Happy Birthday Justin!!

My Baby is ONE!!! He is such a little man to me and is always so happy!! We made chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting for his cake which we shared with the YW in my ward since his Birthday was on Jan 26th the same day of our YW activity night.

He is a really fast crawler right now and wants to go everywhere his older brothers are! He laughs so hard with them its hilarious. He loves to be all too helpful with my dishwasher and like to pull himself up to alot of things. Justin is a great eater and burns through it all with all of his energy just like his brothers did. He just had a check up and weighed 17 lbs 9 oz and was 29 in long, his perfectly healthy and again my happy babe I couldn't ask for anything more! Justin's personality is all about what is funny. He blows raspberries and then laughs at himself and then blows more raspberries followed by more laughter. It is so funny to watch, not too funny in the middle of sacrament meeting, but he can't help it. He also likes to growl alot like he is ready to wrestle, again during church not so cool but no one can reset his sweet smile. I love seeing all the differences in each of my boys and how important they all are to our family.

Since Justin did just turn one I have been going through his room, checking on which clothes he could fit into soon and which he had completely grown out of . Here is Hayden refusing to believe me that he can't fit into these overall pants any more. And he didn't believe me until he put them on himself and was trying to pass them off as shorts just to prove his point. Seriously he looked so goofy especially after he gave me a few funny poses. That Hayden, he has to figure things out by himself or he will be in denial for a long time. I think he has a stubborn/determined part to his personality and like alot of things that can be both good and bad!!

Happy Birthday Hayden!!

My spunky Mr. Hayden is officially 4!! I tell ya this kid just makes me laugh and laugh. He is such a determined kid and wants to be independent with everything he does, which I have to reel him back in sometimes (Ok all the time) and say "No mommy HAS to help you with this!!" He wants to please people and make them happy. And that is why sometimes when eating I tell him to take three more Hulk Bites (meaning very big) and he does it and I say " I didn't see, show me again" and he happily will eat three more big Hulk bites after which he says, "All done" and I say, "I don't think that last bite was big enough you better do one more" which he does and I tell him, "Good job you can be all done thank you" and he smiles takes his all EMPTY plate off to the sink and goes to wash his hands!! I hope this can work for a while more at least ;) For his birthday we simply had a party with our own little family and the boys had a great time with it. I told Hayden to go find all the Spiderman toys and Spiderman cars and anything that he wanted to decorate the table with. He thought it was cool to decorate his chair.

His cake really was last minute. I barely had enough powdered sugar for my frosting recipe but ended up washing alot down the drain, who knows why that is I guess I didn't make as tall a cake this time. Hayden kept asking "What are you doing now? I don't know mom, that's not like Spiderman's head." Then when I outlined the eyes he said "Oh! There he is, yeah right there"
I tried to apply lines to the red frosting for his webby look and you can tell and little bit, but I really need to get better cake decorating tools I don't think 2 tips and zip lock baggies can work all the time.

While I was finishing the cake Clayton was being sneaking and drawing up this poster to surprise Hayden with. His top secret place for coloring was in my coat closet siting on the floor with a little desk to color on. What a nice big brother!

Nathan came home and surprised the boys with, what else a McDonald's Happy meal. Honestly both boys love Wendy's better mainly because the hamburger (Jr bacon cheeseburger) comes with a tomato on it and they take it off and eat it first then the rest of the hamburger and also Wendy's has frosty's. But McDonald's is special to them because they go there all the time with Grandpa Ron and they usually have pretty cool toys. My boys know we don't always get happy meals and my deal with them is, we get a Happy meal for something special or if the toy happens to be really cool that they love, I mean really love because usually it's not and the boys are good about waiting until there is something worth buying a Happy meal for.

Hayden had fun opening presents, eating cake along with his fries and playing with the ever supreme Happy meal toy. Hayden loved all the calls he got and had fun saying "I'm four" to everyone. Also now that he is four, Hayden truely thinks that he is stronger and wants to take on Nathan at a long wrestling match which he tells me he is going to win!! Love the kid like crazy and am so glad he had a great special day.

Christmas down south!

South as in Louisiana! Nathan's parents moved there this past year and we drove down to spend the holidays with them, Kristy,Scott, Shayna, Ben and Edlin. We missed Kacie Chris and Jordan but maybe next time we will be down there with them. It's about an 15 hour drive down and we left early in the morning Christmas eve, which happens to be Nathan's birthday. It rained the whole way down...the whole way down! There were a few times Nathan had to slow down because there was the risk of hydroplane from all the water on the roads, besides that the ride was fun and the boys were great, we were set with snacks, games, and movies to keep them busy and Justin didn't even cry one peep for the entire trip. He is such a good boy!Downtown New Orleans!! Clay was picked (by my push of hand) to be part of an music act on the streets of New Orleans. I thought he would have so much fun because lately he has been pretending to play guitar and be a rock star but I should have remembered that Clay and his personality is not a look at me, see what I am doing kind, but he was a good sport about it all, only admitting two hours later that it was "OK" and "Kind of fun ".

This guy was hilarious!! He was completely silver and making funny poses and moving at just the right time to spook people. There must have been a big group of them spread out throughout the streets because the golden guy was good too. The boys were mesmerized and got to say "Hi" to him. At Uncle Scott is enjoying his Cajun corn on the cob! I really loved the look of the Spanish railings all decorated with holiday decor. A Big thanks to Diana and Steve for their generosity and such a good time. Steve recently had surgery on his foot and was in crutches but still took us downtown and showed us the great flee market where I found a new hat, wallet, and watch! Nate thinks flee markets are filled with a bunch of junk, but I had a blast. It's like treaure hunting, and thanks to him I found some treasures!!

Diana took the girls to visit the DESTERHAN PLANTATION. I enjoyed our tour guide who was dressed to kill (literally) in the Union civil war uniform. The covered porch was amazing and I learned alot on the old southern days and am astonished on the things that were constructed by hand and made so beautifully. The grounds had huge 200 year old trees that were would be excellent swinging trees.

Everyone couldn't get enough of the beautiful pool, equipped with a diving board and all. It also had a jacuzzi connected to it. Steve was great and had it all heated for us and after a good dinner it was great to get in the hot tub and soak for awhile, and gear up for some mad catch phrase games that lasted until 1 and 2 in the morning.

These boats were huge and Hayden was sure it was not going to fit under the bridge. A good perspective lesson for him as he watched it go under with no problems.

Diana took us the Storyland Park where the kids had alot of fun going around figuring out what story belong to each display. Their favorite was the dragon Slide that was really fast, which is way it was their favorite.

Fireworks are really big in Louisiana and Diana and Steve had their own that we were able to do in the driveway. Fireworks are always fun I have a blast every time we have them.

So much more that we saw and had fun with. Good to be with family, The boys had so much fun with their cousin Shayna. Many thanks again to the Cottrell's for having us and making our Christmas in Louisiana so great. We love you tons and can't wait to see you again.