Fall

I love the cozy mornings of fall. (I also love that by 10:00 it's warm enough to go out in shorts to play at the park.)




We were talking about Bryce the other night at dinner and Chad said to me, "You're smitten with him." It's true. What mom doesn't love a darling little boy watching her all day, ready with smiles and coos?

Caden has come up with some new names for Bryce. Yesterday I heard Caden call Bryce both "Brycer" and "Bryce bag".



Caden started preschool and it's fun to see his personality come out. They gave the parents all this info on what to do if the child doesn't want to go, but I was the one who cried his first day, while he just marched right in.

A few classes later, Caden came home with a gash under his eye and a bruised cheek and nose. An "Ouch report" from his teacher said he won the "days of the week" game and tripped when he was going to get his prize. The next class, the teacher was telling me about it and said that even though he was bleeding and banged up pretty good, he wouldn't cry in front of the class. She said she could tell he was trying so hard to hold back the tears.

The other day he was trying to reach his Trunk or Treat candy which was on top of the fridge. He pulled a chair over and couldn't quite get it. I walked out of the room and heard him call to Bryce (who was sitting in his high chair), "Hey Bryce--will you give me a boost?" I fear the day that Bryce will be able to!




I get tired of picking up Caden's books. All day long he pulls books off the shelf to read them. I gave him a lecture on how he needs to be responsible and take care of his books. He said to me, "Oh, man. Come on, mom. Just pick up my books!"

Caden is loving hearing stories about church stuff...the golden plates, Joseph Smith, etc. I heard him recalling one of his stories to his stuffed animal, "And Repunzel and Jesus were best friends." Hmmmm...not quite....

Happy Halloween!

My favorite thing about these pictures is that they were not posed--this is really how Batman and Superman acted toward Joker when they met.


Sean, Caden and Kai are all about the same age. Doesn't Kai make the most awesome Joker ever?

Boating

Uncle Chris was true to his promise, and held on tightly to Caden the entire time. Notice we aren't even going fast enough to have a wake. This backfired when we went too slow and the front of the tube went under, taking all of us with it.


Helping Grandpa drive the boat.


While we had a great time, the day ended crazy when a lightning storm suddenly came and we had to hurry to the dock. We stopped to help a stranded boat. It was too windy and not going well, so Chris volunteered to jump in the water and pull the boat to the dock using a rope (you can do that in Utah lake--it's only 3 feet deep!) Luckily the park rangers showed up, but Chris still stayed on the stranded boat helping them get to shore.

Rolly Polly Juice

At the beginning of the summer, I did a lot of walking. I was trying to get baby ready to come so every day Caden and I would go for a few walks. Caden started looking for potato bugs, or Rolly Pollies. He would take an old container on our walks and would make me stop the stroller for him to catch them. We had to start putting a cap on the number of bugs he could catch, because I was tired of stopping so much.

When we got home from these walks, Caden would sit at his table and watch the bugs. It kind of grossed me out, but it also bought me 30-40 minutes every morning of quiet time, making it worth it.

The love for Rolly Pollies got serious. His grandma bought him a bug book from Target, and he studied and studied the page on potato bugs. If I tried to turn it to another page, he'd promptly turn it back claiming, "I was just on this page."

When we were in Utah, he continued his daily quest to catch the bugs. There is a special cupboard where my mom keeps containers and old cups for him to use to house them.

One night, my mom was taking some vitamin pills, washing them down with a glass of water. I heard her suddenly exclaim, "What is in my cup?!?" We turned on the lights to discover a dead rolly polly, floating in the bottom bit of water. Apparently, my mom had started storing her cup in the "special cupboard" so that she didn't have to dirty more than one dish a day. She just hadn't realized it was THE special cupboard and Caden must have figured anything in there was fair game.

What can I say--life can be adventurous with this little boy.

During Chad's 12 hours in Utah, the top thing on our to-do list was Bryce's blessing. Chad's brother in Oregon bought a plane ticket the night before to surprise the family, making all of our brothers present (minus one missionary).


It was a great way to spend the night. After the blessing both our families hung out at the church eating ice cream, playing basketball, visiting, and loving on our little boy.


Such a lucky boy to have all of his grandparents! Neither Chad or I had that. We are grateful to be able to see all of them so often.



Bryce is named after Chad's first and favorite mission companion (Elder Bryce) and his middle name is Alvin, after Chad's grandpa who sealed Chad and I.

Summer Time

This is the life:

Mutual Dale

Jason and Bryce


Chris and Grace
I loved being up American Fork canyon where I almost got my fill of smores.

Lindon Pool


While we were at another water park, 7-Peaks, Caden kept going down a small 3 foot slide head first. He would get to the bottom then just start swimming away, never coming up for air. So many times, strangers would reach out to grab him, pulling him from the water. They didn't know my three-year-old is a fish like that. They thought he was drowning and couldn't get up. Sometimes they'd look at me like, "Aren't you going to do anything about that?" and I'd just smile as my little swimmer kicked away.

Growing Up

Bryce:



We love our Bryce Boy! He is such a sweet little boy. Other than the normal 2 month old baby activities, he spends his time looking around for mom, dad, or Caden to talk to.


Caden:


Bringing home Bryce, Caden suddenly looked huge to me. Like a little man. And in a lot of ways he is.

He learned his alphabet by memorizing ABC Star Wars book. Never mind that neither he nor I have ever seen the movies, he is fluent in the lingo. Every where we go he points out "A for Anakin, B for Bobo Fett, D for Darth Vadar, K for kamionians."

He laments to me almost daily, "I'm the only one without a dog in my life."

If he sees something unfamiliar he'll say, "What the heck of this?" And I hear the question, "Cause why?" at least a thousand times a day.

He calls me several names: Lady, Princess, Wonder Woman...mostly I'm just happy to be called his mom.

Chad:

On his first day of his third year. He's halfway done with vet school. It's definitely bitter sweet as we can't wait to move on to "real life" but have LOVED the last two years of life.

"Ooohhh."

A few times a day while I'm trying to get something done, Caden will call to me, "Hey mom, come look. Come see us together." And when I get there I see my two boys, snuggled up together.
"Say, 'Oooohhhh'" Caden then prompts, and I always oblige. Then he asks me to take a picture--I didn't realize how often this happens until I was looking over what I have on my camera. Here are a few of my favorites.






Though it's been a little hectic at times, having two boys has been a lot of fun. A few friends always told me they'd prefer 2 over 1 any day, and I keep repeating that to myself when trying to juggle Caden and Bryce.
Everyone asks me how Caden has been with Bryce. He's really pretty good. Although he still gets in trouble and has his fair share of time-outs, it's never for hurting or being aggressive towards Bryce.
One morning, Caden had just come out of time-out. He immediately went back to doing the same thing and I sent him back to the corner. "AGAIN?" He asked.
I had to laugh when I said, "I'm asking myself the same thing. Caden is doing that again?!"

Faster than a speeding bullet

Caden's friend Sean recently had a Super Hero birthday. I made both of the boys reversible Superman/Batman capes. We got to the party a few minutes early, which was really good because there were "bad guys" to defeat on the playground.






And the party? It was awesome. Kudos to Sean's mom, Veronica who put all this together being 8 months pregnant.










As Chad predicted, Caden now wants to wear his cape everywhere. Everybody has something to say to Superman. I can't tell if Caden likes every body saying "hi, Superman" as he walks by. Usually he just ignores the person, and I'm working with him on giving at least a polite hello back.

The other day Caden had to have his blood drawn. The room we were in was just off the crowded waiting room, and there was no door so everybody could hear how he SCREAMED while 2 nurses and I held him down. When we walked out to the waiting room, some people started clapping, while others called out, "Way to go, Superman!"

I told Caden he was a brave boy, and he said, "No, I was not brave, I was a crying boy."

All of the attention to Superman has its benefits. The sample man at Costco who was giving out chips told Caden/Superman that because he was a hero, he could have as many Doritos as he wanted.

Of course, it has its negatives, too. When we tried to sneak in a second grape juice sample that day, the man said, "Oh, Superman...you're back." Usually normal citizens can get away with sneaking a second sample. I guess Caden will just have to get used to the fame that comes with being the man of steel.

Happy Fourth of July

I had to post this last one simply because I love Caden's eyebrows--as many times a day as I see faces like this I have a hard time getting them on camera.