2011 Family Picture

I enjoy pictures!  They are one of my favorite things - especially pictures of our sweet girls where their personalities shine through!  We had a family picture taken at a photo studio once and we decided that was not for us.  It was such an ordeal with clothing just right and hands placed here and tilt your head this awkward way and smile....not to mention the tears - from the kids too!  j/k!
Anyway, while those are professional and beautifully done, we would rather have real life not to mention save the $$~
Here is our 2011 Family Portrait...complete with real life and tons of personality...We managed to capture Silver's "I think I'll sit here for 2 more seconds" look complete with  her book...ready, get set GO!.  Captured River's sweetness and sweet tooth with her special sucker from church.  Summer's in Mommy's arms, her favorite place.  Colt's encircling all of us, and is wearing his tie that he is in most every day.  I love that it's not perfect, just precious to me!
True snapshot in time. 
There's a lot of love in those eyes!

Great Times!

Here's a bunch of random pics of our happenings recently:

 We like to borrow the puppies from Paca. 

The Girls love to play with them.

And I love to return them home again :)

 

 Off to the Mailbox!

 Silver's security blanket:  Her Nukies.  Lately, she has taken to having 3 with her.  She needs one to suck on and one or two to hold.  I usually give them to her only at nap time and bed time.  But on sick days or days when extra comfort is needed, she gets them for a while.  On our trip back from up North last weekend, we were stuck in the truck for 8 hours and she needed some extra help.  She would calm down when she had 2 nukies :)

 I love this picture of Silver in blue on the blue couch.

 River takes good care of Silver.

For Halloween, River painted a butterfly on my hand.  I thought it was really good for a 4 year old!

My idea of a perfect day:  Yesterday in a nutshell:

Well, for the perfect day, it really starts the night before.  Into bed at a good time to rest deeply with minimal interruptions in the night.  Wake up before the girls and read scriptures before they wake up.  River says in her prayer "please bless my mom to not yell."  With that start to the day I was set to face any trials of the day.  Colt got home early! (7:00) for Family Night.  It was a great time of family togetherness over dinner, wrestling and a short lesson about what we are most thankful for.  Counting your Blessings helps put everything in perspective.  ALL we have and ALL the blessings we enjoy are from the Lord.  We had a turkey cutout and wrote on his feathers things we were grateful for:  Some of the feathers on the turkey:  Food, That we were safe while traveling in the snow and ice, All of God's Love and Blessings, Daddy - that he provides for us and is a good leader of our home, that we got new tires for the truck after the big ice storm, That we are usually so healthy and have shots to keep us healthy, that we are safe, Music and songs that teach us about Jesus, being happy and the gospel, Mommy, that she makes good food, that we got new carpet in our house, and that River, Silver and Summer are here with us, a good marriage, a happy home, and peace.  Truly Blessed indeed! 

This was followed by having a horsey (Daddy's back) ride into their bedroom to deposit them on their beds after a family prayer.  Got into bed early again, for a good night's sleep.  Sleep, scriptures, perspective, prayer, good attitude, and family time...my idea of a great day!  Oh yes, and River's prayer helped, no yelling here today :)  

River's comment this morning:  "Mom, I can't wait to grow up and be a Mom!"  Mom:  Why's that?  River:  Because there are so many great things to teach your kids!!"  Yes, I have a Great Job!!

Apricot, Peach, Berry Delish!

We LOVE Smoothies!

I did a blog post recently about Icees and Slushies - these are frozen juice, but a Smoothie is a creation indeed!

 River and Silver are my big helpers to create our smoothie masterpieces!

 Add any fruit:  Some ideas:  Peaches, Apricots, Pears, Strawberries, Blueberries, Bananas, etc.

Add ice cubes, frozen fruit, Strawberry shake powder (Available at Costco "Breeza Brand" a big tub for $3), milk, yogurt or frozen juices like orange juice.

The possibilities are endless and delicious!!
They each turn out different and oh so yummy!

 My Omi (grandma) gave us a vita-mix for our wedding, and we use it ALL the time :)  It is fabulous to make shakes with - it really blends all the pieces up so finely.  Even the peach or apricot skins it cuts up so fine.

 We also love vegetables!

Have you heard of Bountiful Baskets.  This is seriously the best thing ever!

Every other week we get to pick up two large bags of veggies and fruit for $15. 

http://bountifulbaskets.org/

It has a large variety of different fruits and vegetables.

They also include ones that I don't buy regularly, so we have quite a bit more variety in our diet these days - yams, artichokes, pomegranates, pineapple, berries, etc. 
The girls go with me on Saturday mornings to go pick up our healthy stuff - they tell me the colors and what it is called as we gently (sometimes) put it in our bags.

It is available all over the Western States.  Fabulous!

 My cooking friends

 Our Day of Tears:

     When onions were on the shopping list Colt brought me home a 25 lb bag of onions. WoW - maybe I may need to be more specific of what I had in mind on those shopping lists! The next day my project was to dice and get all the onions in the freezer. Now, I love onions, but I have a hard time peeling and cutting them up. I cry buckets of tears for each onion. I couldn't get through an onion before tears were flowing too quickly and I'd have to step away. Between my tears, Silver's tears, Summer's tears, and countless interruptions.....it was a long morning. After 30 onions I called it quits until nap time. To finish up the bag was 33 more onions - I didn't shed a tear. Either I was completely out of tears, or the open window blowing cold fresh air against my eyeballs was a wonder! We now have a freezer full of chopped onions :)

Another of my favorite things is scents.  We have a scent warmer that heats up wax to release the scent.  Think a scented candle without the fire.  Here are the girls finding their favorite scent:

Some better than others, heh?

River found a keeper!

Oh, my precious girls! 

You're growing up so fast.

7 Years Ago Today

Colt and I met 9/11/03. Here it is 9/11/10. 7 years!!

     We met at BYU's TooTall Club. Girls have to be at least 5'10" and guys need to be 6'4" or taller. I got a newsletter welcoming me to BYU and one of the articles was about the great clubs available. There was a little write-up of the TooTall Club, and I immediately knew this was a club for me! I looked them up the first week of school, and went to the opening social.
     Colt had been told about the club for quite a while, and decided to go to the opening social as well. When he walked in there were 4 girls to every guy, and he says, "This is the Club for Me!" I noticed Colt because he came in late (Colt is definitely one who runs on his own schedule :) and during the first part of the club, we sat around and discussed what kind of activities we would enjoy doing. Colt's suggestion: "This Club has Co-Ed Volleyball or Basketball written all over it!"

     As Colt was looking around the room, he noticed my Roper Boots sticking out and thought "That's interesting, you don't see boots all the time on campus." He follows the boots up and says "Now, That's Really Interesting!" :)
     I was wearing boots because I was going to the Western Swing Dance following the TooTall Club. In fact, the dance had already started, so after browsing at the pot-luck table, I started making my way to the door.

Little did I know that Colt had his eye on me and was trying to intercept me, but I went down the other side of the table. He quickly made his way down that side of the table and says to me "You're wearing Roper Boots" Why Yes! I thought, this one is observant. After talking for awhile, he invited my fly fishing that Saturday (We met on a Thursday). When Colt went home that night, he flopped down on the couch and said to his roommate Mana, "I so met a girl I could marry today." Mana knew he was a gonner, 'cause he had never acted like that before. The next day (Friday) Colt was tying some flies to go fishing with and Mana suggested that he call me to come over and tie flies. Colt said he didn't want to scare me off because he had just met me yesterday and was going on a date tomorrow. After a few more "you gotta call her" s from Mana - and setting the phone down right next to him, Colt called me. I wasn't home at the time, so he left a message. When I called him back, Mana answered the phone. I thought it was a really good sign that he knew everything about me: That I had served my mission in Croatia, what I was studying, where I grew up...etc.
We had a good 'ol chat before Mana finally gave the phone to Colt :)
    

     I went over to his apartment that night and tied flies. One of the things I really enjoyed while dating Colt was the spirit in his apartment. All of his roommates were top-notch guys and you could tell they got along really well and there was a lot of peace there. Colt always put me at ease - I could always be myself around him and I always felt peace.

     We went fishing bright and early Saturday morning. Colt had bought an extra set of waders for our date and a basket for our lunch. He brought Sun Chips (which will always remind me of Colt) and green peppers. Little did he know he scored some major points with the green peppers - they remind me of my Grandpa picking peppers early in the morning with him and eating them in the field. Crispy, cool goodness.
     We spent quite a lot of time together after that. The next Tuesday we played racquetball together - Colt's roommate Andres passed by as we were sitting on a bench after playing. After passing us on the same bench a couple of hours later...he remarked that things must be going well for us :) I remember we sat and talked a lot. We really got to know each other and what we thought about things.
     That Thursday I invited Colt to a symphony and on Sunday we went to a fireside together. My roommate would say "you can't do that" or "it'll scare him off" or "no way!! That is So corny!" I always told her, this is me...if he gets scared off then he's not the one for me. I wanted him to know the real me.
     We rarely watched movies - in fact, I'm not sure we ever watched a movie while we were dating. We preferred to talk and do things together.

         One date early on was a moment in time I'll always remember.  Colt had organized a group date with his roommates for a group of us to go up the canyon and play ultimate Frisbee, cook tin-foil dinners, etc.  I was really impressed with his organizing the group date and his energy.  He was always upbeat and cheerful.  He has a great talent that everyone around him feels special and that they are of value to him.  He is a natural leader and people tend to look to him as the leader of a group.  He was turning the tin-foil dinners and I had the thought that I would marry Colt and I could see him doing Family Home Evenings with our family around...up the canyon with a fire, cooking tin-foil dinners.  We now have a canyon up behind our house and we go up there for Family Nights...cooking smores and having adventures up the canyon. 

   Colt knew early on that I was the one for him.  It took me a while longer to figure it out, but once we knew, there was no looking back.  For how indecisive both of us are, it's amazing how easy a decision it was to get married, one of the easiest of our lives.  We joke now that some things (of less eternal consequence) are so much harder to decide on than it was to decide to get married.

I came down to Arizona to meet Colt's family and go hunting with them in October of 2003.  We had a nice 5 hour drive back and Colt says to me:  "I'm not going anywhere"  I knew he'd let me take the time I needed to to decide.  It's a saying in our home today:  "I'm not going anywhere"  When we were dating he also said to me:  "Eternity doesn't seem so long now"  It's been a very very good thing to be married to Colt.

     I'm reminded of the Brad Paisley song "Then" about how love grows and matures through time.  "And I thought I loved you then."  Love is like a tree - it was always a tree and will always be a tree, but it grows, and over the years can become much bigger, more rich and deep.  Like a tree, love is a living thing that needs to be nurtured and taken care of. 

 

      This picture makes me laugh.  Colt and I enjoy eating guacamole while playing cards after the kids are put to bed.  This sums up our relationship.  Completely different, yet enough of the same to work it out.  Mine is the destroyed avocado on the left, Colt's is the pristine one on the right.  We both made guacamole how we liked it, in the end it didn't really matter how it was done, just that it got done.  We had a good laugh about how different we are, and that the differences help us see life another way, and that is good.

     We joke that Colt's a girl magnet. When he comes home at the end of the day he has 4 girls surrounding him, completely in love with him.

Colt still enjoys fly fishin'!  He's been able to get out this year more than in the past. 

Colt:  Husband, Father, Adventurer, Provider, Head of our Home.

Karin:  Wife, Mother, Homemaker, Heart of our Home

(this is the day before our baby was born).

 7 years  *  3 girls  *  5 hearts knit together in love.

D&C 42:45  Thou shalt live together in love

Welcome to Our Family Precious Baby!

Precious Baby Girl #3 is Here!

We have a lot of great name options, but none settled on for sure yet :)

She has such a sweet and very mellow personality. 

Sunday August 29th 2010  *  5:53 pm

6 lbs 12 oz   *   20 1/8 inches long

 

 River and Silver can't get enough of their baby. 

Wherever the baby is, that's where they want to be too. 

  

  

 

 I hold Silver and the baby on my lap when Silver gets a turn to hold her.  Silver loves to point out all the baby's parts:  hair, hands, toesies - nose, eyes, mouth - we've had a lot of fun.

We decided to have our baby at home.  What a beautiful experience that was!!

Here are a series of pictures about an hour after she was born when River and Silver got to come over and meet their sister, pick out her 1st outfit and dress her for the first time.  I love their facial expressions here, such love and acceptance!  It was so nice to be at home in our comfortable bed afterwards.

 

Snapshot:

Baby:  1 hour old

Silver:  20 months

River:  50 months (4 years)

Sunday morning when I was in early labor I told River that I thought the baby would come today. She says "Nu-uh MOM! It can't come yet!! Our calendar isn't finished yet." We had been marking off the days with stickers until our baby would join our family - we still had 2 squares to go yet!

Silver kept bringing her baby more blankets to keep warm :)

 

 

 

 

I told Colt if there was one word that summed everything up for me it was Content.

I am happy and content in my fabulous role as wife and mother.

This scripture makes me smile:  4th Nephi 1:16  "And surely there could not be a happier people among all the people who had been created by the hand of God."

 

Welcome to our Family - Precious Little One