Happy ???th Birthday MOM!!

So mom is (?) today - and she'll kill me - literally- if I post her age. Suffice it to say she's older than 39 and younger than 80. Now - you do the math if you really want to.

To celebrate we just did the traditional dinner, cake with "mom rocks" written on it...a moose nativity, advent calendars, a little destroying of the play room, an overrun home with grandkids and semi-grandkids (that would be my all my cousin's kids), re-decorating the tree after all the ornaments were taken off by kids, bathrooms destroyed by 2 and 3 year olds locking themselves in, a few tantrums, some make-up hugs, puppy eating people's plants, babies drinking puppy's water...did I miss anything? I think I got pictures of about half of what happened...the rest I'll just have to leave up to your imagination!

"Bama" and Braxton

Mom with Natalie and Emily - no clue where they are looking...but not at the camera!

Moose Nativity from Grandma who found it in yellowstone.

Braxton searching for the ornaments he most wants to take off the tree!

Life is just terrible when you're 1!!

Ok - if you'll take my picture - I'll be happy!

Isabella with Great-grandma and Great-grandpa!

Advent calendars

Jenn and Andrew

Yeah...they knew they were in trouble!

Entertaining the masses!

Cornaments and Dingle Bells

As is tradition for me - I typically spend my after-thanksgiving days helping my mom put up her Christmas stuff. And that's exactly what happened. We worked for hours with my dad putting up lights, trees, decorations etc. Nathan brought the kids by in the afternoon and they ended up staying until after 11pm. So we had a lot of time to entertain those guys - and I put them straight to work! We had a smidge of trouble when they first got to grandma and grandpa's house. Isabelle and Robert in particular weren't very excited to be there. But a few minutes of warming up, and a tree to decorate brought out the Christmas spirit in everyone. They were so good to help unwind lights (or in Isabella's case to twist them all over me) and help put up Ornaments on the tree. Robert was especially enthusiastic..."More Cornaments please, more cornaments please!" And I'd hand him a few. He'd scamper over to the tree and layer them all on his special branch (not two or three - one!) "More cornaments please" he'd say. I hand him a jingle bell ornament. He rings it, and, gasping with delight, exclaims "yes! it's a Dingle bell!"


Ok...has there been a cuter kid?? That is so hard to say because they are all just adorable.




Isabelle is the very special type of person whose excitement and happiness runs over you and makes the whole world golden just because she smiled, waved her little hand in her "hold me" sign and snuggled up next to you. However, that kid can throw a tantrum like I have seldom seen. It was just too cute! When she started crying for her dad, I put her down so she could run over to him. Instead, she bent over at the waist holding her head like "how could you do this to me?" Then she promptly fell to the floor and rolled from side to side in obvious emotional agony over the terrible things she'd been forced to suffer (I think this was the time I tried to take off her jacket. I have no idea why she is so attached...but she got to keep it on the rest of the night, obviously. This is cute once - not all night!).

Since my mom has often showed pictures of me throwing a tantrum when I was about this age, I thought I'd retaliate and show a few pics myself.


From Thanksgiving day - the group of us who did the turkey trot fun run!

Welcome Home NICU babies

So Cayden was in the NICU with a little friend of his...well at least their parents are friends! And when mom and I were dropping off Braxton, they came over for a little dinner party - and Easton and Cayden were able to meet again. I'm sure they really cared! But we did! We thought Easton would make Cayden look big since Cayden was about 5 lbs 7oz and Easton was (I think) around 3 lbs 11 ozs. Anyway - these pics don't really help b/c Easton is in the front so they look about the same size. Cayden didn't look monstrous, but he is bigger. Easton is so tiny it's hard to believe he's home! But I guess after 6 or 7 weeks his parents were too excited to bring him home and just didn't want to leave him there anymore.


Every time I take Cayden's blanket bundle off, his hands pop straight over his head,or on his head, or on his face. And he starts squirming and making faces

But you have to admit that his curly hair is going to just be a ladykiller when he grows up. Unless he follows his dad...Curly Curt - when did you start cutting your hair too short to see the curls? hahahahaha

Disney on Ice with 2 cute little Boys

So after a very strange and crazy couple of work days, I had the chance to unwind with Braxton, Robert, Mom, Jenn, Andrew and the crew from Disney! They boys were totally engrossed the entire time - even when both wanted to sleep they just refused to shut their eyes.













Braxton chanted "memo" the whole time Nemo was out and he pulled off his hat to show me Mickey and Goofy every time one of them were on the ice (which was a lot - let me tell you). That night we went home and watched Nemo - where the Braxton chanting continued. I don't think Robert said a word the entire show or movie - but he did manage to eat a LOT of cotton candy and marshmallows. It was a good thing Braxton is still in diapers because that meant we had a supply of wet wipes!



It was such a fun weekend with them. On Saturday morning we started the day out with a bath because I'm sorry - but little boys get VERY dirty. Then we played, ate, went shopping, read books and even watched another movie (well - Robert did...Braxton finally took a nap). Later we went to drop Braxton off, and got a good look at Cayden's curls. Such a cutie!!

Cayden is HOME (and other important things)

So this week has been an adventure. I've traveled to Louisville KY for work, I went to the BYU game (that we won - thank goodness!!) and i did my first triathalon (for the first time EVER). But my favorite part of the week was an awesome picture message of Cayden with the message "I'm coming home". I got it during the BYU game so I couldn't rush on over, but today I finally got to spend some time with him. Of course, Braxton is the one that really appreciates the playmate, and we had tons of fun. But I'm just so happy that Cayden was healthy enough to come home and he is so little and adorable. I wish I had some better pics of Braxton from today, but he wasn't really cooperating and most of the ones I took turned out as a blur as he ran from one end of the house to the other trying to make sure he played with every toy he owned.


Cayden with his favorite Aunt!




Cayden with his favorite uncle. (I hope anyway - Braxton might still be mad about getting knocked on the head with the bball!)


My buddy Braxton!

Update from Texas

Just wanted to drop a couple of pics of Savannah and Mikayla on the blog - it's hard when they don't live here to get pictures, so these ones are stolen from their mom's blog. But how cute are these little enchantresses?

Cayden Quickie

He's under the lights now for jaundice, but they think he'll be out soon. Just wanted to add one more picture - because he's totally blue. It's what he really looked like. It's funny, he looks big compared to the 2 and 3 pound babies in the NICU, but when we saw the babies in the regular nursery, he's so little!!


Now he and his big brother Braxton have something in common...they both got to wear the cool shades!

Our One Fine Fall Day

So we have one day a year I think, when the weather is beautiful, the leaves are falling on the ground and we can all play outside. And that's exactly what we did. Carmelo the dog, Natalie, Emily, Robert, Isabella, Mom, Nate and I all played for hours. It started with raking the leaves, it ended with raking the leaves - but in between there was burying the dog, burying the baby, lots of throwing leaves, a missing shoe, tons of dirt, a shovel, rake and 2 brooms. Good thing, because it rained all night and the leaves are not fun to play with anymore. Oh - and I can see into my neighbors house when there are no leaves on the tree. A little disconcerting I must say!

Carmelo - almost totally buried. His favorite though, was finding the left over food in the garden. Even though he had to dig through layers and layers of leaves, I think he ate almost every last bit of food. What a piglet!


Natalie was able to pick up a lot bigger piles of leaves than Robert - I think that's why Robert had a lot more dirt and leaves from head to toe. That kid was a mess!

Carmelo and Isabella are about the same size - and both of them loved being buried in the leaves!

Natalie's Baptism

Natalie turned 8 a couple days ago and was baptized this morning. I was so proud of her. She looked beautiful and did such a good job. Congratulations Natalie!


Natalie with me and Isabelle.


After the confirmation in the dress she made herself just for this special day!!



Emy and Isabelle were beautiful today too!

Cayden Continued

So Cayden is now in an incubator to help keep his temperature more even. He was able to get the IV out of his head, but now he's jaundiced so he's going to be under the lights for awhile. Right now they're saying he'll probably be in the hospital about 10 days total. Poor kid! But so sweet and cute!


Joselyn feeding Cayden...he's up to 20 cc's.



Cayden (he's being burped, but how cute, huh?)