:: A Little Overdue ::

Well now that it's almost three weeks past (insert sheepish grin here) I thought it's high time for a 13-month-birthday post on my girl........plus I'm starting to get threats from a certain grandparents across the water :)

Took these yesterday.....this girl l-o-v-e-s books. I'll notice she's gone really quiet and suddenly get worried as to what she's gotten into only to find her flipping through a book. I asked her to bring mamma her book and so she waddled down the hall, picked up her book and.....

What is she up to.....?

• she has gotten very confident walking now and can walk on uneven ground and up and down small steps and ledges.
• she has got four teeth (finally)
• she says mama, daddee, oma and opa, up,
• she just started shaking her head "no" the other day and will lean in if you ask for a kiss
• like I said above, she totally loves books. I keep them for her all over....we've started looking through a huge cardboard book with picture of everything under the sun and she can point out the kitties and puppies
• she weighs about 18 and a half pounds and still wears some of her 6 months clothes
• as always, she is a bubbly and friendly as can be and loves to wave at everybody
• she is always gabbing
• she loves her daddy and has a breakdown every morning when he goes to work
• I love her more everyday!
• she still naps twice a day. The second mid-afternoon nap is more of a quiet time in the crib but every once and a while she sleeps a little

Though it sometimes comes with it's frustrations, I am so happy to be at home with her. To watch her see the world and grow and change has been life changing for me!

This week has really really flown by and I'm away all day tomorrow shooting my dear dear friend's wedding....I promise to get some new photos of her up soon.

We love you Grammie and Grampy!

{ Introducing...... }

Well my friends.....it's finally done!

I am so thrilled to officially invite you to my new blog, Nohea Photography!

Along with this post (sorry), it's picture free but I wanted to share a little of my heart before starting to showcase weddings and portraits.

I would so appreciate it if you have friends or family looking for affordable photography, that you would pass along my name and website. And please leave me a comment so I know you "attended" my "Grand Opening" of sorts, I do love to hear from you.

On another note, I promise to get my act together and get something moderately interesting to read and look at up here and a post for Grammie and Grampy across the water on our princess :)

Blessings friends! Enjoy the warm weather while we have it!

Here I am again.

Took a few days off after finishing the 30 Days Of Blogging Challenge. I really enjoyed the the month of trying each day to come up with something new and different to blog about!

In other news, we had a major computer glitch on Friday and ended up with a new laptop on Saturday night. Certainly not the money I wanted to spend but it was high time and we are so far enjoying it.

I'll be sure to take some pictures once we get this up and running figured out.

Hope your weekend was blessed!

Confession Time (no laughing allowed)

So I mentioned in my post yesterday that I did a lion's share of reading while we were away. The first series I plowed through was the Cape Refuge Series by Terri Blackstock. I was a huge fan of her Restoration Series books and I was not disappointed with this one either. It follows the lives of a handful of residents on a small (fictional) island off the coast of Georgia and I really found myself hooked on the characters and relationships.Not knowing what I would do with myself without anything to read for the next week I asked a family friend (whose family was staying at the same campground) if she had any books she could lend me since they were going home. She had an Alton Gansky book she'd also borrowed from the church library and then mentioned in passing that she also had the first book of the Twilight series. I asked her for both just to have something to read.......I tried getting into the Gansky book for about an hour but it just wasn't grabbing me so I put it down and grabbed the Stephanie Meyer book hoping it would be somewhat good and that I could stretch it out for a couple days.

Ha.

I wish.

I was a goner for all 498 pages and when I finished the book about 18 hours after it was lent to me I knew I couldn't wait to read the rest. We rented the movie that night and watched it together and then I ended up finding the second installment, New Moon, at a local craft store on the island and finished all 563 pages in a little over a day. Then I hunted down the third book, Eclipse, at a different local book store and had those 629 pages gone on Thursday evening. I was going to try and wait until we got home to buy the fourth book, Breaking Dawn, hoping to find it in paperback but I figured out the paperback wasn't coming out until next year and knew I couldn't wait that long. So I went back again and got a laugh out of the store owner who was reading at about the same pace as me. I read as much as I could on Friday and all the way home on Saturday and woke up Sunday morning with about 50 pages left. I've got to admit, I was feeling physically anxious for the climactic ending and found myself reading while I brushed my teeth and washed my face. I finished all 768 pages just after 10:00 on Sunday morning and then walked downstairs to tell my husband that he could have his wife back now.

I know what you're thinking and I do feel like a bit of teenage girl at a BSB concert but there was just something about those books! My usual genre is murder mystery/suspense; I don't think I've ever read a romance novel in my life. But I found myself totally drawn into this bizarre love story. If you've seen the movie and weren't impressed, neither was I. The books give so much more depth to the characters and plot that a short movie can't.

If you're a reader, you'll like these books. I think they're the only books I've ever read that I could honestly see myself reading over and over again.

Yeah, go ahead and laugh. I guess I've turned into a Twi-Hard, I think it's called :) I can think of one other person (Megan, of West Coast Milne Chapter) who has experienced the same instant addiction. It's not that I swore myself as an enemy of all these fad books, I just never thought they would interest me. Apparently I was wrong......

So there you have it.

My name is Christy, and I am addicited to Twilight.

Do you all still love me?

**Added Note** Lots of comments wondering how I managed to read that much. Denay naps a couple hours in the morning and about and hour in the afternoon so I did most of my reading then and after she went to bed. There were also a couple long boat trips that she napped during and I read then and there were a couple days my mom offered to watch Denay while I went with the boys fishing. I'm also a very quick reader and am able to read a lot in a short period of time.

:: Monday Good Morning ::

Happiest Monday Morning To Ya'll!

We arrived safely home Saturday afternoon after deciding we'd like one day to settle before it's back to the daily. I'm not quite caught up yet but I wanted to punch out a post to keep up......does anyone have ANY idea when the 30 Days Of Blogging Challenge is up????

Our trip was just what I needed. Our weather was mostly favourable and to be honest I didn't miss Facebook or Hotmail or even Blogger. I got a healthy dose of rest from all the things that I enjoy and realized it makes me enjoy those things more!

Here's a quicky collage of just a few shots from our getaway (click to enlarge).....

I'm going to do a more detailed post soon. We did lots of walking and lots of lounging, lots of boating and swimming and a lot of reading. I polished off the four book series I borrowed to last me the two weeks in six days and ended up borrowing the first book in another popular four book series to tide me over only to gobble that one down in 18 hours and buying the other three books on the island because I was hooked. Any guesses?

Denay took a tumble out of the trailer door onto the hard rough steps the first day we were there (see lower left photo) but was all healed up within a week.

We connected with some longtime family friends of Trevor's and spent the day at a fresh water lake with them.........enjoyed a pod of killer whales.........the list goes on.

For now I'm happy to be home and am trying to get on top of things and get up to date with all your lives!

Enjoy your Monday and what's promising to be a sunny warm week and I'll be back tomorrow with something (hopefully) interesting to read.

:: Home ::

This is another PFP (picture free post).........we are freshly home from a very wonderful time away and as expected there is a lot of catching up to do.

Hope you somewhat enjoyed my slightly lame scrapbooking posts to keep up with the 30 Days Of Blogging challenge.

I'm also going to do my darndest make my new photography blog readable this week where I will share some very exciting news.

Happy Sunday Friends! I missed you......

:: Scrapbooking - Page #16 ::

I love this page. These photos were taken by my MIL a day or so after Denay was born while I was upstairs having a nap. A moon sticker and a couple stars and a decal that says "Sleeping Beauty"

:: Scrapbooking - Page #15

Simple page......two photos, a few stickers and a handmade label that says "One Day Old & we can't believe you're finally here"

:: Scrapbooking - Page #14 ::

Another favourite of mine and I think it's because it feels like a real scrapbook page to me, whatever what means :) It displays a photo of Denay being held by one of her midwives, Selena and her on the scale being weighed. There is a caption for each photo, one that says "Selena Boily, one of your amazing midwives" with an arrow pointing to the photo of Selena and the other caption, pointing to the picture of Denay, says "When they weighed you Oma said the scale must be broken because there was no way there was a 7 pound 2 ounce baby in mommy's small belly"

:: Scrapbooking - Pages #12 & 13 ::

I was inspired to do this page by the "Those who love you" sticker that came with one of the sets I bought. The spread shows Denay being held by Oma, Opa, Uncle Kevin and Uncle Ryan, Auntie Kerry, Grampy and Grammie and Aunt Lindsey.

The sticker at the top right of the second page says "A baby is born with a need to be loved and never outgrows it".

:: Scrapbooking - Page #11 ::

Went with a different color scheme this page with blue and beige and brown and some more shortly after birth pictures.

The sticker says "Our hearts are filled with happiness. Our lives are filled with Love. We have the baby girl we're been dreaming of. ".

:: Scrapbooking - Page #10 ::

Another simple page......Us right after Denay was born with a "Welcome Baby" sticker.

:: Scrapbooking - Page #9 ::

The big announcement page! I wanted this one to be feminine and girly but simple......the sticker at the top left says "It was love at first sight" and the sticker below the picture just says Denay's first and last name, her birth date, weight and length.

The picture was taken by Trevor's mom........the pictures are a little blurry but you can click on the photo to enlarge it!

:: Scrapbooking - Page #8 ::

This page will be re-organized because I found a few sheets from the monitor they put on me while I was at the hospital. The caption on the left says "3D Baby Vision Ultrasound - June 21 2008" and the one on the right says "July 10 2008 - 37 weeks - Mommy's water broke at around 8:30 am.....we made our way to the hospital at 2:00 to see Selena and get checked out. Mommy is 2 cm dilated! We grab lunch and go home and by 3:00 labour has started. After six hours of labour and a half hour of pushing......."

The sticker on the left says " A baby will make love stronger, days shorter, nights longer, bankroll smaller, home happier, clothes shabbier, the past forgotten, and future worth living for" and the sticker beside the photo of my says "The Big Day". The picture was taken just before we left to go to the hospital......

:: Scrapbooking - Pages 6 &7 ::

This spread is in my top favourites as well and they feature my maternity pictures by Gloria Bell.

The caption in the center says "June 23 2008 - Maternity Session with Gloria Bell"

:: Scrapbooking - Page #5 ::

I completely love my hair in these pictures!

The velum sticker at the top says "She will fill our lives with Sunshine and our hearts with love" and the two captions say 32 week and 36 weeks.

Oh, and you can click on the photos to enlarge them too!

:: Scrapbooking - Page #4 ::

This is one of my top five favourite pages even though it is quite simple. Maybe cause it's got a picture from the Dominican on it :)

The top picture caption says "Punta Cana Dominican Republic - 26 weeks" and the lower one says "April 1rst 2008 - 26 weeks"

Happy Hump Day!

:: Scrapbooking ::

I did a post ages ago about my first endeavour with scrapbooking and then never got back to it! I'm still having weekly get togethers with my girlfriend to inspire and be inspired and have made great leaps and bounds.......so I thought I'd reveal one page a day so there's still something on here to keep you coming back.

This is my third page in......the caption below the photo on the left says "20 weeks" and the one on the right photo says "24 weeks - daddy can feel you moving"

I added the strip of red to connect the two photos last minute and I really like the way it turned out.

Happy Tuesday!

Mommy Alert :: Product Review

My girlfriend Nat had one these for her daughter and called me when she found a store in town that carried them.

It's called a Raz-Berry teether and Denay loves it.

It's a soother but instead of a smooth surface, the nipple is bumpy (like a raspberry) so is wonderful for a teething baby. They sell in a couple different colors and I of course got my girly a pink one! Denay has never cared for soothers but she chews on this one like no other. You can also freeze them for that extra bit of relief. This one was $10 after taxes but I'm sure big box stores may sell them for less.

I would highly recommend this for all you new momma's out there for whom the teething stage is soon to come.....

:: Getting Organized ::

A little over a month ago I had three girlfriends come over for a Creative Memories party. CM is a company that specializes in photo organization and storage as well and display and scrapbooking supplies. I had been so effectively keeping my photos in the bottom drawer of Denay's dresser where they were in desperate need of some serious sorting. I ended up buying a storage box that will fit up to 2400 pictures and comes with tabs for labelling.

Below is what my drawer of pictures looked like when I started.....

And voila! After a couple hours of sifting and sorting this is what the box looks like now.....

I didn't get quite as far as using the label cards yet but it just feels so good to get my pictures IN something!
Yahoo for getting organized!

~ Hittin' The Road ~

I've been waiting a whole year for this day.....

We are packed and ready and are taking off for two weeks in the sun on beautiful Quadra Island!

We're shipping out and the house sitter is moving in. I'm so looking forward to experiencing Quadra with a one year instead of a three week old! We've got our jogging stroller, beach toys and books and I'm going to soak up every moment.

Please feel free to leave me comments but I won't be checking me email to approve them so don't worry if you don't see them popping up!

Love to you my blogger friends and we'll "see" you soon!