First off, Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  What have you planned for the loved ones in your life?  Rosie Mae and I have been baking up Valentine's Day goodies all week.  Conor and I have been snuggling (as we do anyway), and this weekend Mike and I will have our first date out since Conor was born.  Woohoo!!!  Can't wait!  For now, I'm sharing portraits of part of my heart with you...

Every month, I take a photo of our daughter on her monthly birthday.  Here she is at 22 months:

We all know it's been a snow covered winter.  Alas, with the pending arrival, arrival, and then existence of her brother, we never managed to get Rosie Mae outside to have fun in the snow.  I felt terrible; what a rite of passage that I was ignoring for my kiddo.  Luckily, she didn't know what she was missing, having no memory of the few romps in the fluffy stuff the year prior.  Still, I felt badly.

The night before her 22 month birthday, there was a massive storm.  I tried to time Conor's nap with an opportunity to get outside with my girl, but it wasn't working out.  When Mike went out to shovel that night, I said, "oh, take her with you!"  He did, and Conor and I even managed to go out for a few minutes (he was snuggled up in the Ergo carrier, oblivious to it all).  While out there, I realized that I NEEDED to take her monthly picture outside in a mountain of snow.  The next day, we set out to do exactly that.  With a very small nap window, out we went.  I'm thrilled we got to get outside for these shots and she had a ball.  Hooray!

We chose the above photo because the last few months have been head-on shots of Rosie Mae.  This one captures her in the moment, looking down, and looking far to old.  Here were the runners up:

I love this one.  I'm pretty sure she's waving to a truck that went by.  It cracks me up that she has no hands.

This next one melts me.  It would've been the winner, hands down, if the last few weren't similar.  I just love that face of hers.

And then there's this one...Hehehe.

Only two months left!  Yikes!  Slow this ride down!

-Kerry:)