What's Important

I usually need a daily reminder of what is important in life. The things that give life meaning, and make each breath worth it. Today has been a good day. Not for any specific reason. I just got out of bed with gratitude for what I have been given.

{He} gives my life meaning. {He} is the greatest blessing I have received.

{He} was a beautiful baby.

Every day I will remind myself how grateful I am to be his mother, and I will strive harder and harder each day to teach him the things that he needs to know to be an honest man, husband, and father some day.

I LOVE YOU little MAN

Save the date!!!

It is official. Well, its been official for about a month now. But we have decided on March 12th, 2011 to get married! I am pretty excited, and a little stressed!

I am pretty much planning my own wedding...from design, to flowers, to colors, to everything! (with a little help from my mom). We were planning on used tax returns to pay for this simple wedding of ours, but some unfortunate things has caused my returns to not be here in time. I was really stressing that we would have to change the date, even though our announcements are all printed and almost ready to be mailed out.

Thanks goodness, my mom came to the rescue and is offering to help us keep the wedding date!! So...if you haven't sent me your address, and would like an invite, please do so because announcements will be out in a couple weeks!!

I almost Forgot!!

Garrett and I had been planning on getting married, in fact, we had thought that we wanted to try and elope for 1/1/11... We don't have a lot of money, and don't have plans for having a lot of money for rings or a wedding, so while we were out finishing the last few things Christmas Eve, I pulled him into Penney's with him to show him a CZ ring that was for like $20. If we were going to elope, we HAD to have a ring of some sort to symbolize our love and marriage. He did not like the idea of cheap rings, he thought it was tacky. I was actually getting irritated with him because he wanted to get married, but didn't wanna spend $20 on a stupid ring. He had gone to pick up a gift earlier in the day, which made me think it was a ring, but I didn't know for sure. I kept begging for him to tell me, but he wouldn't. When I started pouting about the $20 ring, he kept telling me "your really gonna regret pouting later tonight" When I asked if he had gotten a ring, he said No. So I was bummed. Then I got over it and we headed to my moms for Christmas Eve dinner.

As I earlier posted, we ate, and then did the Nativity story. I wanted to play the piano for the music, but my mom insisted that Garrett and I be Mary and Joseph... We finished the unorganized play, and at the end I went to walk over to Kaden to help him find his gifts and Garrett grabbed me by the arm and wouldn't let go. I tried leaving a couple times and he finally got the ring "unstuck" from his pocket and went down on a knee-in front of the entire family. He then then popped the question, and even though I had suspected it, I really had no clue that he had gotten me a beautiful ring, 1 of 3 that we had looked at a couple weeks ago. I was so shocked! I was even more shocked that he had already called my mom and my dad, and my older sister, and all his friends knew about it. I was the only one not in the 'loop'. I am just glad that it was a surprise, because all I found all my Christmas gifts a few weeks ago!! So now its official, we are ENGAGED!! And no, its not gonna happen on 1/1/11 but hopefully sometime in late January or February!

Tis the Season

As with every year, Christmas Eve is always at my mom's house. We have a big dinner, usually prime rib, followed by acting out the Nativity story and then we open gifts that we have exchanged with eachother, and the kids always open up their PJ's. Christmas Eve I was on call, so we hurried along and got my home by 11pm to be sure that I was going to be available if needed. Kaden fell asleep on the way home, which made bedtime so much easier. Garrett and I spent until 3 am putting this bad boy together

We had to assemble the table, as well as the actual train city. I actually fell asleep around midnight due to a massive head cold and medicine, but woke up at 230 to help finish wrapping a few gifts and put the stockings together. At about 7:45am I was woke up to "Mommy! Mommy!!! Santa came!! He brought me a train table!! HURRY come look!" He was sooo excited I looked over at Garrett, who was also smiling, and we got out of bed to enjoy the rest of his excitement.

He played with this for a good 30 minutes before he realized there were a few more gifts of his that he could unwrap.

We were in walmart a few days ago, when he reminded me how much he wanted a "pillow pet" for Christmas. I was really glad I stuck with that plan instead of doing something different. He has slept with it every night since!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, and we hope you all had one as well!! Time to get ready for the New Year! See you all in 2011!

Happy Halloween

I don't post often, but we have had an eventful couple of days.

So I am going to show a few of what happened.

Yesterday we went to Trick or Treat street and met up with Kyle and Jess's family.

Kaden and Robby had so much fun trick or treating together.

Then we had Trunk or Treat Saturday at the church, and then headed out for some regular door knocking!

These were some fun pumpkins when trick or treating Saturday night. They were so fun!

We went trick or treating in an old neighborhood that I lived in. Kaden was 8 months old when we moved, so we weren't aware of the festivities being held here.

Apparently, these people get vouchers and money from business to get a bunch of little gifts for the kids. Each child is allowed 1 gift, and also a bucket of chips/candy. INSANE! There was a huge line to their house, so we knew it was worth waiting for!!

This was more of the very generous people giving to their neighborhood!

Kaden and his trick or treating buddies! (cousins) Leah's on the left, Jayci's in the middle.

This is all the candy he received!! Way to much, I must say so myself!!

My handsome little devil and the Ward Trunk or Treat! :)

Garrett was a Mummy. He had a vision to sew it onto an old collar shirt and a pair of pants that no longer fit, little did he know it would take him until 5am to finish! hehe...so he's probably tired now!

Good Doggy!!

We found a dog. An awesome dog.

He wandered into Garretts work Saturday starving and thirsty.

We have dedicated a lot of time with him. He now knows sit and stay and is probably 50% potty trained.

Kaden named him Chase, because he chases him and he chases his tail! How creative!!

We have fallen in love with him, and he is just perfect for our family. We put an ad on craigslist in 2 different places, and hadn't heard anything. So Garrett took him to the vet to get checked for a chip. On the 4th try, they found one. We finally got ahold of the manufacturer who called the owner, with no answer. Garrett even went to their house. Nobody home

Finally a couple hours later, the owners son called, saying that they lost them on Tuesday (?) and that his dad is in Mexico. Yes, they are hispanic.

I guess there were 2 of them, male and female, and the female is with animal control. Garrett said the yard was horrible, and not a place for animals. We found Chase Saturday, and the son claims they went missing Tuesday. I wonder how long these little puppies were all alone before they escaped! We are hoping that when everything is said and done, these 2 adorable puppies will not be allowed back home. We have now had him for 5 days, and we hope to have him for many more! Everybody keep your fingers crossed!

This puppy needed saving, and hopefully animal control does the right thing, where the owner is out of country, and takes these cuties away!!

Darby Canyon

Today I got a wild hair to go for a hike. Both Garrett and I had the day off. So we quickly got dressed, grabbed a few things at Maverik, and headed out for Darby Canyon. This was Kadens 1st EVER hiking experience.

Darby Canyon is beautiful! It is about 2.5 miles to the Caves.

I can't remember what they call this rock, but I remember it from when I hiked with the YW.

He had lost his energy, so we sat on some rocks and he ate a snickers bar. It worked. He was able to walk almost the rest of the way to the caves.

Apparently it had just snowed there about a week before. And there was quite a bit of snow!

I honestly have no idea what his face is for! He is getting ready to throw a rock into the waterfall, that you can't really see because my cameraphone is crap!

The windcave. Kaden and I didn't actually hike into it because 1: It was supposed to be closed for some disease that bats have been dying from. Apparently they are doing some studies on the bats and the caves have been closed since the 27th of Aug. 2: The trek up this far was snowy, muddy, and slippery. It was scary enough getting this far, and it only took us probably 30 minutes to get down 100 feet!

Overall, we had a wonderful time. It was nice to get out of the house. In fact, Kaden asked if he could watch TV when we get home...looks like we need to get out a bit more!!