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)

Catch- up Time!

Goodness! It has been quite some time since I wrote on here... I can't believe I haven't even written about Daniel's birthday party yet, and that was almost 2 weeks ago! :o( Oh, well. It has definitely been a long few weeks so that explains it somewhat. I'll try to catch up with everything that I can in this blog, though, and will try to post pictures too if I get the chance! Just put Daniel down for a nap after playing hard with him for hours to get him tired enough for a LONG nap! :o) We'll see how long it actually is!

First of all, can I just say that the weather has been AMAZING lately! Grand Junction is supposed to be in the 80's tomorrow is what I heard on the radio or something, so I'm super excited about that! After Daniel's nap I'm going to take him on a walk to enjoy this wonderful weather, and then tonight Scott is taking me on a date, which is sort of a surprise although I THINK we are going to be outside for most if not all of it. :o) Yay! I'm excited!

ANYWAY, Daniel's birthday party... We had it on April 30th, and it turned out to be a wonderful party! So many of his little friends and our friends and all the family came, and they all helped turn the day into an amazing day of celebrating our very first year with Daniel! That morning was spent doing the last minute details of decorating, cleaning up, and making the last snacky foods and punch. My parents and Amanda, Tyler, and Vienna all came to help with those details which was a great help, and although Daniel didn't want to nap because of all the excitement and people over, he still did great during the entire party! :o) (That was one of my fears was that he would cry the whole time or need to take a nap, but I shouldn't have worried... he is way too social for that. Lol.) We put out all the super cute signs for the food that Mom had made on her Cricut and put out all the food right before people started coming shortly before 2.







We spent the first while just eating and visiting while the kids played outside on the swing set and the babies entertained us all in the living room. After Daniel and I finished eating, we rounded up the entire crew of people and began the massive opening of gifts - there were SO many! Daniel opened like 1 1/2 and then decided it was way more fun to play with the other babies instead of open gifts, so I got the privilege of opening the rest of his gifts. :o) He got so many awesome things - toys, trucks, cute clothes, books, noisy toys, pushing toys, blocks, and so many other things I can't even list them all! Although he was a bit overwhelmed at that point with everything, he spent most of the evening and STILL goes through all of his toys and has played with all of them at least six times! :o)







After gift opening which took awhile, we pulled out his cake... :o) Kami and Jasmine had come over the day before and helped me make his two cakes - a tiger one and a monkey. We decided that we would go ahead and give him the tiger cake to 'smash' even though at first I wasn't going to, but I decided it was his very first birthday so I might as well let him have fun! :o) WELL, all I can say is that I must have him trained well, because he didn't even get very messy! Lol. He just looked at it in front of him and then started picking at the icing in one little corner before Scott pushed one of Daniel's hands into the cake. He still didn't think too much of that and was taking his time enjoying the icing when we finally just cut him a piece of cake and let him get messier with that. :o) At least he had fun and the cake wasn't totally ruined for everyone else to eat! Anyway, those were the highlights of the party. It was so much fun and thanks again to EVERYONE who came and made it such a special day for Scott, Daniel, and me!




We had ShareFest at church the day after his birthday party, so instead of going out into the community with the others from our church and others around GJ, I stayed at the church and got lunch ready for everyone and Scott helped out one of the other guys with the BBQ duty. Daniel enjoyed his time in the nursery while we did our stuff, and then rested when we got home, which was nice because we were all super tired from the day before still!

I can't even really remember what we did the week after... I know I had Mom's group on Tuesday which was really good as normal, although I was having a tough time with Daniel not wanting to take his afternoon nap at all, so that made for long days with a grumpy baby, so I did have to leave early from Mom's group because of that. I mainly rested as much as I could that week because of the busy week beforehand getting ready for his party, but also had some fun lunch times with friends and took Daniel on many, many walks in his new red wagon that he had gotten from my parents! It was a beautiful week so we both looked forward to and enjoyed those walks around the neighborhood each day!

This past weekend was a super busy time for us again... I don't think we have too many weekends that are not busy, though. :o( We did have a good time, though! I ran to some yard sales Saturday morning while Daniel napped and then the three of us met my family and most of the people from their church for a balloon-release / unveiling a memorial / BBQ in remembrance of Bekah King. It was a fun time with many people I hadn't seen in a long while, and yet another beautiful and hot day out! After coming home for Daniel's nap we headed back into GJ to have my family's Mother's Day dinner at Applebees. That was a lot of fun to enjoy dinner with everyone and celebrate all of us mothers! Everyone came out to our place after dinner, including Nate Towne, and we all played games until past midnight - that hasn't happened for Scott and I in a LONG time! :o) But, it was tons of fun and I'm so glad everyone came out!

The next morning was a little hard getting up and at it, but Daniel woke me up at 6:30 I'm guessing to wish me a good mother's day, so I had to get up to greet him. :o) We went to church, which was really good on having joy, and then came straight home to get lunch ready for Scott's parents and brothers for our Mother's Day time with them! It was a lot of fun hanging out, eating some amazing BBQ chicken, corn casserole, French bread, homemade salsa and chips, and strawberry pie, and playing games. We ended our busy weekend that evening with hanging out with friends at Drew and Andrea's and had some good girl time, which was fun! :o)

This week has been fun but busy, like all weeks seem to be! Monday I think I went into town and ran some errands, but I can't remember exactly anymore. I do know that that evening we had small group, although there were only a few of us there so after talking for awhile we just played a card game, which was lots of fun. :o)

Then, on Tuesday Daniel and I joined some other ladies and their kids from our mom's group for a picnic lunch at Rocket Park, which was a lot of fun! Daniel enjoyed swinging for awhile and then sat down with the rest of us and ate his lunch, even feeding himself most of it. We have been working this week on really letting him feed himself both finger foods and with a spoon. Although it's a BIG mess, I keep reminding myself that I need to be okay with that or I'll be feeding him for a LONG time! :o) Lol. Plus, he has SO much fun with it, so that's too cute to watch! Anyway, we also went down some slides a few times and then just spent awhile visiting with the others. That evening I took him over to a friend's house for a Women's Bible Study, which was really nice! I was a little worried about how he would do especially without Scott there to help watch him (Scott was at a guys' night), but Daniel did awesome! :o) Yay!

Wednesday was just a day at home except for mid-afternoon when I dropped Daniel off with his grandma so I could go to coffee with my amazing friend, Rhonda! We had a great time visiting and it was definitely what I needed! Daniel did great with his grandparents, too, so that always makes me feel good. :o) I love that he seems to be out of his separation anxiety days, at least for this week. :o) That evening we stayed home, made dinner, and just rested. It was so nice! Daniel was funny because he had been going to bed at like 8:30 or 9 the past three nights, he decided he didn't really want to go down at 7, so although we tried because he was tired, we ended up getting him back up and he watched American Idol with us while sitting on my lap on the floor, holding onto his Teddy Bear. :o) He was too cute! He LOVES music, so watching anyone sing is just too cool for him!

Thursday, yesterday, Daniel and I joined my mom, sisters, and Tyler at a lunch welcoming my grandma, Nanny into town! We all met over at Carino's for an amazing lunch! :o) Daniel had a great time at the beginning eating, playing, and being entertained by Tyler, but then got really grumpy near the end, so I left early again and got him in the car so he could take a nap. It's amazing how fast tiredness will hit a little one! Goodness gracious! It was so nice to see Nanny again, though! We actually get to have her stay with us Sunday night through Wednesday afternoon, so I'm super excited about that! THEN, we all get to go to Hawaii in just 2 1/2 weeks! I am getting SOOOOO excited about that! It seems SOOOOO soon, finally!! YAY! Anyway, when Scott was off work we met him at the mall so that we could go shopping for new flip-flops for him. We ended up getting a lot of other things at Target first because we didn't find any flip-flops. Oh! and we got some half-off frappes at Starbucks with their happy hour! :o) Then we walked around the mall and ended up going to Cabela's and Scott found some super cool flip-flops there that will hopefully last years for him, AND he also got himself a collapsable fishing pole and fishing license all with a gift card he had! :o) It was fun shopping, and nice to be shopping for Scott because that doesn't usually happen. :o( We headed to the park after that to take Daniel swinging and to use up some time because Scott had a dinner at 7 and didn't want to have to head home first. Daniel LOVED swinging and it was so nice being there with all the other kids playing around him. We headed home after that while Scott went to dinner and I watered the grass, wrote thank you cards finally for Daniel's party, and watched American Idol until Scott got home!

Okay, that was like whirl-wind catch-up! Goodness! I need to keep up with this so I don't drive everyone crazy with these all over the place posts! Sorry. I hope everyone is having a wonderful week and I'll talk to you soon! :o)

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Oh, here are just some random pictures taken in like the last week of Daniel and then one of me at 23 weeks pregnant! :o) Enjoy!