Make it Stop!!!

My sweet little Ella Kate just won't stop growing up!

Our little Ella bug is officially 8 months as of yesterday and it just seems crazy to me! Where does the time g0!

Ella has such a sweet fun personality! She LOVES to laugh, and is such a generally happy child!
She loves to play with her big brother and is already following him around the house!!! Ella loves scream and talk! Many mornings we wake up to her just talking to herself in her crib.

Ella LOVES to eat! (she is her mother's child in this respect)
As of late she has decided she would MUCH rather feed herself anything than eat the exact same thing from a spoon, I guess she's a little independent too! :)
She has started waving as well although she doesn't exactly move her arm...it's still pretty cute!

Ella and the Duke are great friends, she loves to pet him and recently has learned how to feed him her dinner...awesome!

Ella used to be so laid back I could just sit her down with some toys and she would just play. If she got fussy I would just send Jaden over to play with her while I loaded the dishwasher or what not, and she would be content.. not so much anymore

Ella is ALWAYS on the move...she started army/caterpillar crawling almost a month ago and now has it down...she crawls EVERYWHERE and I can't leave her alone for a minute!

Here she is destroying Jaden's dinosaur train...he LOVED that... :)
She has also discovered and interest in the stairs....guess it's time for a gate!
Obviously she is quite athletic seeing as how she is already doing pushups...ok so maybe this is just how she starts crawling but look how stinkin cute she is!!


Ella is small for her age but still bigger than Jaden was! She has started to get some hair but
as you can see in the post....she has begun to revolt against her bows, sad day!

She loves to be thrown up in the hair and grabs everything in sight then proceeds to puts it straight in her mouth! She loves to sing songs and feed herself her bottles...yes sad day she has been on formula for almost a month now, the girl doesn't have the attention span to nurse anymore... :(

She is sleeping MUCH better...atleast she was before I typed that! :)
She loves to look at herself in the mirror and if she is sad, a glance of herself in a mirror will quickly cheer her up!

She weighs about 15lbs and is 27inches long...catching up to her brother quick!

She makes us smile everyday and if you as me, she couldn't be any cuter!
We love our little Ella Bug!

Say It Ain't So

This cute little man CAN NOT be turning 3!!!!

Sad but true...my little man is growing up on me!!!
On June 24th my sweet baby boy turned 3!!! I wanted his day to be very special so I let him choose what we did all day long!!!
We started of by going to the Choo Choo Cafe for a donut breakfast!!

Cars 2 came out on his birthday so that was our next stop...

After that we went home for naps and to wait for daddy to get off work, when he got home we headed to Eccles Dinosaur Park for a picnic dinner!

Jaden is starting to realize how super cool his daddy is and absolutely adores him, He wants to be "a daddy" when he grows up!

I love Eccles Dinosaur park! They always have fun things set up!
A quick shot of the Ella bug checking out the dinos

So we do a party every other year for Jaden's birthday and this year was a party year and Jaden wanted a Triceratops Party with Blue and Orange (his favorite colors) and a Triceratops cake....He's not particular at all :) We did his party the week before his birthday and it was a lot of fun! Thanks to all that traveled up!

We got lucky with a beautiful day! We played some fun dinosaur games, decorated goodie bags, and just let the kids run wild and play on the new playset and bounce house! All in all it was a great time!

I experienced some technical difficulties with the triceratops cake....but Jaden loved it and I guess that is all that matters right....that's what I keep telling myself!
Jaden needed no help opening his presents this year and even found himself this little thrown to open his presents on with now help from anyone!
He got absolutely LOADED with everything from trucks and cars to a dinosaur train set from Nana and Papa! All in all it was a fantastic day and he was so excited to see everyone he was giving hugs all around!

Jaden and McKell

Hugs for Nana too!
Jaden is doing so many fun things these days!! He makes me laugh harder and harder every day!!! Here are a few of my favorite "Jaden-isms"

When Jaden gets up in the morning he loves to tell us about what he dreamed about...but if instead of asking him what he dreamed about if I accidently ask him how he slept he will lay on the floor and physically show me the position in which he slept :)

He is always cracking me up with little phrases, the other morning I was tickling him trying to make him give into saying I was his favorite or something and instead of giving into me, he replied with "I just don't want to talk about it anymore mom!"

I signed Jaden up for a fun little camp at his preschool to kind of introduce him to the school this last week and the first day when I came to pick him up I asked him if he missed me and his reply "Nope" and I said something like..."oh sad" to which he replied...."I still love you though"
That's a phrase I hear a lot....

Jaden is an AMAZING big brother, he still has yet to get jealous of Ella Kate and is always trying to help me with her! He does think diapers are quite gross though :) If she is ever sad and crying he always runs downstairs to bring her a toy and LOVES to climb in her bed with her to tell her good morning! He holds her hand in the car and today in the car when she wasn't so happy in the car I heard him say "I'm sorry Ella I just can't reach you! He's the sweetest! As of late...she has started swiping his toys ....which he isn't super fond of....and so it begins :)

Jaden's favorite song to sing is "Ole Ole Ole Ole REAL SALT LAKE" He sings it over and over and over all day long! He LOVES Leo the Lion!!!

He loves ALL SPORTS and wants to play hockey basketball baseball soccer and football all day long! I love it though it keeps him active and if I do say so myself, he's got some great coordination!

His favorite shows right now are Dinosaur Train and Chuck Truck

Every night when I put Jaden to bed we talk about our favorite parts of the day and every night he says..."Us go bye bye?"and I say "yes" or "no" and if it's yes he says "where we go" and I tell him and he says that's his favorite part of the day, even if it's just going to get mail or going to daddy's office to bring him lunch...silly kid

Ok for my final thing Jaden does (because obviously I could go along all day) is one of my absolute favorites :) Sometimes Jaden is kind of hard to understand but when in the past i have always asked him to show me what he is trying to tell me.... Well now without even asking that whenever he can tell that I don't know what he's saying he begins playing like charades with me! It's so funny, he will start acting it out or he will start describing it to me, for instance tonight we were talking and I couldn't quite get what he was saying, it sounded like bad or bed and I was so confused and he says to me " mommy it's big and white and sandwiches...." Oh bread!!! I LOVE IT!!! What a cute kid!

I must say I am not fond of my little man growing up but I am quite proud of the sweet smart little boy he is turning into.

Update on Ella to come...just thought Jaden deserved a post just for him! :)

Home sweet home!!!

So I know that it's been almost 3 months since we moved in and it's pathetic that I am just now getting pictures up.....
The truth is I wanted to wait until we had everything more put together but then I decided that if I waited until everything was the way I wanted it could be years before I put pictures up...so for now just know that this is a work in progress :)

Here is the front! :) I LOVE IT!!!!

This is the view of the back of the house! The upper deck goes outside our bedroom!

This is the barn where Shawn's beloved tractor lives...one of my favorite parts of the house is the barn, I think it adds some charm:)

This is the play set that was quite the project to build but worth every minute! Jaden loves it and its been a lot of fun!

This is our field on the side of our house, we also have land behind the barn but I forget to take pictures of that.

A view from the back door!

Now on to the inside....this main room is the closest to being finished and was a lot of fun to do but we got painted out pretty quick! There are still a few small things I was to do but for the most part it's done!

the entry

sitting area where we tend to congregate..I love that there is no tv in this area so when people come over we actually talk...but shawn wants one in the corner...we will see who wins that battle!

The kitchen! We still need barstools but this will do for now!

The dining area! Here I just want to frame out the windows.

This is the "family room" that I have come to accept will never really be clean with all the kids toys!

The doors to downstairs the garage and the bathroom/laundry off the main floor!

bathroom/laundry
Now we are upstairs to the master bedroom
master bath
Ella's room
Jaden's room...the bedrooms need love but we will get there eventually!
kids bathroom
this is the guest room/play room in the basement!
Shawn's den/mancave
so when they remodled they put the old upstairs kitchen downstairs...my plan is to rip this out and carpet to make this the playroom and then the other room in the basement can be the guestroom....all in good time!
Well other than this there is a bathroom in the basement but it just looks like all the other bathrooms and then some cold storage rooms!

I absolutely LOVE our home and even though it is a work in progress it is so fun to make it ours and put the time and sweat into it! So come visit!!!

May/Easter Recap

When we first moved into our home there was this cute little bunny who had made his home in a tree in our front yard. He is SO friendly and will come eat carrots right out of your hand! Jaden LOVED him and would go out and feed him every day....I think Duke scared him away though because every time we see him he is now across the street at the neighbors...eihter that or they have better carrots than us!

Holidays are always more fun with kids and they get even better when the kids get old enough to get excited about everything going on! This Easter was no exception! Jaden was SO excited for Easter and couldn't wait to see what the Easter bunny brought him. To help him get excited we took him to see the movie Hop...he loved it! We started our festivities by coloring the eggs the day before...

Jaden was so excited to leave the eggs out for the Easter Bunny to hide! For about 2 months before Easter Jaden had decided that he wanted a watering can for Easter to water our plants, he even had a specific one in mind... well less than a week before Easter he decided that what he REALLY wanted was a pillow pet...and the Easter Bunny delivered!

Ella also loved her Easter Basket...

We spent the morning together at home in Eden and then headed down to Salt Lake to go to church with my parents. The kids looked adorable in their Easter clothes!
Mom and Ella Kate
After church we headed to Shawn's parents house. Karen always has such beautiful flowers so we took some pictures of the kids.
A very exciting thing for our family also happened in May when daddy graduated with his Masters from the University of Phoenix! We are SO proud of him and SO excited the he NEVER has to go back :) It been nice to have him at home more and I am so grateful to have a husband who values his education and sets such a great example for our kids...they have to get it from one of us right :)
With this wonderful not sunny weather a lot of our activities have been moved inside...well in Eden there is even less to do inside than out, so we headed down for a trip to the aquarium with my sister and her kids... Jaden gets so excited to see all his cousins!

My sweet little Ella just hanging out! She has such an easy fun personality that is shining through more every day and we LOVE it!!!!
As a mom I find my happiest moments are either sitting down and playing with both of my kiddos or watching them both just play together on their own! Ella is so tolerant and no one can make her laugh like Jaden does...which just makes my heat happy!

It may be hard to believe but she was laughing hysterically in this picture!!!
Snuggle time!
Just hanging out eating lunch at home..our home...LOVE IT!!!