It's a Wonderful Life

Hooray! It's time for everyone to hear about how I loved Christmas this year. Not only is it a wonderful time of year, but it was Hayden's first Christmas and that made it extra special.

But first, a little shout out to my loving hubby. Today we celebrate 4 years of marriage. I am so lucky to be married to such an amazing guy. We have grown together so much over the last 4 years and have so many fun memories. I really do think the world of him and I know he feels the same about me. Plus, we have a pretty dang cute baby and I blame that all on him!:) It's wonderful to know that through all the ups and downs in life, I have someone by my side the whole time, keeping me company. I love you, Carl! Here's to an eternity more of marriage bliss!

Now, about Christmas.


We were originally planning on driving up to Washington to be with Carl's parents on Christmas, but thanks to the numerous amounts of winter storms and closed roads, we weren't able to go. We were pretty bummed about it, but decided to make the best out of it. We had a delicious ham dinner,(thanks Mom and Dad) on Christmas Eve, read Luke 2 with Hayden and off she went to dream of sugarplum fairies. It was so much fun to wake up to her usual silliness and help her open her presents on her first Christmas morning. She didn't help for too long. Once she opened the first of her toys she was content to play with just those, so Carl and I had fun opening them for her. We both had bought gifts for her and didn't tell each other what we got her, to make it a little more fun. She got so many fun gifts from Grandma and Grandpa, and aunts and uncles, and we are so grateful for them and their thoughtfulness. We love you all.Even Ella got in on the fun!
Christmas really is better when you have little kids around to see them enjoy it, even though Hayden is still so young, I love watching her play with her new toys.She couldn't wait to see what came in the mail.

It really is a season for giving and being with the ones you love. Even though we couldn't be with family, we were grateful for great friends to take us in and keep us company. Thanks, Amylyn and Andy for being our "family" on Christmas! We love you guys!

Yea for Carl!

I've got some great news: Carl got a new job working as a staffing and administrative assistant at BYU! This is a big deal for us and we are really excited about this opportunity. He is getting some more experience under his belt to further his career in HR and we feel very blessed with this chance for him to expand his horizon. He starts the end of December.
It's a bitter sweet time in a couple ways:

#1. We have to stay in Utah for a little bit longer, but I think we'll be okay:) At least this way Mom and Dad have a place to stay when they come down for BYU games.

#2. Carl has to say goodbye to where he works now. We have been very blessed with that job as well and everything it provided for us. Not to mention he works with great people.

But I am so happy that Carl is moving on up and he is excited to start.

Good job, Carl. I'm so proud of you!

To A New Week

This last week was a pretty crazy one in our household. It's never a good sign when your baby is throwing up on a Monday, because then it snowballs into a week long sick fest. At least that is how we have found it to be in our family.

So yea, last Monday Hayden went to bed at her normal time and all was well, until I went in to check on her a little bit later to find she had thrown up in her bed and was curled up on the other side of her crib trying to sleep. Poor thing. So she had a rough few hours after that trying to feel better and keep her bottle down, but she finally fell asleep, watching her daddy save the world on his xbox. My poor little girl, but luckily she is feeling better and she is a happy baby again.

So the next couple of days went normal but then BOOM, Carl wakes up in the wee hours of Thursday morning sick sick sick! After 8 hours of running back and forth to the bathroom and having bad stomach cramps, we decided to go to the doctor. This was a little rough for us because as you know, doctors usually want to draw your blood when you are sick and Carl doesn't handle that too well. But he made it, after a little hyperventilating, but we still got through the blood test only to find his white blood cell count high, so off we go to get a CT to make sure it's not appendicitis. After the CT, we find out the appendix is fine, but his gall bladder seems to be the problem and we needed to go to the ER to get it out. After a few hours in the ER, an ultrasound and another hyperventilating blood test, we are sent home. The ER doctor didn't feel like she had enough proof to take the gall bladder out, so Carl is scheduled for one more test to make sure his gall bladder is functioning properly. If it isn't working, then it's out of here, if it is.....well, I guess we'll see what happens next. My poor hubby. I just want him to feel better. At the moment he is doing fine, but he is still kind of blah. Poor thing. We we supposed to be flying to Seattle Thursday night to hang out with my parents and Carl had an interview with a company up in Tacoma Friday morning, but sadly we missed the flight. Luckily there will be plenty of opportunities to go up there and hopefully more chances to interview. I just want a healthy hubby. Get better, Carl!

Two down, one more to go. I was waiting and waiting for my turn to come with the sickness, but luckily, it still hasn't hit me yet, knock on wood.

Some good did come out of this sad week. We were able to get our Christmas stuff out and up. I love it.Hayden was plain exhausted after decorating the tree. She passed out right in front of it!
This is our Christmas village. Carl's family always did one growing up, and I think it is really fun and cute.
HOHOHO, Merry Christmas! It's Santa's little helper.
Special Delivery!
It actually snowed today and Hayden had such a good time watching the snow fall from the window. What a sweetie!

May this week be healthier than last! Cheers!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year

It truly is the best part of the year, besides my birthday of course. That day should be a national holiday, no no, make that an international holiday, but this time of year is right up there:)

I have so much that I feel like talking about. I feel as though I have been lost in my own little world for the last couple of weeks and I have, I really have. And now I will tell you why:

1. First and foremost, let's talk about the Twilight books. YES! I have finished the third one now and I'm patiently awaiting to read the last one to find out what the heck happens with Bella and Edward and of course if Jacob is out of the picture or not. Don't tell me anything, let me find out for myself! Sadly, I still have not seen the movie, but I am planning on doing it next weekend. I have read lots and lots of different opinions, but let's face it, I am very easily entertained, so I'm pretty sure all I have to do is see Edward and I'll be set. Thank you.

2. Hello, it was Thanksgiving just a couple days ago!!! Carl and I stayed in Utah to celebrate this day of thanks together along with Hayden(duh) and my brother Jeff. He lives up in Salt Lake and came down for the festivities. It was nice to have him with us to help us eat all of the delicious food. We had a relaxing time. We wish we could have been with more family, but all the details of why we weren't are long and boring so I'll spare those to keep this more interesting. We did have some visitors, Carl's brother's in laws(got that?) stopped by and dropped off a pie and invited us to a dinner they were going to. Unfortunately, our dinner was almost done, but it was nice of them to do that. Anyway, I enjoy cooking the meal, but we do cheat in many ways. The main thing is we get the turkey from Honey Baked Ham and it's already sliced for us. But don't tell. It is so good. But I made a pie, and cooked the ever so famous side dishes, so it evens out. I love Thanksgiving and the chance to remember the things that I am grateful for, like my family....and America....

3. Speaking of family, it was Carl's birthday this week too! The day after Thanksgiving, in fact. He turned the big 2-7. Man, he's getting old(wink, wink)
So yea, we went to the movies and saw Quantum of Solace, which was pretty good and then we opened presents and some friends came over to join in the fun. Thanks guys! It is always nice to be able to spend time with friends. I had baked a carrot cake from scratch, so we had to share the goods. I learned my lesson about baking carrot cakes from scratch, just get the already chopped walnuts from the store. It saves lots of time and you don't end up with walnut shells in your cake that your husband won't let you forget about. This year I did it right:) Happy Birthday, Carl! I love you, sweetie!

4. Here's something that I don't love...litterbugs. Talk about lazy. I mentioned how I was grateful for America earlier, and I am. I think it's a beautiful country, but when we have lazy(I really want to insert a bad word here) citizens who don't know how to hold on to their trash, it makes it hard to keep it as beautiful as it can be. Story: So Carl and I were driving through the parking lot at the mall. We turned the corner to go down one of the aisles and right there, in the front row of parking spaces, I saw this girl open her car door, throw a big McDonald's bag under her car and shut her door again. When I saw that I said to Carl "Are you kidding me?" and pointed to the car with a big bag of trash under it. So Carl stopped the car and we stared at the girl in her car and when she looked at us Carl pointed to the trash and told her to pick it up. HA, BUSTED you lazy punk! She slowly opened her door and picked it back up and we drove on, amazed that someone would do that, right there in front of all those people when there was a trash can about 20 feet away from their car. Pathetic. Well, the story goes that we parked on that same row as them but farther down and as we were walking down the lot, I saw their car going towards ours where we had parked, so Carl ran back and he saw her roll her window down and ALMOST throw out some trash at our car!!!!! But we think she saw him running back and never threw it, then they took off. What a joke. Moral of the story is, don't litter. It's lazy and disrespectful.(ps...this picture says "plant" but lets pretend it says "planet")

5. Now to make this blog just THAT much longer, I've decided to add some pictures of Hayden. Surprise, surprise, but she's so dang cute I can't help it! She is at a very fun age and I love every minute of it! It may seem like she doesn't smile much, but believe me, she does.

Phew, that was a long blog. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving and a great week, from our house to yours!

Read first book....check!!

I finished Twilight tonight. I can't believe I read it that fast.

My thoughts so far: Bella is kind of clumsy, Edward is kind of dreamy, I still miss Washington even though it makes it sound like a rainy hell, I can't wait to see the movie, and I'm excited to see what else can happen in New Moon

I'm sorry I have been missing out on this goodness. Why didn't anybody tell me it would have this effect on me? Just kidding, girls! I love ya!

It Happened

So I'm sure everyone knows about the Twilight books and I'm sure everyone knows how I had no desire to read them. I don't know why I can be so stubborn about some things, but I can be, and Twilight was no exception. Obviously I didn't understand what the hype was about teenagers and vampires, because after all, I haven't been a teenager for quite some time and I don't think I have ever met any vampires.

Last night, Carl and I did our normal routine of putting Hayden to bed and watching our shows. After Heroes was over I picked up the new Entertainment Weekly magazine that Carl gets and of course on the cover was all about Twilight. Holy crap! Enough with Twilight, already! That's what I have been thinking for the past who knows how long since the trailers of the movie have hit the media. But for some reason, looking at this magazine, I was intrigued. Maybe it was because Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart looked amazingly beautiful on the cover. So I started to read the article in the magazine. Next thing I know, Carl had grabbed the first book and put it in front of me and told me just to read the first chapter. I contemplated for a second and finally gave up my pride and said what the heck!

I read the first chapter...then the second....then the third....and then the fourth! I didn't want to stop and the only reason I did was because it was nearly midnight and I knew I should go to sleep if I wanted to take adequate care of my 9 month old baby the next day.

I love it so far. It's such an easy read, which is good for me because I'm not much of a reader. I like to read, it just takes a lot of effort for me to pick up a book and read it. But I am excited to pick this up and find out what else is going to happen to Bella and Edward. My in-laws recently took a trip to Forks, WA to visit the site of "TWILIGHT" and I thought that was really funny, but now I think it would be kind of fun! I can't believe I just said that.

So to all my friends who have been patient with me while they giggled and blushed like little school girls over Edward, I NOW UNDERSTAND! I've only just begun, but I'm so excited to gush over these two little love birds and feel like a kid again.

I'll let you know how it goes, but for now, on to chapter 5!

8 Things

Thanks Tara! So here I am with another tag, but I think they are kind of fun, hopefully you can learn even more about me than you really wanted:)

Eight Shows I like to Watch:

The Office
Heroes
Fringe
LOST
Oprah(yea, what of it?)
The Price is Right
Anything on the Food Network
Anything on Discovery Health


Eight Restaurants I like to eat at:

Melting Pot(it's not often, but man, I love it)
Bajios
Rumbi Island Grille
Mekong II (thai)
Chili's
Bombay House
Anthony's
Pizza Factory

Eight things that I've Done today:
(its still the morning, so not much has been done, believe it or not)

Woke up
made muffins but forgot to put the baking soda in them...but still ate them
watched The Price is Right
Made Hayden a bottle
Changed Hayden's diaper
took Ella outside
put Hayden down for a nap
wrote this blog


Eight Things I am looking forward to:

Thanksgiving
Carl's birthday
Hayden's first Christmas
Dave coming home and seeing the family
Carl coming home from work
LOST
Carl finishing everything he wants to accomplish
living in Washington someday

Eight Things on my wish list:

Live close to family
End tables for the living room
Lot's of fun, stylish clothes that I can be proud of
Cute decorations for my bathroom
Hayden's room to be decorated
An endless supply of donuts without the consequences
Contacts
A house in Puerto Rico


Eight people to tag: (Sorry ahead of time)

Amy
Mom
Jess
meghan
Amylyn
Lee
Rachel
Nicole

At last.....

And now I present....the pumpkin patch. I have been waiting so long and we finally got to go a couple days ago and (drum roll please).... it was great! Perfect weather, excellent company, great choice of pumpkins...ahhhhhh....I love this time of year.HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Also, Hayden has decided to give real crawling a try, and I think she likes it:

Goodbye, dear 20's...

What does a beautiful morning combined with beautiful horses in the mountains of Utah equal? The best birthday present ever! For my birthday this year, Carl planned a horseback ride for me, as a surprise, and if you know me, you know I LOVE horses. Once upon a time I even took riding lessons on Friday mornings before school and didn't even care that I smelled like the sweet scent of manure/horse when I got to class. Of course, that was years and years and years ago so it had been a while since I had even been on a horse, but like they say, you never forget how to ride. However, it was Carl's first time ever on a horse. A boy from Kennewick,WA had never been on a horse, can you believe it? But it's true. Carl works at a place that uses horses for therapy and the trainer was kind enough to take us on a joy ride for fun, and fun it was. I loved it.

Surprise! we're going riding!


Me and my horse David. Did I mention that he was the tallest horse I had ever seen? The pictures don't do his height justice, but he was tall.




This is a great shot of the trail we went on. It was so beautiful. We did see a coyote, a ton of deer and some wild turkeys while we were there. It is also hunting season and we forgot our orange vests, but luckily we didn't get shot.


Heck yes that's me wearing a riding hat. If I fell, I had a long ways to go, so I wasn't taking any chances:)


What a great guy. I love that he really put some thought in this gift and made it something he knew I would love, and I did. Thank you, Carl!


We love this picture. The couple we went with were so cute and he was such a cowboy. It was awesome. This was where we stopped to rest.


Carl's dream, his wife playing video games and having fun doing it!


My two favorite people dressed up on my birthday. What a lucky girl I am!


SO here's to another wonderful year. Thank you Carl for taking such good care of me.
And thank you to everyone who sent their wishes this way. They are much appreciated!
Now to send us off is Hayden playing a little birthday diddy for me:

My ladybug

These were just too cute to pass up. This is her little lady bug hat that gma and gpa Owens got for her and she loved it.(thanks guys!) This is what we do at night. As you can see, Hayden still insists on crawling like an inch worm, but to each his own, right? Plus, she is super fast this way, I can barely keep up with her!




Hayden has decided that she can stand up now, and she pulls herself up on whatever she can get her hands on. In this case, the bathtub. I love her big, droopy diaper.



Hayden playing with her bunny...One of my new favorite things she does is whatever she has in her hands she swings and waves in the air making a very dramatic noise, and I love it.

Phoenix or bust!

We got to spend the last weekend in Phoenix with Carl's family for the blessing of our sweet little nephew, and sweet he is! It was so fun to watch Hayden play with her cousins, we just wish it could be more often. We had such a good time with everyone and even driving the 20 hours in one weekend wasn't so bad. Hayden wins the prize of the century with how well she did in the car traveling. I wish I had some gold stars because she would wear them for the rest of her life.

During the trip we visited Shnepf Farm. We enjoyed the frisbee catching dogs, train ride and petting zoo.

The weather was BEAUTIFUL. I know what you are thinking, Phoenix wasn't 100 million degrees? Nope, it was probably in the high 70's the whole time, so while everyone in Utah enjoyed the first snow, we enjoyed the sun.

We went to dinner at this cool restaurant with a great view of Arizona and enjoyed the live band and dancing. I wish we got pictures of the slide you can ride on your way to your table, but I didn't get any. What was I thinking?! But I made sure to get one of these two silly people....

Sunday was the reason for it all, we got to witness Ade's blessing, which was wonderful, and then it was kisses and hugs and off we went to drive back to cold Utah. On the way home we had to get a picture in front of the visitors center in Page, AZ/Lake Powell. After all, it was called "Carl Hayden Visitor Center" Why wouldn't we stop?!

We loved seeing the family(thanks for everything!) and wish everyone could have been there. Next stop, Elder Dave!! We look forward to seeing him in only a couple months!

Here are my randoms of Hayden...