Christmas Morning

Just for you, Grandma and Grandpa!

Untitled from Devin McCain on Vimeo.

I'm Dreaming of A (Hopefully) White Christmas

Can you tell I'm excited for snow right now? Because I am.

Last night we went to go check out Christmas lights around town and came home to build a snowman and make snow angels.
This is our old man snowman.

We had a good amount of snow on the ground since it had been snowing all day.
Hayden really liked making snow angels. She would fall in random spots and go for it.


Then when I left for cheer at 5:45 this morning, there was another foot(almost) of snow. After plowing the drive way and getting stuck in the street in front of my house, I finally called my sleeping husband and he helped me get out of my rut.

(From our back porch. About 15 inches here)

When we got home, Hayden and I got suited up to go play!

Remember our snowman? His remains:

We've been having fun with it. A bunch of people in the neighborhood have four wheelers and are pulling people on sleds down the street behind them. Our friends, Robyn and Jethro made a sledding hill in their front yard.
Awesome.

December Snow from Devin McCain on Vimeo.

I'm hoping the white stuff stays around until Christmas....:)

This is More Like It

Ever since Thanksgiving and the "Blizzard 2010"(what a joke, except in Idaho where the storm was pretty legit. We found out the hard way.) the weather and temperature has made a gradual climb up the charts. We're talking almost 60 degrees the other day, which is weird to be in Utah in December and it be in the upper 50's, am I right? For me personally, it only feels like Christmas time if it's snowing outside, or at least really cold. I even have a hard time thinking about going on vacations at Christmas time to tropical or warm places because it wouldn't feel like it was actually Christmas. So needless to say, I was getting antsy for it to snow, especially since Carl and I aren't going anywhere for a while. We don't care if it snows us in! I say that lightly because we would care if we were snowed in and had no food, but you know what I mean.

To make a long thought short, we are happy to say that mother nature wised up a little and gave us some snow last night.
And the world is right once again.



This is what December in Utah should look like:)

(We'll see how I feel in about 3 months when there is still snow on the ground.)
:):):)
Merry Christmas!

Laughing Makes the World Go Round

I love when Hayden laughs. It's one of my favorite things.
This little game tickled her funny bone for some reason:)

Untitled from Devin McCain on Vimeo.

A Little Christmas (& Cheer) Spirit

This is our first time getting to put lights up on our house and we were excited to say the least:)

Here is Carl being the man and braving the cold and the roof to put up our old school lights.

He's pretty cute up there.

And here are the results! You might notice that we are about 4 feet short of a strand. Oh well, it still looks good! We also have a big street lamp in front of our house, but that makes us feel safe, so we don't mind:)

Yea, so we got some reindeer to add some cuteness. We love them but apparently other people love to mess with them while we are asleep. The first few nights we had them out we would bring them in before we went to bed. The first night we decided to leave them out all night, some funny guys decided they would have fun with them and place them in inappropriate positions. Try explaining that to your almost 3 year old. Plus, it's a mommy and a baby deer....just wrong. Anyway, I'm happy to report that nothing since then has happened and our deer our innocent once again.

I thought this was a cool shot . So there you go.

In this shot we have the Christmas village making an appearance(on the left), our big beautiful tree and some other Christmas decor. Also, Carl put up some shelves in the front hall (Thanks for the help, Jethro!). See them? I love them!

On the tree is a letter to Santa from Hayden. She told him all she wants for Christmas is a pink present. I hope he doesn't disappoint. I have a feeling he won't ;)

This little video needs no introduction, but I'll give you one anyway. Let's just say Hayden really likes going to cheer practices with me.

Untitled from Devin McCain on Vimeo.

For My Guy

I'm a little late with this, but this guy had a birthday the end of November:

Why do I love this man, you ask?
Because he is amazing, smart, and so hot. He makes me laugh ALL the time and he is my best friend.
Plus, Hayden LOVES him more than anything and I love watching them hang out together more than anything, so in my eyes that makes him a keeper.
Also, he is still in his 20's, even if it is only for 1 more year. Therefore, that makes me feel like I am still in my 20's, even though we all know I'm not.
Thanks for keeping me young, Carl.
Hayden and I both LOVE you so much!


HAPPY (late) BIRTHDAY!

Ahhhhhh.....

I love everything about this picture.
This is what it looks like after having spent 30+ hours in a car(thanks to ice on the highway) to visit Gmas and Gpas for Thanksgiving.
Exhausting!

(PS-Hayden's new favorite song at the moment is Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. Can you guess why?)

But was it worth it to see said Gmas and Gpas?
Absolutely.
Especially when Hayden travels like a champ. For real. I think of those 30+ hours in the car, maybe 30 minutes of it was spent fussing.
She wins for being the best kid in the world.
I am so thankful for a wonderful family. I'm thankful for a husband who drove the entire trip to Washington and back and drove very carefully so to not endanger any of us in the car. I'm thankful for a brother and his girlfriend who braved the very small and crowded back seat of our car with Hayden and never once complained. I'm thankful for my wonderful in-laws to let our traveling group stay in a warm house so we could regroup. And I am thankful for my parents for all their love and hospitality so we could all be together for Thanksgiving. I love you all!
Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. Crazy, I know. I'll just have to swipe some good material from my folks of all the festivities.
Now, time to get ready for Christmas!
Happy Holidays!

Break Out Your Galoshes!

It's a snowin' 'round here!
I don't know why I made that sentence sound hick, but I did, and it was fun.

Guess what we got to do tonight?
And by "we" I mean Carl and Hayden.

"We" shoveled snow from the driveway and had fun doing it.

Such troopers.
Check out the stink eye Hayden is giving me in this picture. She really was having fun...I swear.

She LOVES the snow!

When we came back in to warm up and get ready for bed, something was a little strange. Can you tell?

Maybe this is a better picture. No? You don't see it?

It must just be me then. :)

Now Put Your Hands Up

We had our first cup of hot chocolate of the season. On Sunday night it started snowing. We went for a little drive around our neighborhood to see who has their Christmas stuff out already and remind Hayden that even though Christmas is grand, we shouldn't forget Thanksgiving. :) I do love seeing Christmas lights, but rest assured (and according to Carl), ours will not be going up until after Thanksgiving. And I totally agree with him. Even though I think it would be nice to get them up while the weather is cooperating and not turn them ON until after Thanksgiving. But hopefully the weather will be nice then, too. Moving on...so we went for a drive while it was snowing, so when we got home we heated ourselves up some hot chocolate and indulged.

Hayden really likes to play hide and seek. However, she still hasn't grasped the concept. When I count and look for her, she ALWAYS gives herself away, usually by yelling or laughing. Sometimes she just doesn't hide her whole body, like in this case:

See what is sticking out from under the door? That would be her foot. Nice try, Hayden but you aren't fooling anyone!

This next picture makes me laugh. Hayden likes to run around without much clothing on sometimes. We try to teach her to be modest, but it's in one ear and out the other, apparently.

In this instance, we made an exception because of her tights. How could we cover up the cute little bear on her bottom?

I know how. Put on some music and Hayden is quick to find any kind of dress so she can DANCE! She HAS to be wearing a dress or skirt to dance. She will have it no other way. In this video, it's her denim skirt and her McCain family reunion t-shirt. She's got style!

I realize the Beyonce song "Single Ladies" is a bit overused, but we couldn't resist. We like to be cliche:)

Untitled from Devin McCain on Vimeo.

Is It Too Early to be Excited for Spring?

Today we planted tulips and hyacinths. I'm so excited that we got it done. I was really beginning to think we wouldn't. Now I have to wait about 6 months or so to fully appreciate the work. It's probably going to be a looooong winter, but at least there will be a prize at the end!
Hopefully our garden will look something like this (with additional pink tulips and pink hyacinths):

Aren't they so pretty!?

We planted a total of 60 tulips and 16 hyacinths. I really hope all of them bloom, but what are the chances of every single one blooming? I really don't know because I have never planted that many before. It will be fun to see how it goes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm excited for some snow. You know, the good powdery kind. But when I'm over the snow, this will be a nice surprise. Can't wait :)

She's Done It Again!

Robyn took some pretty sweet and awesome pictures of Hayden last week. We have discovered that Hayden is no model child, meaning she can't sit still long enough to count to 5 and pose or even smile during photo shoots, much less get a good shot.(Like most kids, right? right???) However, Robyn has somehow managed to capture some of her greatest smiles! That's saying something ;)
These are just a few of the many, many great shots she got.

Check Robyn out at her blog Catching Moments .

Thanks so much, Robyn. I love them!

Our Halloween Story

I was excited about Halloween this year because we were actually going to get to go door to door in our neighborhood instead of just doing a Trunk or Treat. Hayden is at the age now where she can have fun and understands how it works. But for a while there, I didn't think trick or treating was going to happen for us for a couple of reasons:

1. Remember the last post about BYU's Halloween fun? That night ended with us putting Hayden down and her waking up about 1/2 an hour later vomiting all over her room. That is seriously my worst nightmare. Anyway, our little Hayden was sick. I don't even think it was an "I ate too much candy" kind of sick either, because she didn't eat that much. I'm not sure what it was that made her sick but I thought our weekend was over. Luckily, she was better the next day. Trick or treating was still on for Saturday.


2. Saturday came along and the forecast called for some rain showers. No big deal right? However the forecast changed to thunderstorms. And a doozy of one at that. But we didn't know about it until we walked outside to start trick or treating with Robyn and Lincoln.

Carl stayed home to pass out the candy to trick or treaters. We even went out early to try and beat the "rain showers", still unaware that a storm was fast approaching. We went to the first couple of houses before we looked to the south and saw this:


then the next house was this:

then this with some lightening:


then this with some lightening and thunder:
until we finally decided we needed to make a run for it. And I'm so glad we did, because then this happened:

hail storm from Devin McCain on Vimeo.

It was crazy!! I'm usually totally on top of the weather situations going on but this time I was completely blind sided.

This is hail, not snow, even though we had snow here earlier this week.

The rainbow after the storm.

Our trick or treating was put on hold for about an hour. But the rain finally led up and we made a second attempt at getting delicious candy. It was great and so much fun to see Hayden having fun.
Walking along on our second attempt. I love her outfit with her big coat...it was cold!

Trick or treating with Lincoln.

Her own stash
Our pumpkins. We even had dry ice going on in Carl's pumpkin but it's hard to see in the pictures.


Happy Halloween! We hope everyone else was able to get out and have some fun!

Trick or Treat!

We went to BYU's Halloween get together tonight. Hayden was cute as ever!
Afterward we carved Hayden's pumpkin to get the festivities going.

Halloween 2010 from Devin McCain on Vimeo.

Happy Halloween!

Another Year, Another Gray Hair...

This is my 200th post and it was my birthday yesterday.
Win-Win!
I won't lie, I usually milk my birthday month for all it's worth by exclaiming how it's my birthday allllll month long and what not, but this year I kind of felt different. I didn't want to accept that I'm getting older. But I am and that's okay. It's just a little harder than I thought it would be. Wah wah wah.

But here's where it gets good and I stop whining.
Look:

How can anybody be bummed about a birthday when they can have endless amounts of donuts at their reach!! That's what happens when you have the greatest husband and the amazing Robyn on your side. They didn't plan this, but they both knew how much I love donuts that they both got me some for my big day. They are so thoughtful. Robyn's were even homemade and incredible!
For real.

Speaking of Robyn, she was even kind enough to make homemade stir fry for dinner! YUMMY! She said she felt bad because I had to sit out in the FREEZING cold on my birthday (to watch the girls cheer at a football game) but I think she just wanted to win the best neighbor and friend of the year award. Did I mention she and her hubby also watched Hayden for those 3 hours I was gone in the freezing cold? Yea, she totally wins for being awesome. Thanks, Robyn!

One of the highlights of my day was when I had walked in from said football game and the house had been decorated in streamers(which Robyn had also helped with. Told you, she's amazing); The look on Carl's and Hayden's faces while yelling "happy birthday!" when I walked in was sooooo priceless. They were so genuinely excited to see me that it made me feel so loved and so blessed to have them in my life. I wish I had a picture of them at that moment. It was perfect.

This picture is solely documentation that Carl does, in fact, know how to wrap presents. He just hates doing it. He usually wraps them in towels or hides them under a blanket and has me reach my hand under and pick something out. Which is fun and saves on wrapping paper. But this year I requested he actually wrap them up. So he did. What a good man :)

My friend Alice the fairy even stopped by to help me open my presents. She's great.
I guess it's not so bad to get older when you are surrounded by nothing but cuteness.

I am so grateful for my family and friends. I feel blessed on a daily basis for the amazing people in my life. I'm thankful for a husband who had been sick for the 3 days before my birthday but on my birthday he made sure that I was comfortable and relaxed. That's love! I hope I can be as good a friend and spouse and mother and person as those people in my life.
:)