Super LONG update (24 June 2008)
A lot has happened in the past few months. The end of April we went to Park City, Utah for a week with my sister and her husband. We had fun swimming and playing at the playground and just hanging out away from home. It snowed a few days while we were there. The condo has an outdoor pool and all around the patio were big piles of snow. We had to take some pictures of us on the snow piles just because it was so funny to think that we were outside swimming when it was snowing. Camden liked swimming. The pool was heated and it actually got a bit too hot and we had to sit on the side to catch our breath. One day while mommy was combing Camden’s hair she decided that the soap look really good. Camden picked it up and before mom and dad could stop her she took a bite. Needless to say, she didn’t like it!! She kept gagging herself with her fingers to try and get the taste out of her mouth. I guess we know that washing her mouth out with soap could be effective.
Camden started REALLY walking on May 1st. Some of her cousins came over and as soon as they came in Camden started walking right behind them doing everything they did. Now she walks all of the time! She is so good that if we say “Hurry, hurry.” She will even sort of run. Our favorite thing about watching her walk is with every step she takes her little cheeks jiggle just a bit. It is pretty fun to watch and pretty amazing how fast she just took off. She has really great balance and we love to watch her squat down to get something. She likes to stand by the back door and yell out the glass then “jump” (She squats down as low as she can then springs up as fast as she can. Her feet never actually leave the ground.) We think she is secretly hoping that the glass will just disappear so she can go out and play. We try to spend some time outside every day since Camden loves it so much. She loves to swing, but HATES the grass. If we set her down on the grass she will try to not let any of it touch her skin; which is no small task when she’s wearing shorts and sandals. She is amazed by bubbles and makes mom blow them until she’s light headed.
The second week in May we went to Florida with Jered’s parents to visit Jered’s brother and his wife. They live in Pensacola, but we all met in Orlando. We went to Universal Studios, Sea World and the Kennedy Space Center. Camden got sick at Universal Studios and Brena got sick at Sea World so Brena spent a little more time in the condo than she wanted too. At Universal Studios Camden met Curios George. Camden was the only one around for a while so George danced and played with her for about 10 minutes. She wasn’t quite sure of him at first, but by the time he was leaving she blew him kisses. Her favorite thing at Sea World was the aquarium. They have huge fish tanks above your head and under your feet. She liked to sit and watch the fish swim right under her and point at the baby sharks in the tank above her head. Even though we got sick it was still a really great trip and we hope that we can visit with Garth and Laura again soon.
When we got home Camden didn’t act like she felt well. She kept pulling on her ears and we thought it was just because she was getting her bottom molars. Brena took her to the doctor just to be sure and it turns out she had a really bad infection in her right ear. We have been blessed that Camden has been so healthy and this was her first “illness”. After 10 days of YUCKY medicine she was ok. She now has her top molars and is getting her I teeth (12 teeth in all) so she is REALLY GRUMPY some times. Not that we blame her. It’s a good thing we do all of that when we’re little so we really don’t remember it.
The girl is obsessed with lotion. If she sees a bottle that even remotely looks like a lotion bottle she will rub her hands together. She will try to get lotion out of the bottle by pushing on the top. We have to keep the lotion up high so she can’t reach it or we have lotion on everything since she is not too good at rubbing it all the way into her hands. Any time one of us gets lotion she has to have some too. She will walk over to us with her hand held out then when she reaches us she will rub her hands together. I guess she likes her skin to be soft and smooth…better for kissing!
She talks a lot…most of it is just jabbering. She does say a few words that we recognize though: Tiger, doggy (of course her first words), shoes, this, cheese, and she tries really had to say Ticklish. She just started saying cheese. She says it every time we try to take a picture of her. We’re not sure where she learned it in that context, but it’s still cute.
She still isn’t sleeping well. It’s getting pretty frustrating trying to figure out what will help her. It seems like one night something will work and the next night it won’t. The funny thing is she doesn’t seem tired during the day (most of the time), but mom and dad walk around like zombies. We are hoping it’s a phase and that she hasn’t doomed herself to be an only child!! They say that you forget all of those things and that’s why people have more that one child, but it’s pretty hard to forget something that never goes away.
Camden does some pretty funny things to make up for the LONG, SLEEPLESS nights. The other morning she was eating her breakfast and she picked up her milk and put it to her shoulder. She patted it on the “back” and rocked it back and forth. So either she really likes her milk or she was just trying to make us laugh and she succeeded. She also has developed a GREAT smile. We call it her Pretty Smile. It’s not too pretty though, it’s silly. When we ask her to smile she will show her teeth, scrunch her nose up, squint her eyes and tilt her head waaaaaay back so really all you see is her chin. She is such a HAM!
Camden is DEFINITELY a little girl. She loves to carry around her purses, wear her necklaces and bracelets and boas, and likes her hair to be pretty (until she feels the pretty things in her hair and pulls them out to see what they are). Last week she went to bed and woke up with long “piano” fingers and long legs…not really over night, but it seemed like it. Each day she gets more and more beautiful!! She is really becoming a little girl though and we are sad to see the little baby growing out of her.
Camden is one!! (15 April 2008)
Can you believe it? We are having a hard time believing it ourselves. She is becoming quite a handful. She is very independent already, especially at meal times. If we try to feed her anything from a spoon she will push her lips together and twist her face so we can’t get it in her mouth. She wants to do it all by herself. This presents a problem when breakfast is oatmeal and yogurt. Some times if we give her a spoon then she will let us feed her. She tries really hard with her spoon to get food to her mouth; most of the time the food is just smeared all over her high chair though. We think that’s thanks to Jered teaching her that spoons are for sword fighting. Needless to say meal times are also MESSY times. She loves apples or any other fruit (except for cantaloupe), fish crackers, Cheerios and fruit leather for her snacks. She likes to smash the crackers into little pieces so they will stick to her finger tips and then she will eat them only if they happened to stick. She will do the same with the Cheerios, minus the smashing part, since Cheerios have that nice doughnut shape just perfect for a tiny finger to rest in. She has discovered chips and salsa and she loves it!! If we try to give her a chip without salsa she gets really mad. She will grunt and cry and reach until we take the chip and dip it. She LOVES to give kisses, but only when she wants to. She can be hard at play and crawl over just to give us a kiss. What a sweetie! She is not walking yet, but has taken a few steps here and there and she likes to stand by herself and play and dance. I am excited to say that I finally saw her do the stairs, up and down and now she is really good at going either way. The only time she has trouble is when she gets on her belly too soon and has to scoot across the whole room to reach the top of the stair. I guess this makes her mad because she thinks when she gets on her belly and starts scooting the stairs should move to her. She is in love with Tiger, our dog. When she wakes up from her nap she has to see Tiger first thing. She will follow Tiger around and has to sit right next to the dog. When Tiger is sleeping on the stairs Camden will crawl up there just to rest her head on Tiger’s neck for a few minutes. As sad as it sounds Tiger gets most of the kisses around here. She still loves music. She has discovered the piano in the front room and she likes to sit on the bench and push the keys. She especially likes to play the piano with her uncle Chase who is one of her favorite people. Maybe some day he can teach her how to really play. Camden has eight teeth now. The last one finally poked through about a week ago. Now she has a funny little smile. We had a little get together for her birthday. Her grandparents and great grandparents came for dinner and cake and ice cream. Camden was a bit grumpy though because she woke up from her nap just when everyone was arriving. (That and she doesn’t sleep at night. More on that in a minute…) We had tacos for dinner and Camden got her own quesadilla. She loved the food (since there was salsa involved), but she wasn’t quite sure about the visitor watching her. She blew out the candle on her very own cupcake, but wanted nothing to do with the cake itself. I saved her cake and gave it to her the next day after lunch and she sure made a mess. She even had cake in her hair!! (This really is not too surprising since she likes to rub her hands through her hair every time she eats…maybe she thinks it will help her hair grow or not be so tangled) She liked eating the cake until her hands got too covered in frosting and then she started to cry. She loved opening her presents…what’s not to love about tearing paper (and mom letting her) and then finding something just for her inside. We got her a “bike” it’s one of those that you sit on and then push around with your feet or it has a push bar on the back so you can just walk behind and push. Her feet barely touch the floor so she can’t quite scoot herself around, but she can get herself on and off it really well. It has lots of buttons and things that make sounds. Her favorite part is that the seat lifts up and has a “secret” compartment underneath. She has found some pretty great treasures to put inside: a green Sharpie, a round marble paper weight, Jered’s Gameboy, a lint roller. This is also the place where Ticklish, her Beanie Baby she takes everywhere, most often rides, when he’s not under the seat his legs are crammed through a hole in the steering wheel. She has figured out that if she puts one leg on the seat that she can kind of push around like you would on a skateboard. All-in-all it was a pretty fun birthday and we had fun celebrating with her. Now back to the sleepless nights. We are really struggling with her not sleeping at night. She usually goes down at first really well, but then at about 12:00 she will wake up screaming and won’t stop until one of us goes in and gets her. We thought that maybe she felt too confined in her crib so we put the toddler bed front on the crib, but that hasn’t seemed to make any difference. We really don’t want her in our bed because when she is in there neither one of us can sleep thanks to the foot in the back or the finger in the eye. We’re trying to get her used to sleeping in her own bed in her own room so there have been a few nights that one of us has slept on her floor. (Not very comfortable!!!!) We keep praying that she will get better and we’re sure she will, but I don’t think it will be before one or both of us goes insane from the lack of sleep.? She makes up for the rough nights (most days) with her cute smile and all of her sweet laughs. She does some pretty silly things and we like to tell her that she’s crazy, to which she will try to say something that sounds a lot like crazy. We went to the doctor Tuesday and Camden is now 18.8 pounds and 29 inches tall and her head at 46 cm. Her body is finally catching up with her head! She is such a smart little cookie and learns things really fast. We are amazed by her every day!
10 Months (15 February 2008)
It's time for another Camden update. As we told you last time, Camden learned to crawl forward. The very next week she taught herself to go up the stairs. After a few weeks of helping her she will go down the stairs by herself too. (Well this is what Jered says. I have yet to see her do it all by herself. I still have to show her how to go onto her tummy and scoot to the edge of the stairs. If I'm around Camden will sit at the top of the stairs and scream until she is picked up or shown how to go down. Jered just laughs because they play together all morning and she goes up and down the whole time. LITTLE STINKER!!) A week after going up the stairs she started walking behind her push toy. She kept running into the wall with it so I tried to help her get her hands in better positions on the handle and she yelled, pushed my hand away and then shook her hand at me. She has started talking a lot more. If you say something she will try to repeat it. Unfortunately she has already found her SASS and will sass us all of the time. She can tell us what the dog says and what the pig says (mostly for the pig she will just make a funny squishy face and breathe in and out really loud - it is the cutest thing to see. We've tried to get it on video a few times, but it didn't work very well because once she sees the camera she will just smile...Hey Camden, - YOU'RE SO VAIN!!) She still loves to look in the mirror and has started making funny faces when she's looking. I think she has finally really figured out that the baby she sees there is her. Bath times are some of her favorite times of the week and she has recently decided that she should have a bath every time the water is running in the tub. She will stand next to the tub and cry and try to lift her leg high enough to get over the side of the tub. It really is funny to watch her try. Luckily she can't get her leg up there or she would have had a few, fully clothed, baths. Once she gets in the tub it is almost impossible to get her out without hearing her scream through the whole dressing process because she wants to be in the tub. She likes to play with my hair things and is thrilled that I have given her free reign over one of the drawers in the bathroom. The last couple of days she has been pulling out my headbands and trying to put them on her head, surprisingly she has succeeded a few times. She still has a bald strip around the back of her head where her hair is trying to grow back. At the rate it is growing she will be two before it all comes in. She has six teeth now (two on top and four on bottom) and she loves to use them to bite anything that gets close to her mouth. Her favorite things to eat are fruit leather and apples. Her daddy is still her favorite and as soon as she hears the garage door open she will crawl as fast as she can to greet him. In the mornings when Jered is leaving she will kiss him over and over and when he is finally going out the door she will blow him a kiss. (Yes daddy's heart melts every time!!) She loves to wrestle (especially the pinning part) and for Jered to flip her all around. She likes to play with her blocks and has figured out how to help me stack them up instead of only knocking down the towers. Every time we tell her good job for something she will clap her hands. She likes me to sing silly songs and is trying to learn some actions to go with them. When we are getting her dressed we will spell her whole name to the tune Do-Re-Mi from The Sound of Music. She has become VERY, VERY clingy - did I say VERY??? We went to St. George with my parents last week. My mom couldn't even look at Camden without her totally breaking down (full crocodile tears, drool, reaching for me or Jered and crying like she was hurt). It was a little funny because it was just my mom she didn't like. Grandpa would come in and she would crawl over to him to be picked up. I guess she doesn't know that Grandma is the one who buys all of the presents. J Grandma says it's payback for all of the times mommy screamed because they tried to leave her with a babysitter. We have planned a trip to Florida in May with Jered's parents so it will be very interesting if she is still in this phase. She is getting so big! (Jered likes to say that she is half his height - which doesn't make her seem that big.) She is still having a hard time at night sleeping. She is getting better at getting herself back to sleep, but still has really rough nights when Jered has to go help her. She is such a ham as you can see from the pictures. It is so much fun to see her personality change as she grows. We can't believe that she will be 1 year next month. We still don't know how we lucked out to get such a beautiful baby! We are amazed by her every day and we can't imagine life without her.
9 Months (10 January 2007)
Camden is doing well. She is getting too big too fast. We went to the doctor on Friday and she is now 17 pounds and 27 inches tall...her head, as usual, is still the biggest part. That's ok with us though because it is also the cutest part. She is working on her fourth tooth and has been a little cranky lately because of it. We are trying to teach her to be good and brush her teeth every day. So far she is loving it. Any time she sees one of us brushing she cries until we get her tooth brush out too. She likes to do it herself and we all know that a 9-month-old really doesn't do much but chew on the tooth brush so she clenches her lips together when we try to help. She has finally figured out how to go forward with crawling. Now she gets into everything and loves to go by herself. She is fascinated with the baby gates. We can tell we are going to have to teach her how to maneuver the stairs soon or else she'll just push the baby gates down and go head first down with it. We don't think it is really the gates she likes, but the holes in it because she loves the laundry baskets and her toy baskets too. One of her favorite things to do is shake anything that makes noise. We have to pull out all of the rattles and the jingles so she can hear how different they all sound. She really loves music. Whenever music starts she will start waving her arms like she is the conductor. It's kind of funny because she will stop when the music stops. She also likes to dance and move to the music. If you tell her to shake her booty she will bounce up and down. She is having trouble sleeping at night. We think it is just because she loves to be around people and doesn't like to be alone. She definitely is developing a mind of her own and knows just what she wants and when she wants it. She loves Cheerios for a snack. We started mixing Craisins and apricots with them and it is pretty obvious that she likes the fruit more. She will pick out all of the fruit and eat it before she will eat any of the Cheerios. She is a good eater and will eat everything except for baby food with chicken in it. She has learned to shake her head no and will shake it even when she really means yes. She has developed a little mumble under her breath when she gets tired and if you ask her if she's ready for a nap she will wave bye-bye to her toys and pat us on the back as we carry her to her bed.
We had a good Christmas. We bought her a little baby doll. She loves it. When you squeeze the doll it will talk or laugh or cry. Whenever it cries, Camden will shake her head no and want to give the baby loves. The baby came with a stroller and Camden likes to push it around the house (with someone's help). Brena's parents gave her some books. Her favorite is called Millie Moo it is a story about a cow that has to go looks for her barnyard friends and meets some very crazy animals along the way. It is a "touch and feel" book that has holes on every page that you have to feel something through and try and guess what you are feeling. Her favorite page is the one that is supposed to be a duck's feathers but turns out to be a monkey wearing a sweater. Jered's parents gave her a wagon. His mom writes and illustrates a story for her grandkids every Christmas and this year's was called Red Wagon Adventures. The book has funny pictures of her grandkids doing things in their wagons. The funniest one of Camden is at the very end when some of the grandkids are pretending their wagons are race cars and Camden is looking at herself in the mirror instead of watching where her wagon is going. Apparently everyone thinks our baby is a little vain. She does like to look in the mirror and have her picture taken…so I guess they're sort of right. I guess when you know you're cute you have to make sure everyone knows. She loves to ride in the wagon and it gets a little boring and hard to pull her around the house in it. We hope it gets warm soon so we can really go for a walk.
7 1/2 Months (31 November 2007)
For Thanksgiving, we went to Jered's parent's house and had dinner with one of his brothers. Later we went to visit Jered's grandparents and to see his aunt who was visiting from California. It's always nice to see family that we don't get to see too often. Camden is getting so big. Some days I feel like I can see her growing right in front of me or when I get her out of bed in the morning that she seems so much bigger than the night before. It seems like her clothes just start to fit her and the next day they are too short and tight. She has two teeth on the bottom now. She weighs about 17 pounds now and it is obvious that she is gaining weight since my arm dies when I carry her around too long. She is starting to be a cuddly baby and she loves to give hugs. She isn't crawling yet, but she is starting to get up on all fours and rock so we know it will be all too soon…she does go backward though. She loves to stand and play, but she is getting a bit too brave with it. If she sees something around her that she would rather have she will just lean for it instead of moving her feet to get to it. Luckily she hasn't had any major accidents since we try to only let her stand if one of us sits by her on the carpet. She has started doing the funniest thing. We call it her squishy face. She scrunches her nose up and breathes only through her nose so sometimes she snorts a little. It is so funny!!! I've tried to take pictures and record her doing it, but she just loves the camera so much that as soon as she sees it she will stop whatever she is doing and smile and laugh until I take her picture. Little stinker!!! I guess its ok, at least she always will have cute pictures…sometimes we just want to capture her doing those funny little things though. She loves her dog Tiger. Every time the dog comes into a room she smiles and talks to her and she loves most of all when Tiger is playing with her rope toy and shaking her head. We just had our first snow storm today. It has been snowing all day!! There's about a foot in our front yard. Camden is not too sure what to think of the cold, but she can't get enough of looking out the window at the snow. Hopefully I can convince her to let me take a picture of her a least once this year in the snow…I think it may take a little more to convince ME to get all bundled up than it will her. We are excited to see Camden's reactions to all of the Christmas stuff.
What a Ride (9 November 2007)
About noon, Mark came into the office and asked if I (Jered) would like to go four wheelin'. Of course I said yes. We went to pick up Mark's brother-in-law Layne and headed out. We made a quick stop at Arctic Circle to get the old men something to eat and then continued down UT 73. After about a 30 minute drive we were in the parking lot of a local ORV hotspot. 2 hours into the ride I thought it would be a good idea to roll the 4 wheeler back over the top of me and imprint the handle bars into my forehead. I felt the whole thing. I had gone up the same trail not more than 15 minutes before. We were turning back around to go down a different trail and I came to the rocks in the trail. I got the front wheels over the rocks and then made the mistake of downshifting into first which gave a burst of torque and it came over the top of me. After I rolled over onto my stomach because it felt like I crushed my eye socket, I rolled back to my back so Mark could examine the damage. I was fading in and out of consciousness for about 10 minutes. Layne gave the 911 operator GPS coordinates but search and rescue still went up the wrong canyon. After about 15 minutes, I was just fine other than the big gash in my forehead. Completely coherent and wondering why I couldn't just ride down the mountain to meet the ambulance, I saw life flight over head. I was getting more and more frustrated with how stupid this whole thing was. I called Brena to let her know I was in a little accident and her response was "Why aren't you at work?" I told her I was just fine and they were taking me to the hospital to make sure nothing was broken. I did not tell her that I was about to get a helicopter ride off the mountain. About an hour later I was being unloaded from the helicopter by a team of too many people for a small little head injury. Brena arrived with Camden while the doctor was on the outer layer of stitches in my forehead. She asked how the ambulance ride was. The surgeon said, "You didn't tell her? He got a helicopter ride." I couldn't see her face, but I could imagine what it looked like. All said and done there were about 100 stitches in my forehead and about another 20 in my lip. What a fun ride!!
6 1/2 Months (27 October 2007)
Today we were joined with family and friends as we entered the Holy Temple to be sealed to Camden for time and eternity. We would like to thank everyone for the distances traveled to be with us for this very sacred event. It was such a wonderful day for all of us. Words can't desribe our feelings.
6 Months (12 October 2007)
Everything is finalized. The judge declared us a family. Hoorah!! It was somewhat andticlimatic after six months of waiting for the adoption to be finalized. To celebrate the wonderful event we went to breakfast (late lunch) at everyones favorite eatery - Village Inn.
It's hard to believe that Camden is six months old now. It seems just like yesterday that we were scrambling to get things ready for her. She is getting so big. We can hardly remember when she was that tiny little baby all wrapped up. Her personality is starting to really come out. She knows what she wants and when she wants it. She's not afraid to scream until she gets her way and she certainly has the GIANT crocodile tears going for her every time. She loves food and would much rather have something from a spoon than her formula in a bottle. She is trying to learn to drink from a cup. She does pretty well as long as her hands don't touch the glass. If you give her the choice she will take apple juice over formula. Her first tooth is getting close to coming through. It doesn't seem to bother her too much, but we think that's why she gets cranky sometimes and why she hasn't been sleeping well at night. She is full of smiles and one tooth in that big mouth will sure be cute. She is happy most of the time and people don't believe that she makes any noise. We tell them to come to our house and they will get an ear full. Her hair on the sides has grown back enough that now it has a little curl. She's almost up to 15 pounds and is 26 inches tall with her head still leading the way at 43 cm. She just gets more and more beautiful every day. She still loves her daddy and can't get enough of him. We have a picture of Jered in the office and Camden will talk and laugh at that picture as long as she can see it. She loves her feet rubbed (smart girl). When she's really tired she will grab your hand and push it down to her feet so you will rub them. She loves kisses and has started to try to say kiss (of course this is just our perception of what she is mumbling). She loves to wear hats and she looks really cute in any one we put on her. She isn't crawling and if we put her on her tummy she will instantly roll over so if we want her to stay we have to lay right next to her to block her rolling path. She is the life of any party and brings a smile to anyone that sees her. We love her so much and don't know what we ever did without her.
4 1/2 Months
We've had four and a half months of joy and excitement since our last posting. Camden is growing like a weed...at least her head is. She's up to almost 13 pounds and about 27 inches and has a large head, 41 cm. It doesn't look too big for her though. The doctor said it must just mean she's got a nice big brain. We think he is right because she is so smart. Most of the hair she had when she was born fell out or she rubbed off, but it is starting to grow back a little so now she looks kind of funny. She has hair on top, a tuft on one side, completely bald at the base of her head and a little fuzzy in the middle. Her aunt Kim says she looks like Mr. T. (Only much, much cuter) She has developed quite an attitude. We never knew that a four month old could sass, but she has got it down!! (Just ask her aunts) We can't wait until she can really talk and sass back (LOL). When she's hungry look out...she has decided that it's ok to scream at the top of her lungs until the bottle is put in her mouth. We started giving her rice cereal and she loves it!! Before every bite she says "MMMM good" in her little mumbles. She has started to laugh and squeal, which makes the screaming a little more tolerable. Her reflux seems to be getting better, but mommy still gets puked on at least once a day. She's working on her first teeth (we are not excited about that) so her hands are constantly in her mouth and she drools like crazy. She is fascinated with hands; hers or anyone else's. She will reach and grab things, but she really hasn't figured out how to hold on. She loves her voice and is always talking or singing. We're sure it won't be long before she is really talking and not mumbling. If we look right at her and talk real slow she will try and copy the movements and sounds of our mouths. The only time she is not moving is when she's sleeping. We're sure she'll be walking sooner than we'd like since she really likes to stand. Some days she won't even take her bottle unless she's standing. We are definitely in trouble when she starts moving around on her own because she is so curious. Everywhere we go people tell us how beautiful she is and that they can't believe how alert and active she is for her age. She loves to fall asleep with something over her face. Her favorite thing over her face is Gus. He is a little satin blanket with a stuffed giraffe head sewn in the middle. We can tell when she's really tired because she will hold Gus up over her face and rub her cheek with him in one hand while the other hand is opening and closing just feeling how soft Gus is. Once she's really asleep she hates to be covered at all and will kick until all of the blankets are off. When she is laying down sleeping she always has her arms straight out from her side in a perfect letter "T". Our favorite new thing is her funny smile. She will make sure to show her top gums and scrunch her nose up. It's pretty darn cute. She is a daddy's girl. She smiles almost as much as Jered does when they're together. Once in a while she will even laughs at his silly jokes. (Mommy thinks that's just out of sympathy) Her cousins love her. Whenever we get together with our family they fight over who gets to hold her. She loves them too and wants to be everywhere the kids are. We love her so much and can't imagine life without her!!
Our New Arrival
We received a call the Friday before Camden was born. A loving mother who wanted more for this child than she could offer, brought us this gift from God. We are so grateful for that love.
Four nights without sleep, waiting to see if everything would work out. Would the mother be ok? Would the travel be safe? Would the child be healthy? All these questions would take a few days to sort out. Camden was born the next Tuesday. She was healthy, beatiful and full of smiles. The mother was safe and an awesome woman. We could not ask for a better family. This was what we had waited for. She is soooooo beautiful. Words could not describe how we felt after a very long wait (not just the four days).
We were able to bring Camden home on Wednesday. Our house was packed with family awaiting our arrival. We consider ourselves so blessed to have such great family. While we were going crazy taking care of all the paper work and running around doing the last minute shopping, our family put our nursery back together (it had been serving as a second guest room for all of our wonderful visitors).
We are so thankful for everyone who has supported us, prayed for us, cried with us, laughed with us and loved us over the past few years. You are all so wonderful.
Check out the pictures on the Camden page.
Where has the time gone?
It has been a while since this site was updated. So many things have happened in the past few months. First off, Jered completed all his exams to obtain his architect's license (WAAAAAHOOOOO)!! It only took six months to pass the nine exams, which is absolutely incredible.
As sort of a celebration,
Brena and I were able to take a wonderful vacation with her parents. We left
Thanksgiving morning, so we were able to have our traditional turkey at Boston
Market. It was not quite the same as carving the bird and sitting around a giant
table. But, we were with family. We spent a day and a half in
Christmas came and went with the usual excitement. Santa Claus brought us a Nintendo Wii and lots of movies. Santa is pretty nice. A lot of time was spent with family and friends over the few days we had off.
Jered learned to snowboard. He went with a few friends from work on one of HKS's half days off. He had a small bruise on his...well we won't say where. But it was much more painless than skiing.
Brena and Jered went in to get their knees looked at and it was decided that Jered would get knee surgery. Both knees were operated on to do a little repair work. We decided to wait for a couple months before getting Brena's fixed as there should only be one cripple in the house at a time.
How hot is hot?
Squash, squash, squash... If one plant is good 6 are better. Our garden is shaping up wonderfully. We have peas, beans, strawberries, tomatoes, pumkin, squash and squash. It is enjoyable to walk around the garden and see all the plants growing. It is amazing that there could be so much packed into that tiny seed.
Barbecues with family have already started. We are sure there will be plenty more to come. It is exciting to finally have a backyard large enough to fit the whole family.
Recently, we undertook our first mountain biking excursion of the year. Let's just say it's not good to start out with a ten mile ride (up hill both ways). The view of the valley was incredible (when Jered could see it through Brena's dust). We hope to get out a lot more for mountain biking and rock climbing.
We have planned a short trip to visit our friends in Montana. We are really looking forward to visiting all of them, but we are not looking forward to the long drive. The good thing about the drive is we will have plenty of time to visit with each other.
It's Spring time!! (almost)
As winter comes to a close, new life begins. What a wonderful time of year. It has been a great winter. You can (if you want) play in the snow in Utah. It isn't just the frozen air that we have been accustomed to seeing the last five years. Jered has made plenty of snowballs this winter.
With springtime, we get to enjoy the new life that is all around us. The grass and flowers begin to grow and the trees get new leaves and blossoms. Birds and animals bring new life into the world. And most importantly, people begin to come out of their houses. Barbecues in the backyard and mowing the lawns. With our new house We have a list that continues to grow of things we want to do to make it our home.
Happy New Year
It's hard to believe another year has come and gone. We are so grateful to all those whom we have shared this past year with. We especially miss our Montana friends and wish there was some way to take them all with us wherever life takes us.
This year life has taken us to Utah. Jered made a career move and took a position with HKS Inc. It has been such a wonderful change. He will be taking the Architectural Registration Examinations beginning in January (which is quite the process).
Being close to family has been such a joy. We are able to watch our nieces and nephews grow. They say and do the funniest things.
We have also been able to reacquaint ourselves with old friends, reflecting on those who have shaped our lives over the years. To all of you we say thank you with our sincerest wishes for a happy holiday season.