Family Reunion...in Heaven

Mark's Grandpa passed away about 3 weeks ago. His Grandma just joined him
yesterday and we are sure they are so happy to be together again!

bake

I love baking.
Every year growing up our family would bake Christmas treats one night (sometimes two) in December. Now that we're grown up and married we all bake something before hand. We then trade our goodies and spend time making my Mom's famous Swedish Spritz cookies, wassail, and talking a lot! This year we are feasting on peppermint bark, chocolate crinkles, molasses cookies, gourmet sugar cookies, chocolate dipped pretzels (with lovely sprinkles), and the best fudge ever.

Mark stayed home with Siri that night...such a good dad, blowouts and all.

Thanks for being the hostess this year Jenn, we had so much fun.

Shout out to the Anderson's

Just wanted to post a few pics of katie, zach, lucy, and poppy (who i successfully called "boppy" several times). Thanks for the fun times. And for not kicking me in the groin every time i called your daughter an infant support pillow.

So So So Much!!

I try to think of my blessings every morning when I wake up...to be alive, healthy, and warm. Everyone knows somedays are better or worse than others. Sometimes my day goes great and I feel SO thankful for everything and want to have a thankful party! That has been so far today.

We just got back from a little hike up Millcreek Canyon. Siri loved it (I think)! I put her in her snuggly outfit and carried her in the baby bjorn. It is so beautiful outside with the sunshine and new snow. On the way home I felt so happy to be alive, driving a cool car, listening to Mannheim Steamroller with my sweet happy baby in the back seat.

Life is good.

She'll be known

What a happy Sunday!
We had a great day with friends, family, and the Gospel today. Little Sirisnu was blessed by Mark, it was beautiful. How thankful I am for a Heavenly Father who loves us SO very much.

Families are the best!

A lot of reasons

I have so many reasons why I love Mark. A few that have been magnified lately are:
-His cooking skills. Not only does it make it fun to have people over to eat dinner with us, but his pasta dishes make the best leftovers. Really, you want to eat these leftovers.
-His confidence in others. He has a lot of faith in other people and always expects the best from those around him. He has so much trust in me as a mom so when I break down and cry (yeah, that was yesterday) he encourages me and tells me that I'm doing a great job.
-His ability to play. I love that he wants to go kick the soccer ball around, jump on the tramp, hit a few golf balls, play basketball. I get tired of playing with hyper nieces and nephews pretty fast...but he'll sweat buckets before he's done.
-His photography. Just look at the photos on our blog or his website. Yeah-awesome.

wonder

With new light, comes new life.
Each day brings with it the opportunity to witness something amazing.
At times it's something that we simply happen upon.
But most of the times it occurs when you take a step back and try and look at the big picture; look at what's really happening.
And look at who is really running the show.

Over the past few months, I have been able to witness incredible growth in our tiny one, Siri. And each facet of that growth, is truly miraculous. Physically, she has grown a few inches, gained a few pounds, and developed many features. Mentally, she is alert and observant and recognizes familiar sounds and a few faces. My favorite part of all of it, though, is the spiritual growth I have seen in myself. The love that develops and grows with each day is truly astounding. Never has it been so easy to love someone or something.

Simply amazing.

Blessed.

Blessed because of...
my daughter
my wife
my health
my life.

She looks like...

Mark?

Ali?

or just her own little self...

Halloween snapshots

Love Halloween. It's great because it's the ultimate excuse to dress and act like a total weirdo. Plus, you get the wonderful sugar rush to add to that weirdness. But the best is to see the tiny ones out and about in their super cool costumes! Here's a few...

Christmas Cards

I am starting to design a few Christmas cards for this upcoming season. I just wanted to create a few modern cards. Here are just a few samples. Let me know which one you like the best and if you want me to design one for you!

Flippin awesome kid!

I love my daughter - she is such a cool bean, all decked out in her stripes. And my wife is
pretty freakin sweet too!

family pictures

Last Friday Mark, Siri, and I went out to my brother's so that Mark could take some family pics of them. It was fun to drive around Daybreak, its such a cool neighborhood. And my nephews and niece are SO foxy! After, we went to dinner and heard all about Connor's birthday.
Thanks Matt & Sheri!

When sleep sets in...

Look at how cuddly, cozy, and comfortable these babes are. mmmm......
Nothing beats a late night snuggle during the last few days before winter creeps in.

How she got her name

We named our daughter Siri.

If you've wondered "How did they come up with such a weird, odd, different, interesting name?", here is the answer: (and no, it has nothing to do with Tom Cruise or their baby Suri)

We found the name on a pedigree chart at Mark's parents home. Siri is the name of Mark's 7th great grandmother (on his dad's side) who was from Scandanavia, we think Norway. Her full name was Siri Hansen Horne and she was born in 1685.
Our Siri's middle name is Carol, after my sweet mom.

Oh, and you pronounce it Seer-E.

It's emotional

I want to post about how I exercised on Saturday. As I was 'wogging' (jogging, but so slow it was like walking), I thought "why would I want to post about something as boring as jogging?" and I realized that the reason we all post about anything is because we want to share experiences that make us emotional.

So, Saturday after the morning session of Conference I decided to go outside and get some exercise while Mark watched Siri. I opened the door and realized it was raining...no problem. I grabbed my rain shell and started trekking up Creek road. Once I got past the ridiculously steep part I started jogging. It was scary at first, like I thought I was going to break a leg or something. It had just been so long since my body had been able to take more impact than walking. I jogged for a good 45 minutes around the neighborhood. It was warm enough to wear shorts and I just took in deep breathes of the lucious outside air and let the rain soak my face and hair. It felt SO good!

Love the weekends...

A few more shots of the tiny humanoid from our recent daddy-daughter night.

I must admit that it is not easy to just let her sleep. Being an active-type (undoubtedly hyperactive at times), I just want to pick her up and throw her in the air, or wrestle her to the ground. But for now I must exercise restraint and not rip her arms out of her sockets. For now at least.

Oh crap

Here is another picture from yesterday...this is up at Alta, at the base of Grizzly Gulch.

Yes, I am alive. I haven't posted or written anything lately because, well, there are more important things to do...like feeding the new baby in our house!
I do try to go on a walk everyday though. I've been so thankful for the nice weather.


About the title of this post: I haven't had too much to write about since I rarely leave the house and have been recovering from labor. But, today I had one of my first surprises.
I had fed Siri and went to change her diaper. I knew she was a little poopie, but that's nothing new. She's on the changing pad with her stinky diaper on, but not fastened, when all of a sudden she explodes! Poop. Everywhere. Specifically on her crib which was in the line of fire, and my hands.
Somehow it also ended up a few feet above her on the wall too. "Oh crap!" was my response, followed by laughter and Siri feeling much better.

Today we also went on our first picnic. I met Jenn, Kate, Mom, Kerrah, Izac, and Alex at Sugarhouse park. It's such a nice day and we had a really yummy lunch!



I have to say what an amazing dad Mark is. He is SO very patient, both with Siri and me, and he's always happy to play and care for our little whippersnapper.


Oh, and some of my favorite peoples from work sent us this that we got in the mail yesterday. I can't wait to take her out and about to see the snow!

Canyon drive

So Ali and I decided to head up the canyon and witness for ourselves the intense fall colors that tend to come this time of year. Honestly, we were a bit skeptical because we haven't seen that much color down in the valley. And boy were we in for a treat. They were freakin amazing! (actually, they are like this every year - you'd think that canyon-going freaks like ourselves would know this by now!)

So naturally I brought my camera and forced Ali to stop with me and take a few snappers.

This is for those who haven't made it up the canyon yet this fall or are simply find themselves somewhere that just doesn't have sweet canyons like we do here in these parts.

Mo pics

I just had to post a few more pics of this sweet little bean. So, without further delay, here they are.

It's the little things

It's the little things that make up life.

It was nearly midnight, right after watching Dan in Real Life, and I had just laid Siri down on our bed before swaddling her "tight like unto a dish" when I saw this image. For days, I had been trying to find the right setting to get a shot of her sweet feet and finally, the colors were right, lighting was in my favor (very low light and only my trusty nikon speedlight), and she was even semi-cooperative. Definitely well worth the wait. You can even see the little prick hole in her left heel from when they drew blood at the hospital a few days after she was born.

Thank you, tiny one, and all of your tiny parts, too.

new love....new life

"With new love comes new life."

A new life has come. And we love it.