Our Stick Family

My Stick Family from WiddlyTinks.com

Grateful

Today I am grateful for eternal families. A dear friend of ours recently lost their beautiful baby girl and their testimony of eternal families has resonated in my head every day since. My sweet Camilla is so tender and caring. She has taken up stroking our faces with the back of her hands when we are doing the bedtime routine. I seriously almost cry every time. In fact, just now I was looking at pictures on the camera and she saw a picture of him on the screen so she said, "Oh, Ume (Liam)" and then she kissed and hugged the screen. It was so darling. :-) I love Liam's sweet smile and loving eyes. What great kids I have - we are so blessed here in our home. As crazy as life gets - it's always good to remember how blessed our little family is (especially the parents of this family).

Welcome little Liam

September 12, 2011 - after 62 hours of labor (or labour as they say here in Canada) - our beautiful little boy was born. I actually thought I was dying - it turns out I wasn't - and the hard labor happened so quickly that I didn't even have time to get meds - which I for SURE wanted by then. But too bad for me. He came at 11:54 pm which is kind of fun because he shares the same birthday with my Grandpa (Billy) and both of their names are derivatives of William. So - that is pretty fun. My mom was pretty excited about that for sure. :-) He was colicky and that made for many sleepless nights but finally after 3 months he has begun sleeping better, gained weight and smiles all the time!

He loves to cuddle and is fine as long as he is near someone. He is definitely an observant little man and we are LOVING getting to know him more and more. I can't wait until the two of them can play together daily. Although Camilla tries even now - my favorite is her dancing with him. She'll reach over and grab his hand and swing it to the music while she bobs next to him. It's so cute. :-)

Change of Title...

Well, I suppose now that our newest addition is FOUR and a HALF MONTHS OLD - I should change the title to our blog. Yes, I realize I never blog - in fact, Kody came home the other day and said to me - "you should work on our blog more." Hmmmm....maybe you should work on it. :-) I do plan on keeping up with us more though. I promise. Again. :-)

And...we're back.

Picture this...5 weeks of vacation: 4 states, 2 countries, 2 family reunions, 1 wedding, and lots of parties...

We're tired. We just returned from our extremely long family vacation, of which we were not all together for all of it.

Camilla & I flew out to Utah alone mid-July and immediately left the next morning (less than like 9 hours later) for a family reunion in Colorado. I would like to add that our baby is AMAZING! She never cried on the plane - just played happily in my lap or on the floor in front of me (I had a bulkhead seat) and THEN she only cried the last 30 minutes of a 12-hour drive to CO (I was crying too so I can understand why she did). 2 days of travel and she only complained for 30 minutes...Incredible.

We had tons of fun with my family...first we got to see my sister Malia & her family in Colorado Springs and it was GREAT! I was so excited that they got to meet Camilla & spend some time with their first cousin on their mom's side of the family. I can't wait for Camilla to be a little older so she can consciously interact with them. ;-)

Then we headed over to the family reunion in Pagosa Springs...lets just say I found a great deal for our housing (rented a condo) online and mom and I thought it wasn't real when we got there...almost turned to drinking from the bar beside the rental company out of relief when we finally found the place! ;-) The reunion was great and we are all looking forward to the next one in Missouri.

When we got home it was WEDDING TIME! Mom, Camilla & I were busy busy busy with wedding chores and it was a beautiful wedding. Tim & Tabitha looked great and the reception was a lot of fun. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and I am so glad that Kody & I were able to be there for it.

Saturday we headed up to Heber, UT to go down the river with our friends Brad & Elly and loved every second of it.

Monday we got to go to BYU and see all our friends in the Microbiology Department - thank you to all who were able to come and reconnect. We were so glad to talk and have you meet our daughter...we forgot to take a picture though. ;-(

Tuesday morning we headed up to MT for the Johnson Family Reunion. We rented a car to get up there and were given a Prius. Ummm...Kody LOVED that car...he had to report to me every time the car shut-off and charged the engine or every time he backed up he would look at the camera that came on to show you behind your vehicle instead of looking in the mirrors. It was really funny. It got GREAT gas mileage, that was my favorite part. We spent the week with his family, jumping off cliffs (that's right - I did it!!!!), swinging from ropes (yep, did that too!), going on 10K hikes that rose in 1000 ft in elevation (yep...me) and just having a good time and not showering (that part was not so good). Camilla did great. We jet skied, boated and swam. The lake was super warm so even Camilla got in the water for a little.

Then we continued on up to Barnwell, Alberta and hung with his family for the week. His brother came home the next Wednesday from his mission in NM so we were super excited to be home for that. Everyone loved seeing Camilla and playing with her. By the way - again, no crying on the way up to MT. She woke up once for food. The same with the drive back down. She is simply amazing...there is no way around it. And we don't know why...we take no credit.

Then Kody flew back on his own that next Monday afternoon and Camilla & I stayed for a week. It was nice to just spend time with my family and watch my siblings play with her. She started chatting up a storm while we were there and that kept all of us entertained.

While we loved our vacation, we loved coming home too. And today, I taught my very first voice student. I've FINALLY decided to start teaching voice lessons. I was so nervous that I didn't sleep for like 2 days and woke up stressed. I am talking the minute I opened my eyes, stress. It went pretty good (at least I think it did) so that is a little encouraging. I still have a lot to learn about teaching...just because I can sing it doesn't mean I can teach someone else to sing it. But...the threat of being separated from my child by needing to get a different part-time job was strong enough to get me to face my fears. So, here's hoping (my fingers are being crossed). If you know of anyone wanting to start voice lessons in New Haven..send them my way! ;-)

Pathetic...that's me (this is Connie)

Ok - I know that I have been blogging for a while - but obviously "a while" does not translate into "a lot" because I JUST found out how that people leave comments on my blog. So - to all of you who have left a comment and I never responded or said anything, thank you! I didn't even know you had left one until now! ;-) Sad...

(quite frankly - I don't know if you can respond to people that have commented or not...)

Girlfriend Giggles

On May 28, Camilla laughed at me for the very first time - and she has just been laughing ever since. Our friends, Jay & Becca, came over and brought their daughter, Laura, who is just 11 days older than Camilla. They sat on the couch next to each other and had a grand old time...it was SO CUTE watching them play together! Look at all those chubby cheeks to squeeze!