Audryn's Blessing

This past Sunday the 29th of Dec we blessed our Sweet Audryn, in our home. It was so nice, we are so thankful for our friends and family who took time and some great efforts to be here and support us and our adorable little girl, she may not remember who was here, but we certainly will and the love of each of those present and our memories of that very special day will surely be an influence in her life, her siblings life and ours. We love the feeling and joy blessing a baby in ones home brings, it was a fluke we stumbled upon this with James with a crazy snow storm canceling church, but with Audryn we just wanted to. We had so many family and friends we couldn't get an entire group picture, but here are some from that day.Doug Blessed Audryn, and did a wonderful job, she is such a sweet baby she didn't even make a peep.

 left to right, Our Bishop also a friend of ours James Pennington, Doug's Dad Paul, Doug and Audryn, Amanda's Dad Mike, Amanda's Brother Zach, next row Our dear friend Dave Headrick, Our Dear friend Jon Zito, Doug's Brother Leo and Doug's Brother in law Kent

 Our sweet girl in her beautiful Blessing attire, My mom made the headband, dress and a Beautiful blanket, and Doug's Mom made the blessing slippers. She looked so beautiful, thanks to both our Moms for their time and talents and love in making the day so wonderful

 Adelaide, James and Audryn, so hard to get a good picture these days.....

 Audryn, She is 9 weeks in this picture and by far our best/easiest baby, James was tough so probably a moderately hard baby would seem easy in comparison, or maybe we are just learning to parent better, but she is such a joy. At 5 weeks she started sleeping 8 hour stretches at night and she still does, at 7 weeks she started recognizing Doug and I and greeted us with smiles, she is so snugly and loves to be held, she also loves routine and does what is expected. She is so good at working with me and the needs of the other kids, she doesn't love her car seat, but she is adapting, She loves her brother and Sister and loves to see what is going on. She is starting to be more alert and aware of her world, but she does still sleep quite a bit I would say total she is only up 4-6 hours a day usually closer to 4. She is easy going and loves her cocoon and to have her space too. She really is just a Joy.....

 Me, Audryn and Grandma Hoggan

 Daddy, Mommy and Audryn

We had everyone over for the blessing and had a lunch for those who wanted to stay and chit chat, our ward doesn't meet until 2:30 in the afternoon so those who wanted to venture to the late night sacrament did, after we had games and leftovers from the weekend, my we had a lot of food still to eat.... Doug's Brother and his family plus our niece Bryn were able to come in early on friday so we got to play with them all weekend, the kids we so thrilled with that, three of their favorite cousins sleeping at our house all at one time, the cousins are all so good to play and love our kids, we just adore the three older girls, they are so fun! There were games and food, shopping and of course planning for next year, we have a thing or two happening this next year, graduations, vacations, baptism, ordination, missionary homecoming and hopefully another baby blessing. Doug's parents came in on Saturday, they brought the dog with them which the kids were thrilled about, shortly after they left the kids started asking for a dog again????? HUH Addy told everyone at church that we blessed Audryn and that soon we would be bringing a baby boy home, at least part of that is true we did bless Audryn but there is no truth to the second half, of the story that now a good portion of our ward is wondering about, lol Gotta love kids, my referring to another baby blessing is Doug's sister having a baby not us, we are so happy for her. I keep telling Addy we need a little time to love the baby we have.... My Brother and his family also came in on Friday, My Mom had put together a wonderful dinner and activity that was so nice, we got to spend some time with some of our other cousins that we just don't get to see often enough. The weekend went so fast, with lots of fun and spending time with loved ones, I can't think of a better way to celebrate the birth of a new child. We are so thankful to have Audryn join our family and all the love and peace she brings, she is exactly the addition we were longing for.

Happy New Year!

Happy 2014! I won't lie 2013 went so fast and was such a GREAT year I am kind of sad to see it go, as I was making my list of get it done now items, catching my blog up so I can print it is on it, so hopefully I can spend some time and get caught up, we have been SO BUSY it is just crazy, I decided to start fresh and work backwards we will see how that goes, lol my memory is just not what it use to be.... For New Years Eve we were all quite exhausted,  having just survived our Crazy week of Christmas, the party's, birthday's and blessing our little Audryn, so we bagged going to a friends house or even Grandma's and we had a little party of our own, the kids were in bed by 8:00 which is kind of late for us, but not bad for New years eve,  We started our party off with hats, jammies and pizza with some sparkling cider of course, then we played a new game we had got called headbands we had to adapt a little for each kid but we had fun, after that we had our countdown, we had 10 balloons all with their own number on them, we practiced counting down, and then we as fast as we could found each balloon popped it and blew a horn then found the next at the end we sang and danced and blew our horns to bring in the new year.

  After Games we made treats together and We finished our party with the annual watching of a new movie together, this year we choose despicable me 2.  Audryn slept, the kids found seats in laundry baskets and stayed there almost the entire movie (we don't watch much tv, but when we do we don't let the kids run around I figure we should get some kind of perk out of tv and it is the kids learning to sit still, if the running starts I just turn the tv off, not that I want them glued to it either but it has helped them learn to sit) and who doesn't love sitting in a laundry basket eating treats, hahaha....

After the kids were all snug in their beds Doug and I brought in the new year watching a classic, it was so nice to just relax and watch a show together, we were tired too though and this year we were in bed before the ball dropped, which was a little sad to me I do love watching the ball dropping, but really I had a great time and I am not overly tired today, so maybe some new traditions in the making.....As I look back at 2013, I am so thankful for my family and friends, Doug and I are so blessed to know and associate with you all, and we are so blessed with our three wonderful kids who continually challenge us, stretch us and help us love in ways we simply didn't even know were possible. I can't wait to see what 2014 holds!