Santa!

Santa came to our family Christmas party last night. It was lots of fun for all of the kids. This is all of my nieces and nephews with him at Amanda's house.

We're Expecting!

We are happy to announce that we are expecting baby #2 the end of July. We had our first appointment today and they heard the heartbeat and everything looks good. We are super excited!

Fall...

I love the fall. It is my favorite time of year. I love the colors and the smells and the activities. I love Halloween and Thanksgiving, and, of course, my birthday. It is so fun to see the leaves change and look forward to the holidays. It is also a time that I reflect more on what I have and am thankful for. I am so thankful for my family, both immediate and extended. We are very fortunate to have awesome siblings, parents, aunt, uncles...you get the picture. This is the time of year that I lost my Grandma Radford and Grandma Shumway and my Grandpa Radford. I think of them now, when it is cool outside and the season is changing and think how grateful I am that the made it possible for me to have the life I have. I am so thankful for my wonderful husband and beautiful daughter. They are the light of my life and make every day wonderful for me. This year we are cutting back on gifts and stepping up the Christ-centered activities for Christmas and I am looking forward to it. We are so fortunate to live in a time and place that we have the freedom to choose how to worship and celebrate and live. I have set a goal to be less worldly and more Christ-like. I am far from where I need to be, but the journey has been good for me.
Katie watching BYU football with daddy

Katie being silly

Summer Fun...

We are having fun so far this summer. Kate is getting so big and just talking all the time. She can say lots of words and she is starting to develop her own opinion and a little bit of an attitude. Right now it is more funny than anything, but I am willing to guarantee that the day will come that the attitude will no longer be funny. She is such a sweet baby and is so easy-going (mostly) and easy.


Fourth of July fun with cousins Hannah, Andrew, and Aaron Reading. Aaron is only 10 days old! We love cousins!


Cousin Kyle just home from his mission. Katie was born while he was gone so this is her first time meeting him.

Katie enjoying a radish.


Katie at Hogle Zoo with Daddy, Uncle Marty, and Grandma Dixie. Apparently all of the animals there say "moo" because that's what she told us!


Katie loves to swing!

Summer

We are waiting impatiently for summer around here. Not much has been going on. We are enjoying our baby girl and she is getting so big. We are still struggling with her reflux and trying to find a safe and effective treatment, but in the meantime, she is eating really well and getting big. She is thirteen months old now, and I don't know where the time has gone. We have no news, really, and we consider that a good thing!

Frankenstein

I am so excited. For those of you Harry Potter fans or Edward fans (I would be in both categories) compare this to waiting for the newest book to come out. You just can't wait for the next book and read it within the first day of buying it. Well, for me, this book is the same. It is the third and final in the trilogy. It was originally supposed to come out in December of 2007 and has been delayed...until now! WOO HOO! It will be out in July and I CAN'T WAIT!!! If you are not a Dean Koontz fan, I apologize for wasting your time. I have to say, though, you should try him out. He is AWESOME! If any of you out there want to read his books, I own every single one. Come on over...I promise it will be worth your time!!! Don't expect any conversation from me until I am done!

Birthday Girl!

Our baby girl turned one! She had a birthday yesterday, on Easter Sunday. I cannot believe she is a year old. It doesn't seem like it was that long ago that we were trying so hard to get pregnant and having no success, and now she is a year old! We had a fun birthday party for her on Saturday and another one on Sunday. Between the two sides of our family there are so many people, we decided to break it up. We had a ball with her. The day I had her, my nephew Mathew wanted to get in the bed with us. I have a picture that is so sweet of him and Katie (not so sweet of me...) I decided to make it a tradition to get a picture of the three of us on her birthday.

Brady's father passed away on Wednesday after a long battle with cancer. It has been a hard couple of days, and we are trying to settle in to being without him. He was such a great man, and I am eternally grateful to him for his son. I am also grateful for our knowledge of the Plan of Salvation.



With Katie the day she was born.

Teeth

My daughter thinks she is a beaver.

Big Girl!

This is my baby girl finally able to eat regular food. I know this may not seem like a big deal to some, but we have struggled with her eating since she was born. She never nursed or took a bottle very well and she spit-up constantly. She would eat solids, but the slighest things would make her gag and that would make her throw-up. We struggled with this since she was born and we kept being told that she was fine and would grow out of it. So, on we pushed. After a struggle with antiobiotics for a throat infection, and many visits to the doctor when she was about ten months old, she got to the point that she would only take one bottle a day over the course of a couple of days. We decided to take her in the next day. We prayed that night to know what to do for her and that the doctor would also know what to do. In the night, Brady woke up and kept getting the thought that she had reflux. He also got a strong feeling that he needed to write it down. He got up and did it. The next morning, we did some research on it and discovered that she had 12 of the 15 most common symptoms of reflux, and the previous illness was incidental to it. It was just a virus. Because she had never acted like she was in pain when she ate, and because she would still eat solids well up until that point, no one ever thought of it. We pressed the doctor on it and he agreed to give her a prescription for it. I am thrilled to say, that it has helped her immensely. I can barely feed her enough or fast enough. She can eat real food without gagging, so therefore no throwing up, either! This is a big deal for us. I am so thankful for a husband who listens to the spirit and for a doctor who will listen to us and takes good care of our baby.

Still Here....

We are still here. I have been a slacker about my blog. We really don't get out much and there is not much news.

Brady's dad has gone downhill very quickly in the last couple of weeks. He has been in the hospital and they are sending him home today with Hospice care. He is so miserable, I just hope it doesn't get so prolonged that he has to live like this for a long time.

Kate is getting big and into everything. She has 8 teeth now. It was so funny, she just got them all at once. She is sure wanting to stand up. It is funny to watch her try to figure out how to stand without holding onto something. She usually ends up on her butt, but I imagine she will figure it out before too long.

We are looking forward to spring and some nicer weather. Kate's birthday is on Easter this year, so that will be fun (at least for me!!) Our snow is almost gone and it has been raining. I feel spring in the air! Yeah!

We are looking forward to a couple of trips this summer and fall. My old work gave us a travel gift certificate for my five years of work there. When we got it I was hugely pregnant so we hadn't used it yet. We booked a couple of three day trips and we are really excited about it. We would never have gotten to go if we had had to pay for it ourselves! Brady said I could buy a new camera to take, so I am hoping for some fun pictures to share!

Gratitude

I have been feeling very grateful lately. It has been on my mind a lot that we are really very blessed. I was listening to Good Morning America this morning while I was in my big chair reading and watching Katie play with her little kitchen set. It was 8:30am and I was still in my pj's and not feeling too bad about it, either. I was hearing them talk about childcare costs and how people are struggling with that more than ever right now and it struck me how blessed we are. I get to stay home with my sweet baby every day and just enjoy her. I have a wonderful husband, a beautiful daughter, a home to live in, a reliable vehicle, food, clothes, the best family anyone could ever want, and I get to buy a new purse now and then when I have some extra dollars. I belong to a church full of wonderful happiness and purpose alongside some of the most awesome people ever. I cannot believe how blessed I am. I am overwhelmed by the feeling that I have this abundance of blessings in my life and that I have done absolutely nothing to deserve them. I guess that is my goal now. To try to deserve them.

New Year...

We had a nice holiday and a fun New Year's and are now settling in to our routine again and getting along nicely. Things are usually quiet and slow and that is how we like them. We had a New Year's Eve party here and it was really fun. Kate was pretty sick before Christmas. We even made a trip to the Emergency Room. It was pretty scary, but she came out all right. After waking up all night with a high fever and needing more medicine, she forgot how to sleep all night and nap in her crib. After about a week of that after she was fully recovered, we had to remind her how it was done. I am glad to say it took only one night of letting her cry herself to sleep for her to remember and she is falling asleep on her own in her bed at night and for both of her naps. Needless to say, it is much better! She sure is a sweet little thing. I can't believe how mild-mannered and even-tempered she is. She just doesn't get upset easily. We are being spoiled and when we have another baby, we will get the full taste of that, I am sure. For now, though, we are enjoying her and watching her grow. She is getting teeth #3 and #4 now. She is getting a third one on the bottom, and of all random teeth, one of her top teeth - on the side! Not even a middle one. I have to say, it looks pretty dang funny. I keep trying to get a picture and will post it as soon as I can get her to stop trying to chew on the camera long enough for me to take it!

She has also finally decided she will sit and play instead of just rolling everywhere. And, just like everyone predicted, she decided to sit, crawl, and pull herself up to kneel and stand all within a matter of days of each other. She sure keeps me on my toes!