Rainbow Birthday Party!

Kinzie had another Birthday. Her 3rd one! She wanted a Rainbow Party!

THE INVITATION

THE CAKE & DECORATIONS

What is a Rainbow Party without Rainbow Ice Cream?

Cayden was happy he got some cake too:)

PRESENTS

A portable DVD player and movies? really? wow! someone must be Grandma's favorite little grand-daughter!

She loves pretending to be a doctor. Even before she received this, she'd use random objects/toys as doctor tools and tell me, "it's time for me to check your ears! I need to listen to your heart!" 

This is seriously the coolest present ever! It's a Water Doodle Mat! You fill that marker up with water, then write on the doodle mat, and it draws in different colors (Kinzie thinks it's magical!). Then the images disappear after a couple of minutes. The marker only works on the Mat, so you don't have to worry about kids coloring on couches, walls, etc. We love it:)

THE PINATA

Kinzie was so excited for the pinata...until it came time to hit it...then she got shy/scared and wanted nothing to do with it. But after watching her friends/cousins hit it multiple times and with some convincing/help from Aunt Whitney, she finally took a few swings:)

cousin Peyton

2nd cousin Madison

friends Madelyn & Kira

2nd cousin Allie

cousin Saige

It was filled with an assortment of candy, fruit snacks, Dora candy bracelets, lip gloss, bouncy balls, & slap-stick bracelets!!

She is addicted to lip gloss!

GAMES

We had everyone guess how many skittles were in the glass--my friend Jen Newsom was the closest and got to take it home!
On the invitation it stated that everyone was to wear their favorite color of the rainbow...so another game we did was we put all the colors in a bowl and Kinzie picked one out, and everyone wearing that color got a package of skittles :) We were going to take a picture of everyone wearing their Rainbow Colored shirts, but we forgot to :(

She had a lot of fun and got very spoiled! After the party, we took her out to dinner to her favorite place--McDonald's!! 

Thanks to everyone who came and helped make her birthday so special/memorable!

Christmas 2013

Christmas gets a little more fun with each kid...their excitement and love for Christmas and it's magic is contagious!

Kinzie with Santa at The Riverwoods in Provo!

Kinzie with Santa at the Arbon Christmas Party! She visited the Santa in our mall lots of times but we didn't get a decent picture of that one. She always asked him for My Little Pony's and a doll. Santa always thought she was asking for a pony though:)

The Mall Santa! Cayden was not a fan....

Wrapping presents while the kiddos are awake is more work than it's worth! They love making a mess...but at least it kept him entertained and distracted from the paper I was wrapping with (he likes to play/rip my wrapping paper).

Grandma Sheri bought her Dora wrapping paper and said it was to wrap her present in. Every time Grandma talked to her she'd ask "have you wrapped my present in Dora paper yet?" and Kinz would reply, "not yet!!". Finally she did it, so we took a pic to send to grandma:)

 For Christmas Eve this year we went to Sizzler for dinner with my family! Then we spent the night at my parent's home and celebrated Christmas out there because my brother Challis (on his mission in Ireland) skyped us at 9 am on Christmas Day and we wanted to see him!! 

It was a long night. Kinzie was super excited and had a hard time going to sleep. Cayden didn't sleep very well. And my dad's furnace quit working during the night...so it was a bit cold. But Christmas morning soon came, and when we went out to the living room, we found what Santa left us!

It was a full house! 10 people total! We were just missing Challis! It was nice to be there altogether!

We were super duper blessed and spoiled this year! This year Santa brought Richard some binoculars, me a Hot Cocoa Maker, Kinzie a Doll House, and Cayden an Alphabet Riding Train! My mom also spoiled us...along with some new fun clothes, she got Richard a hunting knife, me a scentsy candle, Kinzie a kid's IPAD, and Cayden his own cell phone! Pretty sure my kids are now more technologically advanced than I am! hehe

Kinzie playing with her Doll House!

It's bigger/taller than she is!

Kinzie's Ipad and Cayden's cell phone:)

 Also, we received a little miracle this year! One night, there were 2 gifts on our doorstep for Kinzie! One was this cute little mixer with a cookie sheet and cookie cutters...she loves making cookies out of play-doh! One of her favorite gifts for sure!! She is such a "little mommy" and always wants to be doing what I'm doing, so this was perfect for her:)

The other present almost made me cry when she opened it. The last 2 years I have gotten her a doll for Christmas, and this year she was getting a doll house so it would make perfect sense to get her a doll...right?!? But for some reason, I didn't. I just couldn't find the right one. I'd look at the stores I went to, but none ever stuck out to me. I felt really bad I wasn't getting her a doll, but told myself that she had others she could play with in her doll house, and that I had already bought her enough Christmas gifts. So on Christmas morning when she opened a cute baby doll from our Secret Santa...I was speechless! I looked at Richard and simply said "WOW!"  I stressed so much over not getting her one, so I was so grateful to see her open that sweet gift! So to whomever our Secret Santa may be, I would like to say THANK YOU!! We are so grateful and so appreciative of your kindness and generosity:) 

It was definitely a Christmas to Remember Forever!!

Eddie the Elf

Meet Eddie. Eddie the Elf!

On the evening of December 1st, there was a knock at our door. We opened it to find a present addressed to Kinzie and Cayden! After we convinced Kinzie it was okay to open it (we had drilled into her mind that we don't open presents til Christmas, so she really wanted to just put it under the tree), she opened it to find this Elf with a note from Santa saying he had sent us this Elf named Eddie and explaining why/what to do with him. 

Kinzie was ecstatic! The note said we were not allowed to touch the Elf or he would lose his magical powers. Kinzie understood this way more than I thought she would. We set him on the shelf and she never touched him. I thought for sure she would see him as just another stuffed animal to play with, but she did so good the whole month. If anyone asked if they could hold or touch Eddie, she would inform them "No, can't touch him or he'll lose his magic powers"! 

Every morning Eddie the Elf was in a new location, so Kinzie had fun searching for him every day! Some days he was just chilling, other days he brought us fun stuff, and a few days he was just plain silly! The following are a few of his endeavors:

Eddie brought us play-doh!

He was hiding in our Halloween Candy and eating a sucker!

This was one of my favorites--in the nativity scene holding Baby Jesus! (When I asked Kinzie why Elf would be holding baby Jesus, she told me "maybe Baby Jesus was crying during the night". I love her!)

Silly Eddie toilet paper'd our tree and got all wrapped/tangled up in toilet paper. Kinzie was not very happy with Elf this day.

We found him playing with Kinzie's kitchen. We think he was making some yummy food:)

In our wrapping paper!

Just chilling on the potty chair!

In our utensil bucket!

Yay! Thanks to Eddie the Elf, we got to make Christmas Cookies;) yum!

This was a fun one! Kinzie's reaction to this was so cute and so priceless! Eddie had poured himself a bowl of different cereals and was eating breakfast!

Guess he felt he needed a shower...

On Christmas Eve, he brought us a Good-bye note and magic towels! 

I am so glad we had Eddie visit us this year! Kinzie loved it and was super sad to see him go. A few days before Christmas Eve, I was "preparing" her and reminding her that Eddie was going to have to leave in a few days...and a few minutes later, she says in her sad voice, "Mommy, I'm going to miss Eddie the Elf" (whimper, whimper). Broke my heart. But I reassured her he'd be back....next year:)

Halloween 2013

Grandma Sheri bought them Halloween shirts!

 BOO!

Kinzie's little pumpkin she painted!

Kinzie's big pumpkin she painted!

Richard's pumpkin!

 Halloween was a busy day this year! We started out by going to a party at the library. There were about 70 kids there, so it was packed! They did a costume parade, then had 3 stations: a bean bag toss, a fishing pond, and a coloring page. After they completed the stations, they got a bag of popcorn and a piece of candy!

Then we went trick-or-treating to the Great Grandma's and Grandpa's and visited with them for awhile!

That night, we ate a pumpkin shaped pizza and went trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. It wasn't too cold, but it was super windy, which made it feel like it was freezing! Luckily Cayden slept the whole time in his carseat on the stroller, and Kinzie was a trooper! She had a blast! She would walk up to the door by herself holding her bag, she'd say "twick o tweet" in her sweetest cutest voice ever, they'd give her candy, she'd say "thank you", then turn around and shout, "daddy, daddy, I got a treat!!!" Once we got cold and figured she was too, we'd ask if she was ready to be done, at which she'd reply, "no, I'm fine. Want to go to another house!" Such a Trooper:)

Kinzie this year dressed up as SuperGirl!

Cayden this year was a Little Pumpkin!!

This year we passed out Fun Size packs of Jelly Belly's!

Oh Dear, it's a Deer!

Richard went deer hunting for his first time this year with my dad in Arbon. The hunt started on a Thursday, but he had too much homework, so Friday (10/11/13) after school he headed out to Arbon. About 15 minutes before dark, they finally spotted a few. He shot at a 2 point and killed it! He was pretty proud that on his first day with his first shot he got his first deer!!  Beginner's Luck maybe?!?! maybe.

Apparently it's a pretty big deer for a 2 pt, and we got about 60 lbs of meat from it. We got a few steaks and turned the rest into jerky. Richard loves jerky, so he is very excited to have 5 (maybe 6, I can't remember and am too lazy to go out to the freezer to look) gallon sized bags full of jerky! He got 4 different flavors: Hunter's Blend, Mesquite, Teriyaki, and Peppered.

Cayden's monthly photos! (1-5)

Our little dude is growing like a weed! And so is our love for him:)

Height: 23 inches (50th percentile)
Weight: 10 lbs, 12 oz (25th percentile)
Head: 14 1/4 inches

Height=25.5 inches (75%)
Weight=12 lbs, 12 oz. (15%)
Head=15.5 inches (0%)