Eastertime

Thanks to child support money and finally a paycheck, my kids woke up to this on Easter morning. They were very excited to have stuff in their baskets because I told them the Easter bunny was having a hard time getting enough money to get all of the kids Easter stuff, so they might be one of the houses that does not get very much. Sweet little Cayden then said to me, "It is ok mommy, I will share with my friends." I am so blessed to have such a caring child, mind you he is not like this all of the time. I do like to mention it when it happens because it reminds me that it does sometimes happen. Kayla had a few things to play with, she loved her new sippy cup and was chewing on it right away.

Josh got a new pair of shoes that he was needing. The easter bunny was not able to splurge on not needed items over $1 this year. both of the boys really needed new shoes, that is what they got.

Cayden really wanted to show off that the Easter bunny did not forget him. He made me take pictures of him with everything he got. He really loved his spiderman flip flops that the Easter bunny found on clearance.

Jared was not really excited about anything. He is never really excited about anything anymore these days. I am not sure what it is about 11 year old boys, but they are hard!

After church, we had a big family picnic at the park by my house. I was so happy to have so many people from my family come! My mom and dad, John and Andrea and their kids, Paul and Camille and Jordan, and then us. It was so much fun! We grilled hambergers, hot dogs, and chicken and the had a Easter egg hunt for the kids. I helped Kayla get her eggs. She loved it!

Cayden posed for me after he found his eggs. He was so excited to find his eggs without a huge amount of people pushing him around.

Kayla loved to play with the eggs she found, I just emptied all the stuff out of the eggs and let her play and put them in her mouth.

Cassia and Camille were playing in the sand. I thought this was so cute, that I had to take a picture of Cassia playing with her Auntie Camille.

Blaine even got off work early and was able to come out and have fun with us. I am really enjoying living here with so many of my family members living close by. I am glad for the opportunity to be able to build a better relationship with my family. I am thankful for all of the help that we have received from everyone and the prayers said on our befalf. I am most thankful for the knowledge the God plays a very important part of our lives and he loves and helps us in everything if we just ask.

I thank you all, have a great day!

Easter

There was a community Easter thing at the park by our house. We took all of the kids except Josh, he thinks that he is far too old to have fun at those types of things. We had fun though. We missed the time for Kayla to get Easter eggs, but fortunately, Bubba had a few extra that he was willing to share. They were empty but Kayla just wanted to play with the empty eggs anyway. Blaine had the day off (yes he finally got a really good job), so he was able to go with us.

Cayden wanted to get a picture with the Easter bunny. I was shocked because this is the first year he has not been afraid to get a picture by himself. He said that five year olds can not be afraid of the Easter bunny anymore.

Here is Kayla with her basket, was not really interested in it but I wanted to get some pictures for her baby book.

Kayla

My baby is getting so big! I can not believe that she is 10 months old now, the time has flown by. She can crawl all over the place and boy is she fast. She get to a sitting postion while she is crawling too. She is pulling herself up onto things and walking along them. Here she is holding onto her srtoller attempting to push her baby.

I was at my dad's house with AnnMarie, Amy and Andrea and there was a bin full of ribbon on the floor, my little girl thought this was the best toy ever. She got tangled up in the ribbon, she was having a great time until I noticed she had gotten some wrapped around her neck. She was not happy that I took her away from her toy.

She is interacting with Cayden whild playing now. She loves to come and mess up what he is doing and then giggle when he gets mad at her. I love her face in this picture.

The Zoo

Well it sure has been a long time since I updated everyone on how were are doing. We have been busy since moving down here to the warm weather of Queen Creek. I am totally loving it! I am not sure how I am going to be this summer, but right now the idea of it being chilly at 65 degrees is wonderful!
We went to the zoo on St. Patricks Day. The Phoenix Zoo is so amazing! I had such a great time. I had all of the kids and we met AnnMarie and her kids, my dad, Andrea and her kids, and Amy and her kids. 17 total people, not really that fun to get us all moving in the same direction, but fun to spend time with each other! I did not manage to take any pictures of the animals, Josh and Jared were camera shy and refused any pictures they knew about to be taken, so I really do not try and have all the pictures just be of Cayden and Kayla but it usually turns out that way. There was a splash pad that we took the kids to, the boys loved it but Kayla was not really happy to get splashed. She just sat with Natalie and played around.
Kayla wanted something to chew on so I gave her a carrot to chew on. Her tiny teeth managed to bit off one or two slivers of carrot and she did not choke. She had fun sliming the carrot and I felt good about her not choking on anything. Happy mom and happy baby!

We also took the kids to a playground that they have at the zoo, they have farm equipmet that the kids can play on and "drive". Cayden and Jared had fun pretending, Josh was hangin out with Bailey and they tried not to appear too bored.

Overall, it was fun, the weather was warm, and were had a good time. I am looking forward to going back soon to see more of the animals.

Memorable trip, new house and a birthday!

After my last post from Salt Lake, Blaine came home from work and we finished the loading and left Salt Lake. Cayden, Kayla and I headed on a road trip stopping to see family along the way before getting to our new home. Blaine, Josh and Jared headed to Steve and Ann's house so Blaine could sleep and then they headed straight to our new house. I think I got the better end of the deal, I did not have to lift a finger to get the truck unloaded, it was completely done by the time I got there! Our first stop was St. George. We got there about 8 pm on Monday and stayed at Grandma Maggie's house. The next day we spent with AnnMarie. It was amazing to see how big Natalie has gotten! She is pretty much a mini me of AnnMarie. She has beautiful, big brown eyes.

Here is Kayla with a big smile. She had so much fun playing with Natalie. I think Natalie had fun teaching Kayla new tricks.

Here are the two of them playing on the floor. It is so fun to see them together. It is kind of bittersweet. I used to live so close to AnnMarie, these two little ones would have seen each other at least once a week. Now I live so far away, we are lucky to see them twice a year. I must admit, AnnMarie does come down this way much more often then up to Salt Lake.

That Tuesday night, we had Trey sleep over at Grandma Maggie's house so Trey and Cayden could spend more time together. They had so much fun! They watched a movie, slept in sleeping bags on the floor, and even ate all of their breakfast the next morning!

They were playing tag in the morning and blocks and watching more movies.

Kayla had fun watching the boys play. The boys were teasing Kayla and trying to jump over her. She just laughed at them, thinking they were pretty cool. It was fun to see the kids play together. They were just playing, not worrying about anything but the moment they were in. It was nice to escape to that world for just a short period.

After Jenny picked Trey up, we headed to lunch with Debbie, Becca, and Kelly. Brad showed up to say hi. I then went by the car wash to see Travis before we took Grandma Maggie home and headed to our new home. when we got there, the beds were set up, trucks were unloaded, and boxes strewn all over the house. I was so thankful to see all of that work finished. I have such an amazing husband that had all of this finished for me when I got to our new home! Over the next few days I got the rest of the house unpacked and we got settled in. In the meantime, Kayla started to crawl! she has been doing the army crawl, but this was real, true crawling! I took these photos while she was crawling to my purse.

She has already figured out that mom's purse has cool stuff in it.

She just could not reach it, she fell onto her stomach, and got mad because she could not reach it. She is such a funny little girl!

Well here are the asked for photos of our new home. It is unpacked and mostly decorated:

The living room and sitting area.

The family room

The Kitchen and dining room

The master bedroom

The master bathroom

I am totally loving this house. There are some things that I do not like, but over all. I love it. Is is so roomy and open, the floor plan really works for us. I am so very thankful that we were able to have such a wonder place to live during these trying times in our lives. i know that God has his hand in our journey.

This is Kayla's Easter dress. I was so excited to find it. It was on the clearance rack at Target and it was only $5!! I was thrilled. I was looking for something that did not make my little beauty look like a street corner worker, or was so frilly that you could not find her in the dress. I knew that we would be very short on money this Easter so I could not believe my eyes when I found this perfect dress!

Cayden had his fifth birthday on Sunday. I decided that I would take advantage of having so many family members in the area and invited them all to come over. I invited my aunt Nina in addition to all of my brothers and their families. AnnMarie was in town with her family so they too were able to come. My dad and a couple extra nieces were able to come as well. I was so thrilled that everyone came! We had a total of 26 people at our home! I loved having my family over for the party. I was not even stressed about cleaning it after they left (although John and Andrea did most of the cleaning before they left).

John, Andrea, and Joshua

Blaine, Jordan, Paul, Camille, Natalie, Kayla, Nina

Cayden blowing out his candles.

Cayden opening presents with the help of Jacob, Lexi, and Lauren.

Over all it has been a very busy past 2 weeks. I am very happy with my family and my home. I am still a bit worried about our job situation. I am sure that Gods hand is in our lives and is watching out for us during this journey. I just hope that we have the strength to endure what we must.

Moving Day and Memories

I woke up today after getting to sleep in until 8 (thank you Tammy and Lynn for watching the little ones), to find this:Jared, my wonderful little helper, had already showered and was cleaning the basement. He has been spending most of his time with his best friend this weekend, and he felt like he wanted to help and surprise us. What a wonderful boy. I was so pleased to see that he got up and did this himself. He is such a great helper (when he wants to be)!

This is Josh and Jared's room. It still has lots of work to be done before we leave. They needed to dao laundry at he last minute and this was the result.

Here is Josh. He was not as ambitious this morning. He has been helping all weekend to load and pack so he was taking it easy this morning. He also was not very happy to know that he was in the picture.

Here is my beautiful kitchen and dining room. I was sad to see it that empty yet this messy at the same time. It is just the last little things that need to be packed before leaving today.

This is the living room. It is normally that cleanest room in the house all of the time. These are the things left to load into the truck.

This is Cayden's room. I actually did this cool paint job. It was lots of fun to turn this room into outer space. It started out being sunshine yellow and that was too much for us to live with so this was the end result. I thought it was a really cool room.

This was Miss Kayla's room. I bought the quote in light pink and cut the flowers and butterflies out with my cricut. It was a fast fun way to make her room a little girly instead of just white. there was a beautiful picture of me holding her where the gap on the border is. It too has been packed away for our journey.

This was an amazing view from our front porch. It had been sunny all week and a storm was coming in. It was so beautiful, I really wanted to capture this moment. I wanted to remember the beauty of the Salt Lake valley. It really was not all bad, just the snow.

This is Miss Kayla's nine month picture in her car seat. I have not gotten one since she was six months. She has gotten so much bigger I am sad that she is growing so fast but happy at the same time that she is healthy (finally) and able to grow.

I love this hat. I bought it a long time ago and never wore it. I put it on on Cayden and he loved it too. He keeps telling me it is his fishing hat and he needs to go fishing.

Mr. Cayden posing for the camera. I found this outfit on clearance for $7. He loves the Broncos so I got it for him. He has been so cute with the stress of the move. He tells me when we have to leave to go anywhere that we can not leave yet because his toys are not packed to go to the new house yet. He is so cute. I just love the things he comes up with to say.

Here is a better picture of Kayla's ponytail. This one she left in until nap time. She thinks the bows taste good.

Example of a yummy bow. This was the first time I put her hair in a ponytail. It lasted less then an hour. She is so cute, it really is hard to be mad at her!

This will be the last post in Salt Lake City. It is a bittersweet moment. Many memories, tears and laughs have happened here. I will really miss all of the friends I have made. here we come Phoenix!