Braden is One!

Braden's 1st birthday was great. We were surrounded by family, had yummy food and made good memories.

I had everyone write a little not on this frame for Braden(we did the same thing for Riley on her first)a little tradition Josh and I started for our kiddos.

Some of the decorations-if you can call them that. I have this weird thing with not having a themed first for my kids. It started with Riley because i really just wanted to decorate with streamers and balloons, all white, pink, purple, at her first(you all know how much 1yr olds love balloons-it's a present in it's self)

So then for Braden i had a suppper cute idea(which i'll be doing for a future bday) but then stuck with the simple bday theme of just streamers and balloons but when i got to the store to buy a helium tank, i couldn't do it. It was thirty bucks for a tank that would fill aprox 30 balloons...really?! i was crushed, i wanted to cry, all i wanted for my boy was balloons, but i physically couldnt reach in my purse and get my wallet out for that! So i settled for streamers and dots.

This is the kitchen after the party...a messy kitchen means good eats right?

There were 3 different kinds of casseroles that turned out great, chips/salsa, salad and drinks.

I was even on top of things enough to make little cards that said what each dish was!

Just about everything got eaten that is why all the actual casserole's are missing...

Braden was soo spoiled! He got a perfect mix of boy toys(greatly needed) and clothes.

I wasn't able to capture it but he had a huge smile when he saw these new p.j's, thought it was funny b/c Riley did the same thing on her first over the same type of p.j's from the same person.

This is Braden in a nut shell...he always has his lips like this "and it always reminds me from The Little Mermaid when Sebastian is telling Ariel to "pucker your leepps like dishhh"

Eating the presents...

His FAVORITE toy that day...a tractor that makes a few different noises at the push of a botton...

He was so proud of himself and LOVED to show Josh he could do it every time.

Did you hear that guys?

Getting teh hang of things

Found some dinosaurs from mom that make noises

He saw these overalls (ADORABLE by the way) grabbed them and promptly threw them over his shoulder.

He was looking for that tractor toy

Daddy saved the best for last...he got Braden a HUGE tonka truck.

We had to hold back the line on this one, the kids RUSHED over to try and play with it before Braden got to even touch it!

Pretty sure he didnt' understand why we were singing to him...

I've been waiting for this for, well his whole life :)

I don't feed my kids hardly any sweets or "junk" at all before they turn one. (That's another story but i feel they COMPLETELY depend on you-the parent-for nutrition to grow and thrive) I get A LOT of grief over this and have to fend people off and they're candy, chips, cake and ice cream. We let him have A bite of things here and there but it was RARE. So i was soo excited to see the look on his face when he got to dive in (i made the cake, hard to admitt it, i had this master plan in my head and then i couldn't follow through. Not enough patience or talent..looked like a 10yr did it, but it was tasty!

At first he just kept taking the frosting off and not eating any but then...

He got the hang and didn't stop for a LONG time!

Look how much he ate!

I had to throw in this picture of my neice Hailey...Isn't she cute?!

Riley wore a princess dress to the party. She had good reasoning. She was a "princess" that day, and said that was her party dress...i only wish she picked one without a huge hole in it and didn't decide to wear it inside out...

Yep, the best picture we got is right here folks!

I can't complain about one thing. I felt the love our amazing family has to offer and i hope Braden did too.

Happy Birthday Braden!!!

Ahhhh!!! My baby is one today!

I'm getting the house ready for his party!

I feel so blessed that in a few hours we will have the house full of family surrounding Braden to celebrate.

Pictures to come, you can be sure of that.

Baby Shampoo is the way to go!

I, somehow, got an entire glob of my bed head shampoo in my right eye yesterday...You know, you pump some shampoo onto your hand then bring your hand to the top of your head to lather...well mine, when eye level, made it into my eye, none on my hair. all in my eye. the WHOLE glob...oh my goodness. there are no words.

I immediately turned to face the water thinking i'll just wash it out and that is when it hit me...i turned right back around to try to reach over the shower stall to grab my towell off the hook and OF COURSe it fell to the ground so i had to blindly (my right eye was clamped shut and the left one followed suit for some reason) get out and feel for my towell, but even then a towell over my eye was helping no one.

So i rush to the sink and try to flush my eye. OH the stinging. I was actually stopming my feet and groaning. I couldn't even cry it hurt so bad. I just kep say "oh my gosh..arrrghhhhh. oh my gosh" i'm sure it would of been a sight to see!

I would literally rather go through child birth again than that! NOT KIDDING. Atleast at the end of labor you get a bundle of joy...this one you are just hoping your eye ball isn't disenegrating like it feels it's doing.

I didn't know what to do so back in the shower to to run water over my face. The second i let pressure off my eye the stinging is wayyy too intense, all along i'm pictureing how well my shampoo lathers and how it must be all lathered up in my eye and needing TONS of water to be flushed out. if only i could get my eye open.

At last. I am able to partially open the eye and flush some more. The pain. Really? has this ever happened to you? I feel for you.

When i get out of the shower, and take inventory on my eye...is it still there? yep it is, about half as big as the other eye and bright red. yuck. I continued to flush it every little while for the next hour.

I think i might stick to that tear free baby shampoo from now on.

And i'm not going to give Riley such a hard time when she screams the whole time saying "don't get water in my eyesss"

Baby Steps

Braden took his first steps last thursday! He took 3 of them and hasn't cared to try again. He has done one step a few more times but isn't too interested in walking yet! It was very exciting though :)

These next few pictures were at a park while we were visitng my Grandma Ruth.

He layed like this for quite some time, picking up and throwing the wood chips and you can see riley in the background enjoying our picnic.

Learning to pump! This is the first time she kind of-sort of got the concept...i think it will still be awhile where her pumping builds any momentum but it was a proud mommy moment none the less!

Do you see his tongue?! He was LOVING this

I love these kids :)

Feeding the ducks-braden kept sneaking pieces of the bread though...not sure i wanted to teach him to throw food yet anyway.

Riley's first day of preschool. I'm in a 3yr old co-op with my cousin and two other friends. My cousin Katie has the first teaching slot and said the first day went great! Riley had fun, so she said and they learned sorting among other things. Katie said when she had them all line up to repeat the Pledge of Allegiance it was the cutest thing, i can only imagine and can't wait for my turn to teach!

She DID NOT want to take a "first day of school picture"

But she DID WANT whatever it was that i bribed her with...

I hooked up Riley's bike to the wagon and let 'em go! I had to stay close to braden for fear of him tipping or climbing out, there are not straps in this wagon. They had a blast and rode around our cul-de-sac for a loonng time.

Riley's first lemon.

I thought i might have wasted the entire two dollars i spent on it (major garage saleing day) but when i got home she instantly fell in LOVE with it. She gave it a good scrub and played in it the rest of the day.

Feels good to be caught up a little! Life is good, we are loving each day and finding fun things to do!

My First Duathlon

My father inlaw's stake hosted a duathlon (Run and Bike) so Josh's dad, my cousin Katie and myself decided to go and participate! I almost backed out the night before because we were going to have to leave at 6am the next morning and it didn't sound THAT fun...but Katie and i stuck with it and had a blast.

This was us before the race, getting warmed up. You can see all the bikes lined up behind us...

Our "lucky" numbers.  Take a good look at mine...remember it...

The 3mile run was first. Can you see "death hill" behind me as i've nicknamed it? The run started with about .05miles up hill then 1.5 down hill. So the entire second half of the race was up hill, most of it not too steep except the block right before the finish.

I had to throw in this picture of my goofy face. This is me finishing the first lap of the bike (3 laps total=9mile bike) when it just hit me that i still had to do TWO MORE LAPS ie:2 more laps up death hill. I knew from the get go the bike was 9 miles but almost the entire first lap i was like "this is fun, challenging but fun, almost there, almost done. ...wait...oh crap!"

And here i am SO happy that i just finished the race.  Can you see my bike tire hasn't even quite cleared the finish line and i have my hand up signaling a weak "woohoo".

Katie and I after the race with our favorite hill behind us.

Did you remember my bib number? #109...look at my time(middle sheet) 109.33. weird! I was joking that next time i should get bib #45 so i'll finish faster ;)

I have to say running a duathlon is WAY more fun then just running a race.  Can't wait to do more!