Catch up...

These past few months have been nothing but crazy! Having a baby and then moving shortly after was awful but I think we are finally adjusting however things like blogging have not been done in months. I thought I should update all the fun things we have been up to!

Living out of the state for the past three years I missed Temple Square at Christmas. It was fun to take the kids but it was freezing we got there early and moved fast because it was so cold. It was beautiful as usual though!

Mommy and Kaden! I love this little guy he is so excited about all things Christmas this year.

A group shot...freezing and can hardly see our faces but this is our now family of five!!

Beckham is obsessed with Santa at the ward party he chased after Santa and was the first in line and on his lap. It is cute but hard to get pictures of because I have to run after him!

We watched Kaden in the nativity performance. He was a sheep...doesn't he look excited about being a sheep. The Nativity program was so cute and so well done...Thank you Laurie I am sure it was a lot of hard work but it was fun to watch!

Beckham was sad that he wasn't old enough to be in the program so he thought he needed pictures of him in the nativity.

I finally finished Miss Addy Kate's nursery and I think she likes it...she will just lay in her bed and look at all the colors and things it gives me five minutes to get stuff here and there done!

She was asleep when we went to see Santa but I needed a picture of her on her first Christmas so she is in PJ's and a Snuggly but the Santa and Mrs Claus are cute!

Here are my little guys. Kaden is asking santa for a surprise and Beckham wants anything Buzz...the problem there is I think we own every buzz toy and book out there!

Zoo lights...this was a fun night. Ally and I took the kids we were there early to see the animals and it kept saying the park closed at five we thought we would be seeing the lights without the dark we were pleasantly surprised to find out that the park reopens at night and the lights are much more impressive!

Playing with the boys at the zoo park...

They love the zoo and all the animals. It was cold but we were able to see many of the animals even the african animals...

We had Kaden's Thanksgiving program. He was so excited to be a "program" which I found out later was really a "Pilgrim" He chose to be a Pilgrim because they got to sit up on a card table which was the Mayflower. Is preschool teacher is so cute and he loved this little preschool that he went to before we moved...again!

Kaden and his cute friend Ty...

Holiday parties. Here is my cute sister with my cute baby girl Addy Kate and Ally Kate.

We have spent a lot of time loving on this little girl...she is like having a doll for a mommy...

Thanksgiving...we feel so blessed to finally be done with school and for Chris to have a job that he really likes. All the attorneys are great we just attended the holiday party and although we didn't win one of the two 60 inch TV's we had a great time and I love my new nano!

Chris likes to cut the turkey...only because there is a power tool involved he watched Bobby Flay prepare a turkey on the Today Show that morning so he was prepared.

Beckham wanted a leg...he is always my good little eater. Rarely do I put something on his plate that he doesn't eat well. He is not picky and I think that shows on his cute little round body!

We loved on this little lady a little bit more...

Harvested carrots from the garden that we spent so much time in this summer. Most of the time spent was not working in the garden but devouring of its goodness. Thank you Grandma and grandpa Barrus.

Kaden would make salads with his pickings. The problem is he doesn't like lettuce so his carrots consisted of carrots and cucumbers smoothered in ranch.

We have enjoyed the few snowfalls we have gotten and made the perfect sized snowman!

Loved on this girl a little bit more...

and more...

Loved on these two a little bit also...I am sure there are feeling a little bit neglected though.

We felt so blessed to have so much of our family around and here to celebrate our baby girl and for her baby blessing.

I didn't go with the traditional long white dress because I fell in love with this little dress, but I think she looked so cute!

I love that my kids love to be together and holding and poking add. I sure hope that this doesn't change. It is hard to get a good picture but there are so cute together I have to at least try.

Chris gave a sweet blessing and it was fun to have all our family together to enjoy this time in Addy's life with us. We really feel so grateful to have such supportive families.

We visited the pumpkin patch. Beckham picked quite a different pumpkin it was skinny, yellow and long. He was adamit about this pumpkin and would not let me help him pick a round orange one. I think he liked this one because it was one of the only ones he could pick up by himself!

Kaden had fun putting as many pumpkins in the wheelbarrow as time allowed...he was a little disappointed when I wouldn't buy the 15 that were overflowing from the wheelbarrow.

Beckham was obsessed with this clifford charachter. I had to get a picture because he was more excited about this than the pumpkin patch!

There was even a hayride that the boys though was a lot of fun!

Our baby girl...

What a difference 7 weeks makes...

We are just smitten!

7 weeks old!

Newborn

Buzz birthday!

Beck had his second birthday today...he is getting so big! He is way into super heros and wanted a buzz lightyear party. It was low key with family, cake and the best dinner thanks grandma and grandpa!

He was so excited with the cake which makes all the hard work worth it!



Since it was sunday we tried to make the day really special with a big birthday breakfast before church...he was like hmmm this breakfast looks like a regular everyday breakfast until we put a candle into the pancake and then he was excited about it!
Our cute little super hero...

Ft. Vancouver

The first day of summer a lot of the parks are free. We decided to go to Ft. Vancouver because it was a beautiful sunny day. I went with the expectation that the boys would be bored and we would just have a picnic check it out for an hour or so and head home. The boys had so much fun! Kaden said to me, "mom today was a really fun day!". I was pleasantly surprised and we spent half of the day there.

Sneak Peek...

So I was able to meet with our new doctor this past week. Because of everything that has happened over the past month he decided to do another ultrasound. It was really cool...I had never had a 3D ultrasound done. It made me even more excited for this little girl to arrive. My first thoughts when seeing what she looked like was that she looked like little Beckham when he was born. The tech says she will change a lot as she chunks up but it was fun to get a little sneak peek! It was much cooler to see in color but I thought for family far away I would post a picture so you could maybe get a little bit of an idea what she will look like. I also posted a baby picture of Beckham...I think they look similar what do you think?

Some of the pictures of her face are hard to see because the umbilical cord was in the way.

Kaden's four yipee!

So I know we have been MIA lately. It has been a busy & stressful past month for us. I feel like we are barely coming up for breath & might be moving and doing it all again in a couple of months...yikes! Anyway I just wanted to thank everyone for making Kaden's birthday so special! We had a fun party with his friends and a little get together for family. Kaden really wanted a pirate party...at first I was like really what do I do for a pirate party but we found lots of great ideas...and it was a lot of fun!

We had pizza...what four year old boy doesn't love pizza? We had a pinata!!! I found a cute one at hobby lobby that was a pirate ship and even better had a 40% off coupon (love that!).

Lots of pirate skulls and gold candy decorations...and the homemade root beer was especially fun for the pirate theme!

We made pirate hats and pirate patches for everyone & little compasses to wear around their neck to find the hidden treasure and loot bags on our treasure hunt!

I made a pirate ship full of fruit this was fun and easy. I just got scraps of fabric and made it jig jag looking and then stamped happy birthday and his name on them and stuck them on kabob sticks and put them in our cut melon it turned out really cute.

They were so cute doing the treasure hunt...they loved the map and the clues it was exciting to watch them!

The treasure chest cake...I love to make fondant cakes and this year because I haven't been feeling 100% wasn't able to do a fondant cake but this turned out cuter than I expected and was super easy!

Another fun activity that Kaden loved helping with was the invitations. We made messages in a bottle and put the invitation with some sand, glitter and seashells it was really cute and Kaden LOVED making them!

It was a fun birthday party and it was so fun to watch the excitement on my little kaden's face. I can't believe he is four he is getting so big. This has been a fun stage...he is full of questions and always wants to be going and doing. It is fun to see him learning so much and soaking in everything like a sponge. I love his little personality and how loving and caring he is. He is such a great big brother and the two get along really well (most of the time!). We love our little Kaden...Happy birthday buddy!

Sights to see...

This is a very long blog with lots of pictures but there was so much to see and do! I couldn't resist... The white house...

It was the cherry blossom festival and the DC Marathon when we were there so there were a lot of people and a lot of things to go and do, we needed a few more days.

This is at the World war II memorial of course I had to stand in front of the Utah monument. I look awful, pregnancy does that to you but come on its Utah!

Washington Monument...

World War II monument.

So this was the reason for this little get away. Chris competed at the national moot court competition. They took first place in San Francisco so then the top four teams competed in DC. They took second overall nationwide out of 80 teams and took second place brief (writing). Chris was disappointed not to be first but I was so proud. I had never seen him in the court room and it was so fun to watch he argues much better in the court room than at home!

After he was done and we went to some swanky reception in a huge firm in DC we were able to tour the city...I had already been doing that by myself while they practiced but it was fun to have the company.

Jefferson monument...

Lincoln monument...

Arlington cemetary at the eternal flame, we also went and saw the changing of the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier it was really a cool experiance.

The smithsonian museums. We went and did so much it was go go go, so much so that we ate on the run literally (hot dogs at a street vendor, never have I done that and I am not sure I will do it again!)

The national capital, they had statues from every state. Of course this is the Utah one, the inventor of the Television. What can I say you can remove the girl from Utah but not the Utah from the girl...

Had to do this...it is the store on TLC. We went up to Georgetown it was so fun all the great shopping and lively streets. I made Chris wait in line for almost an hour so I could carry them home on the plane for my family (note to self never try to take cupcakes through security a very challenging task) they were good not sure they were better than what I could make? It was all about the experiance though it was fun meeting all the other crazies in the cupcake line and then when we got to the front to learn that you can order online and just pick them up...oh well it was fun!

This was us at the tour of the nations capital. It was fun to see but there were so many people in line and they will not let any food or drink in the capital. We were flying home this night so I had just loaded my purse (yes loaded...I'm pregnant) with snacks only to have to throw them all away I was quite upset by this...I left my cupcakes at the hotel with the front desk so I didn't carry them around so luckily I didn't have to throw these away otherwise I may have had to miss the tour. Listen to how patriotic I sound cupcakes? or tour my nations capital hmmmm?

Chris in front of the supreme court house. This was really cool to go see and do. We actually got to sit in on an actual trial and it was interesting to watch. I don't know much about it but thought it was hillarious that Supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas was asleep aparently he sleeps through a lot of days in court.

Seriously it was so much fun! We were staying at the Hilton right downtown so we were able to walk to everything. By the end up the weekend I was so sore I could hardly walk (no lie), had blisters on my feet and a rash from everywhere my skinny jeans rubbed it was exhausting but so much fun...I didn't even get pictures of everything we were able to see. It was so nice to spend some time without the kiddos. We have never left our kids overnight (Ok Kaden once with my mom the night before I took my national exam after my masters program but that is it!)

We missed these cute little guys...I mean come on look at their little faces. I was so thankful that my mom was willing to take them and spoil them rotten for the weekend. They were so spoiled they hardly knew we were gone. My mom was worried they would be sad but apparently they didn't even ask about us. My mom was great she had to put up with my paranoia about the boys and their nut allergies she had so many instructions on what they could or couldn't eat I am suprised she even feed them at all...but they were alive and breathing and had the time of their lives. Thanks mom and Ally for taking the boys so we could get away and enjoy DC we had a lot of fun!