New Year!

 Starting the new year off right. with a kiss of course :)

 Some people don't care for January 

(holidays are over and it's back to school and work) but, I love it. 

I suppose it partly has to do with it being my birthday month and all but, 

really I love it because it's all about new beginnings, starting fresh, 

and making goals to work toward.

I have a good feeling that 2012 is going to be a fantastic year and 

we can't wait to see what this new year will bring!

One of the exciting events that will happen this year:

Vaughn will graduate with his degree in supply-chain management!

I am super proud of my sweet honey for his 

dedication, hard work and patience. 

He has worked so hard for this. 

Working full time, going to school and taking care of Ava and I. 

What an amazing guy he is. I'm such a lucky girl :)

 We had a great 2011

Here's a look back at what we did

January 

Celebrated my birthday on a get away to the 

always amazing Homestead resort.

February

Fun road trip to Moab for my (and Ava's)  first time.

March

Road trip to St. George to visit family 

and felt like we were getting away with something with the 75 degree weather!

April

Our precious Ava baby turned 6 months old

May

My very first mother's day!

and..

I got my wisdom teeth out. Something I'd rather not remember..

June

Vaughn's first father's day!

and..

we made our 1st major furniture purchase

July

on the 15th, our favorite day of the year,

we celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary in Park City!

August

vacationed on the Oregon coast and also visited some of my family.

Met my biological father and my half brother.
Stayed with my sweet aunt Lisa and got to know her and her little family.
(I still need to blog about this disaster of a trip..
I think the nightmare of it all has finally started to subside)

September

Real Salt Lake game. so much fun.

October

Our sweet baby girl turned one year old!

November

We moved to our new home and we love it here so much!

December

Had a joyous Christmas season with the ones we love!
Remembering that Jesus is reason for the season.

Here are a few random photos from December:

Ava showing off her new sweater and matching  flapper headband

 My mom went to St. George last week
so we had my sister Abbie over on Tues, Wed and Thurs.

Ava LOVED every second!

 

Homemade sugar cookies that turned out amazing!

She's gorgeous. 

That adorable tiny button nose and everything about her melts my heart.

 it's official. she's got the cutest bum on the planet :)

Here's to a happy, joyous, goal-making new year!

christmas concert

We went to the Alex Boye concert on Monday night and it was so much fun! 

The band he played with was seriously amazing. 

love our date nights!

new house

part 2. 

our bedroom 

 

 Ava's nursery

shout out

Can I just brag about my sweet husband for a minute?!

When Ava was a newbie, we made a deal. Since I took care of baby during the day, sweet husband offered to get up with her during the night. That was his trade off proposal. Um.. yes, did I just hear you correctly?!

So starting at 2 months old (when I was no longer able to nurse), Vaughn has made every bottle & every emergency middle-of-the-night binky run. He even makes her 7:00 am bottle before he leaves for work and then comes in to kiss me and gently reminds me to keep resting!

Wow, just describing that makes him sound too good to be true. Well, he is. I know ladies, he truly is one in a million and he's all mine :) Completely amazing and gentle and sa-weet. How did I get so lucky?! Go Vaughn!
I just looooove him.

the {joys} of motherhood...

when i was pregnant with Ava it didn't even cross my mind that my sweet baby would or could ever do something like this. After all, she is my precious, innocent angel right?

well, i finally had a reality check last week.

all i can say is, wow. 

be prepared for possible eye twitching and/or covering your ears :)

i caught her crazed tantrum on video and this is only 1/4 of it!
(sound only)

oh, good grief Ava. are ya done yet?!

She still is my precious, innocent angel but, i have to breath and remind myself of that over and over when she acts like this. little stink!

our new home!

we just moved in and we LOVE it! 

Yes, it's a disaster right now.
More pictures to come as soon as we can unpack, unwind
and (my personal favorite) decorate :)

we are so blessed and grateful to live here, it's such a perfect situation and we are so happy.

It's been a loooong time coming. We patiently waited a whole year for this home.

good things come to those who wait!

4 years ago today...

Vaughn and I went on our very 1st date!

(photo taken on 10/26/07)

Man, am I glad I gave him my phone # ! Vaughn is the best thing that has ever happened to me and I love him more than anything. 

On our first date we went on a hike, had hot chocolate and talked while sitting a huge rock. Then we went to Applebee's and shared dinner. The minute I suggested that we just share something, he said that was when he knew he wanted to marry me :) Ha!

And the chemistry between us? Let's just say, sparks were flyin in all directions :)

After dinner we went to his parents' home to watch "Night at the Museum".

Needless to say, we didn't do a whole lot of watching, just a whole lot of talking.

We went on our second date the very next day.

Carving pumpkins with Chels and Drew.

We went on our third date, more of hang out really since it was a Sunday.

He invited me over to his parents' home again to meet everyone.

By Sunday night, I think we were both hooked and totally smitten with each other :)

and the rest is history...

December 16th, 2007 was the day Vaughn told me he loves me. Oh, such a special and magical night!

Then on Christmas day evening, we decided that we wanted to be together forever.

The glorious marriage came on July 15th, 2008!

Ah! I'm so in love with this man.

He makes my butterflies flutter :)

one

My baby just celebrated her 1st birthday on October 12th!
Read about her birth story and see more photos HERE 

12 month stats 19 & 3/4 lbs (30th percentile)

28 inches (30th percentile)

She's still our little peanut!

How is it even possible that our baby is a year old? 

It seems as though we brought her home from the hospital just the other day.

We love Ava way too much. She has brought lots of joy into our lives.

Ava has so much personality and makes us laugh everyday :)

Happy birthday sweet baby!

We LOVE you :)

{Hope*Smiling *Brightly}

I love reading. Sometimes instead of a good old fashioned book, I'll read blogs. Blogs of strangers a lot of the time. Is that weird or creepy?! Because I'm totally not weird or creepy.


Anyway, lately I've come across a few different blogs of families who have had children pass away. I just can't even go there with my mind. Maybe I shouldn't read them because it scares me to death that something like losing a baby or a loved one could happen to any of us.


Now that we have Ava, it puts things into whole new perspective. After reading about the Jackson's, the Mack's (his wife & newborn passed away & he now has 3 children to raise alone) or the Sullenger's, I feel so blessed to have my baby here with me on this earth. 

 Lucy's Story:

gosh..I can't help but cry while watching that..

Life is so fragile, tragedies can happen in an instant, you just never know what Heavenly Father has planned for us.

I feel terrible that I've sometimes gotten impatient with Ava or that I sometimes spend more time on my work than with her. If something ever happened to her I would regret that more than anything. I realized last night (well I already knew) that she is FAR more important than work, more important than reading, more important than updating Facebook,  the time that I spend with my baby is more important than any THING. Vaughn and Ava come first. At times it's hard to remember that but, I need to, no excuses.

Sometimes when I have a deadline for work, that takes over and I don't pay much attention to anyone or anything else until it's done and I feel bad for doing that. Vaughn and Ava see my crazy, stressed out side once in a while and that's not fair to them.

It's hard to remember that in life things can wait but, little ones grow up so fast and they won't always be little. I can see my baby leaving for kindergarten, going on her first date, leaving for college, and getting married. I'm crying right now as I type this. I want her to be my sweet little Ava baby forever but she's already coming up on her 1st birthday and I'm blown away.

Where has time gone? I miss my newbie (newborn). On Friday night she snuggled just like a newborn with daddy when he came home as if to say, I've missed you all week daddy, I just wanna hold you. She snuggled on his chest for a good 15 minutes and we both just melted :) I'm so glad that I recorded that on the video camera, it was priceless!

We love you sweet Ava, you are our pride and joy!

Real Salt Lake

 This was so much fun! I totally recommend it :)

 

 hello handsome :)

 crowd passing the flag

 almost our turn

 in action

 awesome sunset

 

 this is the dedicated fan section, they were going CRAZY the ENTIRE game, so hilarious!

out to dinner before the game

such a fun date night!