Waiting for Daddy to get Home!

It's Friday which means Scott is coming home today! We are SO excited although instead of flying like he was originally planning and getting in around 11:30 this morning his plane broke down (thankful they saw that it wasn't working BEFORE he was on it!) so he is driving instead because they couldn't get him on a plane before tonight anyway! Praying the roads are all clear for him and that he gets home safely by this evening (it's a 9 hour drive). It's been a good week overall and the kids have been great for me, but we just all miss him so much when he's gone! Poor Daniel was up several times last night crying "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy"! :o( So sad!

We have had a good week though! Let me think through what all we did!

Sunday was Easter Sunday and my sweet little kiddos looked so cute all dressed up! As did my handsome hubby who has decided to start growing a beard - lol. ;o) It is the one thing I've never really wanted him to do, but I have decided to get my hair cut short to maybe my chin length which is short for me (which Scott did ask me to do...) so maybe if I like the beard when he gets back today we can both change up our looks a bit. ;o) But we'll see after I see him today! ANYWAY! We got the kids all bathed and dressed Sunday morning and we were able to take some pictures before church. Church was great! Daniel was in the nursery (showing off his suit and tie we heard afterwards) but we kept Lydia in with us and she enjoyed all the music we sung throughout the service. After church we headed home for naps (not our naps... the kids') and while they napped I went over to Walgreens and got Daniel some Easter candy (which I ended up eating most of - imagine that!) and I got him some bubbles and Lydia a bunny for their Easter gifts! Then around 3:45 we headed over to Amanda's for an Easter egg hunt and Easter dinner with my family. Daniel had an awesome time egg hunting with Vienna and Lydia enjoyed being held by Daddy and holding her egg. :o) It was a good time with our family eating a delicious ham and fixings dinner and enjoying the beautiful day outside, but it was also really hard because our little Makaio wasn't with us... It was hard seeing Lelia and Wayne go through their first holiday without him but I'm so glad we were able to be there with them!














Monday morning Scott left for WY for the week and the kids and I had a fun day keeping busy! Daniel and I worked on some activities that morning (which we haven't done for awhile because he always wants to play outside usually)... That was a lot of fun! He knows his colors so well now (for the past month and a half or so he has been learning more and more of them) and so I am now trying to work on his shapes and some numbers... He loves to "match" everything so we matched all the shapes together from his various puzzles, blocks, legos, etc. and he actually got most of them in the correct stacks! We also counted out some of his blocks and put them in stacks by number 1, 2, and 3. Then we cut out pictures of things starting with the letter D (a dolphin, a duck, a dog, a picture of Daddy and Daniel, and some other things) and he helped me glue them to a page with the letter Dd on it! He loved doing that! He has been recognizing so many letters lately and even though he doesn't always say the letter itself (except for D and W which he says all the time when he sees the letter), he will say the name of the family member that starts with that letter (A - Amanda, L - Lydia and Lelia, etc.) It's so much fun as he is learning more and more! Anyway, back on track... Monday afternoon after naps we went into town and went to Wal-Mart for me to get some gifts for a few of my friends who are having and had babies and to get some other random things I needed. It was the first time in awhile that I have gone shopping with both kids and even though the shopping cart got a little full with Daniel sitting it it, also, it worked out great and it was fun! :o) We went to TacoTime afterwards and picked up some dinner which we ate at the Little League ballfields before watching Vienna practice her baseball. It was fun hanging out with Amanda and Tyler and Vienna! Daniel is so ready to start baseball... Too bad he's not even 2 yet! :o)

Tuesday after Lydia's morning nap we went into town and met some friends at the park. Daniel played with his friend, Shelby, and I visited with her mom, Rhonda, while watching Lydia play with her little friend, Amelia, who is 3 months older. It was such a nice day and lots of fun hanging out and eating lunch on the grass together! I LOVE spring time weather and picnics at the park! AND, it's so nice being able to just let Daniel play with his friends now without following him all around the playground equipment. He loves sliding and climbing everything now! I can't really remember what else we did on Tuesday... I know I made a yellow cake for a baby shower the next day. Oh! And I cleaned the house! I think that's the majority of what I did! :o)

Wednesday was a busy but fun day! My friend, Kacey, came over with her little boy Connor and while Daniel and Connor played and Lydia hung out with us or napped, Kacey and I made icing and frosted her cake and mine to look like ladybugs! We were part of a group from small group who were hosting a baby shower for our youth pastor's wife, Lacey. It was so much fun hanging out and talking and decorating the cakes together although I am NOT going to be starting a cake decorating business anytime soon! Lol. ;o) After Scott's mom came over a little after 4 that afternoon, I headed over to the church to help decorate for the shower. Everyone did such a great job with the decorating and the food! It was all so cute and I LOVED the ladybug theme! It was a dessert shower so all of us hostesses brought desserts and fruit... It was a great shower and Lacey enjoyed it. I'm so glad we were able to throw one for her!





Thursday I babysat another friend's little boy and so Daniel had another friend to play with! He LOVES having kids over! :o) They were so cute watching slide and swing and run around outside... Then they came in and played at our little picnic table with play doh and puzzles and then they ate their lunch at the table, too. I took all three kids on a walk in the wagon (while I was holding Lydia in the front pack) which was nice, although it turned cold fast and rained on us a little near the end of the walk. Last night I took the kids in to Canyonview and we were able to watch the softball game that Scott would have been playing in if he was here. It was a great game! Everyone played awesome even though it was freezing cold (just over 40 degrees) and it was raining for a lot of the game! We were all huddled in the dugout watching the game... Lydia as happy as can be in the front pack (keeping me warm) and Daniel was walking around doing whatever and not too happy about having to stay in the dugout since it was all wet and cold out... :o( So glad we were able to go watch it!

Today has been the more tough day so far, especially this morning. Lydia must be getting another tooth in because she's been so unhappy this morning, although right now she's doing great playing with Daniel's barn and animals on the floor. :o) We didn't do too much this morning but once they went down for their naps I made chocolate chip cookies (with dark chocolate chips) for Scott and I made a baby gift for a friend and some peanut butter cream cheese apple dip for a ladies' tea tomorrow morning that I'm going to. Daniel has been down for his nap for over 3 hours now! Poor guy must have been super tired! I love my little kiddos and I'm SO thankful that I have them to hang out with when Scott is gone, but I'm SUPER excited to see Scott in just two and a half to three more hours!! YAY! :o)

So very blessed

I am watching Daniel play with all his new toys and Lydia is down playing on her play mat looking and hitting all her new toys! They are both in new outfits from Christmas and they are so very cute! :o) I love these two little ones SO much! As every day passes faster and faster, though, I am realizing that if we don't enjoy the time we have right now we'll be looking back and wondering what happened!

Our Christmas was amazing! We had a very packed full week, but we had lots of fun at the same time so that was good! Thursday night we went over to my sister, Amanda's, house and met her, my niece Vienna, and my other sister, Lelia, over there to make and decorate Christmas sugar cookies and then drive around looking at Christmas lights - a yearly tradition for our family! Daniel and Vienna had a lot of fun cutting out the cookies using the cookie cutters, which Daniel kept saying over and over - "cookie cutter, cookie cutter, cookie cutter". He didn't fully understand what to do at first until we showed him a few times and then he would take a cutter and make cookies all over the dough, even cutting Vienna's cookies in half! Oops! Poor Vienna is not used to having younger kids around, so we had to assure her that he was not doing that to try to make her mad, and she was a good sport and just made some other ones after we rolled out the dough again! Us adults enjoyed holding Lydia, visiting, helping with the cookie making, and drinking sparkling cider. It was a fun break in the middle of a busy week getting all of our Christmas gifts finished and wrapped! After we tasted and iced many of the cookies we all loaded up in our van and drove around for almost an hour looking at some of the super cool lights around GJ! That was a lot of fun, and the big house with the lights that go with music on the radio was our very favorite like always!

Friday morning Scott's parents and brothers came over around 10 with a delicious breakfast! We started the day out eating biscuits, gravy, an egg casserole, cinnamon rolls, and drinking orange juice around the table! After we finished breakfast and cleaned up some dishes we finally dove into the gifts (I'm thinking that whole eating breakfast thing first might be something to change next year though... I think opening gifts first sounds much better!). Lydia was about to go down for her nap so she (or mainly me) opened most of her gifts before she fell asleep and then the rest of us spent the next hour or so opening up everything! We all got some awesome gifts! Scott got tool stuff, new tool cabinet things, and a "Dad's Workshop" sign for his garage; Daniel got a desk/easel with a little chair, clothes, a book, some car hooks for his bedroom, a thing to measure his height to go in his bedroom, PJs, a super cool track thing for cars to go down, a dump truck to screw together and apart, lots of tools, and a new workbench built by Scott; Lydia got lots of cute clothes, a very cute mobile to go on her crib, books, toys, a bow holder we made her, a little ABC box to store hidden treasures in, and I'm sure a few other things I forgot; and I got a Kohl's gift card for clothes (SO exciting!), a Barnes and Noble gift card for Nook books, a book, the Scotty McCreery CD, and an IHome Dock Station!

We spent the next few hours during Daniel's nap just hanging out and enjoying our gifts and Scott, Bryan, and I played a pretty sweet game of darts with Scott and I taking turns holding Lydia. We had an amazing dinner of homemade Mexican food made by Scott's mom, and cheesecake for dessert! Yumm, yumm! After dinner we just hung out until I left to go to a friend's birthday get-together til 11! It was lots of fun... we had pedi's at the mall which was awesome - I hadn't had a pedi since my wedding! Then we went to Il Bistro downtown and had dessert and hung out talking! Great girl time!

Saturday morning after the kids were up and breakfast was eaten we opened our stockings and the kids opened their Christmas PJs, since it was Christmas Eve morning! Everyone loved their stocking gifts and after we opened them Scott and I packed everything up and got ready to head down to Delta! We got down there by noon and spent the afternoon hanging out and visiting with my family and my Uncle Tommy (Mom's brother) and cousins! All the guys played a fun game of paintball over all the up and down snowy terrain of my parents' land while we girls and Daniel watched from inside the warm house! That night we had chili for dinner and then once the kids were in bed many of us went hot-tubbing which was fun.

Sunday was Christmas and we had a wonderful day! Not everyone in my family had the best day ever, though, because the stomach flu made it's round Christmas Eve and three or four of my family who was down there were up many times that night throwing up and not feeling well at all! :o( We were good, though, other than Daniel who threw up a few times on Christmas. Poor guy. We had cinnamon rolls and egg bake for breakfast and once everyone was ready we opened stockings and then began the long, all-day process of opening gifts. We had so many gifts and since we only open one at a time (which is definitely the way to do it), we didn't end up finishing because of all the breaks for eating and stuff until like 3 in the afternoon! It was a lot of fun, though, and yet again we all got lots of cool things! I can't remember everything right now, but I know Scott got a lot more tools and stuff for his wood-working, a pocket knife, and the game Quelf; Daniel got tons of cute clothes, toys, ABC magnets, a rug for his room that has roads on it to play with his cars, and one of Dad's awesome "Taylor toys"; Lydia got so many cute clothes, also, a snail toy with a mirror that she loves, a butterfly hook for clothes in her room, the ABC magnets also, and other cute stuff; and I got a Cricut machine (YAY!), a Red Mango gift card, the base of the new size of Miche bag (SO excited to get a shell for it for my birthday!), a picture frame for our living room, and another gift card for whatever I want - I need to think about that... :o) So many great things! For our lunch/dinner we had ham, smoked briscit (Scott had made that all day on Friday), potato casserole, corn casserole, and spice cake and dump cake for dessert. It was delicious! We had a wonderful day with family and Monday we just hung out in the morning and headed home right after lunch!

That was our weekend! It was awesome! :o) I will try to write again soon but for now I need to go read to sleepy little boy and then it's his nap-time! :o) Lydia just went down for her nap, too, so maybe I can get some things done! Yay!

Christmas is just around the corner...

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! This month has been such a busy one for us, but I have to say that I'm looking SO forward to Christmas which is seriously coming up way too fast! Tomorrow I really want to go to the craft fair in town just because they are amazing and get me all in the Christmas spirit and then in the afternoon / evening we are putting up our Christmas tree, village and decorations! SO excited! I'm also really excited this year because I know it'll be the first one that Daniel will actually sort of realize what's happening, so that makes it even more special... even though it'll be good times keeping him away from the ornaments on the tree! I'm also excited to maybe start some more Christmas / winter family traditions... for one, we are definitely going to take the family up on the Grand Mesa or on Glade Park to go sledding! Daniel will LOVE that, and Lydia is such a great little girl who loves doing pretty much everything as long as she is with people who love and hold her! :o)

Our Thanksgiving Day was great! We spent the entire day over at Scott's parents with his parents and Scott's brothers. Daniel had a great time running back and forth between his uncles and his grandparents and all his toys! The meal was amazing and it was nice to just hang out, rest, watch the parade and football, and look through lots of ads! :o) Last night while Scott stayed home with the sleeping kids, I went out to brave the crowds and got some things at Walmart and quite a lot at Kohls, which was awesome! Getting super close to finishing our Christmas presents, other than the ones we still need to make! :o) It was actually a lot of fun getting out and shopping, even with the crowds. I've decided I'm just really laid-back because I just walk through all the crowds in no big hurry, getting what I need and then visiting with people in line. :o) I got back by 2 a.m. and got some sleep before the kids woke up this morning around 8.

We had donuts for breakfast (Daniel LOVES going to City Market to get donuts with Daddy!) and then after cleaning up some around the house Scott and I headed into town for a quick date while his parents watched the kids. We watched the new Twilight movie which was really good, although definitely more gory and bloody than the others! As soon as the movie ended I headed over to Joanns at the mall to get some shopping done there while Scott went back to help with the kids. It was so much fun getting to shop and look all around the store just by myself and not in the middle of a huge crowd or in the middle of the night! :o) We had dinner at Scott's parents and now I'm just hanging out with Scott while he is watching Lydia and Daniel just went down for the night.

Well, I need to go now but I'll try to update again soon. I want to tell all about our trip to Kansas and Texas next time! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

Halloween

We had a great time Monday night hanging out with family, trick-or-treating, eating great food, and celebrating my dad's birthday! Our little dragon, Daniel, and ducky, Lydia, were super cute in their costumes and even though Daniel hadn't been feeling the greatest for most of the weekend, he seemed to do so much better that evening and played, laughed, and ate until we finally had to put him down for bed at 9!

We put Daniel's costume on before all of my family got here, so that we could get him used to it a little at a time. We had a dance off in the living room with the costumes on, which helped him get more used to it, and then Daniel and I played outside for awhile as he ran around in his cute little dragon costume! After awhile, Scott brought Lydia out so we could get some cute pictures of her and I tried to get some pictures of Daniel, although he would not stay still so that didn't work all that well!











Mom, Dad, Lelia and Wayne got here after a bit, and then right after Tyler, Amanda, and Vienna got here we all headed over to Scott's parents to trick-or-treat. Scott pulled Daniel in his wagon while Lydia was traded off from person to person as we walked around. It was so much fun walking and talking and seeing how excited Daniel and Vienna were each time they got some candy. :o) Anytime Scott decided to not take Daniel up to a house for some reason, he would point to it and make noises as if to say to take him up there because he needed more candy in his pumpkin!









Vienna, Daniel, Scott, and Tyler trick-or-treated around most of our neighborhood while the rest of us went home earlier and started eating some yummy appetizers and I took some maternity pics of Lelia and Wayne. She is only 23 1/2 weeks along, so not super big yet, but it was fun taking a few pictures because she's been needing some belly pics anyway!









We had lots of fun hanging out and eating food before Dad opened his gifts. Daniel had lots of fun playing with Vienna and running around everywhere... maybe had too much sugar with the cupcakes! :o)

Anyway, it was a great evening and so much fun hanging out with my family! I'm so glad that our kiddos were great the entire evening, too, because that made it much more enjoyable for Scott and I and it was so nice to have a happy Daniel again! :o) Hopefully he'll stay all better and not get sick again for a long time!