So much to be Thankful for

So we had a wonderful Thanksgiving...Twice. The weekend before Thanksgiving we went to Idaho and had Thanksgiving with the whole Cobbley family. It was so nice to have everyone together, to spend time just relazing, and catching up. My dad had to work Thanksgiving and the 2 days after and Steve and Shawn had to work the days around Thanksgiving so it just worked out better to do it the weekend before. The day before Thanksgiving Mia got to spend the day with Nana and her cousin Lucy who at the age of 4 was excited to be able to have someone littler than her to look after. I definitely need to get pictures of Mia and her cousins because they are so cute together. Wednesday night Mia and Dad had pie night with the Borrowman clan while I worked. I was kinda sad I missed that but not much I could do. Thanksgiving day, Grandma came down from Idaho and uncle Shawn came over and we had Thanksgiving dinner again. I just sat there thinking how much I have to be thankful for. I have a wonderful family, wonderful in-laws, and now we have a wonderful little family of our own. Little Mia is just amazing and I can't believe how blessed we are to have her in our family. Mia was very tired on Thanksgiving so Monty and Shawn spent about 15 minutes trying to time it just right to get a picture of her yawning.

Mia's enjoying 2 new toys, her little gym and her swing. She hasn't quite gotten the hang of reaching up for the toys hanging down but she enjoys looking at them.

She loves her swing and often takes her afternoon nap there. When she's fussy she calms right down in the swing (well most the time).

Hanging with dad with a full tummy face.

She's starting to smile more and more and while we were in Idaho she started cooing. It's the sweetest sound to hear. She's not doing it a ton but usually at least once a day we can get her talking to us. (She's a little behind what most babies would be doing at 2 1/2 months cuz she was a little early).

Happy Halloween

OK, I'll confess I've been terrible at keeping up with our blog. I have heard a lot from family and friends who want to see pictures of Mia. Who ever knew one little girl could take up so much time. I'm busy all day but seem to get nothing done. It's a very odd feeling to me, but I'm loving being a mom. Things are about to get a lot more interesting though. I go back to work this weekend so Mia will get a lot more daddy time and I was just put in as first counselor in our ward relief society. Everything always seems to happen at once but I think it will all be good in the end. One advantage to going back to work (I'm searching for advantages to make it easier) is that working mostly nights I should have more time to keep up with the blog.

Mia is growing so fast. She started out small but is catching up quick. At 6 weeks old she weighed just shy of 10 lbs and has jumped from the 3rd percentile in weight to the 51st. She definitely has no problems eating anymore. She is still a mellow baby but definitely developing more of an opinion and personality and when she doesn't like something she lets you know. She is now sleeping 6 hours at once after going down to bed and I am so grateful for the longer periods of sleep. I feel like I function like a normal person again. She is just so much fun and we are so grateful to have her in our home.

For Halloween she was a lady bug and a very cute one at that. Friday we took her to the ward Trunk or Treat and then dressed her up again on Saturday. We were going to take her trick or treating to a few friends houses but the rain kept us in. She just went to the door with us to pass out candy to those who were brave enough to face the rain.

Her cousins like to make sure she sleeps with her animals and doll.

She has started smiling quite a bit but seems to know when the camera comes out and then won't smile. This half smile is the best I've been able to catch on camera so far.

When she is laying down to take a nap she likes to sleep with her hands behind her head. She's not doing it as much as she used to but I think it's funny whenever I find her like that.

This was her first Sunday she went to church so it's a bit older. I started taking her to sacrament meeting at about 5 weeks but we avoided the rest of church because Monty and I were both in Primary. Guess I can't use that excuse anymore.

I promise to do better at keeping up, at least with pictures. Just for you grandma :)

Meet Mia Kay!!

Mia Kay Borrowman born September 15, 2010 at 9:03 pm

Weighed 5 lbs 10 oz, 20 inches long

So now the truth can come out about what most of our summer entailed. The end of July we started meeting with Mia's wonderful birth mom. After 5 weeks she told us that she had made the decision to place her precious daughter in our home. At that point we thought we had 5 weeks before she would be here, but she fooled us all and came 2 weeks and 2 days early.Friday September 17 we got to bring Mia home to be part of our family. She has been an absolute joy to have in our home. She is such a good and happy baby. She already has so much personality. She loves holding her hands together like in the picture below. She is a great little sleeper and other than a little bit of a high bilirubin level she is perfectly healthy. To help lower her bilirubin her doctor told me to let her sleep in the sun in front of windows as naked as she could be and still stay warm. Seeing as she's a little on the small side (she weighed 5 lbs 5 oz when she came home), we can't make her completely naked, but she doesn't seem to mind sleeping in the sun.This was the first time we put Mia in her car seat when we were bringing her home from LDS Family Services.

Mia all ready for bed her first night homeWe have pictures from the hospital when we first got to meet Mia but for whatever reason I can't find them on the computer. We got a new camera just for this and I still haven't quite figured out how to download pictures and save them where they need to be to use them so I will post more pictures later when Monty is around and can help me.We can't believe we are really a family of three now. There are no words to describe how it feels to be a mom. We couldn't be more happy and content right now. Life is truly complete. Our lives were made complete only by Mia's wonderful birth mom. She is an amazing, strong, and fun loving young woman. Somehow she found the courage to place her daughter into our family and we will be eternally grateful. She also has a wonderful, kind, and supportive family. We got the opportunity to meet Mia's birth grandparents and 2 of her birth aunts while she was in the hospital. They are truly an amazing family and we can't wait to tell Mia about them. The pictures we got of Mia with them will be life long treasures of ours.

Update

So Monty informed me the other day that it had been a while since we had updated the blog. I looked at him and said you know, you're right, maybe you should do something about that. He then said, "Well when I said we I really meant you." Guess the idea of getting Monty to do a post went out the window. It has been a little while since I've posted. Life has been busy and crazy but hey, that's life isn't it? The only big thing we have done lately is put up Monty's flag pole. I don't know if it's a problem with the pictures or with blogger but I have tried a couple times to up load the pictures and it won't work so sadly no pictures. He worked really hard on it though and it turned out really good. The flower bed around it is all done and we have the light put in, now all it's missing is the flowers. That will have to wait until fall when I can do some moving around in the flower beds.

Not much else to report right now. We did just get a new camera so hopefully we will put it to good use. Monty starts school next week. He's getting his MBA and will have class Tuesday and Thursday nights for the next 2 years. I admire him, I definitely don't have the ambition to go back to school. Hope all goes well for him!!

Camping adventures

So I finally had a whole weekend off of work that we didn't have something going on so we decided to go camping. Granted it was only the middle of June but it was still June so it couldn't be that bad right...WRONG. We went camping up Ogden canyon near Huntsville. It was a nice little campground and we found a nice spot right down by the river. It was nice, warm, and sunny. We set up camp and just hung out relaxing.I have to say I am very proud of this fire. It was a one match fire and looks like it could be a piece of art. We used coals from the fire to cook dutch oven dinner. Apparently our coals were a little warm because our dinner that was supposed to take about an hour too cook was done in 12 minutes. Surprisingly very little of it was burnt so we enjoyed our chicken, bacon and potatoes. By the time we put the peach cobbler on the coals were a little cool so after about half an hour we had to build a fire around the dutch oven to get more coals. The sides ended up a little burnt but other than that it was delicious.

Monty decided to dip his feet in the river but the water was way too cold for me. I found a make shift fishing pole and tried my luck at fishing. Apparently fish don't like leaves and I couldn't get the dinner roll to stay on the hook. I also tried fishing with Frito's but by the time they were soggy enough to put on the hook without breaking they didn't last long before they too floated away. Oh well though, if I'd caught a fish I wouldn't have known what to do with it.

By dinner time the camera died so I don't have any more pictures. It was a rather enjoyable evening. Once night fell we had a raccoon come to our camp looking for food. Monty scared him off though. Then, the trouble set in. We realized we'd forgotten the extra blanket but figured being in our sleeping bags we should be OK. Also, we realized that left over construction wood burns rather quickly so we weren't going to have wood for a fire in the morning. No big deal, we brought doughnuts for breakfast so we wouldn't need to cook them. I don't know how cold it got that night but I froze all night long. Monty got up at 6:30 but I couldn't bring myself to crawl out of my sleeping bag because I knew it'd be even colder outside of it. About a half hour later he came in and told me if I got up we could break down camp and go sleep in a warm bed. It was so cold that when I put my glasses on they fogged up just from the heat of my face. It was SO cold and to top it all off everything was wet. It didn't rain but there was more than a little dew. We ended up just throwing everything in the car and heading home at 7:15 in the morning. When we got home we had to set the tent up in the yard and lay everything out to get it to dry. Quite the experience.

So I have to show off my garden cuz I'm rather proud of it. It's my first experience with my own garden and it's actually growing.

If you look really close you can see two tiny peppers

The radishes are already popping out of the ground. These are the first harvest from my garden. They have been a nice touch to my salads.

Celebrating 3 years in St George

Way back when we found out Monty had to have surgery, I decided we needed to plan a vacation. We decided we'd celebrate our 3rd anniversary by spending a week in St. George. I had never been down there and so I figured it would be a nice get away. It was amazing. We stayed at a great resort and and a very enjoyable and relaxing week. We spent 3 days hiking, I lounged by the pool, Monty did some golfing, we had dinner with family and friends, and enjoyed the sun and warm weather.
This is the view from our deck down at one of the pools. We had a BBQ out on the deck one night and grilled chicken. One of the resort hosts suggested we check out Snow Canyon and do some hiking there. It wasn't a very exciting place. There were a couple decent views but mostly just a lot of sand and a few mucky dried up ponds.

Trekking along the river bed.

Stopping to rest in the shade.

While we were in Southern Utah we went to Bryce Canyon. It was absolutely AMAZING!!! We could have spent an entire week hiking through various parts of the canyon. Because Monty is still trying to recover his endurance we stuck to easy to moderate hikes. The canyon is full of Hoodoos which are rock pillars formed mostly by water melting into the cracks of rocks and freezing, thawing, and freezing all over again. There were rows and rows of symmetrical hoodoos that extended for miles. We hiked down through the canyon and up the other side and then hiked the rim up to several lookout points. We realized after the fact that we did it backwards. We should have taken the shuttle up to the highest point and hiked back down instead of hiking up. All the uphill made for a challenge for Monty but he did great.
Me with a view of some of the Hoodoos.

There were several caves carved out along the canyon walls as well. This was just a little one I hid out in.

Us down in the canyon.

Monty with the Hoodoos as we hiked back up.

Hoodoos hoodoos everywhere (I like the word hoodoo in case you couldn't tell)

Us at one of the look out points along the rim. Yes we are dressed a like and no it was not intentional. Monty noticed before we left the resort that morning but didn't bother to mention it. No we are not one of "those" couples.

We also went to Zion's Canyon and spent a day hiking there. It's also a place we could have spent much more time enjoying. All throughout the canyon there are places where water seeps out of the rocks. Some of it is 4,000 years old. You can see marks all along the canyon walls where water has seeped out. There are a few places where the water continually seeps out. One of these is known as Weeping Rock, where Monty is getting his second shower of the day.

We hiked up through the Emerald Pools. There's a lower, 2 middle, and an upper pool all fed by waterfalls coming from the rocks. Apparently there is an algae that grows and makes the pools appear green but they weren't so green when we were there.

Us at the Upper Emerald Pool

Monty on a bridge over the Virgin River which has carved Zion's Canyon.

It was an amazing trip. We had so much fun and it was very hard to come home. Now it's back to reality. The good news is our house looks so much better from the outside now. Our yard is completely in and our new sod is growing like crazy. We planted our garden before we left for St George and it's starting to pop up already. I'll have to post some pictures of that later. It's a new adventure for me testing out my green thumb. I just hope I don't kill it.

Crazy

I just had the most bizzare shopping experience. Just north of here in Ogden a Winco Foods grocery store opened this week. Since I wasn't working today and I remember Winco having great grocery prices when I was growing up, I decided to venture to Ogden and do just a little grocery shopping and compare some prices. My first mistake was driving around the full parking lot trying to find somewhere to park. I thought it would be a little busy but at 3:00 on a Wednesday afternoon I figured it couldn't be too bad. WRONG. There were no shopping carts and several people standing around waiting for them so I decided to forgo the shopping cart. I didn't need all that much anyway. Once I walked in the door, I couldn't have turned around to walk out if I wanted to. It was wall to wall people forming lines to even reach the products on the shelves. I have never seen such a thing at a grocery store. It truly looked like the day after Thanksgiving only in a grocery store. They did have some great deals, but seeing as my arms are only so big, I picked up my few items and headed out. Craziness.

So not much exciting going on in our lives right now. We're still waiting for the weather to cooperate so we can finish putting in our yard. With the snow and rain the past few weeks our sod keeps getting pushed back (its too wet for them to harvest it). Hopefully this weekend we'll have a back yard and be rid of all our dirt.
Two more weeks and we go to St George. I'm excited!! I've never been there and am definitely looking forward to warm weather, hiking, and over a week off of work!! WHOO HOO!

March (a little late)

So I'm already falling behind on my goal to update the blog every month. I've been picking up several extra shifts at work. It's been nice to get a little overtime and to start saving up for Monty's next big adventure...He's going back to school! It's somewhat a sudden decision and definitely not one we were planning on, but it's the right thing for us to be doing now. He will be starting the MBA program at University of Utah this fall (or possibly not until January, still trying to work out those details). Between work and starting a few projects around the house we've been staying pretty busy. Spring finally appeared allowing us to get some stuff done outside and enjoy the outdoors a little bit. However, winter re-appeared last night. Someone needs to tell Mother Nature it's April and not time for 5 inches of fresh snow.Just before Easter we decided to color Easter eggs one night. It was a fun little project to do together and we had tons of colors to chose from in our little pack. I tried my hand at the crayon and wrote on my egg.

Monty must be in awe that eggs can come in so many colors

The finished product. Sadly, most of them are not edible because I learned how long you boil eggs for hard boiled eggs after I cooked these ones. The yolks aren't quite done in the middle but at least they look pretty.

While the weather was nice we started working out in the yard and planted fruit trees. We planted a peach tree and a tree with 5 different kinds of apples. I'm excited for when they give big and start putting on fruit.

Monty digging for the peach treeFilling in the apple tree and below is me burying the peach tree. I'm just hoping they survive our little miny winter we have right now.When we moved into our house in July of last year we couldn't decide what we wanted to do with the sliding glass door. So, for 9 month we did nothing. Finally a couple weeks ago we put up some curtains. I think it turned out pretty cute and they have hooks on either side of the door to hold them open. The hooks had to be screwed in by hand because the drill couldn't get the angle right. Makes me appreciate electric tools.

Very exciting news!!

So the highlight of our February was going to Rock Springs, WY the last weekend of the month to see my brother Steve and his wife Nicky. Rock Springs is definitely not the most exciting spot on the map but it was nice to go see them and we enjoyed a fun relaxing weekend there.

While February was a relatively boring month for us, March started out very exciting. March 3rd we were finally approved for adoption!! We are looking forward to the new adventure of finally becoming parents. It has been a long, difficult, and emotional journey but we couldn't be more excited with where we are at now. We are adopting through LDS Family services and our profile is now on their website. We ask everyone to spread the word and keep us in mind. About a third of the adoptions through Family Services are designated adoptions where birth mom and adopting parents find each other outside of the agency. Also a little plug for Family Services. They offer free confidential counseling to women of all faiths and backgrounds and help them to explore their options. They help explore all options with mom, not just adoption. It's a great resource available out there.

Anyway, put a link to our profile at family services on the side bar of our blog. We have also set up another blog that we are just updating monthly with what we are doing in our lives and doesn't have any identifying information on it. It can be found at http://www.montyandstephanie.blogspot.com/.

January

January was a rather uneventful month for us. We rang in the New Year by going to bed early. I had to work New Year's Day so Monty volunteered to work that day as well. It gives him an extra day off he can take whenever he wants which is nice. It's still way too cold to do much outside so we spent many evenings at home watching movies. The snow has started to melt so we did go out on a few walks around the neighborhood on some warmer days. (If 35 degrees is warm that is?) The only big event in January was Monty's birthday. We had some friends over for pepper jack cheese burgers and a very competitive bowling tournament on the Wii. I made an ice cream cake which I have to say was very de-lish. The only problem was the writing on the cake. It must have been pure food coloring because it turned our mouths blue.I think I must have eaten more words than Monty because my mouth looks much more blue.HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONTY!!!