40 Years ago....

My awesome parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary this year and to honor them we decided to throw a surprise party!!!

I have a lot of love and respect for my parents. They both had somewhat difficult childhoods and yet are wonderful people. They've always been there for us. They raised nine children and in my opinion my brothers and sisters are pretty awesome people so they did a good job.

When my parents were married they had almost nothing. Literally.

The day they were supposed to leave to get married my dad showed up a couple of hours late because he was selling some pork he had just butchered. He had to butcher the pigs to get enough money to pay for their way to the wedding and he only just made it. My mom was starting to think he wasn't going to show.

When they got to the temple to be married, the temple mis-place my moms wedding dress and she had to borrow one of theirs. The funny thing is is she was happy about that because their dress was a lot nicer than the one she had.

They didn't have a cake for their reception and when a friend found out she ran home and made them one. The cake was still warm though and toppled to the ground before they ever had a chance to cut it.

Because they had no money, they had to have the reception at an old, abandoned hall. It doesn't look any better today than it did then!

Here is a photo...

The windows are still boarded up. :)

After they were married they moved into an old, one room cabin. No running water and no bathroom (they used an out house) .

What a start! And yet, here they are... 40 years, 9 children and 23 grandchildren (with two on the way) later.

Congratulations mom and dad!!!

And now, some photos from the festivities...

We went with a 70's theme since they were married in 1971.



The streamers are meant to replicate the streamers at their wedding. Beautiful no?

The happy couple!

Walker cracks me up! Love that kid!

Kyle and Mindy and their family.

McKay and Landry.

Danawn Schuman and her parents, the Rice's. They were all at the original wedding reception.

I'm not sure this is a 70's pose, but I love it all the same.

Jana and Jared emcee'd the event.

An original photo. Again, with the streamers.

A beautiful 70's style cake.

We had a table for each of them and they were decorated with things that they loved and passions they have. That picture of a little girl down there in the frame is my mom when she was quite young. It was the cover of The Friend one year. Only it wasn't called The Friend back then, it was called .... I can't remember. Oops!

Dad's table.

Again, Walker with the poses.

And finally they get a chance to cut a wedding cake. It only took 40 years!

The day they were married in the Cardston, Alberta temple.

Then and now. Ah, the streamers. :)

Mom's table. That's a better picture of the cover of... The Improvement Era... That's what it was called!

Jand and Russell got groovy for the camera.

Landry even got in the dress-up mood.

Kaelen and Rochelle. Love the matching handbag Rochelle.

McKay, that is an awesome head of hair!

Jared was so happy that night... was it the full head of hair? :)

Caleb really got in to the spirit of things.

Go Ethan!

That is a very sporty bow tie Bridger.

Nice glasses Coleson.

Emma was quite groovy.

It was a really fun night and I hope be here when we celebrate the next 40 with them!

Grandma's 90th!!!

This month my grandma celebrated her 90th birthday!!!!

90 years!!!

And she's as spry as a spring chicken! :)

My grandma is one of the most amazing women I know. She has seen more and done more than anyone I've ever met. She had 9 children and lost two of them. She's been married 3 times and lost each of her husbands to sickness. But no matter what, she stays strong and is an amazing example. With 8 children, the youngest only a year old, she and her husband packed up everything they had and trekked west to Utah. The amazing part is that they had next to nothing, including a vehicle. They sold what they could and travelled by covered wagon and horseback 1300 miles from Minnesota to Utah. Eventually the family ended up in Northern British Columbia, where she still lives today. I am so blessed to have such an amazing grandma and I can't say how much I love her and appreciate her.

Here are a few pictures from her surprise 90th Birthday celebration!

Click on the photos to enlarge and read the headlines on the newspapers etc... It's pretty amazing stuff.


This is the cake my amazing sister made. Love it!


Emilia and Kalene (or McKlene as my kids like to call her). I haven't written much about Emilia (an exchange student from Finland who is living with us) but I will have to soon. She's leaving in two months already and we'll be so sad to see her go.

This is Elder Campbell. He taught and baptised my Grandma and her family.

Elder Kramer. He also helped to teach and baptise my Grandma and her family.

And my cute little niece Landry.

Should Be Posting More But.....

I realize I've sort of been MIA these last few months and you'd think I'd have a bunch of excuses but I only have one...

Introducing Cohen David Hurren

Cohen was born April 3rd, 2011 at 1:45 a.m. He weighed 7lbs, 1 ounce and was 20 inches long.

It was a super fast labor and delivery and it was all wonderful!

If you want the details of the birth then read on. If not... don't. :)

Labor started at 8:30 p.m. with contractions anywhere from 2-5 minutes apart and not too painful. I've been induced with all my other boys so I wasn't sure this was the real thing and I REALLY didn't want to go in to the hospital and be sent home. Mike and I watched a movie and timed contractions for a little while and they eventually got to the point where I figured we should call my mom to come stay with the boys and we should head in. We called her at 12:00 a.m. and she was here within 10 minutes. By this time I was pretty sure they wouldn't be sending me home but I was still apprehensive. We called Jana (my sister and labor coach) to tell her we were headed in to the hospital and told her we would call her again once we got there and found out where things were at. We live only a few minutes away from the hospital so we got there at 12:15 a.m. and they had me put the gown on for a check. At this point I was just hoping that they would say I was at least a 2! Up until my appointment two days earlier I wasn't dilated at all and the baby was still high. It took her a while to check me and I started thinking, "Oh great! I'm not dilated at all and she's going to send me home!" When she was finished, she turned to me and I was shocked when she said, "Well, it looks like you are dilated to an 8. I'll go call the doctor." I was sooooo happy. I mean, I was in pain and it hurt but to hear I was at an 8 was awesome. I knew it wouldn't be much longer so I was worried that Jana might not make it. The nurse went to call the doctor, came back and offered me some Nitrous Oxide to use until the doctor go there. At that point she informed me that I was too far for an epidural and that made me a little nervous but I was just glad it would be over soon. At that point Jana came in the room. I guess she decided to come right in because she said she couldn't go back to sleep anyway. I was glad she did because otherwise I'm not sure she would have made it. She had just gotten back from Vancouver that evening at about 8:30 p.m. (right when labor started, I guess Cohen really wanted her there) and I would have been bummed if she couldn't be there after all.

I labored for a little while longer and pretty soon they wheeled me into the delivery room. At this point I was in a lot of pain (duh! it's called labor for a reason) and I was really ready to be done. :) Luckily the pushing went quickly and as soon as the baby dropped, one more push and there he was! He looked so tiny and adorable. I thought he looked a lot like Luke as soon as I saw him but Mike sees more of Walker in him.

I have to say, the hospital and staff here were awesome! They immediatly put him up on my tummy and let me hold him and look at him before they took him away and cut his cord etc... The delivery room was so calm and peaceful and it was just awesome. I was so lucky to have both Mike and Jana there to help with things. Jana helped coach me through breathing and pushing and Mike gave awesome encouragement and kept me calm.

With all my other babies I had an epidural and I have to say there are definitely benefits to natural and epidural. I'm really lucky that I have fast labors and if I had to labor for hours and hours like a lot of women I would want the epidural for sure. I didn't mind the drug-free labor and again, I am lucky it was so fast but would I do it again? I'm not sure. :) The epidural is so nice for that last little bit but I loved being able to walk immediatly afterwards and I felt like my recovery has been a lot faster without the after effects of an epidural.

Cohen has been a joy to have around. I think he's adorable. He makes his older brothers laugh a lot and he's a really great sleeper - during the day anyway. :) But I have nothing to complain about. I am healthy, he is healthy and we are home and doing great!

Mumford and Sons

A new favorie band of mine.

Give it a listen.

You can thank me later.

Project

I have a HUGE project in the works (nope, not talking about the baby) ;)

I can't wait to show you the finished product! But in the mean time I'll share this hint with you...



My goal is to have it finished withing the next two weeks, before baby gets here.

Wish me luck!!!

Movie Night

I think my boys have the best dad in the world!

Every night after work they snowmobile, play games, wrestle or whatever else the boys want to do. Mike is so willing and happy to set other things aside and play and spend time with the boys and I love him for it!

The other night I was tired and not feeling great so the boys decided to have a 'movie night' at home, with dad. They made a massive fort in the basement,


set up the laptop, pulled out their sleeping bags and got ready for their movie night.


Mike decided you can't have a movie night without treats and made them each a movie style snack pack.


He then spent the evening with them in the tent watching "Condorman". (Remember that movie? I remember thinking how awesome it was as a kid and now Walker has decided it really is necessary to build himself some huge wings so he can fly!)


Thanks for being such an awesome dad Mike! The boys love it so much and I love it too!

Landry

I took some fun pictures of Landry the other day!

Here is just one but if you would like to see more please hop on over to my photography blog.

annakphotography.com

The Nursery

Well the nursery is finished and anxiously awaiting baby!

I mentioned before that I ordered the bedding set from CSNstores.com and they didn't dissappoint! The price was great and the services was, again, wonderful. The bedding actually arrived 3 days before it was supposed to and that's pretty much unheard of up in this neck of the woods. If you are an online shopper I would highly recommend CSNstores. The variety is amazing and like I said earlier, the service is superb.

And now, on to the nursery reveal.

First come the before pictures.

This first picture is from the day we moved in. This room was kind of a minty color with a lovely wall paper border and some accordian shades.

The first thing we did when we moved in was replace the carpet, take down that border and the shades and then paint.

This was Luke's room for a while so I went with a shade of blue. It's from Benjamin Moore and it's called Province Blue. I really liked it then and I still like it now so I didn't change the wall color.

When Luke was in here there were baseboards and decorations but I took these photos after I had taken all that out in preperation for the next part of the transformation.

So here is what the room looks like now...

We added board and batten around then entire room and replaced the baseboards and frames around the doors.

I think the board and batten really help the crib stand out. Here you can see the adorable new bedding I ordered from CSNstores.

The Firetruck sign was something I made years ago when Porter was a baby. Same with the chalkboard above the changing table. When we finally have a name for this little guy I think I will write it up there on the board.

I think my favorite piece of furniture in the entire house is the changing table. We picked it up at a garage sale before we had Porter. It has been through some cosmetic changes in the past few years but I love the shape and bones of it!

We have had these curtains for about 5 years now and I love them still but they needed a little pick-me-up so I added the ribbon stripes along the bottom. I love how they turned out.

And another favorite piece of furniture is my rocking chair...

We saved up for this chair for quite a while and finally bought it when Luke was a baby. It is sooooo comfortable! The perfect addition to the nursery.

I bought this lamp a few years ago for really cheap and I just took some scrap fabric and recovered the shade. It has been in the older boys` room for a while now but I repurposed it to go in the nursery. The colors were perfect and I think it will be great for those late night feedings. The firetruck was something I bought probably 7 years ago. I got it at a great price and it works perfectly in this room.

So that is the nursery! It is ready and waiting to welcome this little guy in the next few weeks!

New Year, New Ideas

Welcome to 2011! While I still have a lot of catching up to do from 2010 I decided to start right away with 2011.

I've been in a bit of a slump lately when it comes to updating and continuing on with the never-ending home projects I've got on my list of "To Do's" but I'm getting back on the wagon!

First up...

The babies nursery!

I've got about three months to get this thing done and I've decided sooner will be much better than later.

I've decided to add some board and batten around the room and maybe do a little painting but I'm most excited about getting a new bedding set for the crib.

We moved Luke out of the nursery and downstairs to be in the same room as Porter and Walker and I love that they get to share a room but I needed three matching quilts for their twin beds. I thought about doing something different and using some modern bedding but decided to stick with some Log Cabin Style quilts. Luckily I had some store credit saved up from working at Upon the Shelf so I was able to pick out some really great quilts. Well now it's time to update the nursery and since I no longer work at Upon the Shelf, I've had to look elsewhere.

I've done a lot of research on many different websites and I found the perfect set with the perfect colors on two different sites.



Both CSNstores.com and Overstock.com had the set I wanted and I was super excited that it was cheaper on CSNstores.com!!!

I've ordered from CSNstores.com before and have loved their speed, selection and customer service so I am really excited to use them again.

If you're looking for new bedding for any room in your home I would suggest checking out CSNstores.com. They have a huge selection and like I said, they are really great to work with!