December Life Update and Santa

This month has been crazy and busy.  One because it's just Christmas time and there's always so much going on, but also we've been out of town a LOT! We had renters in our townhouse in Logan for the last two years while we were in NY and now that we're back in Utah we've decided to sell the property to use as a down payment on our own house. So the week of Thanksgiving our renters moved out and we headed up to Logan to spend Black Friday repainting/repairing and fixing things. It took awhile, but I think it's looking pretty good. We're hopeful that it'll sell soon since we're paying rent/mortgage right now until it does.

We were in Logan every weekend of December for family things, so our weekends have been pretty booked. My plan was to be a totally awesome mom and take Kaden somewhere really cool to see Santa and have the full experience. December just happens to be Curtis' busiest month at work because the stress testing deadline for the bank is January 5th, he has worked crazy 12-16 hour days most days this month. I figured that was something Curtis would like to do with us, so we waited. And then every time he was home we were out of town... so fast forward to the weekend before Christmas, December 20th. Yeah, we still hadn't taken Kaden to see Santa.

So we found out that RC Willey was having Santa and free hot dogs/drinks. We decided that would be our awesome Santa outing since we'd kind of run out of time to do anything much cooler.   Luckily Kaden didn't seem to care that he was sitting on Santa's lap in a furniture store with 35 salesmen breathing down our backs.  Santa asked what Kaden wanted for Christmas. "Presents." "What kind of presents?" Santa probed. "Green ones." Ha ha! I think Santa can do that...

He was thrilled to pieces that Santa gave him a "candy kin" (candy cane.) He talked about it the whole way home how he got a candy kin, hot dogs and soda. So maybe I underestimate the coolness of the RC Willey Santa experience. Isn't it a blessing that kids really don't seem to care that things aren't always that cool or that perfect? I wish I could see life so joyfully/simplistically as Kaden does sometimes. I think I'd be a much less stressed person and much more happy with life.

All About the Kaden-man

Kaden calls himself the "Kaden-man" so I feel the title is only appropriate. Kaden is turning into quite the little ham lately. Curtis and I crack up daily at the things he tells us.  Here are a few of my favorite "Kadenisms" as of late:

• We were eating lunch one day and Kaden turns to me and says, "Mommy, the wetter (letter) "W" likes to eat soup for lunch." 
• He tells me daily in a very commanding voice, "Mommy, you are a Queen!" He tells Curtis he's the Queen too... ha ha. No idea where this came from, but it's sure funny. 
• I left the mop out in the kitchen one day and Kaden picked it up after his nap and started mopping the floor furiously. He mopped right in front of the fridge, so I had to walk through his mopping to get something out of the fridge. He turns to me all seriously and says, "Mommy, you messed up Kaden's work!"

• We must go to Costco too much because we went to the aquarium and he saw a lady sitting at a table full of shark jaws, shells and other things you can look at/touch. He grabs my hand and goes running. "Mommy, lady have samp-ohs (samples)!" 

• We had a little baby Jesus and a porcelain bed for him to sleep in. Kaden had been so careful all month long to not drop it or break it, and one day right before Christmas he just picked it up and chucked it across the kitchen and yelled, "Kaden throw baby Jesus' bed!" Obviously it broke into a few pieces. I said, "Oh Kaden, how sad. Now baby Jesus doesn't have a bed to sleep in." He thought for a minute and said, "it's okay Mommy. Jesus can "sweep" (sleep) on the ottoman." 

He loves to sing anything and everything and loves to talk and manipulate words. Lately he decided it would be fun to make the ABC's more interesting to sing. Instead of your normal way, he now sings almost every letter with a "K" sound on the end. "Ake, Beek, Ceek, Deek, F, G-k, H, I, J, Kake, L.... and sometimes even mixes it up with "iki" and "ciki" on the end: "Aki, Biki, Ciki, Diki, Eki, F, Giki..." He's quite the entertainer. 

Kaden loves Nursery Rhymes and some of his favorite little "shows" are on YouTube that are all nursery rhymes set to music- Mother Goose Club and Little Baby Bum. He's learned all the nursery rhymes from listening to them while I get ready in the morning and he's really taken to "Jack be Nimble." He will turn anything he can find into a candlestick that he can jump over. He particularly likes all of my wooden cooking spoons.

Kaden also loves Peanut Butter and gets such a thrill from eating peanut butter on a spoon. (I wonder where he got that from?) He is a boy after my own heart. 

Kaden is also quite the little observer and the word resourceful comes to mind. The other day he got up around 6 am and snuck downstairs before we were awake. He was hungry for eggs, but rather than wake up Mommy and Daddy, he just decided to make them himself. He got his tiny chairs, climbed onto the counter to get a "bowl" (aka the splatter guard from the microwave that we put over our food that has holes in it to let steam escape) and the butter. Then he preceded to get the eggs, milk, and cottage cheese out of the fridge to complete his eggs.   He put the butter in the frying pan and had cracked the eggs (impressively enough with no egg shells) into the splatter guard and added milk and cottage cheese. (You might think that cottage cheese sounds weird, but we put it into our eggs to make them fluffy. I stumbled upon it once by accident in college and they're super delish!)  We came downstairs and even though he'd made a huge mess, we couldn't be mad at him because he was so proud of himself. Quite frankly, we were pretty impressed that he was observant enough to remember all the steps and clever enough to pull it all off. I still can't get over the fact that there were no shells in the egg mixture! Most adults can't even do that, let alone a two year old!!!

I think Kaden might be sensing that he'll be competing with babies for attention in the near future because lately he's had a love/hate relationship with all babies we come in contact with.  He got a new baby cousin on December 5th when Tyler and Ashley had baby Alexis. We were at my parent's house and he got to meet her for the first time and was so sweet with her. He went up and kissed her on the head and said, "Hi baby "Wexis" (Alexis). I like this baby." Not two or three days later we got her birth announcement/their Christmas card in the mail and I said, "Kaden look, it's your new baby cousin." He got all mad and said, "No, Jackson and Jacer-boo are Kaden's cousins. She not my cousin. Kaden no like that baby."

(I did Alexis' newborn pics and I just have to sneak in my favorite one because I can't even stand how cute she is.)

I sure love my little Kaden-man. He is sassy, grumpy and downright two years old sometimes, but he sure is funny and makes me smile, even if he does fight me on EVERYTHING.  :)

My Third Decade of Life

Well as it happens I'm a bit behind on my blog (again) and I failed to write about my 30th birthday. First of all, it seems weird to be thirty, but I thoroughly enjoyed my twenties and have absolutely no regrets. I got to do everything I wanted to do and more: finish school, teach in my own classroom, travel, serve a mission, have adventures (Nantucket and others), get married, and start a family. My twenties have been wonderful and hard and rewarding and I am so looking forward to the next chapter of life.

Curtis threw me an incredible birthday party. We had both of our families come to our house for a BBQ and dinner and cake/ice cream.  We ate and visited and had fun chatting, then we did presents. I got a lot of fun photography stuff and clothes.

(Ignore how utterly goofy I look in this picture. Apparently I thought Curtis was done taking it before he was actually done... but I'm keeping it for the memory of the cute scarf Nicki got me.)

Then we gave our families a present of our own.  We wanted to announce that we were having twins when everyone was together and we figured my birthday was the perfect occasion to do that. I told everyone that since it was my birthday, I could do whatever I wanted and I wrote a poem I wanted to read. So I started reading with a few puzzled glances from people. (Why is she feeling so artsy? Huh? That's cool. Express yourself..)

Poem coming soon....

We got a great reaction and it was such a fun way to get to share the news with our loved ones.  After our big surprise Curtis planned a surprise that I loved so much- 80's karaoke, but all the songs were straight out of 1984- awesome! He worked on this for weeks and I've gotta say it was super fun. Not only did the adults have a ton of fun, but the kids loved it as well. Kaden was stealing the show with "Yankee Doodle" and the ABC's.  He is a little bit obsessed with the microphone and the spotlight we've decided. :)

The boys sang a smashing rendition of "For the Longest Time" by Billy Joel

I sang "Let's Hear it for the Boy"- love!

Curtis was so sweet to plan this whole party, but told me he learned a valuable lesson about cakes. He didn't realize you couldn't bake it/frost it an hour before the party, so my German chocolate cake was more of a German chocolate blob, but it still tasted good. Ha ha. One candle for every decade. We decided the little boys (Kaden, Jace and Jackson) would have them all blown out by the time we got all 30 lit.

We were initially going to wait to announce our twins on social media until I was farther along, but I was so excited the day after my birthday and kept getting asked daily by people if our IVF was successful, so I thought, "let's do this." I wanted to do a "Thing 1 and Thing 2" theme since we are having twins and figured if I borrowed Miranda's Cat in the Hat stuff for Kaden it'd be perfect.  My social media post that went on Instagram and Facebook said, "Miracles do happen. Thank you for all the prayers on our family's behalf. We are thrilled to announce that we will soon be outnumbered by small people. #twins" The sign that Kaden is holding says, "I have a surprise and it really is true. I'll be a big brother to Thing 1 and Thing 2.  Fairbourn TWINS coming June 2015."

We have had such a positive reaction, it's been overwhelming all the kind phone calls, texts, emails and social media messages and comments we've gotten. I think because I opened up and shared our infertility story with others it made for that much more of a captive audience that was anticipating good news.  Plus I think when people realize that something has been a real struggle for you, they are that much more excited when things work out well. I think that is honestly the best birthday gift I could've ever wished for- to grow our family and have more sweet babies in our home that we can love and call our own.  I'm certainly loving 30 so far and I feel like life can only get better from here on out.

Kaden Tidbits

My Kadenbug is so funny. He has a bunch of things that he really likes right now, that are all kind of random. I always forget to blog about these, but I always seem to have pictures on my phone of all these random things, so I figured I'd throw them all into one post for the memory.

Kaden loves to do everything possible "by self." He is very into dressing himself, choosing his shirt, picking out his shoes, and putting them on "by self." If Kaden had his way, everyday would consist of pajamas all day, flip flops (even though it's getting cold) and a backpack. When I ask Kaden what he wants to do, most days he says, "Kaden watch TV all day." Right... So this picture pretty well says it all- his desired approach to life most days.

He loves to "help" with everything and he really likes to make popcorn and eat it.  He loves to help with cooking and is constantly insisting he needs to help "dump it in." (Any ingredient that can be dumped, that is.) He also loves to "help" me wash dishes, which usually means he's just standing on one of his tiny chairs at the sink forever, getting soaked.

What toddler doesn't love stickers? Kaden is certainly no exception.

Kaden loves to feed the ducks. He always tells me "bread for ducks, Mommy, not Kaden." (He's not a huge fan of bread for some strange reason.)

Kaden has learned to open the fridge and I often find surprises in it: dirty dishes, his phone, pumpkins...

Oh the endless messes. One of his favorite pastimes as of late...

Some days Kaden prefers virtually no clothing at all. But he always likes to wear my shoes. With or without clothing.

He loves to hide. Especially if he's in trouble because he knows I can't reach him very well in this silly space between the fridge and the cabinet.  He really enjoys hide and seek and is getting pretty good at counting and actually hiding, though he still likes finding better.

I love this little boy! He makes me laugh. 

Halloween Happenings

We had such a fun Halloween season. (We did a lot of Halloween things spread throughout October.) We had our Halloween dinner with the Fairbourns, which is always a fun tradition.

Bones and blood soup

Pumpkin Patch (aka Rice Krispie Treats). Can I just say I was pretty proud of myself for coming up with these? They needed to be Jackson-safe (aka no eggs and no dairy) and it's mighty tricky to find a dessert that doesn't need either of those things, or that has acceptable substitutes.

 Mummy Meatloaf

 Halloweenies

 Mashed Potato Ghosts

Our ward Halloween party was a week before Halloween.  They had dinner and trick or treating in the church. Some of my favorite costumes were Zach and Elise Page- the bugs and the fly swatter and Sarah Nitta's girls, Jade and Ruby, the old ladies. So cute!

Kaden could not get enough of these girls' walkers. He kept stealing them and running down the hall. So funny!

The MacLeans came to our ward party, since their ward didn't have one. (There's practically no kids in their ward.) They were the Dr. Seuss Clan- Cat in the Hat, the Lorax, Fox in Socks and Horton the Elephant. I wish I would've gotten a picture of their whole family, but I spaced it.

Kaden is really obsessed with pirates right now because he has a pirate bathroom. We thought it would be fun if we all dressed up like pirates together.

We had fun painting pumpkins as a family, since I don't enjoy carving them.  Also if we paint, Kaden is able to participate more, so it's win-win. I don't have to stick my hand in a grimy pumpkin and Kaden gets to be very colorful. There might have been more paint on his body and our toes/arms than on his actual pumpkin, but he had a blast, so it doesn't matter.

My pirate ghost pumpkin that looks like it was painted by a child... and Kaden's masterpiece

Curtis' awesome skull and crossbones pumpkin

 Curtis taught Kaden a bunch of pirate phrases: argh, ahoy matey's, walk the plank, shiver me timbers and swab the poopdeck! Ha ha! He was quite the hit at all the Halloween parties. 

Halloween morning, I took Kaden to Tracy Aviary for the Halloween Hoot. We went with Miranda and Evie and Rose and the kids had a blast playing in the hay maze and meeting the giant bird creature. You got half off admission if you wore your costumes, so of course Miranda and I were one of only 3 adults in the whole place dressed up- lame. 

We got Halloween kid's meals at Wendy's and then of course somewhere in all the madness, Kaden lost his pirate hat. Boo! Right before trick or treating. At least we got a picture at our ward party with his hat on. We couldn't find his sword to go trick or treating either, but we found it behind the entertainment center a few days later. Who knows? Maybe, there's still hope for the hat.

Halloween night we just went trick or treating around our neighborhood. Almost no one was home, which was kind of lame, so we ended up going over to Country Springs, a retirement community in our ward.  Kaden loved getting candy and couldn't wait to eat it until we got home, so after every few houses he'd put a candy in his mouth and start gnawing through the wrapper until we helped him open it. He loved saying "Trick or Treat" and was very polite and said "thank you" at all the doors.  He liked wishing "happy Halloween everybody," regardless of whether there was only one person on the porch or multiple. My favorite though was that so many of the people in Country Springs gave Kaden two candies, that when someone only gave him one he'd reach up into their buckets and grab another and say, "Just one more, okay?" Ha ha. Bad manners, but it was hilarious!

The day after Halloween Curtis took me to see Thriller. This is some awesome zombie girl that decided to sit next to me...