Aunt Catherine came for a visit

Catherine had told me this summer that she wanted to come for a visit.  Then we got word that we were going to get the opportunity to adopt a beautiful baby girl the end of August.  That sealed the deal.  Catherine was already planning that trip.  We had a few things planned but ended up mainly just hanging out.  

Chris had work and Noah had school so Kaitlyn and I head to the Denver airport to pick up Aunt Catherine.  I always like to go in and wait for them to get off the plane and help with the bags.  When we saw Aunt Catherine, I almost cried.  I am such a sap.  I was so excited for Kaitlyn to meet her Aunt Catherine.

Here she comes.....

Ok I was fighting back the tears!  Our family has waited so long for Miss Kaitlyn so Aunt Catherine meeting her for the 1st time was emotional for me!

We had fun hanging out at the house, going to lunch and dinner, and just being together.  We took Catherine to Garden of the Gods. If you have never been it is worth going to.  It is natural rock formations and they are just really neat.  The bad part of that was we saw a RATTLE SNAKE!!  Yeah, I almost had a panic attack.

This morning I had to put Catherine back on a plane back to her family.  It was sad but I know that she was excited to be back with her husband and kiddos.

Thanks for coming to visit Catherine.  Hope you come back soon!

Pumpkin Patch 2012

We made it to the pumpkin patch.  It was fun.  Not the best pumpkin patch we have been to but then again Thanksgiving Pointe in Utah is very hard to beat.  

We had fun.  Noah got to play a few games and ride down a cool little slide.  We got our pumpkins and called it a day.  Not the best but being together as a family was great.  Kaitlyn slept most of the time but I am sure she liked it too.

Fall is one of my favorite seasons!  I love pumpkins and baking with pumpkins!  I love decorating the house for Halloween with fun little things!  Noah insisted this year we get a blow up thing for the front yard.  We got us a blow up Frankenstein.  He is awesome!  We are going to have one scary costume and one adorable costume.  Stay tuned to see what our kids are going to be this year!  

Kaitlyn 1 month old

I cannot believe that my baby girl is already one month old.  She has brought so much joy and happiness to our family!  Noah loves being a big brother and helps out so much.  He holds her, changes her diaper, feeds her, and plays with her.  He is the BEST big brother!  I knew he would be because he is such a great kid.  Chris spoils her rotten.  He holds her all the time and wants her to sleep in the bed with us (I have only let her once because we all sleep better if she is in her own bed).  I absolutely love her.  We hang out while Noah is at school and Chris is at work.  I love to dress her up and put bows in her hair.  I love to sing to her and read to her.  She loves to sit in her bouncy seat and listen to me play the piano. 

She is so much more alert now.  She is holding her head up really well, smiling, making funny noises, eating more, trying to roll over, and tons of other funny things.  She keeps us pretty busy but we love every minute of it.  Kaitlyn is our miracle baby!

Fall Family Pictures

Since moving to Colorado I have had to opportunity to set up our home.  I love to decorate my house to make it feel welcoming and cozy.  Decorating is a passion of mine and have so much fun creating new ideas of how I want things to look.  As I was decorating our home I realized I have a ton of pictures of me, Chris, and Noah but had very few of Kaitlyn.  I also noticed that I didn't have a family photo of the four of us!  (doesn't that just sound GREAT...the FOUR of us)  I love it!  So I made an appointment to have our pictures done so that we would have some great new photos for our home.  I love how they all turned out.  I have the cutest family!  My husband is hotter than ever and my kids are absolutely adorable and so photogenic!  Here are some of our pictures from the photoshoot!

Perfect Picture

Adoption is such a great blessing.  The following picture is one of my favorite creations.  The top part of the picture is Kaitlyn in her birthfathers hand.  The bottom half of the picture is of Kaitlyn in her dads hand.  I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Royal Gorge

One thing that I love about moving to a new state is the many great adventures our family gets to have.  I want my kids to see the world and have as many great experiences as possible.  Noah loves a new adventure and is always up for it.  Kaitlyn is still very little but lucky for her I take pictures of everything.  I love to scrapbook and blog so she will be able to look back and see pictures and read the story behind our trip.

Last weekend we took a break from unpacking the house (yes we are still unpacking, cut me some slack people) and went to the Royal Gorge.  It was so beautiful.  It is so amazing how beautiful all of God's creations are.  We had so much fun.  I am TERRIFIED (not just scared, I mean panic attack, crying kind of TERRIFIED) of heights.  This was a challenge for me.  We crossed the bridge which you walk across.  It was so neat and absolutely breathtaking but a little too high for me.  Because I am crazy I walked across anyway because I wanted the experience.

I have to admit, it was fun.  They had flags along both sides of the bridge for all 50 states.  We took pictures next to a bunch of them for different reasons.  Noah wanted California because his Utah best friend, Mason was born there.  He then wanted Florida because of the Florida Gators.  We of course took pictures of Virginia, Utah, and Colorado as those are places we have lived or are living.  We took one with Nevada since that is where baby Kaitlyn was born and where her birthparents live.  Noah and I made up a corny little song about all the states on the walk back to keep our minds off of how high up we were.

 

 

Now to go with the whole "scared of heights" thing, I insisted that Chris take Noah on the zipline (you know I wasn't getting on that thing).  Chris didn't mind and Noah was super excited.  I just wanted to get a picture hahahaha.  So They did it and had a blast.  The zipline by the way goes out over the Royal Gorge.  CRAZY!!!!!!!!!!!  The guy let them do it twice.  It was awesome!



We had pizza for lunch at one of the cafes and then I wanted Kaitlyn to ride on her first carousel.  It was so cute.  I think I had more fun than she did.  We also went for a train ride which was a lot of fun!

I am so excited for all the wonderful adventures our family is going to have while stationed here at Fort Carson Colorado!

Kaitlyn's Hospital Pictures

We have been waiting for these pictures to come in.  There were suppose to only take a week but with our move and forwarding address things got mixed up in the mail and it was sent back to the photography company.  I then had to call and have them reship them out so that is the reason for the delay.  I am happy with the pictures don't get me wrong but I think the quality is poor.  For the amount of money I spent I felt like the quality should have been a lot better.  Oh well, I love them and any picture with my baby girl in them is amazing.  Enjoy!

 She loves to have her hands at her face and make those cute little lip faces!  Can you say ADORABLE!!!!!!!!!

 I love this picture.  I wanted one with Chris' hand but knew we could have those done another time and I wanted something special for Deon (her birthfather) and for Kaitlyn.  I absolutely love this picture.

 This is my little jamacian baby!  LOL  She looks so cute in her going home outfit!  I love all the colors and am so happy to be able to dress up a little girl with cute clothes and TONS of hairbows!

Kaitlyn Elizabeth Smith is our miracle baby!  We prayed for her for so long and now feel so blessed to be her parents!  I never thought that I would love having an open adoption either but I wouldn't have it any other way.  I love to share photos with her birth mom and dad and show her off.  I love being able to share that special kind of love with two very amazing people.  I love to see their faces in hers when she is happy or sleeping.  Open adoption is amazing and I feel so blessed to have such a wonderful opportunity in our lives!