1st Birthday Party.

My baby can’t seriously be one! Where did time go and why won’t it slow down? It seems like just yesterday I was bringing Kennadi home from the hospital and now she is a talking, walking, silly little girl. On Labor Day we opted to do a small family get together to celebrate Kennadi’s birthday. It was a couple of days early but Labor Day worked best for everyone’s schedule. We went to our community pavilion and had a BBQ -- nothing fancy but I think it turned out perfect! We are incredibly blessed to have such supportive and loving family. Kennadi was showered with gifts and kisses. She loved every minute of it though, she loves being the center of attention! 

1st Year Pictures.

We decided to get some pictures done for Kennadi's birthday. Once again Ashley Huish delivered. I absolutely love how they turned out. I am never disappointed when she takes my pictures but maybe that's simply because I am a little biased and think any picture of my little girl is adorable! Kennadi is not camera shy and especially loved the cake smash at the end. She was getting so into it she even started smashing the cake with her feet. A special shout out goes to my fabulous sister-in-law Aubrey. She is the oh-so-talented one who made the cake. Didn't she do an amazing job?

12 Months.

At 12 Months Kennadi is...

-20 lbs 7 oz and 29.5 inches long.

-wearing 9 and 12 month clothes and size 3 diapers.

-can say “daddy, mommy, what, ball, Baxter and hello”

-obsessed with Curious George. It is the only show she will sit down and watch. As soon as she hears the theme song she gets all giddy and can’t stop dancing.

-is walking, or should I say running all over the place and she is fast! She can’t sit still for longer than a couple of seconds before she needs to be up and moving.

-has her 2 front bottom teeth with another one on the top starting to break through the gums.

-favorite food is strawberries but she will eat anything we put in front of her.

-can identify and point to her nose, eyes, and teeth.

-loves animals especially dogs. She thinks all dogs are named Baxter (after Lorie’s puppy) and is not afraid to touch them or bark at them.

-definitely a girly girl as she loves shoes and playing with jewelry or hairbrushes.

Top of Utah Half Marathon.

Courtnie and I participated in the Top of Utah Half Marathon on August 24^th. This half marathon starts 7 miles up Blacksmith Fork Canyon, zig zags through neighborhoods in Nibley and Providence and ends at a park in Providence. I was so nervous to run this race, mainly because of my lack of training. I had previously ran the American Fork Half Marathon in the middle of June and due to not being able to move my body afterwards I took a week of training off. Then we bought a house which resulted in painting, moving, and cleaning for weeks which sucked all my time and energy. So Needless to say, after taking a month off of training I had a few short weeks to get my butt back in gear. It was a lot harder than I thought it would be. The race snuck up on me and I definitely was not as in shape as I would have liked but what can ya do?

On race day, Courtnie and I got to the finish line around 5:30 am to load the buses up the canyon to the starting line. At 7 am we were able to start our long journey down the canyon. At mile 3 I lost Courtnie. She had to stop at the aid station and I wanted to keep plowing through. She eventually caught up to me around mile 8 and by mile 9 she passed me as I had to make a quick little pit stop at the porta potties. At around mile 10 my legs and knees had had enough. Pain shot through my knees with every stride I took and my legs were starting to cramp. It was not ideal. This is also the point where I kept telling myself “You are never doing a half marathon again. You are a crazy person. What were you thinking?” These thoughts kept running through my head until I crossed the finish line. Then my thoughts turned to, “I wonder which half marathons I should run next year.” I crossed the finish line at 2 hours and 25 minutes, WAY better than I thought I would be. Courtnie was able to cross a few minutes before me as well.

After the half marathon I was able to recover a lot quicker and easier than the previous races. I was not nearly as sore and immobile as before. After two days or so I felt good as new! Thank goodness! I am all done with races for the year but have big plans for next year. So the training continues...

Catch-up.

This poor little blog has been neglected for too long so now it is time to play catch-up!  This summer has been busy, busy so there is much to report on.

Lizzy’s Mission Call: My fabulous sister-in-law Lizzy got her mission call to Paris, France. Not gonna lie, I am a bit jealous she gets to go to France. She leaves December 11^th. As sad as I am to see her go, I know she will make a fantastic missionary.

New Car: So, as you probably read in a previous post earlier this summer we moved to Spanish Fork, Utah. Spanish Fork is about 15 minutes away from school and work so the whole “only having one car” situation was not working. Because we are poor college students and we had just bought a house we didn’t really have a whole bunch of cash sitting around to buy anything fancy so we opted for an older, used car. We figured it would just be Austin’s back and forth car and we still had my nicer, reliable car so it didn’t need to be spectacular. We settled on a ’08 Volvo S40. Well, long story short we had the car for about a week and it started leaking transmission fluid. We took it back in the shop to get it looked at. We bought an extended warranty with the car so we just took it back to the dealership to have them look at it. No big deal right? Wrong. Well, apparently the warranty we purchased, the one that would cover everything including oil changes, wouldn’t cover the repairs they needed to make because the warranty didn’t kick in for 30 days. We had the car for a week, 7 days. Not cool. So after A LOT of waiting, complaining, and the car dealership avoiding our numerous calls we finally got it figured out and they fixed the car under the warranty. It only took about 3 weeks from start to finish. It now works like a champ and I am very grateful I no longer have to drop off/pick up Austin at work every day but still annoyed the car dealership was such a pain to work with. Moral of the Story: never buy a car from Larry H Miller Used Cars in Orem.

School Started: the school year is officially in full swing and I am so glad I have graduated. I don’t miss it all. But having school up and running does mean that work is super crazy for me and I never get to see Austin. Boo! I am currently working at Utah Valley University as a recruiter in the Career Development Center. I like still being on campus without the stress of all the homework and classes. Austin is in his last year of school. Hooray! He is amazing and is working full time plus going to school full time. He is gone some days from 7:30 am to 10 pm which totally bites but I am so glad he is such a hard worker and is trying so hard to get school done quickly. I just can’t wait until April when school will behind us for forever (or a year or two when I decide to start Grad School).

Box Elder County Fair: The Box Elder County Fair is a big deal in Tremonton, and when I say big deal I am not kidding. I don’t really get it but I tolerate it because they have yummy food. I was up in Tremonton for a couple of days during the fair thanks to a half marathon I was running in so I met up with my favorite amigos, Josi and Carlie, at the fair for lunch. Kennadi tagged a long and was not feeling very well. Teething AND allergies are the pits so our lunch was cut a little short but I still had fun. Kennadi finally got to play with Wytten (Carlie’s little boy) and if I get my way these two are getting married!

Thanks JaDene for the pictures...

Sweet Summertime.

This summer we have...

been to Seven Peaks too many times to count.

played in the sprinklers.

blown bubbles.

shopped until we dropped.

had our nightly ritual of watching Arrested Development.

played at the park.

read stories outside.

spent many nights watching Austin's softball games

and attended many parades.