Happy Birthday Kate!

Wow - a whole year has passed since we first met our little sweetie! My, how time flies. Kate turned 1 on December 1 and had a nice day filled with phone calls, video chats, visits, and lots of singing 'Happy Birthday.' She loved the singing, especially. :) She had her first taste of cake - she was taking small tastes of the frosting, then Daddy put both her hands into the cake and she began to play. :) She enjoyed opening her presents (with the help of her cousins!) and received some very nice gifts.
Here are a couple photos from her party - one with messy cake all over, and another of her clapping about her presents...


We love Kate so much...she has brought so much joy into our lives. If every year is as good as this one has been, we're excited for the years to come!! Happy Birthday, Little Bug!

Halloween!

Just a quick post with photos of our Halloween...

Kate was dressed as an adorable bat (complete with pink sequins on her wings!)

We dressed up, too...it was a fun first Halloween!

Kiddie Kandids

We had Kate's 6 month photos taken back in May at Kiddie Kandids and they turned out pretty cute!  A few weeks later we were contacted by the company and asked to bring her in for a photo shoot with their new holiday backgrounds.  They took several shots of Kate, as well as probably 20 other kids.  I signed a paper saying that, if they chose to, they could use her photo for their holiday ad campaign...and never really thought about it again until last week.

I just happened to check the kiddiekandids.com website - and there was Kate!  Not only one photo, but 3 different shots of her!  And she must appear 8 or 9 times in different locations throughout their website.  It was so fun to see!

So here are some links if you're interested: Click here to see a photo of her lying on her tummy with the outdoor background; click here to see her with the indoor Christmas tree background.  And click here to see her sitting up - on the cover of their online magazine!  At least we thought is was just an online magazine until my mom went to the Kiddie Kandids store at the mall and found hard copies of them!  Who knows, she might even have her pictures hanging in the photo studios!

Anyway, just a fun little thing to share...it's weird, too, because she was barely 7 months old when the photos were taken and looks so different now!  Still gorgeous, though! :)

September Travels

We had a fun month of September  - 3 vacations in 4 weeks!

First we went to St. George to meet Jamie's family from California - we stayed in a nice condo and had fun swimming and playing tennis.  We had 3 SeaDoos and enjoyed our time at Quail Creek Reservoir: wakeboarding, cliff jumping and playing in the water!

Next we went to the George's ranch near Flaming Gorge and had a relaxing weekend outdoors.  We went fishing, horseback riding, hiking and sightseeing...it was beautiful!

Then we headed to Chicago to play and meet up with William's family!  After a few initial bumps (lost luggage and carseat, no baby crib at the hotel, phone call at 2 in the morning alerting us of our delivered luggage), we had a fabulous time!  We saw an awesome Cubs/Brewers game at Wrigley Field...Cubs were down by 4 in the bottom of the 9th and came back to tie, then to win in the 12th!  We hit Shed Aquarium, Brookfield Zoo, the Art Institute, Magnificent Mile, Navy Pier...all the touristy places. :)  We also got to visit with some of William's extended family and show off our fabulous Kate.  She did so well traveling...and made immediate friends everywhere we went!  People on the airplane and at the Cubs game were way more interested in Kate and her bag of tricks than anything else. :)

We had a great month!  We're so lucky to be able to travel and to have such a patient, adorable little traveling companion!

Just a few random pictures of cutie Kate from this month...

1) She's really good at hanging from trees! :)  William was right there by her, but she held on to the branch for a while and seemed to enjoy it!

2) The smallest life jacket ever seems to drown her!  We took her to East Canyon for a little fun in the sun and she took her first ride on the Sea Doo (in the no wake zone)...we're sure she would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't for the annoying life jacket.

3) Just playing around at Grandma's house - I thought the blue scarf on her head made her eyes look so pretty! 

Summertime!

We've been having a fun summer - but it's going way too fast!  We've been swimming and having picnics and going to outdoor concerts...anything to enjoy the outdoors!  Here are a couple of photos of Kate enjoying her summer!

Busy June!

We had a wonderful month of June!  The first event happened on June 9 when Kate legally became our daughter.  We went to the courthouse, had a lawyer, sat in front of a judge and both of us (as well as our adoption case worker) gave testimony as to why we are good parents for Kate.  Everything was very formal until the judge asked invited me to the stand and said I could bring Kate with me...once I sat down, he said he had a rule that I couldn't hold her while I testified.  So he reached out his hands, held her, played with her and gave her a little toy!  I don't think he heard any of what I said. ;)  Here is a picture of her taken that day in the dress she was wearing (it also is the dress that I was blessed in when I was a baby!):

Then, on June 15 (Father's Day!), William was able to give her a blessing at church.  He gave a beautiful blessing.  Afterward we had family and friends over to our house for lunch and had a nice time visiting.  William's parents were in town for both the court date and the blessing - it was nice to have them here.  Here is a picture of William and Kate taken after the blessing:

Finally, on June 28, we were able to take Kate to the Salt Lake Temple for a sealing ceremony.  It was very special and Kate looked beautiful in her little white dress!  Here is a picture of the three of us from that day: