1 already??

It is so crazy how fast a year can go by!  Little miss Aspen turned 1 on April 1st.  Ya it took me a while to post this, her birthday was followed by sick kiddos, a long Easter weekend and a new game that I'm addicted to.  Yes addicted.  It's called Color Cross.  Don't buy it.  I seriously dream about it.  Not kidding.  It's kind of a cross between sudoku and a cross word puzzle.  It shows a color at a time with the number of how many boxes should be filled in with that color and once you figure out what color to fill all the boxes with it ends up being a picture.  I have played it for at least an hour if not more every day since I opened it.  The other night I started playing it right after I put the kids to bed and didn't stop til Ben informed me I should go to bed, I thought he was just being "helpful" until he told me it was 1 o'clock.  That's 4 hours of playing the stupid game!  Anyways back to Aspens birthday.  Oh and just to warn you I had a hard time narrowing down the pics so there are a ton of them.

It was over conference weekend so we got to just sit around all day.  I had been busy cleaning my house most of Saturday so forgot I hadn't even wrapped her presents yet!

So Sunday morning me and Hunter went in and got her presents and balloons ready for the birthday girl while her and daddy played on the bed.

Hunter was so excited he could hardly stand it!

I thought this was so cute.  Both of them just checking out the presents.

Hm.  What do I do with that?

She got the hang of it pretty fast.  If she hadn't Hunter was dying to try to open them himself, even though he had just seen and helped wrap all of them :)

I love the arm clear out after ripping the paper off.  And gotta love the milk down her jammies, she hasn't quite mastered drinking out of her cereal bowl.

I just thought her smile was so cute in this.  Oh and you gotta love the hair in this.  Hunter had thrown up at my mom's the night before so we thought there was a good chance he would end up throwing up in the night so figured there was no point in doing their baths since we would have to in the morning anyways.  Luckily he didn't throw up again!

Checking out her new Belle doll.

I think Hunter looks so cute in the background.  Aspen absolutely loves the ladybug she is holding.  I had never heard of them before, it's a Happy Napper.  When you push it's belly it sings a Happy Napper song.  At first I thought it was a really dumb song but it is very catching and we all know it by heart now!  Aspen will drop anything she has and come crawling over as fast as she can when she hears the song.  And she usually will grab it and start dancing to the song.  The other day I was walking through the house and started singing the song then Hunter piped in with the next line, we went back and forth like that for the first few lines of the song. Haha.  I also found the big version of it on Amazon for $5, so I got her and Hunter (a dog one for him) the big ones for Christmas.  I know it's way early but it said they are normally $25 so even with the shipping it was a killer deal. 

She finally figured out to hold onto the handles.  It took her a few days but now she totally knows how to scoot along on it.  She hasn't figured out how to turn yet but she can go back and forth.

And Hunter likes to push her (that is when we make him get off it so she can ride it) he does get a little crazy and has tipped her off it a couple times so I have to really watch him when he pushes her.

She also tipped it over her first day!  It scared her to death!

Here's our cute birthday girl in her new dress fresh out of the bath.

Lucas was a much calmer pusher.

I had to use so much dye to make her cake the right colors.  I thought the frosting tasted so gross because of all the dye but didn't find out til I was eating my piece of cake, and that wasn't til everyone else was already eating theirs.  Sorry you guys!

She was not moving!  She just sat there and looked at it.  I had even practiced blowing with her before hand and she can blow but she would not try.

Finally Ben got some frosting on his finger and put it in her mouth.  Our sassy girl jerked her head away!

This is how she ended up eating her cake and ice cream.  Haha.  What a nice Grandpa!

She stayed pretty clean since she had Grandpa feed it to her!

I think Grandpa might have gotten messier!  And there is the proof that there was way too much dye!  Nobody wanted the black head, my Dad ended up taking it, I guess the rest of them new it would be to messy.  At least red can kind of be a natural lip color :)

Opening presents from the family.  This cute bat and ball were from Jaylene and family.

And lots of new clothes from Grandma!  She definitely got spoiled!

And she now has 8 teeth!  Just a couple days after I did the last post the other two broke through.  I think they may have been a day or 2 apart but not by much.

We had her 1 year check up on the 3rd and she was in the 17% for height and the 4% for weight!  She's tiny!!  She must have her dad's genes, cuz she is a pretty good little eater!  It worked out good that she had her appointment, she had been running a fever ever since the night of her birthday.  The doctor gave me a prescription but told me to kind of watch her and just fill it if she didn't seem like she was getting better.  That night she was hysterical!  It was so sad!  I rushed out and got the prescription filled and the next day she was seeming a little better, but she still really struggled the next 2 nights.  So when Thursday came around and I didn't feel very good and she had still had a rough night I was really nervous about leaving that night to go camping for the Easter weekend.  I kept trying to convince Ben that we shouldn't go til then next day, he just kept ignoring me and getting things ready.  He was really nice about it though, he never once complained about the fact that he had wanted to leave at 2 or 3 when he got off work and we didn't end up leaving til like 6 because of me, he just kept trying to do as much of it as he could.  Really all I packed was mine and the kids clothes.  And it turned out great.  Aspen slept solid all 3 nights we were there, Hunter woke up the first 2 with leg cramps but after we gave him some Tylenol and rubbed his legs he went right back to sleep.  I felt a lot better the next day too, just a bit stuffy.  The next post will have lots of fun Easter pictures!  We had a blast!

Busy Growing

I realized that I hadn't ever posted to say that Aspen now has 6 teeth. I can't even remember when she got the 6th one but it's been in for several weeks. She has 3 on top and 3 on bottom. She has the front 2 of each and the third teeth are on the left side of her mouth, so she's a bit unbalanced. I can see the outline of both of the next 2 teeth coming and I hope they come soon cuz they have been causing her bum to get really sore! It was so bad on Thursday that it started bleeding :( I had never had that happen with Hunter so I started freaking out and called my sister immediately to find out if I needed to do something besides desitin.   Poor girl.  Luckily it is pretty much better but flares up really easy if I don't change her immediately after she goes.  I'm thinking they are also the reason she hasn't been sleeping very well lately.  As soon as she is back to sleeping through the night again we will be moving her in with Hunter, we can't wait to have our room back!!  She will be 1 on Sunday, so crazy!

You can't see the third one on top but it's a pretty good shot of the rest of them.

Some other random updates of Aspen are that she says Uh Oh, a lot, and especially when she throws her food on the floor (which I'm pretty sure she does to save it for later, cuz she will go under the table and start eating shortly after we get her down, she's crazy!)  And she says Dadadad, and you can totally tell she is saying it for Ben.  Sometimes it kind of sounds like she is trying to say Hunter, but not very clear.  She says shoes pretty good.  She has said owie a couple times but we aren't really sure if she knows what it means.  And she totally plays phone.  She will grab just about anything, put it to her ear and say "Hello."  The L's aren't really pronounced so it's kind of more like huh-o.  I think maybe I'm on the phone too much or something!  Haha she just seems so little to already by playing phone!  She has said Mamam at me a couple times but not too often.  When we first had Hunter me and Ben would both try to get him to say our name (mom or dad) first, but then I talked to a lady that always taught her kids to say Dad first, cuz you know that which ever name they can say is the one they want, especially when they need their bum changed.  Haha.  I thought it was so funny and I have only said Mom to Aspen a couple times, just when Ben's around but secretly I'm OK with her knowing his name first.  She is kind of a stinker and thinks she needs to be held or walked around most of the day so right when Daddy comes home she heads to him and holds up her hand to have him walk her around since Mom isn't doing it all day like she wants.  She can also sign "more."  We taught Hunter a few sign words and it was really nice to be able to communicate some before he could really talk.  So far that's the only word Aspen has learned and she usually only does it if I ask her if she wants more, someday I'm sure she'll figure out to actually use it.  And she also just learned to fold her arms for prayers.  It is so cute!  And just the past 3 days or so she has realized that she can stand without holding onto anything.  She will stand up by holding onto something then let go and just stand there for a few seconds.  She thinks she's pretty cool when she does it, but so do we!  Wow she has been doing tons lately, I didn't realize there was so much new until I typed it out!

I attempted to braid her hair the other day.  It didn't work out so good. Haha.  Ben really doesn't like the pony on top of her head so I figured I would try something else but her hair is just too thin!

While I was getting ready to head up to Ephraim the kiddos were playing.  It got to quiet so I went to investigate and this is what I found.  Hunter was lotioning him and Aspen!  And for some reason besides the globs on the side of Aspens face he had it mostly in both of their hair.  His I was able to just do it spiky and it looked fine but there was so much in Aspens I had to give her a bath!

Aspen and I went up to Ephraim with my family this weekend.  Kira had her Badgerette review, it was way fun to get to go see her dance again.  And surprise, surprise we even got to see my Dad dance again!!!  He thought he was done when Kira graduated high school. Haha!  They asked all the Dad's to stand up in the audience, and after they did asked them to come down to the floor.  Once they were down there they were informed they were going to have a dance off!  It was awesome!  They all took a turn showing a "move" then we narrowed them down to 4.  They showed us another "move" then he decided on one of the winners but couldn't tell which of the other 3 was getting the loudest screams.  Brandi yelled "One more time!"  And the announcer listened!  Haha.  We got to see them show another move!  And we screamed and ended up getting my Dad to win!  And in the process got Tucker (Brandi's baby) to cry and Aspen to look at us like we were crazy!  Then we decided that we would just have to have our Dad dance with Talee and Aspen instead of their Dad's!  Both of our hubby's were more than OK with that :)

Ben was on call so he couldn't come up.  Him and Hunter went camping out to Sand Hollow and had a fun time back at home.  Hunter ended up getting the swimmers itch, he's not ever gotten it before poor guy.  He also has an ear infection right now.  I took him to the Dr on Wed so the medicine has been working long enough that he's feeling lots better, but still sad that he had to deal with that and right when it was feeling better deal with the swimmers itch :(

He sure is happy for all the stuff he's dealing with :)

Green Eggs and Pancakes

We had a pretty chill St Patricks Day, in fact we always do.  Last year and the year before I completely forgot it was St Patricks Day and didn't even have Hunter wear green!  I don't really do anything for St Patricks so when I told Hunter he needed to wear a green shirt it took some convincing.  Granted I had forgot again that it was St Patricks so he was already pulling a shirt over his head before I told him, and granted that shirt happened to be a Thomas shirt whom he loves.  But I finally convinced him.  And the next 3 days he also wore green shirts which I didn't even notice until he came up to me on the third day and informed me that he didn't have any other green shirts that this was his last one!  Haha!  I guess I did too good of a job convincing him! 

I talked to my sister in law that day and they had had green pancakes for breakfast.  I thought that was something fun and easy I could do next year.  Well Ben had a meeting that night so wasn't home for dinner so of course I didn't feel like doing much cooking (oh wait, I never feel like cooking) so we ended up doing green eggs and pancakes for dinner, since it's super easy and super fast.

Hunter thought it was pretty cool, and I wouldn't be surprised if he ends up asking me what color we are going to make our pancakes next time we have them :)

I thought they looked so cute!  Aspen even has a green bracelet on!

Oh my kiddos :)

For meals we have had Aspen in her bumbo on top of the table for a quite a while and we finally went and got her a booster seat!

Can you tell she loves it!  And Hunter thinks it's pretty cool that she has a chair just like him now!

Typical.  The boys hunched over Ben's Ipod playing a game and Aspen still eating!  Man that girl can eat!

This is her new discovery.  She loves to climb in the dishwasher!  And it's so much cooler when I have just loaded it so there is water that she can splash in.  And throwing silverware around is the best!  Hunter loved to do this when he was her age too!  Oh and the fridge is so cool too!  Whenever it's open she gets there as quick as she can to climb in before we can shut it!

She already knows what good food is!  She loved Navajo tacos!

We were outside on Saturday, the kiddos playing and me and Ben (basically just Ben while I supervised) were making sure our bunny cage was ready for our bunnies.  Aspen would not stay in one place and play, so was crawling all over the place, and of course most of the time straight to the street.  Why kids think the street is so cool I really just don't know.  Luckily we have a pretty calm street!  As you can see she destroyed her clothes!  They were so dirty, and there was a hole in her knee, the toe and heel of her sock too!  Her toe even got scraped up and bled a little bit!  It didn't slow her down at all, I don't think she even noticed!

After we got done we ran to the nearest Redbox to return our movie, I think she was a bit worn out from all her crawling around!

The day before Aspen scraped her toe Hunter had been riding his bike with flip flops and used his toes for brakes!  He came walking up to me and said "Mom, look at my blood."  He was totally calm about it!  He got both of his toes and it looks like it even scraped off part of his nail.  It's kind of hard to tell from the pic but there are their twinner toes!  Aspen got her toes painted for the first time just the day before and scraped most of the paint off!  She sure liked having them painted though!  She sat there and talked to them for a few minutes :)  Then on Sunday Hunter used his toes as brakes again at Grandma's house and started them bleeding again!  Crazy kiddos!



Our President's Day

For President's Day we went to Zion with my Dad, Sisters, niece and nephews.  We couldn't decide if we were going to go or not and finally last minute we decided to go with them.  So we all got dressed really quick, threw a lunch together, had Hunter go potty and headed out.  About 5 min away from our house, after we had met up with my family and headed to Zion, Hunter informed us that he needed to go to the bathroom.  So frustrating when he had just gone!  Well it's not a very long drive so we asked him if he could hold it for a little way, he said ya, and we told him to tell us if he needed us to just pull over if he couldn't hold it.  Well just a couple min later I hear grunting... Yep he pooped his pants.  So that was his first and only #2 accident.  We pulled over immediately and luckily it had only gotten in his underwear cuz we hadn't brought any extra pants.  And luckily I hadn't cleaned out our vehicle since he has started wearing underwear and we found a pull up so he didn't have to go commando!  (And just FYI he has been doing awesome the past couple weeks.  Last Sunday was the last time he had a #1 accident, so a whole week with none!  And he almost always wakes up dry too!)

Our picnic before we headed up the mountain.  (I forgot to take our camera, I think it was just in my purse in the vehicle, so thanks for the pics dad!)

This is how Aspen spent the trip.  She did pretty good, just got a little crabby towards the end when she was ready for a nap.  And of course she didn't fall asleep until we were almost back to our vehicles :)

The whole crew minus my dad since he was taking the pic.

And of course he had to take a picture of his girls.

Family shot.  We had Aspen's blanket wrapped around her legs so they wouldn't be cold and it kept falling so I put it around my neck... I don't know why I didn't think to put it in the backpack, it was bugging me the whole time :)

Talee, Dace and Hunter in a little cave.

Quick break and then headed back down the mountain.  We had a way fun time!

7 years!



For our anniversary we headed up north on the Wed before our anniversary.  We decided to spend the first night in a hotel so that we could swim.  The kids loved it!  They both thought the hotel room was the coolest thing ever!  Right when we walked in Hunter started telling us what bed was his and where things went, it was so funny!  And Aspen kept unloading thing from the bags, crawling them into the bathroom, and throwing them in the tub!  The next day we got up and headed to Hogle Zoo:

What was holding Hunter's attention?



The elephant!  When we first went over to look at it I thought it was inside, then all of a sudden he came walking out to eat some hay!

I think this is one of the only pics of Ben at the zoo.

This guy was cracking me up, he was sitting there eating cardboard the whole time.  His number orangutan was doing something else... his girlfriend.  And she was sleeping through it.  I'm glad my kids were to young to realize what was going on cuz they didn't stop the whole time we were in there.  The best was when a dad came in with his kids and he sat there and stared at the orangutans!

Hunter measuring up to the gorillas.

We were watching this bird cuz we thought it's hair coming out of it's feathers was funny.  Then all of a sudden it snapped at another bird and it's neck was like 6 inches long!  It was so crazy!

There were several cats like this.  I thought they just looked like house cats with stripes, haha. 

We liked checking out his huge paws!

I was hoping he would get up and walk around but never did, he was just lounging.  I guess that's what we get for going when it's cold.

I think the giraffe were Hunter's favorite.  They kept licking the walls, and when Hunter saw the picture today he reminded me that one of them peed.  Haha.  Of all the things he remembered,  although it did take it a solid 5 min to finish peeing so I guess that kind of time could stick in a 3 year olds head.

Aspen wouldn't leave her headband on.  She kept pulling it around her neck so when I pushed it back up her hair was crazy and tweaking everywhere!!

This was only a couple minutes after the picture above was taken.

 

Hunter looked at the camels long enough for us to get this picture, then he was too busy watching the fence open and shut for workers to get in the zoo, and was done with animals after that.  Good thing we were about done!

After that we went to a movie, then headed to Ben's Grandparents house where we stayed for the next 2 nights.  Friday we spent most of the day at the Hunting Expo (Ben didn't know about the Hunting Expo when we got married, otherwise there is no way I would have gotten married this weekend!)  Saturday we headed down to my aunts house and she watched our kids while we went to the Provo temple.

Ben of course had been to this temple before but it was new to me. It was really pretty.

After we picked up our kids we headed back to the expo to finish the last couple of rows he hadn't gotten to the day before.  Then we had a Birthday dinner for Ben's mom and brothers.  After the dinner we headed to our friends house where we spent the night.  Sunday we just hung out at there house.  It was nice to just relax after several crazy busy days.  And we finally got to meet there baby girl.  She was so cute!  After lunch with them we headed home.

Hunter only had 2 accidents the whole time we were there, and the crazy thing was that it wasn't on our long drive there or back.  He did awesome for the drive, I was really worried about it and almost put him in a pull up.  Ever since that weekend though he has been having accidents pretty often.  I don't know if he realized he can hold it a long time or what.  But now he keeps on having accidents when he is playing games.  I know it's kinda mean but if he has accidents he can't play games for the rest of the day, cuz I know what he's doing is just holding it cuz he doesn't want to pause the game.  The craziest part is that I don't really let him play games for very long.  Yesterday we were headed out the door for church and he peed his pants.  So frustrating... he had gone like a half hour before was all.  Oh well I guess we just have to play the up and down game for a while til he really fully gets it.

Well we had a great 5 day weekend and spent it with lots of family and friends.  We only had our trip to the temple to ourselves but it was still a great anniversary.

For Valentine's Day Ben surprised me with chocolates and flowers.  Well kind of, my brother told me about the flower part, he saw Ben buying them while he was buying his wife some.  Ben also surprised me with not having scouts, so last minute we decided to run to a movie, and his sister was awesome and watched our kids on such late notice.  Like it was 7:10 when I asked Ben if he realized he was late for scouts and that's when he informed me he didn't have scouts.  And I said we should have gone to a movie.  He said ya we should you find out if there's one that we can make it to and I will see if my sister can watch the kids.  The movie started at 7:25 and it takes about 10 min to drive there from our house.  His sister met us at the theater and we just switched vehicles and ran in just in time!  It was a good show and the first time we've been to the movies without our kids and us together in a long time!!  Thanks Jos!!

Ice Fishing

I forgot to put these on the last post.  Ben, his Dad and Hunter went ice fishing just before New Years.  Hunter was still talking about it for several days after.  Here are some pics of their trip: