China Girl

My sister Rachelle recently got home from teaching English in China for four months. While she was there she picked up a little something for our little girl. I am absolutely dying over how beautiful it is and cannot wait until our little girl is big enough to wear it!

Love the color. Love the design. Love. Love. Love. Can't you totally imagine a cute little red headed girl wearing this?! *eek*

Numbers

5 years

7 jobs held
2 states lived in
2 college degrees
3 different cars
5 moves
1 (and 2/3) kids :)

We have learned a lot the past five years.

We have prayed a lot and laughed a lot and wondered a lot and stressed a lot.

But most of all, we've loved a lot.

Here's to 5 wonderful years with forever in front of us.
Love you Chad!

A Wonderful Christmas!

We had such a great time in Colorado for Christmas. Every time I visit Colorado it gets harder and harder to leave. Someday I am going to live there... hopefully sooner rather than later.

I flew out to Colorado about a week before Chad so that I could spend some more time with my family since Chad didn't have very much time off. Leading up to Christmas we kept ourselves busy picking out adorable fabric for our little girl's quilt, making throw pillows for Cayden's new bed, cooking/baking up a storm (seriously, over the course of two days we probably spent close to 10 hours cooking and baking), picking out tile for mom's bathroom makeover (which by the way is going to be beautiful!), wrapping presents, and eating way too much yummy food. The Friday before Christmas Chad made it out and the next day my sister and her husband and baby came. I think it was the first time we have all been together since Chad and I got married.

Christmas was wonderful. It is so much fun to have little kids at Christmas. This was the first year that Cayden really got into it. He doesn't quite get the Santa aspect of Christmas, and that's totally fine with me, but he sure enjoys unwrapping presents and playing with everything inside! He was totally spoiled, both with attention and toys.

Sporting some of his spoils from Christmas... a tent (in the background), a cute new shirt, and McQueen slippers. Oh, and I absolutely love his little smirk!

As for Chad and I, we got spoiled too. We both have wonderful families and are so blessed. Not to wish away the coming year, but I am already looking forward to next Christmas... wonderful time spent with our families, yummy food to eat, and TWO little kids to spoil and love on. I can't wait.

Look What We Found! ...

... A real life Mater!

Little boy was so excited.

Sneaking up to give Mater a hug before quickly running back to mom. Apparently a real life Mater is fun, but a little bit scary too. :)

Cayden's Recent Adventures

I've been bad at blogging lately; I just feel like we do pretty much the same things every day/week so I lack any desire whatsoever to share our boring-ness with everyone. But for Grandma's sake, I thought I'd post some pictures of Cayden's adventures the past little while.

Cayden has a friend named Sienna that he loves to play with! They are about 9 months apart (Sienna is younger). Chad and I trade several times a month babysitting with Sienna's parents so that we can go on dates. It works out great as we don't have to pay for babysitters and Cayden and Sienna get to play together. They even call each other Nenna and Cay-Cay - so cute! Here are some pictures of their fun at our house.

Reading lots of stories.

Playing in their house. They both thought that Sienna's hair was fun. :)

***

Walking in the costume parade. Believe it or not, by the end of the night Cayden's bag was so full of candy that it was dragging on the floor and one handle had ripped off.

Sienna and Cayden again. This picture cracks me up. Cayden = cheesy smile... Sienna = whatever. LOL.
* I know these pictures are from Halloween (our ward Trunk-or-Treat), but I haven't posted them yet. So... yeah.

Cayden and Chad at our ward Christmas party. It was really neat. Everyone dressed up like they were from Bethlehem, we ate food they would have eaten... pretty much the whole shebang and then some! Seriously though, love these goofy smiles!

The Forgotten Carols

Last night Chad and I got to go see The Forgotten Carols! I absolutely loved it! It was so fun to see the play of one of my favorite Christmas stories. And the music. Oh goodness. I LOVE the music! What a perfect belated birthday present and a great way to kick off the holiday season.

Applesauce!

Yesterday I made my own applesauce and then canned it! First time for both! We didn't do very much as it was Thanksgiving and we didn't have a ton of time. And I still can't believe that a HUGE pot full of apples made only 5 quarts of applesauce. I think canning is a lot of fun; maybe I'll have to experiment with it next year.

So much fun!

The Verdict

50% of you said GIRL.

50% of you said BOY.

Ultrasound said...

Time to buy pink!

Two Witches

We decorated our pumpkin this afternoon. Grandma B sent Cayden a set of those Mr. Potato Head pumpkin decoration kits so that's what we did this year. Turns out that it is perfect for little kids; it doesn't take too long (which is great for Cayden's short attention span), doesn't cause a huge mess, doesn't involve sharp pointy objects (well, except for the screwdriver that we had to use to make the initial holes in the pumpkin), and is a lot of fun! Cayden had a blast and is very proud of his "wich pumpin."

Le pumpkin.

Two witches. Cayden decided that he wanted to be a witch just like his pumpkin. (I personally think that Cayden makes a much cuter witch!)

Oh! P.S. Grandma B - Cayden is wearing the shirt you got him. He loves it and wears it at least twice a week; I wash it EVERY time I do laundry. :)

Picking a Pumpkin!

The weather last Saturday was perfect for pumpkin picking. We opted to go to our local garden center rather than an all out pumpkin patch as Cayden quickly loses interest in things - maybe we'll go to an actual one next year? Anyway, we had a lot of fun and Cayden ended up covered in dirt.

Cheesy smile on HUGE pumpkins!

Cayden and Daddy

Cayden and Mommy (His face cracks me up in this one!)

Absolutely love this picture of our family!

Picking out our "pumpin."

Cayden decided that he was tired of being pulled in the wagon so he hopped out and told Chad to get in. Cayden is one strong little dude - he pulled Chad several yards before we made him stop.

Baby Dos

Thank you all for the congratulations! Here are some of the details that I know you are all dying to hear... ;)

I'm 18 weeks and a few days (at least for the time being) and feel pretty good, except for being tired frequently. I've been craving anything that is junk and am trying my best to not eat it. Baby Dos is due March 15 and we find out what we're having on November 2nd (just over 2 weeks away!). Boy or girl is just fine. I think a boy would be fun for Cayden once he got a bit older, but I totally want a girl. So really, we're happy with either. Oh, and we've already picked out names. So excited!

Now if only I could fast forward to March and avoid all the "joys" of pregnancy. *cough* gaining weight *cough*

Oh, and don't forget to cast your vote as to whether Baby Dos will be a boy or a girl. (Poll is located on the right side of our blog, you might have to scroll down a little bit.)

Cayden's First Movie!

Tonight Chad and I took Cayden on a 'kid date.' We went and got hamburgers for dinner and then took him to see his very first movie in a theater... Cars 2! Luckily we have dollar theaters nearby and so if Cayden didn't like it we wouldn't be out too much money. Cayden was so anxious for the movie to start; the previews couldn't go by fast enough and he kept asking when he would see 'Mader' and 'Qween.'

SO excited for the movie! Look at that huge smile!

Like Cars, Cars 2 is two hours long. Cayden only made it halfway through before he started getting antsy and wanted to go home. Getting popcorn didn't even fix the problem. Chad took him out to the lobby for a few minutes hoping to get his wiggles out, but to no avail. We ended up leaving the theater with a screaming boy who couldn't decide whether he wanted to go home or stay and watch. Poor boy was crazy tired and really cranky despite having a long nap earlier. Guess we'll have to Redbox it later to finish the movie.

We did manage to calm Cayden down long enough to snap this picture on the way out. Cute boy.

Just Like Daddy

Cayden is becoming just like his daddy...

Should I be worried or not? ;)

***

Auntie Rachelle, the following pictures are for you.

Cayden's sweet new shoes. He likes them a lot and wants to wear his "new shoos" all day.

Showing his shoes off for the camera. He promptly fell over right after I took this picture.

Picture of the Day

Wrapping up Summer

Seeing as that it is the end of summer (oddly enough, I'm really not that sad... BRING ON FALL!) I thought I'd post a few pictures from our adventures the past few weeks.

Ward BBQ. Ok, so this might have happened like over a month ago, but I just got around to posting it.

We got ice cream with Jake, Katie, and baby Annie. Cayden was so excited to hold the 'beebee' - he'll make a good big brother someday. Clearly Annie was not as excited.

Jesseca and Jaxton came down last week to visit. It was a lot of fun to talk and to see my chubs of a nephew. Holy cute cheeks! Cayden and Jaxton had a good time playing together - though to be honest the playing was more of them playing separately with different toys and periodic outbursts from Cayden of "My toys!"

Eating free ice cream cones (and making a huge mess all over the car seat) from a visit to the dentist. Yeah, I thought that one was funny too.

ConGRADulations Chad!

Last night we celebrated this:

Chad finally finished school this past August and we received his degree about a week ago. We're all just a little bit excited and so proud of Chad! So is Cayden. :) (He is also daddy's little shadow and couldn't stand us taking pictures without him.)

Chad and I went out to dinner sans Cayden to P. F. Chang's and ate huge amounts of delicious Chinese food. Yum. I wish I had some now.

Cute us :)

Yum.

Also yummy.

Best. Thing. EVER.

And a picture of one of the huge horses standing out front just for Cayden.

Banks & Onions

Two completely random and unrelated stories for you today:

Cayden and I went to the bank today to order checks and change some things on an account. It took longer than I expected, but thankfully Cayden was great and spent most of the time playing under the banker's desk. While wrapping up a few things the banker got a phone call from the police asking if everything was ok. ... Who knew that the EMERGENCY/PANIC button was located under the desk!? Silly Cayden.

Around lunchtime yesterday Cayden started screaming and pulling at his ear and saying, "Ear, ow." That's not exactly what you want to hear when your insurance doesn't kick in until October 1st. I was willing to take Cayden in even without the insurance (I mean, I'm not a horrible mother and wasn't going to make him wait it out for 2 1/2 weeks), but decided to see if I could find any sort of homeopathic remedy that might work. That my friends is where the onions come in. Finely grate some onions, stick them in a paper towel, squeeze 2-3 drops in the owie ear... voila! Cayden hasn't complained about or mentioned his ear and it has been 24 hours! Wahoo! We just might have avoided a $400 Dr/prescription bill. *knock on wood* Onions are my new best friend! :)

Bear Lake, Round 2

We went up to Bear Lake for Labor Day weekend again this year. We stayed a little bit longer so we got some good boating in and the weather was much warmer than last year! So much fun. I wish we could go back because I am feeling the need for a vacation again.

Sleepy boys on the way up to Bear Lake. This picture cracks me up.

Throwing rocks in the lake; Cayden spent A LOT of time doing this.

Cheese!

Chad's cousin Julie has a son several years older than Cayden. On our way to get pizza Cayden casually slipped his hand into Isaac's. So cute.

Waiting for 'pee-za-pah!'

Hugging the bear at the restaurant.

Driving the boat! Look at that smile!