy to say there were no bear sightings this time around. Just a crazy "foreign language" speaking LOUD group of folk that were up until the wee hours of the morning. Oh, and some punk kids that were walking around with a homeade torch.. at one point we heard another camper yell at them to get out of their campsite. Jalynn was in all sorts of a panic the rest of the night, she thought they were after our vanilla wafers.






I can't believe its already September.. my baby is gonna be one in two and a half months.. sniff sniff. I'm excited for the weather to cool off and can't wait for October, which just happens to be my FAVORITE month!!