Jasper's One Year Pictures

Jasper Hits the Big 0-1!

This past Sunday, December 11, marked Jasper's first birthday! It's so hard to believe that a year has flown by so quickly! It truly seems like just yesterday we were bringing him home from the hospital, so thankful to again have a little noise in the house. He is such a joy and a blessing in our lives and is truly our special gift from heaven. He's wonderful for helping to ease a grieving heart and makes life without Kerrigan easier to get through.

Jasper's getting to be such a little man and growing much, much too fast! He has discovered a new love of toy cars and stuffed dogs, spritz cookies and eggnog, and cheesy potato soup. He loves to crawl under and around the Christmas tree and rearrange his ornaments along the bottom of the tree. He's got a winning smile that could melt any heart and the most gorgeous blond curls I have ever seen on a little boy. I know they'll have to be cut someday, but until then, I'm hanging onto them for dear life!

Jasper's First Halloween

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Family Pictures

Over Labor Day weekend, amidst the hubub of Krista & Kyle's reception and Corbin's blessing, we managed to squeeze in a quick family picture session. My brother-in-law, Brandon, being the awesome photographer that he is, took these great pictures of the fam! It wasnt' something Brandon & I were particularly looking forward to, as it was the first time we'd "officially" had family pictures taken without Kerrigan. But we found a great way to include her in our pictures, even going so far as to changing the color of her shirt in the picture from pink to blue to match the rest of the family.

Crawling Along

Since he was 6 months old, Jasper has wanted to be on the go! His favorite mode of transportation: walking around while someone held his hands up. Then he figured out that if he rolled around, he could get where he wanted to go without any help. Last week, he learned how to army crawl. And then the light bulb lit up and Saturday Jasper figured out how to crawl!!! I wasn't expecting him to crawl at all and to just go from rolling to walking, but he surprised us all!

Yellowstone

A few weeks ago, we took our annual trip to Yellowstone. We've been going at least once a year since Kerrigan was two months old. We were a little bit late this year as we just hadn't been feeling up to it but decided we needed to bite the bullet and carry on the tradition.

The day we went was beautiful in Powell. A little warm for my tastes (90 degrees), but nice nonetheless. By the time we got up to the park, it was about 11:00 and 85 degrees. However, by the time we got to Fishing Bridge, the temperature had dropped to 55 degrees and a storm started brewing. A little later, we had torrential downpour that turned into sleet, which morphed into hail and finally snow. We drove a little farther and by the time we got to Artist's Point, the sun was shining and we were back to 80 degrees. Needless to say we had traditional Wyoming weather in Yellowstone.

We really didn't do too much, since Jasper didn't want to be in the car. We basically stopped at Artist's Point, walked around the mud volcano and paint pots, and then made a pit stop at Old Faithful for ice cream. It was short and sweet, so hopefully next year's will be a little longer.

Krista Gets Married!

Last weekend we traveled to Utah for Krista's wedding. We left Wednesday night in order to spend the night in Worland and cut 90 minutes off our trip the next day. Brandon and I had decided that when Jasper got up for the second time, we'd just give him a bottle, put him in his car seat, and let him sleep most of the way. Well, Brandon and I were both wide awake at 1:00, and Jasper didn't get up for the first time until 2:00 (which would put his second feeding at about 7:00 or 8:00), so we packed up and headed out by 2:30. Despite the ridiculously early hour, the drive was relaxing, as there was no traffic! We arrived in Ogden by just after 8:00!!

We spent the afternoon shopping and had a great family dinner at Chuck-a-Rama before turning in for the evening. The next morning brought about Krista & Kyle's wedding day, so it was off to the temple! The sealing session was great, and it's awesome to be adding another great member to our family! Welcome, Normster!!

During the photo session, we found a butterfly hovering around a nearby flower bed. I went over to check it out and discovered that it was a swallowtail, just like the one that we released at Kerrigan's campsite. It was nice to know that her little spirit was with us on such a wonderful day!