Jenna's ONE!

 

Jenna turned one today! Can you believe it? Because I can't. I think about what was going on one year ago today. It started out pretty much like any other and ended with me listening to her heart beat in a hospital nursery in Roosevelt, Utah. What? As the great Ferris Bueller once said, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." But I regress...

We had the big blow out in San Diego as you can read about here. But we thought we would do a much scaled down version at home on her actual birthday. We had our local nearest and dearest join us and Casey's mom came down from SLC. It was a great time. Pretty laid back and full of cute. My dear friend Heather Kearl made Jenna not one but two AMAZING cakes. She is so talented. I printed 24 8x10's; two copies of one picture of each month she has been alive, and hung them all over the room. That's really as crazy as I got. And for those that know me, know that the was a feat in and of itself. Restraining my ever present need to over do it. What can I say, it's my mother in me. It was a genuinely wonderful night.

We are so very blessed to be surrounded by loved ones though living away from both of our families. We will forever be grateful for the Freis, Breinholts, Berrys, Mitchells, Henries, Kearls, etc. Can't believe how lucky we have gotten in the friend department. Thank you all for you unconditional love and support! 

Thought you might enjoy the invite too.

Courtney's visit

Part of our open adoption agreement was that Courtney got to see Jenna once a year. So she came to St. George this week with her Grandparents, George and Sheila to visit Jenna for her first birthday. It's been three days of visits. We met them for dinner on Monday night. It really did go as well as it could have. It feels like an awkward situation for everyone involved. You can see how much love Courtney has for Jenna but it sometimes felt like she was being cautious either because she didn't want to over step or because she was protecting herself. Jenna is quickly getting the stranger danger thing so she was very hesitant to go to Courtney. It got better as the night went on though.

Yesterday, Jenna's actual birthday, we met them at the park and had a picnic. Courtney got to play with Jenna on the playground and Jenna was a much more comfortable with her. Courtney and George & Sheila each gave Jenna some birthday presents. It was nice that they got to see her unwrap them. I gave Courtney a custom frame with her and Jenna's name on it so that she could put a picture of the two of them in it when they get home.

She wants the camera so bad! It's hard to get a picture of her any more where she isn't pointing at the camera and whining!

Then this morning we joined them for breakfast on their way back out of town. Each meeting with them I am struck with what kind people they are. Just genuine, good, humble folks. Jenna had a good ole time playing with George's ice and sitting with Courtney. It was a bit killer when it was time to say our goodbyes. Everyone but me (how the hell that worked out I don't know, because I am a cry-baby) started crying, including Casey. I was reminded once again, not that I really need a reminder, just how grateful I am every day for the sacrifice that both Courtney AND her family have made in allowing Casey and I to raise Jenna. We just feel so blessed.

Cooper vs Jenna 3

Aren't they the cutest? Jenna still gets a bit overwhelmed by Cooper when we try to take these shots, but we usually come out with at least one good one. Can you believe how big they are getting?

Staycation...Day Five and Six (Birthday Party)

Day five wasn't much a anything. Lots of recovery from the ripping and lots of prep work for Cooper and Jenna's first birthday party. As my mother pointed out, Sara and I plan parties like we lived in Beverly Hills. In other words we have a hard time reigning it in. We bought hay bales and corn stocks and set up a photo booth area so that as each guest arrived we took their picture. We had close to 50 craft pumpkins that we blinged out with gems. And close to 100 cut out pumpkins just hanging all over the walls. To eat we had butternut squash ravioli and lasagna, salad, and pumpkin spice cupcakes. It was so much fun! Cooper downed his cupcake in about 2 minutes. Jenna took her time but still ended up a bit of a mess. We had too many people to name that came and joined us in celebrating out little ones. What an amazing feeling, being surrounded by so much love. It was an incredible night. 

Note: The fabulous Kim Henrie made Jenna's skirt and bow. You can purchase her bows here. Here is the invite to the party...so that the pumpkins make a little more sense.

Staycation...Day Four (Thanksgiving)

On day four of our staycation we celebrated Thanksgiving with my side of the family. Because Casey and I have never lived in the same city (let alone state) as both of our families, we have always rotated holidays. So if we do Thanksgiving with his family, we do Christmas with mine. Then the next year we swap, Thanksgiving with mine, Christmas with his. It's been a really great system up until now. With Jenna in the picture I don't know how much longer we are going to be willing to travel for every single holiday but I'm sure that we'll go for a little while longer. All that being said, this year we are with Casey's family for Thanksgiving so we celebrated with my family while we were down there. We had a pretty big group this time. We had my Dad and Holly, my Dad's Aunt Betty Lee (married to my now deceased Dad's maternal Uncle Donald) and his cousin Linda Lee, my Dad's sister Lisa, Lisa's son JD, his wife Jen and son Ben, Lisa's son Nathan, my Mom and Bob, Chris' parents Padre and Vicki Quarders, and my whole immediate family, plus Megan's boyfriend, Joey. All in I think we were 26 strong. It was a great night. We have a family tradition to go around the room and say what we are grateful for each year. It's one of my favorite holiday traditions of any holiday. My husband, as always, was articulate and funny. I just adore that man.

Staycation...Day Three (Sea World)

We hit Sea World today for day three. My very first job was at Sea World. I worked in Shamu stadium, the Ski stadium, and sold fish at the dolphin exhibit. Other than scrubbing bird crap off the ground, it wasn't a bad job. It was just for a summer and most of my friends had jobs there as well. So we all got in free. Even when we weren't working there it felt like we spent most of our free time there. My point of telling you all of that is this, Sea World seemed much small a half of a lifetime later. It was still a good time. We had my sister Jose (Megan) and her daughter join us. As well as Sara's best friend, Heidi Schwendinger and her two girls. We only went to one show. It was the dolphin show and it was AWFUL! We barely sat through it. It seemed like it was more about the acrobat performers vs the animals. Just really bad. We did have a good time in the new polar bear exhibit, penguins, and aquarium. But the hit of the day had to be feeding the sting rays. Even Jenna did it. It is the strangest sensation because their mouths are on the bottom and they sort of suck the fish out of your hand. Pretty sure Jenna would have jumped right in and gone swimming with them if I had let her. We were all having such a good time doing that we didn't get very many pictures. Oh well, great memory nonetheless.

Staycation...Day Two (Disneyland)

For day two at the big D, my Dad and his wife, Holly joined us. It was another fabulous day. These weather both days was great, the lines were not bad at all, and the kids once again were amazing. They were just starting to put out all their Christmas decor and it was so fun to see it all up. It was my first time that I can remember being able to see the winter decorations up. Jenna was especially intrigued by The Nightmare Before Christmas decorations they had in the Haunted Mansion. I also wanted to share the fabulous video of Chloe trying to figure out who's castle is in Disneyland. She starts out emphatically knowing it is hers and by the end of the video it really everyone's. So cute!

Staycation...Day One (Disneyland)

I realize that much to my disappointment, I do not still live in San Diego. But we are down there often enough that when my sister, Sara proposes a "staycation" I know she mean California. For our vacation this year we hit Disneyland, Sea World, have the Malan Thanksgiving, and ended the week with the joint first birthday party for Cooper and Jenna. There were WAY too many pictures to try and post them individually. I thew a couple collages together and I hope you can see the pics okay. So without further adieu I give you, our staycation:

My mom and her friend, Sara, as well as Chris' mom joined us for the first day at Disneyland. I must say, I LOVE Disneyland. Jenna had a pretty good time as well. We wore out all of the kids as you can tell from the sleeping stroller shots. I think the Winnie the Pool ride was Jenna's favorite. She also really liked to dance to the Pirates of Caribbean music. As the video shows...

Looking forward to day two tomorrow!

Wordless Wednesday

Photos by Kimberly Henrie Photography

We Voted!

I figure it's never too early to teach our child to get involved! So my plan is to take her with my every time I vote. Though it's true that a little piece of me will die inside if she ever decides to vote Republican, I mostly just want to make sure she's a productive member of society. So let the tradition begin. She was less than enthusiastic about it, as you can see...