Wide Open Spaces

Kate loves to play outside. While we were visiting our friends in Pima, there was a lot of outside to play in! Vernon and Tiana live on some beautiful land. Check out the view of the mountains from their house.Beautiful.

Kate thought this horse was about the coolest thing she'd ever seen. I couldn't drag her away from it!

This is Vernon and Tiana's oldest son, Dean. They have another boy just a couple months older than our daughter. Kate just loved playing with these boys! This might just be the cutest picture I've ever seen.

We had so much fun. We'll definitely have to visit more often!

Thatcher

This past weekend we took a trip to the Gila Valley to attend the open house of the temple. It was BEAUTIFUL! I loved it. I didn't get any pictures of the temple sadly. It was freezing outside! Not something I planned on. Dustin and Kate didn't want to stick around in the cold to take pictures, so I didn't get anyway :(. We ran to Walmart to buy a warm outfit for Kate, which was kind of tricky in May, got her bundled up and went to see Lacie. For more pictures of this beautiful girl, check out my photo blog on my sidebar. Yeah, I know. Another blog. I just love blogging! I need to figure out how to combine them all somehow.... anyway. Here's some pictures I took over the weekend.
We took Lacie to dinner that night at El Charro. Oh how I miss El Charro. Our friend Vernon met us there too, and all four of us ate for the same price that only two people could eat at any mexican restaurant in phoenix. Also, it's better than any mexican restaurant in phoenix.

For those who don't know, Dustin and I met at the Eastern Arizona College in Thatcher. It was fun to go back and reminisce. I can't believe it was almost 7 years ago that we met. Just realizing that made me feel really old. I think it may be time to pull out my college scrapbook again. We tried to drive by our first apartment that we rented after we were married, but it was torn down! Maybe they finally realized that it was infested beyond control with scorpions.

We stayed at Vernon and Tiana's house over the weekend, and it was so much fun! We had a blast going to R&R pizza buffet, Jerry's, and playing wii on their projector screen. They are some of our best friends and it was so much fun to spend an entire weekend with them. Kate loved playing with their boys, Dean and Cole. Thanks again guys! More pictures to come.

A year ago

A year ago my life changed forever.

A year ago I became a mother.

A year ago I had just gotten out of surgery and was holding my newborn daughter for the first time.

A year ago I fell in love...

with this girl.

Now she's a year old! She's walking, running, climbing, and into everything. She laughs and plays, talks and sings. She gives hugs and kisses. She's adorable, and we love her so much!


Her latest developments:

She's getting 2 more teeth. A front top tooth and a top canine.
She can scoot down the stairs on her bum.
She can say "thank you". kinda.
She loves to bring me things.

She is weaned!
She dances.


I love this girl with all my heart. This year has been the best of my life, and I can't believe how quickly it flew by.

Kate's Birthday Party!

Although Kate's real birthday isn't until the 28th, we had her birthday party today. Everybody was there (except Uncle Jaron), even Uncle Andy flew in from Utah to attend. We had a delicious lunch of pizza and soda, opened presents, and then had cake and ice cream. It was so fun and I just can't believe my baby is (almost) one!! Kate got blocks from Aunt Bethany and cousin Maddock, a pool toy from Aunt Sherice and Uncle Scott, a church bag filled with quiet books from Grandma Foree, a fisher-price lawn mower from Mom and Dad, and a super cute outfit and a play car from Grandpa and Grandma Watson.










Maddock loved pushing Kate in her car! He kept yelling "Turn the wheel Kate! 'Mon turn the wheel!"

This is the cake I made her. So cute right?





I think she liked it...

It was a fantastic day. Thank you so so much to everyone who came. We had a great time and Kate loves all her presents! You guys are the greatest!

Cousins

This is Maddock

This is Jaylee
Get them together with Kate, and you've got hours of fun!

Today they came over, and we played outside in the weeds and rocks.

Kate was most interested in eating the rocks and dirt. Yum!"Here Jaylee, it's good. Try it!"
Kate sure does love her cousins. We can't wait for the next one to arrive!

Round Two (it's pretty boring really...)

Today I spent the majority of my day cleaning. I have my brother coming into town Thursday, and the rest of my family on Saturday. Everyone is coming to celebrate Kate's birthday with us, and then are all going to stay at my house that night. So- I've been trying my hardest to keep on top of everything. But, I did make some time to play with my camera today. Maybe a little too much time. Oh well. I read a ton of stuff online all about aperture, shutter speed, white balance, ISO...there's so much to learn. So, here's round two of practice shots with my camera. I should probably start a separate blog for this shouldn't I? For all those not completely bored by pictures of Kate, read on.

I did as my friend Erin suggested and started shooting in RAW format. This is helpful! The only thing I don't like is that my version of photoshop is too old (we still have just CS) to handle RAW files. So after I edit them a little in my software that came with my camera, I have to convert them back into JPEG before opening them in Photoshop. I'm not sure if that's hindering me.


I tried really hard to grasp the concept of correct exposure while shooting in manual mode today. I think I'm starting to understand it. Kinda. I'll definitely be practicing this more. One major "oops" for today was that I set my ISO way too high. Before I went outside, I was trying to take some indoor photos (not so good) and I forgot so reset it. So all my pics are too grainy. Lesson learned.

Well, I hope this post didn't bore everyone to pieces. And as always, I save my favorite for last...