7 days...

one week from today, baby lyla ryan will be here...i can't believe it! it seemed to go by a lot faster than with noah and i feel like i need more time to get ready...but ready or not!

i have a couple of very talented friends here who have been getting into photography and wanted to take some maternity photos...i warned them that i am not very photogenic and really how cute can pictures of my BIG belly be at 38 weeks? they proved me wrong - they did an awesome job! here are some of the pictures that they took!

thanks, tori and amber! (i love them!)
http://kreativepix.blogspot.com/
http://www.amberleighphotography.blogspot.com/

4 years and counting...

Loren and I just had our 4 year anniversary on the 4th. I can't believe that it has been that long, but at the same time, it seems much longer than that - if that makes any sense! Loren planned a night out on Tuesday (thanks, jason for babysitting) where we went to a movie, that doesn't happen a lot anymore, and had dinner at Capriano's...ummm, delicious! But it didn't compare to Loren's yummy dinner he made for me on our actual anniversary...he was so proud of his work that he had to take pictures of it! It is so nice having a husband that likes to cook and is good at it!! Thanks, Loren, for the past 4 years and many more to come... love you!

catchin' up on a busy week...

seriously, i don't know where the days go! i have so many cute updates for here but i think that i might have to stick to just posting the pictures for now! (i don't know how i am going to handle having another baby!) I have 25 more days before little miss marshall (name still undecided) joins us and i have so many things to do still to get ready. oh, well. there's always tomorrow - that is my new motto!

noah turned 19 months this last week and has been as cute as ever.
here is our little man in action:

sinkbath

haircut

his hair grows so fast! he won't sit still for haircuts anymore so loren pulled out the hair clippers...it's shorter than what we wanted, but give it a few weeks, he'll have his curls again!

noah before with his sweet little curls and innocent face...

it's like he grew up in a matter of minutes.. isn't this an eat-your-heart-out kind of face?

funnyface

...and then there's noah's funny face! we stumbled across this one day when we were naming all the body parts. he still had his tongue out when i asked where his ears were... now anytime you ask where his ears are, this is the result!


noahkisses

and he has been givin' out kisses left and right...
isn't that the cutest little pucker!

always into something...

so this morning, one minute noah was helping me UNfold laundry and then not even a minute later, I heard water running somewhere. after a mad dash to noah's bathroom, this is what i found...

live in the moment...

This past general conference Elder M Russell Ballard's address was entitled Daughters of God. He spoke to both women and men about the family and about the roles of individuals within a family. Elder Ballard said, "I surely know that there is no role in life more essential and more eternal than that of motherhood." We are taught in the Book of Mormon the great impact that the mothers of Helaman's 2060 stripling warriors had upon them. In Alma 56:47-48 we read; "yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them. And they rehearsed unto me the words of their mothers, saying: We do not doubt our mothers knew it."

I too do not doubt that my mother knows what she taught me to be true. And in turn I have no doubts that God will deliver me. Now it is my turn with my wife to teach our children to "walk in truth" (3rd John 1:4) One thing that we are working on with our little Copper Top is to teach him to pray. " Prayer is a form of work, and is an appointed means for obtaining the highest of all blessings." (bible dictionary: prayer) We want our son and eventually children to be able to obtain "the highest of all blessings."

The first time Noah said "amen" after we had blessed dinner, the cheerleader in Sonya came out like I have never seen before. She clapped and did a little jump, or maybe more like a hop, and exclaimed cheerfully "Yes, you did it." with just about the biggest smile I have ever seen her express.

Back to Elder Ballard's talk, He quoted a woman named Anna Quindlen who wrote, "The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less”(Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11).

I have been trying to do this as well. And one of those moments that slows down for me and allows me to relish it a bit more than I could if I didn't consciously focus on the moment is when Noah joins us in prayer. The time it takes for us to say prayers is short with him because he doesn't understand all the words and what we are really doing, but the memory lasts long after the prayer is finished. I hope to always be able to slow the moments down that mean the most, and a prayer with my son means the world to me...

i'm stuck...

okay - i need y'alls help! i can't decide between these two...this is the idea i have for the baby's room. we have a white chair rail and the lower half of the room is a chocolate brown and then i want to paint the top with an oversized graphic pattern, but can't decide if i like the light pink as the background or the taupe background! i am leaning towards the taupe and loren likes the pink - have i mentioned how excited he is to paint her room ALL pink. it is funny - he is actually more excited than i am about painting her room! so, i'm in need of opinions! this is the basic idea i have - not exactly, but what i came up with quickly in photoshop! what do you think?

sonya's self portrait

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd’s mosaic maker).

The Questions:
1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school/college did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Where are you from?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One of your hobbies.
12. Your flickr name.

1. I´m in Love, 2. Dessert, 3. Penguin Cactus, 4. llibreria - bookstore - Amsterdam - HDR, 5. a little rust, 6. Pina Colada, 7. I Wanna Grow Old with You, 8. mmm ice cream, 9. Eames chair & Apple, 10. Las Vegas Mormon Temple, 11. organized chaos, 12. Crow song