35 weeks down!

I did it! I oficially made it to 35 weeks without my water breaking. And when I say "I" what I really mean is we. Because it took a lots and lots of help to accomplish this small miracle. Luckily we are surrounded by so many people who are willing to do just that. Help. Week 1 Addison spent the with grandma Clayton in St George and I kept Kaden and Taycee here. Week 2 all 3 kids spend with grandma Clayton. So this will be the first week that I have all 3 kids home with me. Day one has been a bit sketchy, but we'll work it out. If I can just make it one more week I will feel much more at ease about this little one joining our family early.

35 weeks and still cooking!

On my 35 week mark we spent the day up at the family lake in Honeyville. Chris was invited to play in a 11 team volleyball tournament so I went and lounged by the side of the court to watch.

Chris was on the "old man" team officially named the Oldies. 

This is a pretty sweet shot of my dad and brother going head to head at the net. I am not sure who actually hit the ball however.

Our good friend Pete made the journey up North to join Chris's team. 

The Oldies took 3rd out of 11. Not too bad considering there were some pretty legit teams out there. They got beat out by a couple of teams full of young and very athletic individuals. 

And just for your viewing pleasure. Here are a few belly shots from the last little while.

I don't remember how far this was. But not too long ago. 34ish weeks?

I laugh at this picture because every time I ask Kaden to take a picture of my belly for me he does just that.

Then I remind him I would like my face too. 

I believe these were both at 32 weeks.

Husband, Father, Everything

I really could never say enough about this man.

But since his birthday was last week and today is Fathers day I thought I should at least pay a little tribute to the guy that holds things together around here.

Since I have been on bed reset Chris has had to be, well, everything. He is both husband and wife both father and mother, not to mention church callings and being in the final month of writing his dissertation. Honestly I don't think anyone else could have done it. But he did. And most of the time he did it with a smile on his face. :D 

He is one in a million my guy. A few nights ago he gave me a pedicure... as in a full exfoliate my feet scrub the dead skin off, lotion massage pedicure. He rubs my shoulders nightly right before bed with oils in hopes that I will sleep a little better. He cleans, he cooks, he mows the lawn and takes out the garbage, he writes papers and fixes sprinklers, he carries heavy things and rearranges the play sets in the backyard while I sit on the swing and direct. He bends over to plant flowers in my flower bed because I can't. He spends long days working with coals, acids, and reactors and then spends his nights with kids, dishes, and a really pregnant wife. He gets kids ready for church, (minus the girls hair... he isn't that domestic ;)) he changes diapers and plays baseball. He is my hero. Can you tell why? 

He is my best decision. I don't know that I deserve this wonder man of mine. But he hasn't seemed to figure that out yet so I get to keep him. How lucky am I? 

His big 30th birthday was last week. Unfortunately because I am laid up in bed I wasn't able to do much of anything. But I did promise him the party of the century in August after his defense to make up for it. I did manage to make and hang up this sign on the garage. Too bad we live on a dead end street and about 5 people total saw it. *Sigh* Oh well, thought that counts right?

Because of my lens this is as a good of self shot as we could get.

I did arrange for a small surprise. Lisa Kelsey and Ben were able to come up with Aunt Kathy and bring Chris's all time favorite food, Chinese, for dinner.

I am not a big Chinese food fan so it is a rare meal in our house. Chris on the other hand would eat it for most meals if he could. Needless to say he was pretty excited about it.

A huge thanks to Aunt Kathy, Lisa, Kelsey and Ben for coming all the way up for dinner. They really helped make the day fun, and if they hadn't of come we would have been eating a freezer meal for his birthday dinner.

We ended the day with cheesecake, another favorite of Chris's. 

Happy birthday/fathers day to the best man and daddy I know. We are so lucky to call you ours.

Family Fun

Just in case we haven't been over all things Kaden, here is one last post about his family birthday party. :D

Kaden is super lucky that he has an aunt who is very talented in the cake making department. He wanted an angry bird cake and she put together this darling cake for him. So a big thanks to Kilie for coming through on that. It kind of put my cupcakes to shame. :D

Originally when we were planning Kadens birthday I gave him the option to have a big friend party like last years bug party or we could have a big family party and invite all the grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles to do an activity of his choosing. He didn't even hesitate, he chose the family party. Which tells you what awesome grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles the kid has.

He wanted them all to go bowling with him so we up an invitation and planned the party for June 1st.

We really do have incredible families. Everyone who could be there came. We went to the Family Fun Center in Syracuse and spent a couple of hours bowling/mini golfing/laser tagging/ playing on the bounce toys. I meant to bring a camera but in the rush of the day I totally forgot. 

We came back to the house afterwards for pizza cake and ice cream. We made use one more time of the funny photo props.

Here is a link to all of those great photos http://smu.gs/ZI4jRn

Kaden was over the moon about his cake. It was all I could do to keep his hands off of it til it was time to eat.

He gets serious about blowing out those candles.

Watching Kaden open presents is the best. He has always been the funnest person to give presents to because he is completely ecstatic about each one. 

He was spoiled. As always. It was such a fun day. A HUGE thanks to everyone who took time in their day to come and spend with him. He is a lucky lucky boy.

Talent

Oh my little man. He is a bundle of joy just waiting to burst. Which is why when he found out about the school talent show he INSISTED that he be a part. 

I wasn't sure I was up for the time and energy a talent show would require and in my maybe not so best mother moment I tried to scare him out of it. I said things like, "There will be so many people there watching" and "You will have to stand at a microphone all by yourself with no one to help" to which he grinned from ear to ear and said "I KNOW!"

So we started to prepare. 

I am not sure if every school is like this but Kaden's school took the talent show quite seriously. There were 3 days of auditions to narrow down the contestants. I had no idea where Kaden would fall in the talent spectrum so I tried to prepare him just in case. When we got the word that he had indeed made it into the talent show he fell to the ground laid on his back spread his arms out and said " I can't believe it! I made it into the TALENT SHOW!"

My child is a born performer. 

I decided to have him sing a song that I sang when I was in the elementary talent show. Porky the Porcupine. It's an oldie but goodie. He practiced and practiced, he had actions for every word. He could sing each note on key.

The day came... he was more than a little excited.

He was number 2 in the show and it was a good thing. He could hardly sit still. He actually tried to run up and grab the mic before it was even his turn. When the time came they had him stand on the stage and hold his own mic. I was so mad because he wasn't able to do any of the cute actions he had planned with both hands on the mic. But he sure was cute up there...

In hind sight the song was probably a little too high for him. Once he got up there he was so excited he wanted to belt the whole thing out. Because of that the high parts got lost in a range of notes he was more comfortable with. But for being a kindergartner I think he did an awesome job! I sure was proud of him. 

Here is a youtube link to his performance. This video is off an IPad so we couldn't zoom in. I have a better recording of it on my video camera but I have to wait til we fill that disc up before I can finalize it and pull the video off. I still plan on getting a recording of him singing with all his cute actions too!

http://youtu.be/OKmQaPFBqOw

Afterwards he said to me "Mom, I wasn't standing up there alone. I could see lots and lots of people!" I guess we don't have to worry about stage fright.

Messy Fun

The day came. Even thought I did my best to pretend like it wouldn't. I tried to convince myself if I did not acknowledge the fact that my baby was turning 6 he wouldn't. But since he had a countdown going since May 1st it was a hard fact to ignore. He was oh so excited to be 6. He talked about it for weeks.

On the morning of the big day we woke him up with balloons and his favorite breakfast.

He was a little out of it at first, but quickly got excited for his big day.

That day was his end of year program at school so we got to go with him. He was adorable the link for any interested is here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6sjm9rFMhU My absolute favorite is in the first minute when they walk in singing Your a grand old flag and he belts out "should all the CLAYTONS be forgot" instead of should auld acquaintance be forgot. He sang it that way every single time. He thinks those are the real words and I don't think I will ever correct him

He was most excited to take cupcakes into his class to share. But the school has a pretty strict no sugar policy so that idea got shut down pretty fast. So instead we threw together a last minute party at our house and invited a few neighborhood friends. His current obsession is all things angry birds so I got my creative juices flowing and put together these beauties,

I think Kaden's favorite part was the photo booth with the funny props. He had me take about a million pictures of him.

For a full gallery of all the fun photos go here http://smu.gs/ZHUhQf

We played a few messy games with chocolate pudding. 

In this game they had to fish the worms out of bowl using only their mouths. 

Taycee thought it was a great game, and the little boy in the background Owen won the competition.

Here are a few of our messy kids

We also had a doughnut on a string game, Rylee on the left and Stevie on the right in the above picture won that game.

We played a few water balloon games and let the kids play in the yard.
Here was the entire party crew.

 

I think it made for a pretty good birthday. He was pretty happy about it all.

He did get a little bossy that day though. I think he really took the "it's your day" to heart. That night at dinner when I asked him to finish his veggies he said "well actually mom it's my birthday so I get to decide". I was quick to correct that idea. When he found out grandma and grandpa Clayton couldn't make it to his talent show the next day he promptly took my phone called grandpa and said "grandpa we need to have a talk" The next morning he seemed to be over it though. 

He has thoroughly enjoyed being 6. He reminds us all the time that he is 6 now. The other day Chris was trying to wrestle him down and tie up his hands. Kaden had escaped his tie job a few times and he said to him "you just don't realize how strong I am now that I am 6" later he climbed up on top of the bathroom counter and was reaching to touch the ceiling. I heard him mumble under his breath "I got to be able to do this now that I am 6!"

I do have to admit I am a little sad that he can no longer "high five for being 5" but I sure do love this 6 year old boy of mine.

Have you met...

This guy?

Because he is probably the cutest guy I know. 

He would be content throwing rocks into a waterfall for hours.

Those eyes... oh those eyes. They are the brownest, sweetest things around.

His best attempt at not smiling usually looks something like this...

Because he just finds so much joy in everything around him.

He is a handsome feller this guy is.

And those DIMPLES! They make it impossible not to smile back.

This guy is the best. The best friend, the best helper, the best brother, the best son. There is no one else quite like this guy... and he just turned 6!

If you are lucky you will get to meet this guy too.

Happy Birthday buddy.