Chris and I are also considering making our blog private. I would love to know those of you who view my blog regularly or even periodically....leave your email address in a comment or email it to me at ccraney@gmail.com. We will wait about 2 weeks before we make the switch.

Week 23

For Memory sake here are pictures of week 23 out of 40

Happy Birthday Eric

For my brother Eric's birthday we had a barbecue at Mom and Dad's house. We had birthday cake, learned how to make Balloon animals and even broke a pinata. It was a fun party for his 23 birthday and we hope he had a great day.

Favorite New Salad & Dressing Recipe

So I know this is not a recipe blog, however; it is our place to share the happenings in our lives with YOU our friends and family! I have been posting a lot about being prego, anyway which could get boring to some i guess... so I thought that I would change things up a bit and share a salad & dressing recipe that I fell in love with. While I can't speak for Chris I can say that he ate it and I even think I saw him lick his chops!

Enjoy!
Fresh Strawberry Salad with Poppy Seed Dressing

1 Head of your choice of lettuce or spinach
1 pt. fresh strawberries
1 Bermuda onion, sliced (I left this part out and added raspberries instead. Yum!)

Chelle's suggestions:
1 handful walnuts or almonds
Feta or mozzarella cheese


Dressing:
1/2 c. Mayonnaise
2 tbsp. vinegar
1/3 c. sugar
1/4 c. Whole milk
2 tbsp. poppy seeds

Place ingredients in a jar or container that can be shaken. Cover and shake until blended. Dressing keeps for several days in the refrigerator. Cut lettuce & strawberries. Drizzle dressing over salad.
this recipe can also be located where I found it at www.cooks.com.

Strawberry Days 2009

I pinched Chris right before snapping this picture so that I could get a real smile...it turned out to be more of a what the heck face. lol



This year Strawberry days really crept up on us! Luckily Christy was willing to pick us up some tickets. It was fun to join Steve and Christy and family at the rodeo. Chris and I headed down early to get us some strawberries and cream which was absolutely delicious as always. Surprisingly the weather was beautiful and PERFECT even though it has been so stormy and is raining outside as I type this message. We will definitely be making the strawberry days rodeo a tradition for our family for many years to come.

Week 22 Picture

So here is my week 22 snapshot. it was taken with my friend Mary who is going to have a baby in 12 days! Chris and I taught her son in Nursery and absolutely fell in love with him. Anyway, I know its not in the same format as my other snapshot pics, but its all that I have for this week.

21 Weeks...19 left to go!

I am a little bit late posting these but like the saying goes...better late than never!

Never Ending Thunderstorms & The Orem Summerfest 2009

I first want to mention about the never ending thunderstorms. Seriously! The news just said that so far in June we have only had 3 days without rain! At first I thought is was nice and I have to admit that I will probably regret the fact that I want the Hot weather to come...Anyway, I included some pictures of today's storm for you to enjoy.

not surprisingly it rained on us at the annual Orem Summerfest yesterday. It was muddy and yucky, but we made sure not to miss out on getting a yummy funnel cake! the picture above is of us waiting for a break in the rain under one of the parks pavilions with Tyler, Skyler, Kaleb, Cass & kids & the inlaws. We ended up going home and making hot chocolate while waiting for the fireworks. We all almost fell asleep waiting! boy are we getting lame the older we get :)

Summer of Parades

Chris' sister made the cheerleading squad this year so she gets to cheer in lots of parades this summer. Here are some pictures of the our first parade of the summer out in Eagle Mountain for Pony Express Days. Besides getting to watch the Katie in the parade there was tons of candy and other goodies!!! Seriously, I filled a whole back pack full of candy by the end of the parade, in fact I have never been to a parade where kids left candy in the road, but at this parade there was lots of candy left in the road. Not to mention the years supply of tooth brushes that we picked up. I was stoked! Chris liked the Dr. Pepper car so I took a picture of it to share with everyone.

Utah Valley Parade of Homes

This past week my mom and I went to the Utah Valley Parade of Homes. While we weren't able to visit all of the homes, we did have the chance to visit quite a few. This has been a tradition for about 8 years and I always look forward to walking through the different homes & seeing the new home design techniques and decorating trends. The home above is located in Orem and is our favorite! Thanks for going with me mom! It's too bad we didn't take a picture together!

April and Ryan these pictures are for you! These are just a few of the many good pictures that were taken by Julie Roper. Enjoy!

Twinkle Toes

This past week was quite busy for the Raney family. a visit from Chris' grandparents who live in Oklahoma brought on a whirlwind of activities. From RC car racing on Thursday, Collin's Graduation on Friday, a picnic in the canyon on Saturday, giving talks in church and Collin's Eagle Award Sunday night to toenail painting on Monday night, it was definitely an adventure. Unfortunately the picnic in the canyon resulted in a smashed up rhino. (A 16 year old boy was messing around and was trying to fishtale his Jeep cherokee, lost control and almost t-boned the rhino with Chris, his brother & sister and Grandpa all in it. had Chris not been paying attention, they definitely would have been hurt, but Chris slammed on the gas and was able to get mostly out of the way...but not quite all of the way. The pictures show the wheel and tire bent in and the damage to the back corner plastics and light. We are so grateful that no one was hurt or killed.

Here are some updates on my growing belly for those of you who are interested in seeing my progress. I am officially now 20 weeks and 1 day. We went for an ultrasound today and both the ultrasound tech and the dr. say that it looks like it is a GIRL. So...in October we will be welcoming a beautiful little princess into our home. We are both very excited for the new addition and are happy to know that she is healthy and beautiful!
I will post an ultrasound pic as soon as I scan them.

I would like to take a poll...do I look like my belly has grown bigger since week 16?


20 Weeks


This picture was taken on Thursday and was the last picture that was taken of Colin before baby Mason was born on Monday morning early. It's fun to compare her 9 month belly to my 5 month belly....she is beautiful as always. We will definitely have to see how I look at 9 months!


19 Weeks

18 Weeks

17 Weeks