ONE!!

Can you believe it?  Our precious daughter has her first birthday today!!  We have a few parties planned... Ben's family comes today, my family tomorrow and then a few friends on Friday afternoon!  The pool is warm, the patio cleaned and we are ready to celebrate!!  Last night I started with this...

Couldn't get this picture to rotate.... !

And then we ended up with cats and dogs!!!  It took a couple hours and so my plans of making my blog post ready last night kind of flew out the window!! 

I promised a post... and wanted to do a nice long, looking-back-over-the-past-year post but got carried away with these cupcakes for today I will add a couple pictures of Ranen this morning (we gave her the doll stroller and my mom stopped by with an adorable doll!  She pushed it for an hour!!)

Will be back... xo

A LONG while...

Wow!  Can't believe that it has almost been a month (one day short of a month :) ) since I have posted a blog!  (I had one all prepared on August 11th but then computer went down and I lost it all and then the post didn't happen!!) 

Anyhow - I can gaurantee you that I will be doing one tomorrow morning for sure - Can you believe it... it will be a 1st birthday post!!!  Ranen is just walking - stands up in the middle of the floor and will go about 6-8 steps (anything more is VERY scary you know!!)

Things have been rather crazy around here - and that is pretty much an understatement.  Most so for Ben... he has been putting in approximately 85-90 hours per week trying to get the robots running smoothly!!  Hopefully one day this will all pay off with no 2:30 in the mornings (now it's one person there around the clock but that should end soon - we hope!!!)

The puppies are growing super well!  Most of them are verbally spoken for already!

A few pictures because I need to get on with my work!... hope to be back tomorrow!

Love this look!! Don't see it often :)  Taken while golfing on our family camping trip...  the one that Daddy couldn't come for (other than one night!) so we hope to head out next week for a few nights!  YIPPEE!

The 11 puppies devouring their oatmeal...  Ranen is absolutely in love with these little things - I'm rather sure that will end soon once they start nipping!

 This was the 'take the picture' then discipline moment!!

Absolutely LOVE this shot!!!  One of my favourites (even though it needs little editing yet!) - Mia is so good with Ranen it is awesome!

One of the eleven!!

(oh, ya and the flower picture post I promised... it will come - the longer it takes the more pictures I guess!!)

Here's one more flower shot to tie us over....

Hope you enjoyed... will be back tomorrow!

Weekend Happiness

Happy #1:
The puppies have arrived!  Saturday evening we had Auntie Reina and Auntie Erica over and we decided to go for a walk - seeing that Jessie had one more week to go before the pups were to arrive Ben suggested that the dogs stay home, locked in the truck cab.  When returning home I go to let the dogs out of the truck to find 2 newly born pups on the floor of the truck!!  CRAZY!  Well we put Jessie into her nicely prepared (just that afternoon by my wonderful hubby!) "birthing tub" and by ten that night we had 11 new additions to our family!!  Yes, thats right - ELEVEN :) (so far they are all doing well...) 
A few pictures of the new additions to our family!

I will try keep you updated as they grow!!

Happy #2:

The other day, we stopped by BFM and hit jackpot with a few items (Ben says you can sure tell that I am Oma Lindhout's granddaughter! - apparently I have a desire for other's junk!!)  But check it out!  Ranen loves it:)

JUST FOR THE RECORD!!!  $3.50 - yup that is three dollars and fifty cents - beat that!!

Happy #3:

And then we scored a HUGE pile of big blocks (this is just a fraction of it) for 4 bucks :)

Happy #4:

Ranen is crawling rather good now!  So she is happy becuase she can go where ever she wants and Mommy is super happy because she is SO content!

Happy #5: 

Corina and I got rid of the (our portion) Agassiz eyesore!!! First cut has been mowed down on our lots! [4 hours of 'weedeating'x2 for 2 lots!!] - we just left a few blackberries so you can harvest the fruits!!!  I promise, we will try our hardest to keep it up.  My apologies to all Agassizites! 

Happy #6:

Keep smiling everyone... Auntie Laura will be home in 10 days:)

Happy #7:

Approximately one weeks till the robots should be running!!  Sure looking forward to not having my hubby go to work at 2:30 in the morning :)  We love you so much, Ben!! thanks for working so hard for us....

Going to vacuum the pool - want to be ready when the heat arrives! 

Coming soon on this blog... Happy #8!  (the joy of moving... having many new types of flowers to capture through my lens!!)     Here is one...

Enjoy your day!

FUN in the SUN!

Summer is delivering... we have some gorgeous weather today!

Ranen says... Taycin you should have stayed a little longer today because Cayden and I got to go outside and play with water...  Look how much fun we had!

Playing bumper cars!  (I love it because I can't get hurt but Cayden says it's not very much fun because I run him over with my walker!!)



BATH TIME...



**Thanks Auntie Cathrine ... Mommy is SO very happy to finally have a couple of pictures with me - even though I am a mess! [did you know that dirt tastes really good - don't tell Daddy:)]

My Auntie Laura is in Holland on a student exchange and ... we miss you!  But I got to wear the dress you gave for the first time today :)  how do you like it??

Well... not too bad!... 3 posts in 2 days - you asked for it Laura (you wanted me to keep you updated... I will try! - but can't promise it will be this good the whole time you are gone:)

xo ... going out to enjoy the sun!

lkd87gggkbv4ryjjmhgf                              n      n nn (ranen says hi and bye!)

Thanks Daddy!

Happy Father's Day Daddy - I love you ...  Me and 'Mommom' really appreciate all that you do for us!  You are the best!  I love spending time with you - especially at the farm.  And when you play with me and make me giggle then I am really happy.  Thank you for loving mommy and me so very much.  We feel very lucky to have a special man like you loving us.  Mommom says thanks too!

There are 2 very special ladies in our lives, 'Auntie' Erica and 'Auntie' Reina, that had birthdays last week...  They are also very loved!  We really enjoy the times that we get to spend with you and we look forward to having you over soon - (then maybe we can update some pictures too!)  Ranen says she might just be walking by the time you are here because she did stand up and take 3 steps to Mommy all on her own yesterday.  Mommy wasn't even calling her over! (and then when she reached mommy she started clapping because she knew that she was a big girl!) :)  Can't wait to see you both!  Hope you had a great birthday and we wish you many more blessed years ahead. xo

(Seriously - the most recent pictures that I have of you and Ranen - this is her in her first week!)

We'll work on that :)  WE LOVE YOU!

First Glance

I Heart Faces has a contest this week that I am excited to enter.... "Let's hear it for the boys!" is the theme - one of my favorite things to capture is the amazing bond between my wonderful hubby and our precious daughter.  This picture is one of my favorites!  This is the very first time Daddy is holding his daughter (moments after she was born) and also the first time Ranen studied her Daddy's face!  (even though you don't see her eyes - she was contently looking at Daddy's face...) Although hospital lighting is never great - I do believe this picture will remain one of my lifelong favourites :)

You can see the other entries to this contest here:

Enjoy!

Cuddles :)

 Our boofie has come down with quite a cold and we are treasuring the long, close cuddles we are receiving...[especially in the middle of the night]  Apparently Daddy and teddy are the best cuddlers but Mommy will do when Daddy is in the tractor!  I tried some self portraits of Ranen and me cuddling...

What beautiful weather we have today!!  I'm hoping to get out there yet...