Pumpkin carving!

I can't remember the last time I carved a pumpkin and ever since Caiden got his pumpkin on the field trip he was asking me when he could carve it! With some hesitation I pulled out a knife so we could get the job done. Of course Caiden was a little mad that I would not give him free reign with the knife, but I knew how that would end up so I let him pick a face and I carved it for him. Previous to actually carving the pumpkin, Caiden drew all over it and drew a face on it for me to cut-that is what all the black marks are on the pumpkin if you look really close. The finished product! Another "fun" thing was to put a candle in it-Caiden wanted to be the one to light it too-not happenin!

Black Island Farm Field Trip

On October 20th we had the opportunity to go to Black Island Farms with Caiden's pre-school class. It was a beautiful day and perfect for going on a hayride! Caiden was so excited! It was good to meet some of the other parents and I was glad I could arrange my work schedule to allow me to be there with him. They had a lot of fun things for the kids to do and we spent about two hours there (we could have spent more if I wouldn't have had to go to work). This is Caiden going down the biggest slide there-he did this several times! This is a picture of the "hayride" with him and his buddy Cole. One of the first things Caiden noticed was that there was no actual hay, but he got over it quickly. He always talks about his buddy Cole so it was fun to meet him. Turns out, I went all through school with Cole's dad and to high school with his mom! I think they will go to kindergarten together too so that will be fun.

The tractor ride took us around the farm and we looked at carrot and onion plants before arriving at the pumpkin patch where the kids got to pick out their own pumpkin. He is such a poser!

I think this one is really cute of the boys together. I tried to make this a special day for just Caiden, but I couldn't resist getting a pic of them together by the pumpkins.

Where does the time go?

I can't believe a month goes by so fast! We had our last camp trip on the 18-19. We mostly did it to pick up the trailer. We had a good dinner, but a relaxing night was not what we got! Paxton had such a hard time falling asleep and he woke up several times that night. His darn three front teeth will not come in-they are still not in yet!

Jayson celebrated his 30th birthday on Saturday the 25th. He went to Applebees with his dad and sister and then on Sunday he had dinner at his mom's house. I would have joined him, but I worked that weekend-he told me not to take it off cause he wasn't excited about turning 30! He is also still doing fire school, which he mostly enjoys, but it is hard work and stresses him out!

I have started a new position at work doing paper work/billing. I am the assistant to the MDS coordinator. It is a nice change, but a lot to learn and a lot of confusion right now. I am only doing this two days a week and working the floor the other two days. I figure it will be good experience, and I get to work more closely with the management so it's pretty good.

Caiden is loving preschool and is learning new things everyday. I love to ask him what he learned-sometimes he comes up with something and sometimes he doesn't. He learned the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill" last week and he can recite the whole thing! He is really good at riding his bike now and he loves being a big brother.

Paxton is growing bigger everyday! I tried getting some pics of him climbing up on things-he has lots of bumps and bruises on his head. I also tried to get a pic showing off his cute little teeth-two on the bottom and one fang on the top. It's a fang cause it's not the tooth in the center that came in first, it's the one right next to it. Pretty funny looking!

Growing Up!

Caiden loves to dress up as Batman! This is is costume from last year and this picture was taken last week when the weather outside was about 90 degrees! I have managed to keep the outfit off of him for most of the summer, but sometimes it is not worth the fight-if he wants to be hot that is ok with me! So he came in the other day and leaned up the wall like this trying to play all tough! Stinkin cracks me up!

So I failed to mention on my last post that Jayson started fire school. Not the best timing, but how could I tell him no after I just spent the last three years in school. Here in Utah, you have to have your EMT certification and your firefighter certifications before they let you be part time (volunteer) on a department. So the first week went something like this...I worked from 2-10 on Mon, Tues and Thursday-Jayson had school on Mon and Wed from 6-10. My mom watched the boys on Monday night while we were both gone-Thanks Mom!!-We saw each other on Friday night and Saturday night for a few hours and then I worked sun from 2-10 after going to church in the morning. Then the next week wasn't as bad, but this is going to be rough! That's ok he'll be done in June so no big deal! Doesn't he look cute with my boys hanging all over him in his EMT uniform!

Yesterday was Caiden's first day of preschool! He was so very excited to start school and have something to do in the mornings! He loves to learn and I know he'll do great. He wasn't very excited to let me take this picture, but I forced him to let me anyways. He is suppossed to be holding a bear, but refused to take one of the many he has because he "just loves this mouse so much". They are learning about bears this month I guess. He says he learned the leader song and then he played outside-that is a pretty good report coming from my child!

On top of starting school yesterday, I decided it was time to get rid of the training wheels on Caiden's bike so last night when Jayson was gone to school, I got out the tools and took them off. After only a few minutes of practice, I let go and he was sailing! Both of us were so excited! He practiced last night for about an hour and a half until it was time for bed. First thing this morning he wanted to go out and ride it some more! He got out ther about 7:30 and didn't get off his bike until almost 10:30! He can start and stop really well today-he looks like he's been riding a two-wheeler for weeks! This morning he kept saying, "I am so proud of myself!" Funny kid.

August fun

The month of August was really fun for us! We celebrated our anniversary, we got to go on two campouts with our family and Paxton got his two first teeth! Paxton can now pull himself up to knee level, sit by himself, and he is still doing the army crawl (not because he can't crawl up on his knees, but because it is much faster for him to be down on his belly-silly kid). Caiden is getting very excited for pre-school to start tomorrow! We got to go buy two new outfits for school this past week-he now wears a size 5/6. He looks stinkin huge to me!

This is a picture of Jayson pulling Caiden and Paxton around on a blanket. Fun for everyone!!

Paxton crawling through the table-he does this several times a day usually. Most of the time he can manage to get out without hurting himself!

One day, our neighbor Brock came over with all his nerf guns. He and Caiden had a great time playing with them and when Jayson got home he wanted in on the action too! I was in my bathroom and I was called out very innocently by Jayson and this is what I saw waiting to attack me! They pelted me with bullets before I could jump back into the safety of my bathroom-they all thought that was pretty funny! As you can see from the picture above, even Paxton wanted to play!

My co-worker Kristi has a pool at her apartment and she invited us over for a swim one day. We really liked cooling off and Paxton loved to kick his little feet in the cool water too! She was so nice to take this picture for us. We are going to miss having her and her husband here-he is in the military and they are being transfered to Illinois.

9 years and still going!!

Yesterday we celebrated our ninth anniversary! Hard to believe that much time has gone by! We had such a fun day celebrating too! We went boating at Willard Bay with my sister and her husband. Jayson and I had never tried water skiing until yesterday-let's just say that Jayson mastered it faster than I did. He was able to get up and go on his first try! I tried three times with no luck then three times more, but only getting up for maybe five seconds each time. My sister was great at it and made it look really easy, but she's been doing it for years. My brother-in-law was so good at it that he had to show off and hold on with one hand while drinking a can of coke with the other! I'm not even making that up! We have video footage of it!
We also did back flips off the back of the boat, which again Jayson and I had both never done. I have to say I mastered that better than Jayson. But I look worse than he does now because my first two times I hit my legs on the water instead of my feet and now I am bruised on both lower legs-I bruise really easily. Just to brag about myself one more time, I also dive better than Jayson, who had never tried that until yesterday! You guessed it-he belly flopped!

Caiden was really scared to get in the water at first, but he was begging us to let him stay in by the end of the day! He loved riding in the boat and swimming with Jayson and I. Once he knew that the life jacket would really not let him drown he was good!

This is Caiden driving the boat with my brother-in-law Jacob and my sister Cailin! He thought he was so so cool!

We ended the night with dinner at Red Robyn and a movie at home after putting the boys to bed. It was a great way to celebrate if you ask me!

Lovin the splash pad!!

So I did a post earlier about the splash pad, but this time we went with different people so I had to post these pictures too! We love the splash pad so much so this time we invited Aunt Kimmie and Grandma ViAnn to come with us! We ate a picnic lunch and splashed in the water with cousins-what a great summer day!! Have I ever mentioned that I have the best baby in the world! He is always so happy and smiling, which is good cause we just pack him around everywhere we go! He is learning the army crawl pretty good now and he has discovered he can make loud noises so he has started to squeel really loud sometimes now. We love this cute little chunky boy!

Caiden and cousin Josh,

Caiden and cousin Alana.

Utah holiday!!

In Utah we celebrate pioneer day on July 24. It fell on a Saturday, but I had the night off so we went to dinner with some of Jayson's friends and their kids! We ate at Texas Roadhouse and then came to our house to do fireworks!! We had a great time and the kids got along great! Paxton went to bed early so we really got to enjoy the evening!
This is a picture of the cute kids. Kenzie age 7, Caiden age 4, and Tanner age 6. I can't believe how tall my son is-maybe these kids are just short, but either way it is pretty funny.

I love this picture of them in the smoke bomb! They liked to run through the smoke-really good for their lungs I'm sure.

Everyone loves sparklers!

Camping, four wheeling, and beaching!

Caiden love to go to the beach- or as he likes to call it "beaching". We went camping with Jayson's parents a few weeks ago to a nice quiet place up near Bear Lake. We enjoyed three days of four wheeling, camping and beaching. We also took my niece Brooke-she is great at keeping Caiden entertained so we don't have to be constantly finding something to keep him busy. Can't wait to go again next week!

fourth of July fun!

For the fourth of July we celebrated with both sets of parents and watched fireworks here in West Point after having a wonderful free sloppy joe dinner! We have done this for the past three years and we enjoy it pretty well! There is lots of fun things to do like bounce houses and rock climbing walls for the kids and it is all free! Good job West Point city!

What a good lookin family!