Casey and Kristi

Isn’t she a doll?

Ciana Jean Valiant:
Born January 14, 2010
7 lbs 12 oz
21″ long
A full head of hair!
Super sweet and adorable!

We own a super sweet camera, so we had Jeremy and Tama over to take pregnancy shots of us at 37 weeks pregnant. We turned our kitchen into a photo studio, and Casey got the camera all set up (I really need to read the book that we bought about our camera to figure out how to do ISO settings, white balance, and the like).

Here are some of my favorite shots. We took hundreds, and I’ll post a link to our Shutterfly photo book after I get that designed.

Yes, the iPhone photos were Casey’s idea. I think we need to sell them to Apple.

Showing my baby belly at the Midsouth SCBWI conference in Nashville in Sept.

I won the Illustration Contest at the children’s book writers and illustrators conference in Nashville – yay! Here’s my entry. The art director had given us a couple picture book manuscripts, and we had to choose one spread to illustrate using the text he provided.

Labor Day weekend is a great time to blow bubbles and see family.

Drew is pile of laughs – even snapping beans is funny.

We’re having a girl!

Yay! Doesn’t she have the most beautiful profile? That’s our little sweetie.

It’s been a lot of months since I’ve had a chance to update this, so here’s a long visual update starting in fall and going to March.

International World Tour Dinner

International World Tour Dinner

Carving Pumpkins

Huge Bonfire!

Caramel Apples with Mom and Dad

Evansville in the fall

Jeremy, Tama, me and Casey

Barn dancing y’all!

Friends we meet with once a week to study the Bible and hang out

Whoo-hoo

Casey made our Thanksgiving turkey

Thanksgiving at our house with friends

All smiles

Casey and brothers at Walt’s graduation

Grant and Jakey love playing with Uncle Monkey

The Valiants are a family full of boys!

"We’ll never let go of Uncle Casey"

The Valiants

Kristi and Grandma

The Gerner side

Three generations

Playing on Lake Winnebago

Snowball fight in Fondy

We don’t get snow like this in Evansville

Me and Ji Yeon and our new friend – he’s a little stiff though

New Year’s Eve in New Harmony, IN

We had a romantic weekend in New Harmony

Casey at Tae Kwon Do testing

Casey’s sparring the instructor

A hippo friend at the zoo in Nashville, TN

Shuang, me, and Ji Yeon at the Creation Museum in Cincinnati

Petting a piggie

My side of the family spent a weekend in a vacation house outside of Chicago in August. I use the term "vacation house" lightly; it was advertised as such, but the pool was out of order, the oven was missing it’s door, the house didn’t have the number of beds it promised, it had counted the unfinished basement as a bedroom, etc. Despite all that, we had a great time playing games, eating amazing Chicago pizza, roasting marshmallows, playing with nieces, and eating. Lots of eating. Thanks, Shaun, for bringing your Wii!

Mario Kart on the Wii – yeah, it was intense.

We spent a Sunday with Casey’s side of the family at Holiday World – a waterpark & amusement park rolled into one. It was so much fun playing with our nephews in the water. I love waterparks!

Cousins and best buds.

Look at those super sad faces because it was time to go home.