That time of year again.

It's that time of year again. The Stryker family gets family photos taken and I fill an entire post with way too may pictures. Every single year I worry about these pictures. After we take pictures I come home telling Ace, "the dogs were too crazy this year to get any good pictures" or I say, "Garret was to cold and grumpy and probably none of the pictures are going to show how happy he is." This year was NO different. We didn't take as many pictures with our dogs so I wasn't too worried about that. BUT Garret was a wild man at the park. He wanted to run and play the entire time. When we tried holding him he was always squirming to get free. Then the other part of the time he was reaching for Jeremy's camera or other tools Jeremy had brought for our photo shoot. I was certain it would be slim-pickins this year. BUT again I was pleasantly surprised to find that Jeremy was able to capture my wonderful family in all their glory. Another successful family photo shoot! 

If we need to get you a family picture for this past year, feel free to leave a comment with the one you want and we will get it printed off as soon as we can. 

 Can't have an annual Stryker photo shoot without at least one yellow lab.

 I couldn't have made a better choice four years ago. Im still so happy, he's still so handsome and we still have a lot of fun ahead of us. Love this man!

 Even in his wild and crazy moments he is pretty amazing!

 We are so happy to add another boy to this mix.

 Jeremy must have done something really good.

Sweet Garret Timothy

I absolutely adore this one! This is what we look like the majority of the time.

Happy holidays! From a very happy and blessed Stryker family.

The boys are taking over!

Cally (our second yellow lab) and I are the lone girls in this Stryker family, and today at our doctors appointment we discovered that the boys will only be adding strength to their numbers come this February. 

That's right we are having another boy and honestly I couldn't be more excited. First of all, everything looked great. Our baby continues to look healthy and strong. This is a huge blessing and all that we want for this new little person. But logistically speaking, I have a lot of boy things these days and many of them are barely used so why not just add another boy to the mix. 

Our Summer

First of all, HAPPY SEPTEMBER! Fall isn't quite in the air but Im bringing out some fall decor and Im loving the idea of fall. Ace LOVES fall so his excitement is contagious. He loves the color changes, his birthday, and most of all FOOTBALL. So needless to say, the Stryker home is sad to leave behind a memorable summer, but we are ready to fall into autumn. 

Obviously I did a really terrible job blogging this summer. SO, I decided that I would try and wrap up our summer with a picture post and a list of things we did, things we discovered and people we saw.

Things we did this summer:

We did races this summer. I did four different races and Ace did two. He doubled his number of races all in one summer. What a stud:-)!

(tough mudder race in Dallas TX)

(Bayfield CO 5k)

(redrock relay in Moab UT)

(10k mud race in Durango CO)

We did lots of traveling this summer. We traveled by BIKE,

by CAR,

and by PLANE!

Here is a list of all the places we went this summer: we went to TX for the Tough Mudder race, UT three different times and WA where we went to Seattle for Ace's high school friend's wedding. We still have one more trip to Utah planned later this month and a Caribbean cruise in October! Lots of traveling for this little Stryker family.  Here are a few pictures from our Seattle trip.

(this tire was the coolest natural aquarium ever! it was the home to hermit crabs, small fish and one large red crab. it seriously was the coolest thing ever. i just love marine life)

(Pike Place Market)

We attended Shay's wedding. That's right I said Shay. And people say we live in a world without miracles:-). Just teasing Shay! But really Shay and Aleah's wedding was beautiful and we felt so grateful to be able to be apart of their special day. Here are a few wedding pics.

(Christine came out for the wedding and to visit us of course....ok Garret)

(we couldn't get Garret to hold still unless we let him hold this stick)

(COUSINS!)

We did lots of swimming this summer, in lots of different places and sometimes Garret was clothed but most the time he went all natural. 

(even the dogs water bucket worked)

Things we (by we I mean Garret) discovered this summer:

Watermelon. And loved it!

Chapstick. This is what it looks like when you leave Aleah on baby duty:-).

Sleeping in mom and dad's bed. Not my favorite discovery.

People we saw this summer:

 Andrea and Alec

Thanks to Shay and Aleah we saw the entire Beck side of the family for the wedding.

We were lucky enough to see the entire Stryker family, but just not all at once. We saw Asia in Utah once, Christine in Utah once and in Colorado once, Zac and his friend Shaun came for the month of July and then we got to see the other little Stryker family in Utah as well.

Kissing cousins! (Garret and Benton)

And our biggest summer news of all is this little bundle of joy.

 We will be meeting the newest member of our family in February. We are excited and nervous to become a family of four. Garret has been so sweet about the baby thing. He tickles my stomach, kisses it and tries to give it his paci (if that isn't love to a 20 month old then I don't know what is)

Summer of 2012 has really been an amazing summer. I would feel really ungrateful if I hadn't taken a moment to record this amazing summer and to share our wonderful news. Happy Fall everyone!