as sad as we are to see october leave, we are excited to see what november will bring! (for example, happy 17th birthday today sarah!!) but we wanted to do a quick recap of what all happened last month. we are doing awesome! siriana is growing and maturing so fast. she calls me “mom” like she’s a teenager and says many other words like duck, eye (as she points to someone’s eye), this, that, look (the three faves), cat, da da (sometimes daddy), block, wall, rock (as she rocks in any chair be it a rocking chair or not), nana, sarah, nae nae (naomi). when asked what a dog says or if a dog barks she says “ra ra” and says “moo” (well more like boo) when asked what a cow says, and she’s been trying to make some sort of meow sound and quack sound. we got a season pass to the lincoln parish park and she loves to go feed the ducks, swing and slide. she is a little anemic so we’ve been giving her iron supplements regularly. she’s responding well to the medicine, but we still have to give her the iron for three more months! luckily, she’s easy breezy and doesn’t seem to notice the horrid metallic taste it gives her juice in the mornings. my sister in law anna and my baby niece elena came to ruston for a visit and we took the girls to the townsend house to the pumpkins! they were so cute among all the pumpkins. my mom had a birthday on octobler 10th, so we had a big birthday weekend for her in shreveport. britton and anna cooked some amazing meals, my mom played with her grandkids, and siri was so kind enough to say nana for the first time. it was a lot of fun! and to end the fun month, we had a great halloween this year. last year, siriana was such a tiny baby, but this year, she was walking everywhere and had a blast. we dressed her as strong girl because for a long time now when you ask her to be a strong girl or to be strong she puts up her fists and grunts. it’s adorable. so with mumsie’s help, britton and i made the perfect costume for her. we went trick or treating with the mayhalls and my brother and anna and elena met up with us too. it was so perfect.
anyway, here’s the photos from october:

thats all for now!
love,
jenn, britton, siriana, and baby k

don’t let the title fool you. this is not about the changing of leaves, the cool weather, or the yummy pumpkin spices and fragrances that fill the air (although that does sound like a good post!) but no, this is something bigger than a season… our good friends, brian and crystal garcia, had their second baby october 25, 2008 at 2:02 am! her name is autumn layla and she was 7 pounds 1 ounce and 19 inches long. crystal is an incredible woman. this is her second natural childbirth, and she couldn’t have handled it better. i’m so proud of her and brian, and it’s so amazing to be able to see and photograph their family growing. congratulations, brian and crystal! we love you guys and we can’t wait to come see you and autumn and josiah. if there’s anything we can do, let us know!
here’s some photographs from the maternities i did of them (crystal is so beautiful pregnant, it was so hard for me to just pick a few, so sorry if there’s a lot to scroll through!). then, there’s some of autumn minutes after she was born.

autumn is gorgeous! we love her so much.
love,
britton and jenn and siriana and baby k!

we have been much berated by family and friends for taking so long to post about our sweet siriana turning one. so we just had to buckle down and get on it! a lot has been going on with us, so working on our blog hasn’t been top priority (sorry, blog!) but here’s siri’s one year post… enjoy…

we celebrated with a party on the saturday before her birthday (which was, funny enough, my due date when i was pregnant with her). it was the perfect day. the weather was amazing, not too hot, with a nice breeze every now and then. we had a lot of family and a few close friends come and we ate britton’s famous spaghetti (one of siriana’s favorite foods). siriana’s nae nae (naomi) made her a fun playlist just for her party b/c siri loves to rock out to music any time of the day! she did so well opening her presents, but since that was taking a while, mommy and daddy had to help. she loved everything she received. we’ve had so much fun going through her clothes and musical instruments and books. thank you all so much! she loves everything! her last present was from mommy and daddy which surprised a lot of people… it was an ultrasound of a baby brother or sister!!!!!!!!! yes, WE’RE PREGNANT!!! for those of you that didn’t know. right now, we are about 13 weeks or so along (the due date is around april 7th) and everything has been going pretty good; just normal pregnant stuff. we are so excited… and when everyone screamed with excitement, it upset our poor birthday girl… we’ll post video of it soon. it was so sweet and sad at the same time.

on her actual birthday (septemeber 9th), we had a full day planned. to start her special day, we dressed her in her awesome outfit that her tia gave her… anna painted her name on a shirt and it looks sooooo cute on her. for birthdays, we are trying to start a family tradition where we teach our kids that birthdays are not all about receiving, but giving as well. so i gathered up a bunch of things i received when i was pregnant or throughout her first year that we didn’t need or use and we went to life choices in ruston (the crisis pregnancy center) and visited with the nice ladies there and gave them a bunch of fun stuff for moms and babies in need. then we went to mumsie’s and pop’s house and had lunch with them and watched videos from the day siriana was born, then we took our birthday girl to the zoo in monroe. although it is not greatest zoo in the world, our sweet girl loved walking around and looking at the animals and chasing the guinea foul (again, video to come). she was so adorable. i just want to take her to every fun place in the world b/c she loves everything so much and just screams with joy. everything about siriana is amazing and we are so blessed to have her as our daughter. we can’t wait for her to be a big sister and have even more fun!

as promised we have stuff to share from lots of occasions from the past month and a half. so i’m just going to break it down in sections. get ready for a long post…

june 10-13, britton went with dee to chicago to attend a willow creek conference. they both had a great time and brought home a lot of vision for our church. the church was huge and intimidating, but they learned a lot about how to use the arts of worship and spirituality to glorify our Lord and to spur the Body of Christ to glorify and praise Him.

while britton was in chicago, siriana and i went to tyler to visit my brother and anna and elena. i hopefully helped them out and pampered them the best ways i could. siriana had fun with her baby cousin, and i couldn’t believe how well elena was doing at 3 weeks old… she was lifting her head beautifully and i’m pretty sure she was attempting to roll. she’s 2 months now and growing and doing great!

after our separate journeys, i surprised britton by taking him on our 4 year anniversary celebration. we were going to baton rouge to attend a friend’s wedding, but i surprised him by extending our excursion to new orleans and staying in a beautiful hotel downtown. we left siriana with my parents for the first time overnight! i thought i would be a wreck, but i didn’t worry at all. she had fun, and we really enjoyed our time together. we went to a cajun restaurant that britton used to eat at when he lived there, we walked around down town and at the boardwalk, and loved being married for four years!

we left new olreans that sunday, which was father’s day!! we got to shreveport with enough time for britton to see his sweet baby girl for a few hours before her bedtime and we had fun with my parents celebrating with two of the greatest daddies in the world! the next day we did some nine month pictures of siriana. she’s our beauty.

june 21st was something of a tradition in my family. we had corn day. for as long as i can remember, my family has always put up corn, meaning we pick it (although they don’t let you pick it yourself anymore), shuck it, blanch it, cut and scrape the corn off of the cobs (unless you want some on the cob), and bag it. my mom grew up on a farm in hico, la and she brought us up on fresh veggies, and our sweet baby absolutely loves her fresh veggies, so it was nice to contribute. also, my daddy bought some tiny ice cream cones just for siri and it was a funny, messy sight.

something huge that happened on june 24, our wonderful african family came home from malawi, africa!!! britton, christopher, and siriana went to the airport to get them (i was doing a shoot with corrie… there will be a separate post for that soon). it has been amazing having them in ruston. they’ve been enjoying being able to see their awesome granddaughter/niece grow and play, and we’ve enjoyed being able to see them all the time (they’ve been giving mommy and daddy lots of breaks lately… thank you soooo much!!) these are picutres from the airport when they picked them up.

siriana can be such a spidy-girl. she’s sporting her aftican skirt and her mommy’s spider man arm band and looks so cute. also, here’s a few of siri hanging out with josiah. they are so cute feeding each other cheerios. and there are a few in here from siri’s first fourth of july.

it’s rare that there’s photos of siriana and mommy, so when it happens i have to share! we have so much fun together… and of course when one is sad, we both are! oh, and one morning before church i went to wake her to go, and i found her with her limbs sticking out of the crib; it was so cute!

ok… finally on july 12th, we had a huge day. siriana’s best friend, judah alvaro, turned one year old, and we went to his birthday party. our kids had fun until the birthday cake came along… it took judah a little while to warm up to such an intimidating dish, but once he started digging his hands in, he couldn’t stop! then, we dashed to my sister’s house where my family was celebrating my grandparents 60th anniversary!! 60 years with one person is such a special (and sadly rare) thing and we are so happy that they laid the foundation for so many great marriages that have followed. i’m so proud to say that my husband and i, my parents and all of my siblings are happily married and we are all committed to being that way forever! we love you mamaw and papaw!! at the party, siri got to swim for the first time in a real pool, and she loved it… we swam for about 2 hours!!

thanks for enduring such a long post. i’ll try not to get so behind.
love you all!

britton and jenn and siriana