It is tradition in LDS families for a new baby to receive a father's blessing. Since we were in Washington with all of Brian's family, we arranged to have Jane blessed while we were there. This was a little bitter sweet for me because ever since she was born, we were trying to figure out how and when to bless her so my dad could be there too. As the effects of cancer grew worse we focused on other things and did not get around to it. We still had a nice time with the Stuckis but with the recent circumstances I wished my mom could have been there. My sister's family who lives in the area was able to come and it was very nice for Brian to have his whole family present.

This is my family traditional blessing dress. My two sisters and I were blessed in this dress, my cousin, and many nieces. My grandma Hinckley purchased it while in France and it was made by nuns. Jane looked very sweet.

As a Stucki male, Colin needs to become a fisherman. This was his first exposure, but his true love is still at the playground.

About half the Stucki cousins (and a random neighbor child) in a dog pile.

While in Yakima, Colin's cousins had some kittens that he LOVED. We would have taken one home if we did not travel so much. The kittens were quite tolerant of our toddler.
I can't believe we have two kids. I love that when Colin actually looks at the camera I am too busy trying to keep Colin from running away to focus on a photo.
The first night of the Stucki reunion we had ribs. This is Brian's brother Doug
Some of the large crowd. We were lucky to have access to this beautiful place thanks to the family of our in-law. Brian and I even had our Washington wedding reception here. Thanks Bipperts!

We were impressed how Ben was able to eat ribs without most of his front teeth.

Fire.

We are on the road for some Stucki family time this week. We have been in Yakima, WA with Brian's brother's family and are heading up close to Seattle today. Our lovely sister-in-law needed some photos for work. Since Brian did not love having the neighbor's garage in the top photo, he added a lovely little orchard. I love having access to his photoshop skills! We will post more best of photos later, and need to get more family shots.

We took some head shots for our old friend Victoria and are very happy with how they turned out. Thanks for being photogenic Vic!

On a recent irrigation day I had baby Jane asleep in a baby carrier and followed Colin around the yard with the camera to try and photograph how he experiences his yard. He loves being outside so much that he is very efficient about escaping from the house. We are going to get a chain for the front door soon and need to find better ways to secure the sliding doors. I should have Brian write more about the irrigation since he has worked hard to get it working well again. It is great because the water system was built by my grandpa more than 40 years ago and still works really well. The garden is going crazy and we will soon have more produce than we will know what to do with. We currently have a tree of ripe apricots if anyone need some. Sue Anne, will you be here in time for apricot pie? (we should have some ready for you when you come. We cannot wait to see Bloomington friends.)

We have been neglecting our photo duties of little Jane. One of the problems is Colin's obsession with the camera and partially to avoid a tantrum I avoid getting the camera out around him. We need to do better as she gets more and more cute.

She is getting quite smiley and has longer, happy alert time, but still prefers to spend most of her time nursing.

We recently turned the first two years of our blog into a book via blurb.com. I have made several other on-line books but nothing compares to blurb. The quality is great (and I am picky about photo quality) and for a book of nearly 200 pages, it was about $50! I plan to make one a year. They have a feature where you can "slurp" your blog into book form but I did not like the way mine transferred and individually did each page. It took a long time but was a fun little project. I only wish I had time to start my next book.

Just a few shots from recent visits with family. Colin very much enjoyed his cousin Mikey. Mikey has said Colin is the coolest baby he knows.

A small family meal with about twenty+ people. (It was hard to really ever know how many people were running around). In town for the funeral were all my six siblings, six spouses, and nineteen grandchildren.

My brother Pat's family recently bought this huge van that Colin called a school bus. Pat took the kids for a drive in the canyon after this photo was taken.

We spent a lot of the week sitting in a circle outside in a ritual we creatively called "circle time". It was nice for everyone to just have time together.