January

We have spent most of January inside fighting one kind of sickness or another. But we did get out one Saturday with a bunch of our friends for a big snowmobiling/tubing trip. It was such a blast. Caeli has the cutest friends. Maggie, Maddi and Caeli piled on a sled and went down. Caeli had a ton of fun and hardly stopped all day.

Maggie, Maddi and Caeli.
(Thanks Krista for sending me these pictures. Our camera is on the fritz... )

In the back of the truck headed down to the bottom of the sledding hill.
Cara had eye infections. When I took her into the doctor to get drops for it she also had double ear infections and is now sporting a really nasty cough. Cohen has a perma-cough. Stinkin' Cache Valley inversion..... Caeli spent several days without a voice, which I must admit was kinda nice. And now I have a sore throat and cough. Great fun. Somehow Cameron always escapes sickness. He says it's the anthrax the army made him have... :)
Cohen likes to be naked lately. I can't keep his clothes on. He also got his first stitches this week. His was running to get into the tub Sunday morning and tripped and fell putting his top teeth through his bottom lip. All the way through. It was nasty. They put a couple of stitches in it and told me to keep an eye on his loose top teeth... Great times raising a little boy. It's good he's so cute!

Christmas Break

We spent 3 great weeks at home this year for our Christmas break. It was such a nice vacation. Here are just a few of the highlights from the holiday.

Cohen ate White Out..... Note: white out is hard to get off.....

We went and saw Grandma Rose in Henrieville. It was fun to see her. We don't get to see her very often. (I can't believe I forgot to get pictures of her and the kids)

The kids seeing Santa. Cara slept through it, so we had no screaming.

On Christmas morning when we went down to Richfield the valley was full of fog and it was a really cool sight. Cohen kept saying, "where'd Richfield go?"

Cohen chilling with Grandpa Chidester at the yummy Christmas breakfast at Jon and Jolynn's house.

December's activities.

Blog posts are few and far between and you would think that after I have been blogging for a few years I would figure out the best way to change the order of my pictures when I upload them... nope, so this is what you get :) But we have had a really great kick off to our Holiday Season!

Cara got her first taste of baby food the other day and pretty much hated it. So after watching her spit it out Caeli asked if she could try some. She did, and the weird girl ate it! It wasn't even something yummy like bananas or apple sauce. It was peas!!! So gross.....

Cara wasn't sure what to think about real live food....

The last week of November we got with some of Caeli's friends and their moms (which happen to be some of my fun friends as well) and we took the girls to the Nutcracker. I had fun. But the girls really loved it. At least Caeli did. She has been trying to make all of her ballerina dress-ups stick straight out like the "pink ballerina" (which I thought was red, but don't try to tell her that) I hope to make this a fun mother daughter tradition at my house. It was great.

We took the kids down to Temple Square one Monday night to see the lights. It was during the super cold spell we had and we FROZE! But it was beautiful and a great way to kick off the holiday season and get into the spirit of the real reason for Christmas.

We have the most fun friends! We got with some of our Logan friends and took a trip to ride on the Polar Express. It was really cute. The kids had such a blast! Cam really had fun too. He loves trains just as much as any little boy could.
The kids got all cozy in their PJ's and took a ride to the North Pole. After the elves brought hot chocolate and cookies by, we got a visit from the big man himself. He brought the kids bells and took orders for Christmas.
Our cute family on the Polar Express. Cara was really not impressed.....

From the train we were about half-way home (to real home) and so we came down to get a head start on the Christmas break. It's been really fun to be home. Cohen loves my Grandpa T and he scored a pony ride when we got to Grandma's house. If you know my grandpa you know that he really loves Cohen if he got a pony ride. Cohen really loves him too.

I have no pictures of it, but Tim and Mandy got tickets to The Forgotten Carols. It was really cool. I am so glad they asked us to go with them! Thanks to Millie for keeping the kids so we could enjoy a full night of one of our favorite restaurants (Sagebrush Grill) and the Forgotten Carols. That's one other thing I wouldn't mind adding to our tradition list.

I have been really thoughtful and reflecting a lot today after going to the funeral of my awesome Uncle Mont. His family is just amazing to me. Aunt Marleen is an incredible woman. It has been a reminder to me of how fragile life is and how quickly it can be taken away. I love this time of year because we can all take a little extra time to reflect on our Saviors birth and what a huge part that event plays in our lives. What an amazing blessing the atonement is and what a blessing eternal families are! I don't know what I would do without my family. I have the best kids and a really great husband.

Merry Christmas everyone! Hope you all have a wonderful one. With all of the parties and fun things going on around us at Christmastime, lets not forget the reason we are doing all of this celebrating!

Caeli's Birthday Tea Party

Caeli has so many cute friends here. She had them over for a party for her birthday, and it was so much fun. We had a tea party with way more treats than 10 5-year-old girls can eat. We also had a pinata and balloons. I had fun too.
I was running on a very little amount of sleep through the party. The reason? This lovely barbie birthday cake. I swore after the falling apart bunny cake I did for Caeli's 2nd birthday that I would buy every cake after that. I wanted to make an attempt at a cake using fondant though. It was much easier than I thought it would be, but I still stressed about it and ended up spending a lot of time working on it. Caeli had a lot of fun and loved it so that is all that matters.

Caeli Turns 5!

5 years ago my sweet little girl was born! I was one happy momma! I can't believe it has been 5 years! When people say time flies, they aren't kidding. It has FLOWN! She was 6 lbs 5 oz and 21 inches long. I remember from the second she was born she was just looking around at everything, taking it all in. What a happy day!

Caeli's 1st birthday

It was a special day for several reasons, Cameron was home on leave from Iraq and My baby was turning 1. She would NOT dig into her cake like we wanted her to. That was just way to messy for a little princess!

Caeli's 2nd birthday. (Sitting next to her is the famous bunny cake:p )

*I have no still pictures of her 3rd birthday only (not digital) video*

Caeli's 4th birthday when we had just moved up to Logan. She was so excited we woke up to her piling all of her presents on our bed.

My crazy little 5 year old girl! This is her princess face. And she is quite the princess!

It was just Caeli and I for so long when she was little, we are more than just mother and daughter. She saved me while Cameron was gone. She is my best friend. It sounds silly, but it is so true. She didn't come to our family as soon as I thought she should, but she came at just the right time.

Caeli, you are such a special girl. I don't know what I would do without you! Such a huge help and the BEST big sister. You can always make me smile. I love you so much! Happy Birthday!

USU basketball game

Tonight was Cameron's day off so I looked to see what sporting event was going on and we hauled the family to the USU vs UofU Women's Basketball Game. I had so much fun. I am becoming an Aggie for sure. But I do love sporting events a little too much for a girl :)
Cohen would watch wherever Big Blue was. I promise he is really excited here. He had a huge smile on his face both before and after the picture. He tries really hard not to show too much emotion... silly kid.
Guess what Caeli loved the most?!?!?! Yep, the cheerleaders. She was really distraught at first to see that there were boy cheerleaders, but after she saw what they were doing (throwing the girls) she was in awe.

I was excited to see that Halie Sawyer, (from Panguitch) was starting for the Utes tonight. Even though I cheered super loud for the Aggies, I had to cheer for Halie . It's always fun to see a familiar face on the court, she's so cute and did a great job. I am happy to report that we won 67-58! Did I mention that I had a great time? And that I love Basketball? And I can't get the fight song out of my head tonight? Good time.

Cohen

I didn't get anything posted about Cohen's 2nd birthday, so I thought I would post on the 2nd anniversary of his due date. Our little miracle boy was born 10 weeks early and was only 2 lbs 14 oz. Despite all of that he did remarkably well. It was a crazy time and there is no way we could have done it without a lot of prayer and tons of help from our family and friends.

The poor little guy was so bruised! He was in the NICU in Provo at UVRMC for 6 weeks. He was a strong kid and still is. I can't believe it has been 2 years! I don't know what I would do without his bear hugs and "whatcha doin' mom"

(His cake was super ugly but it sure tasted good.) Cohen is such a special kid. Knowing he is our only son makes it really hard not to spoil him rotten. He's so loving to Cara and most of the time to Caeli too :) We are so blessed in our home. He makes me laugh every day and comes up with the funniest things. Some of my favorite sayings of his right now include "look at me guys" "what ya doin'" "go to grandma's house" "ride Grandpa's fourwheeler" and "shoot bear, grandpa's big gun" There is no question he is a boy and we are constantly cleaning up whatever he could find and spill. I have become friends with the poison control people because he eats anything and everything, and I am not kidding....

We love you Cohen, happy 2nd!