Well, it's only taken me 9 months to update this blog. Pretty pathetic, eh? There are lots of things to update, so I'll just do a very quick synopsis of the past 9 months...Obviously the biggest news it that Kezzie Anne joined our family on April 30, 2010 at 7:26am. She is so much fun and such an absolute cutie pie! It's definitely taken some adjusting becoming parents and all but everything is worth all the joy that she brings into our lives.
Here is a quick synopsis of the past 9 months- what I can remember anyway!
April: Kezzie was born and I have my last day of work! Yippee!
May: Kyle finished his first year teaching high school - and I must say he did an awesome job, everyone at the school absolutely LOVES him! He definitely is meant to teach.
June: Kezzie was blessed on Fathers Day. It was a wonderful day and so great to have so many people come that love our little girl. She did great and was quiet through all of sacrament meeting!
July: We were able to take Kezzie on a trip with my family up to Bonners Ferry, Idaho for a family reunion. I still wonder what we were thinking bringing a three month old on that big of a trip but Kezzie did great. We were able to swim, go on walks, visit with my grandma, aunts, uncles and cousins, Kyle of course played golf and we just had a fantastic time with everyone. I'm so glad we could make it up there. (I'm also glad there was an extra room in the house so we didn't need to stay in the trailer for a week - it was much warmer for all of us!) Special thanks to Karen and Dan for letting everyone invade their house!
After Bonners, we drove to Jackson Hole (such a loooooonnnnnggggg drive I think it ended up taking us 12 + hours to get there with all the stops we needed to take to feed Kezzie and keep her happy). We were able to walk around all the little shops, hike and just hang out. It was great to go on the trip, but was so good to be home! Also a special thanks to Kyle's brother Kirk for letting us borrow that awesomely big car - it was a definite must!
August: Kyle started school again and also became the Head Coach for the boys golf team...I had no idea what that entailed and it was definitely crazy. For some crazy reason they have 3 tournaments or so a week, plus practice, so most of the time he wasn't getting home til 7:00 or later. There were some days he didn't even see Kezzie awake cause he would leave before she woke up and get home after she was asleep. Luckily the season is only a month and a half long! He loved the boys though and is looking forward to this next season (although I'm not sure if I am)! Kezzie had her first giggle on August 2nd - our favorite sound in the world!
September: More of school & golf, I can't really remember anything else that sticks out...
October: Kyle is so loved at the school that he was asked to go to a teacher conference in CHICAGO! There wasn't a chance that I was going to stay home with Kezzie for 4 days by myself, so we tagged along. It was lots of fun! Sadly our hotel didn't have a pool - LAME! So Kezzie and I mainly hung out in the hotel during the day while Kyle was in the classes, but it was nice to relax. We were able to go into downtown Chicago 2 of the nights we were there and I'm so glad we did. We went to Giordanos for some Chicago-style pizza which was DELICIOUS! Sadly we had taken the train down there which took forever, so we didn't get to see anything else that night, but the next night we were able to go to the Pier and walk around which was lots of fun...here's some pics.
Also in October was Halloween, which was lots of fun! Kezzie and I were able to go to my dads work and trick or treat at his office...which is HUGE! There are tons of different floors filled with cubicles. We only did his floor and the kids came away with plenty of candy (I, of course, got Kezzie's!) My sisters and nephews came too...here's a pic of the moms with a little Buffalo, awsome Elmo and cute M&M:
November: By now, Kezzie could roll over, giggle, sit up, eat solids and was on her way to crawling. We were wondering if she would make it before Thanksgiving, but not quite which was fine, we enjoyed her rocking back and forth on her hands and knees - it was dang cute! Thanksgiving was great! We LOVE turkey. We had Thanksgiving at the Barlow home this year. It was lots of fun, there were 15 adults and 3 kids, if I counted right, which makes for lots of noise, a little chaos but tons of fun. We ate a great meal and then played games and laughed. We also had a Lloyd family party down in Price which was lots of fun. We had some great food and company and had a book exchange. It was great to get everyone together - you know it will always be a party when that group gets together.
December is always crazy but lots of fun. The month was filled with a gift exchange party, 2 birthday parties, a day-long Christmas Eve party and then our Christmas day party. Whew! Even typing all that was tiring! It was so much fun being able to spend so much time with our families! That is the best part of the holidays. We were able to talk to Kyle's brother Kip on Christmas Eve. He is serving an LDS Mission in South Africa and it was so great to talk to him. He spoke some Zulu which sounds pretty awesome and was able to update us on how life is over there. It's always great to hear those updates and know that he is such a good missionary doing the Lord's work. We are so proud of him and are looking forward to September when he comes home!
Anyway, I didn't mean for this to turn into such an amazingly long post, but thats our update for now. Hopefully I can keep up better in the future!!
Here are some of our favorite pics of Kezzie from birth up to now:
