Photography Class

My hobby for 2015 was learning to take great photos with my new DSLR Nikon 3300 camera. I took a community education class that was awesome. I learned all the bells and whistles on my camera as well as got a few new lenses and really have been putting it all to great use. I also tried to teach Bren everything we learned in the class too and he takes amazing photos as well. The class ended on a high note with everyone meeting at the State Capital in Utah and taking photos. Here are some of the final edited images, enjoy!

Love,

Bren, Lys, Q and K

Durango Trip

Since we have been really enjoying the new camera from Christmas I thought I would share some of the great pictures we got when we went to visit the Hallocks in Durango, Colorado. Durango is absolutely gorgeous and looks like a little town out of a ski movie. Big mountains everywhere and a really cool river running right through the center of town. Enjoy the pics!

Little boy before we headed out in his car seat

Our amazing driver Mr. White

So happy to finally see the Hallocks and Mr. Kaylor

Look at all these handsome boys

Sure loved watching these two play each morning, Quinn is 13 months here and Kaylor is 8 months in this photo.

pretty cute, right?

Hauling our twenty pound plus babies down by the river

Family picture

Both moms backs started to ache a bit so the Dads took over, pretty cute picture with the boys looking over the shoulders.

Can't wait to see our friend again, we had a great trip!

Love,

Bren, Alyssa, Q and K

What we have been up to

Time just goes so crazy fast. I really have been trying to make it a goal to update this blog at least every month. Sometimes between working two jobs, our sweet boy and now a puppy, time just gets away on me. A lot has happened between January and February. Starting in January we celebrated our Quinn's first Birthday with awesome friends and family here in Utah. Tom and Kathy came in for the weekend and we had a really great time. Little boy loved the frosting on his cake and was spoiled with so much love. The weekend after that Uncle Brian came to town with the best birthday gift for Quinn, our new puppy Gilles.

The weekend after that my parents came to town for a visit. We finally made it to the Draper Aquarium, which is so awesome! Quinn was just in awe of all the tanks, fishes and animals there. It was really cool and we hope to get a membership there soon.

The weekend after that Brendan's parents stayed with us after they had the Puff/Whites ski vacation for a week up in Park City. Not to miss out we took Quinn on his first zoo outing that Saturday. Quinn was just fascinated by all the new animals. Last weekend we drove to Durango, Colorado to visit our friends the Hallocks. I will do a separate post from that vacation with photos in a few days. Busy, busy, busy.

Pregnancy is going wonderful and little girl is kicking away like a rockette. We have started to get her nursery put together between the crib, and how we want to lay out everything. Its hard to believe March is next week and in June she will be here. I will make sure I get lots of photos of her new nursery. Q is on the move, he has full on taken up running and keeps us on our toes. He cracks both of us up with his antics and words. So far we say Daaaaa, dada and occasionally Maaaama. He also likes to mimic the word "hot". Very adorable and it is all going so fast. We don't have a lot planned for this spring since I am only getting bigger and more preggo. I just finished up my photography class which was really cool and we are starting Gilles puppy school on Saturday. Life is busy but so blissfully good.

Love
The Whites

Introducing.....

Our newest family member Gilles Bedlington the First. We just call him Gilles (rhymes with files) for short. I can't believe it has been a month since we got this new fur ball, he is an absolute joy. Gilles is a bedlington terrier from Coronado Island, California. He was the most wonderful first birthday gift for our Quinn from his Great Aunty and Uncle Brian and Carmen. They loved Gilles a ton but unfortunately Carmen ended up being very allergic to everything this fluff button brings into the house. He is not lap dog and loves to roll, dig and plain old get dirty outside. They knew we had lost our Oscar a few months back and asked us if we would like to adopt Gilles. We did and it has been absolute love from the beginning. He is so sweet and playful with Quinn and is by far the smartest puppy I have ever had. We start puppy school this week and have really enjoyed having him apart of our family. I truly feel like a spot in my heart has finally been filled with this sweet puppy.

Love,
Bren, Alyssa, Q, Baby K and Gilles

My little man is growing up...

(My new camera took this :)

I can hardly believe it but this week on the 15th Quinn will be one years old. I feel like if I just blink it was yesterday we were driving down our hill to the hospital to have him and knowing the whole time everything would be different next time we drove back up. What an amazing, wonderful year it has been! Our little boy brings us so much joy, daily laughter and awe. I cannot believe all that happens in a year and how they go from this tiny infant to this walking, babbling little toddler. We both have been trying hard to take in each moment from the quiet late night milk drunk smiles when he was a newborn to his laughter and determination as he gets older and decides he wants to do new things. His latest endeavor has been crawling up onto the coach and then getting this huge satisfied, mischievous grin at what he has done. Honestly just an amazing last year, incredible to think this June he will become a big brother and we will get to enjoy some of these moments again with his sister and enjoy new moments in watching Quinn and our growing family.

We loved Santa!

All of the cousins with Ga Ga and Grandpa Brecke

Quinns first tricycle from his Great Aunt Laura and Mike

The holidays back in MN were awesome, except both preggo Mama and Mr. Quinn got ugly colds that took almost two weeks to fully get rid of. We were all spoiled rotten with wonderful gifts and great memories. I laughed at how gift opening on my Brecke side of the family was completely done in about 5 minutes tops. This is what happens when you have five super excited nephews under age 8.  I got spoiled by getting a really nice Nikon D3300 DSLR camera. The picture quality this camera can take is amazing. I am also going to be taking a class to learn more about all the bells and whistles on it. Bren has been busy still getting in a lot of ski days, he got an epic season pass this year for Christmas and has enjoyed how much that has let him get out. Life is wonderfully good right now and we hope the same for all of our family and friends in 2015.

Love,
Bren, Alyssa, Q and Baby K

Guess what, big news! We are having a.....

He's going to be a big brother!

Little girl! Yooohooo, I have been so excited to finally share this exciting news on our blog! After all the issues we had with infertility and getting pregnant with Quinn, here is the old blog post if you would like to read it:http://lovelyandwhite.blogspot.com/2013/07/a-background-story-and-some-big-news.html We didn't know what kind of journey we would be going on to possibly have another baby. We decided because of the amount of time it took with Quinn and also wanting hopefully any other kids we have to be close in age to start sooner then later. We still had to have lots of help with injections (my PCOS was described as some of the most severe my doctor has ever seen even post pregnancy) but fortunately this time the very first round took!
We wanted to wait to make it social media official until we knew the sex. Today we went and had the ultrasound and found out that we are having a little girl. We are absolutely over the moon with this and very surprised. On my side of the family there are six other little boys including Quinn, this is the first girl. I love my growing family and really would have been happy either way but I am so excited for all the pink, tutus, princesses and barbies!

Someone loves their fat cat Bjorn

Quinn with his Buddiy Kaylor on the first night he walked

The other really exciting news was Quinn started officially walking. He turned 11 months old on Monday and he had taken a step here and there but not actual walking. When we were over at our friends Sara and Zane's house, he finally did it. We are so bummed because they are moving to Colorado. Their house was emptied out and with all the space we all watched as he took a solid seven steps towards me. It was a night of happy tears he walked and sad tears too saying goodbye.

It has been a great December so far, I have really felt like we have enjoyed the season. Bren and I went to see the Nutcracker two weekends ago and last weekend we saw the Mormon Tabernacle Christmas concert. We are excited for Quinn's first Christmas and all that 2015 holds.
Baby girl White's due date is June 15th, 2015

Love,
Brendan, Alyssa, Quinn and Baby Girl