2 year update

Now that we are trying to adopt again, I realized I have completely abandoned our adoption blog.  Here in one post I'm going to try to give you a brief summary of what the last 2 years of our life has been and then resume my once a month posting.  In July of 2010 we met Mia's wonderful birth mom.  She has been such a blessing in our lives and she is such a fun spirited girl.  We got to know her over 8 weeks and then on September 15, 2010 our sweet daughter Mia was born.  We were able to see her that night and bring her home 2 days later.

 Mia's first night at home.

 We had lots of firsts that fall...First walk

 First bath

For Halloween Mia was a lady bug.

And we were her bug catchers.

 We had our first Thanksgiving as a family at home.  Mia is definitely Thankful for Grandma.

We took Mia to temple square to see the lights. She stayed toasty warm zipped up in Mom's coat.  She kept mom toasty warm too.

 Mia and her Christmas stocking that Santa filled with all kinds of goodies.

 Mia wasn't too impressed with Santa, but at least she wasn't screaming.

 All ready for church Christmas Sunday...still not real impressed.

 Since all of Monty's family was in town for Christmas we did family pictures.  As you can tell they are big Real Salt Lake soccer fans.

Decorating Mia's room.

We celebrated Monty's 30th birthday

And Mia grew and grew

We had 1st foods. She was unsure at 1st but that didn't last long.

When Mia was 5 months old we went to Hawaii with Stephanie's family.

We got an umbrella for Mia which was great since she spent a lot of time sleeping on the beach.

 Mia slept in Monty's suitcase as her crib.  It looked a little funny but worked really well, and of course her dog Violet went to Hawaii with us.

 Mia and Grandpa at the luau.

 Some days you just feel crabby right?

 Our Hawaiian Princess

 The zip lining crew.  Grandma is afraid of heights and Mia was too little (obviously) so they are missing from the picture.

 We had a great time in Hawaii and Mia was really good.  It helped that there were a lot of people to play with her.

On her 6 month birthday Mia say alone for the 1st time.

 The end of March we went to court to finalize Mia's adoption.

 Then the beginning of April we took Mia to the Bountiful Temple and were sealed as a family.  It was a blizzard that day so our only pictures were inside.

Mia has lots of attitude and she isn't afraid to show it.

 For Easter we colored eggs, Mia mostly watched.

 The Easter bunny brought Mia stuff to start doing her hair, her first toothbrush, and all kinds of fun stuff.

Mia and her crazy hair.

 Summer brought lots of playing outside.

Popsicles.

 The park.

Playing with friends.

 The 4th of July

 Crawling

 Swimming

And cruising

 

In August of 2011 we went to Mesa Verde, Colorado and did some hiking and playing.  Mia LOVED her backpack and still does to this day.

 Chimney Rock

 The cliff dwellings

 Mom's turn at packing

The big climbs didn't stop us.

 Nor did a little rain.

 Swimming in the pool

 Old Hundred Gold Mine

 The museum

 And the biggest bath tub we've ever seen.

Labor Day weekend we got to meet cousin Khloe for the 1st time.

 Stephanie's Family

 Just too cute

 September also brought Mia's 1st Birthday and with that came 2 parties...one with her birth mom's family and one with all our extended family.

 One chocolate cake.

 One white cake.

And one cup cake so she didn't have to share.

 Mia's favorite part of the day was her balloons.

 Opening presents.

 Taking off with her bus.

Just after Mia's birthday we did family pictures and they turned out really good.

 

 

October 10th Mia stood alone for the first time and then took her first steps.

 Baby proofing stepped up big time.

 For Halloween Mia had two costumes in 2011.  She was Boo from Monsters Inc.

 And a Utah State cheerleader.

 Her Nana also got her a pumpkin dress for Sunday.

 November brought our first snow storm and also Mia's first snow day.

 She enjoyed it for a little bit.

Thanksgiving was spent with Monty's family.  Mia liked dessert and playing with cousins the most.

 December brought Santa again...at least she was awake this time.

 The Christmas Village (we forgot to take the camera when we went to Temple Square).

And Christmas in Idaho with Stephanie's family.  Mia really like the stockings at Grandma's

Checking out what Santa brought.

 Our family Christmas morning.

In the new year of 2012 Mia worked more on learning to feed herself...

 With lots of messes.

 The Super Bowl (bet you can't guess what team we were rooting for?)

 More messes.

 Hot tubbing with Grandma

 Playing with Mom's slippers...

 And Dad's hats.

In February Grandma wanted some Mia time so we let Mia stay at Grandma's for the weekend and we went snowmobiling in West Yellowstone.

 They got lots of snow while we were there.

 Our 2nd floor balcony was almost at snow level.

Once spring came we were able to start heading back to the park again. 

This past Easter Mia was old enough to help (if you call it that) color eggs.

 Had her first Easter egg hunt.

 And had a beautiful Easter dress.

We also got to spend some time in Idaho this spring with Stephanie's family.  Grandma loves her girls.

 We got to pet horses at the neighbor's house.

 Mia wanted to drive Grandpa's lawn mower.

 Bouncing on the tramp was lots of fun.

 Since cousin Khloe was using the baby swing Mia had to use the big kid swing and did great with it!

In May we celebrated our 5 year anniversary.  Grandma came down from Idaho to spend the night with Mia and we spent the night in Salt Lake.  We went shopping at City Creek.

 Had dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant.

Then in the morning we went paragliding.

 Stephanie flying away

 And Monty...I think...

Mia likes to hang out while Monty does yard work.

 Relaxing while the fence was going in.

 Mia also got a tricycle this summer.  She's getting better at riding it as summer has progressed.

 Mia is very much a Daddy's girl.

 Spaghetti anyone?

 Peak-a-boo

 Playing the piano with cousin Isabella was lots of fun.

Mia may be slightly obsessed with Stephanie's fuzzy socks as well as any kind of shoes, including boots that are too small.

 The 24th of July is always a big party with Monty's family.  Not only is it Pioneer day, it is also Monty's dad's birthday.  This year we had a water fight.

 Played in the pool

 And of course had fireworks.  Mia was the youngest cousin and the only one not scared of the fireworks.

  The end of July Mia and Monty got to go swimming at Uncle Sam's.

 Mia had a great time and loves the little bit of freedom that her new puddle jumper gives her.

And that brings us to the end of August 2012 and to the end of the story of 2 years of our lives.  Now back to the monthly updates.







August

So for whatever reason I can't load pictures onto blogger. I don't know if its blogger, my pictures, or my computer but it's just not working so I'll have to give an update without pictures.
Life has been good and busy around our house. Monty finally ordered his flag pole and got it all installed and the flower bed put in around it. It is still missing flowers but looks really good. We have spent a lot of time outside lately. We went on a few picnics, ate lots of Popsicles on the porch, and went on a few walks. I have to say I'm a little sad that September is here because I know cold weather is just around the corner.
We went up to Logan a couple weeks ago to get everything situated for Monty for school. He is starting his MBA next week. He's a Utah State student but taking classes at Weber State. It works well because he can still say he is an Aggie but classes are much closer to home.
Hopefully I can figure out how to get pictures up so by next month our update is a little more entertaining. We even got a new camera so that will be fun too.

July

OK so I know July isn't over yet but I am working a couple night shifts this week and it's just easy to update the blog in the middle of the night during downtime, especially know that I have a working computer and don't have to share with Monty. Besides, we don't have any big plans for the next couple days so I figured this would work.
July was a fun month with lots of soccer and fire works. We went to the Real Salt Lake game July 2nd and they had fire works after the game. We also won, and scored 3 goals which mean free burger king breakfast. When they were handing out the coupons they gave us a couple extra so we've gotten a couple free breakfasts. Sadly, the camera was dead so I have no pictures from that game.
On the 23rd we spent the night at Monty's parents and did fireworks in the backyard with Monty's 3 nieces. It was fun and they got all excited over the fireworks and were wanting to help. Each took their turn lighting a firework then running like mad to get away from it. Dummy me forgot we brought the camera so I didn't get any fun pictures of that night. For the 24th of July we also went a soccer game and they had more fireworks.
Us at the game The big RSL flag

The madness on the field before the fireworks. We chose to stay in our seats.

FIREWORKS!!

So these are just a series of what I thought was rather cool pictures. We were sitting out on our porch the other evening and the moon started to crest over the mountain. It looked really cool so I ran inside to grab the camera. It didn't take long at all for it to rise and was already more than a crest by the time I made it back outside.

August is going to bring some more yard work. Monty finally ordered his flag so we'll be putting in the flag pole and finishing that flower bed soon. Because of how schedules worked out for August, I'm working every Saturday so we won't get a camping trip in but hopefully we'll get another one in in September before it gets cold. I'm done with cold weather camping.

June

June brought warmer weather and with that came our first camping trip of what will hopefully be many this summer. Other than the fact we froze our tails off it was a good trip. We just went up Ogden Canyon and found a nice little campground and a quite spot by the river. The weather was nice and sunny. It was a very cold and damp night though. We had camp broken down and were headed home by 7:30am. We spent the afternoon relaxing and just hanging out. Monty decided to soak his feet in the river but the water was too cold for me.

I found a make-shift fishing pole in the bushes so I tried my hand at fishing. I didn't have any bait so I tried leaves and that didn't work. I tried putting dinner roll on the hook but it just floated away. I also tried Frito's but by the time it was soggy enough to put on the hook, it didn't last long before floating away either. If I'd caught a fish I don't quite know what I would have done with it. I used to go fishing with my dad as a kid but I have never gutted a fish in my life.

I have to say I am very proud of this fire. It was a one match fire and really kind of a work of art. We cooked dinner in dutch oven over the coals from the fire. We had chicken, bacon, and potatoes for dinner with peach cobbler for dessert. It was delicious.

Most of June was pretty low key for us. I'm excited our garden is growing nicely. It's been fun doing our own garden for the first time.

We have a couple little peppers on our pepper plant. We got starts from Monty's mom so we don't know what kind they are yet. We're guessing either cayenne or banana peppers, I'm hoping for banana.

The radishes are already ready to eat. This is a picture of the first harvest from our garden. Monty isn't really a fan of radishes but I have enjoyed them.

Who knows what July will bring. Hopefully we will be able to go camping again and spend some time with family. Until next month : )