We are alive

Yes we are still alive. There has been so many questions and comments about the lack of posts lately. I apologize, between the move and the vacations I have either been out of town or without Internet. All is well with us. Chris started school yesterday which means another 9 months of craziness, no sleep, stress, homework, and wondering why we are doing this. But the idea is that in the end it will all be worth it. I put up a few posts from the last month for those who actually do want to know where we disappeared to! :)

Moving

The long awaited move arrived. I hate moving! More than anything I think I hate moving. The only thing good about it is we throw away so much junk that has been collecting from the last move. We spent over a week packing up and moved it all in a day. A HUGE thanks to the moving crew that came to help. I don't know what we would do without our families. We moved into the second floor which means there were stairs to carry everything up. I literally had to walk out of the room for fear of having a heart attack watching them try to haul the cumbersome entertainment center up the stairs. It is a miracle they all made it out with only one smashed ankle ( Chris's). Anyway, we are officially in the new place and we love it. Our very generous Aunt Kathy helped in the decoration area and all the other odds and ends and it is starting to really feel like a home. Now if I could just get everything unpacked and put away we would be set.

Here are a few pics from packing up the old place.

This is my excited face that we emptied an entire room. On the sad note we now have to paint over the cute walls. (notice how freakishly long my arm looks)

This is Chris's very happy face as he packs the Kitchen.

This room was full top to bottom wall to wall by the time we moved on Saturday. Where does all this stuff come from?!

Preggo

Ok it has come time for belly pics again. So here is the 23 week picture Yes there is definitely a baby bump there. And the good news of the week is I didnt loose weight at this months dr. appointment. I attribute this mostly to the fact that I have an appetite again. My new favorite foods are

1. Anything SOUR, I searched the city for shocktarts and when I found them I bought about 7 rolls.

2. Rootbeer

3. Corn

4. Tomatoes

5. Biscuts and Gravy

Horray for being able to eat food again.

The baby is doing well. She is growing just like she should. She is incredibly active and enjoys kicking my bladder often. We are leaning towards the name Taycee for now.

Family Reunions

One thing I love about summer is we get to spend so much time with Family. Two weekends ago we were able to go to my family reunion and the lake. We all had such a fun time. Chris got to wake-board and he even got up on one ski for the very first time. Kaden got to play in the sand and there were so many fun cousins to keep him occupied. We play a rousing game of family Olympics that included such activities as, the straw javelin throw the paper plate discus, balloon shot put, Power Blow ( shooting q-tips at a cup on your partners head) and many more. And I am proud to announce Chris and I tied for 1st place. Thanks to every one for being such good sports. Hunter rode the hot dog for the first time ever ( which was quite the feat) all in all we had a blast. Thanks for the fun weekend fam.

This was the sand castle competitors

Hunter Caleb and Katie setting out on the Hot Dog


Chris about to jump the wake on the wakeboard

Caleb, Hunter, Haylee and Katie on the Hot Dog

Ty, Max, Leanna. and Braden on the Hot Dog

Playing in the Lake

He loves to dig in the sand

This is a video of Chris skiing for the first time & The second one is Hunters first ride on the Water Hot Dog!

Walking

Thats right folks, Kaden is finally walking. Can I hear a hip hip.... Horray. He started taking a few steps on the 8th of August and just gets better everyday. Other new developments with Kaden...


1. He plays patty cake now with himself, usually he claps a few times and then skips to the toss it in the over part.


2. He says no no no


3. He LOVE LOVE LOVES Cars. He watches it all the time. He is especially fond of Mater. there is a part in the movie where Mater is hollering and driving backwards in circles. Kaden has picked up on that and crawls in circles while yelling at the top of his lungs. Cute but very distracting in church.


4. He literally wrestles a stuffed monkey we have that is 4 times his size. He pulls it to the ground and growls at it while he rolls around.


5. He points at everything he want's now and says "dat" This is nice at times and at others drives me crazy. He has become very opininated.


6. He hates to be left by mom and dad. It is so sad to here him cry when we have to leave him somewhere.


7. There are so many more. He picks up new things all the time and we love watching him learn and grow.

Unknowingly Lost

A few weekends ago Chris's family came up and spent the weekend in Park City. That same weekend they closed I-80 West Bound so when we went up to spend the day with them on Saturday we had to find a different way home to Salt Lake. We were told our other two options were coming through Provo Canyon or Ogden Canyon. Chris spent a bit of time trying to find the best way home and decided that the fastest way would be to stay on 224 all the way through Provo Canyon. Most of you probably don't remember but that was the one Saturday we got quite a bit of rain. We left about dusk (8:20) Saturday night and set out to find our way home. If any of you have ever followed 224 through Park City it is quite confusing. So to even stay on the road was a challenge for us at first. I think we got lost 3 times alone just trying to stay on 224. The road literally goes through a resort parking lot. Talk about confusing. Anywho... we finally found 224 and started winding our way up the mountain. There was a truck in front of us and a Hummer behind us so we figured we must be headed in the right direction. About 20 minutes into our winding steep drive we come across a sign that says "Dirt road 15 MPH" And it wasn't kidding all of the sudden we are headed straight up the mountain on this washboard dirt road that was literally on the side of a cliff and barley wide enough for 2 cars. Keep in mind we had taken our Toyota Camry and not our SUV. The truck in front of us and the Hummer behind us probably didn't mind but I thought we were going to die. Now going back to that rain I mentioned earlier... the roads were wet and muddy and slippery. I thought we were for sure on some 4-wheeler trail and Chris was grunting about how if the state was going to close I-80 they needed to make sure the alternate routes were safe... and we continued our climb straight up the mountain on the muddy washboard road. Finally right after we came out at the top the road turned back into a paved road and we were headed back down. Not too much later we passed Solitude.... yep that's right... Solitude. For those of you who know your canyons Solitude is not in Provo Canyon it is in Cottonwood. And that is exactly where we came out right on Fort Union out of Cottonwood canyon. seeing as we had lived and nothing catastrophic happened we didn't mind the shortcut that put us out 10 minutes away from our house. But we definitely did not take the road we had planned. :) So if you are in for a good adventure ( and a beautiful drive) and heights and dirt roads don't freak you out too much, take 224 through park city and all the way to Cottonwood Heights.

So BiG!

I can't believe how fast Kaden is growing. He is learning things so fast now it just blows my mind. He is now standing up by himself. I added a picture to prove it! I know most kids do this at 10 months but he has a lot of weight to keep up. :) He also blows kisses, says "shh" with his fingers, gives high fives and plays peekaboo now. He has learned so many new words, he says "no no" "so big" and many others that come at random times. He now knows what a book is and pretends to read it. He can point out mom and dad in a picture. He also takes a phone and puts it up to his ear and proceeds to jabber. I just can't believe how fast he is growing up. We sure do love him. We took Kaden on our first camping adventure this past weekend. He was GREAT, he went to bed at 8:30 and slept a solid 10 hours. We had so much fun!! We went to Hansen park for a family reunion it was mostly grass but we did sleep in a tent.This was the first time Chris had been camping with my family and he was introduced to our tradition of singing crazy campfire songs for about an hour. We also had delicious smores... mmmm. This picture is Kaden sitting in our chair around the camp fire with daddy's sweatshirt. Thanks to everyone who went with us for such a fun weekend.
This isn't a great picture but it goes with a funny story. Kaden has gotten to be quite the explorer lately. He climes into and crawls on top of everything he can. The other day we were getting his bath ready and he plopped himself right down into this bath seat. The problem was he sunk down so far he couldn't get back out. We kept saying "ah oh" and he would put his hands up to his head. Haha what a cute baby.