Learning To Feed Himself

I have always preferred to feed my kids messy stuff because I cant stand cleaning up smears of oatmeal, spaghetti stained clothes, and little kiddos covered in food,then requiring a bath. Caidens bib has allowed me to loosen up a tad. It has a pocket at the bottom that catches EVERYTHING, minus the stuff that is thrown over the side of the highchair.

Now that we're private on blogger...

I can post naked pictures.

Making a get-a-way from mom.

Attachments

I am completely in favor of babies having a security object. Our kids love their identical pink/blue blankets. I didn't force the love onto them, and they have other soft blankets, but they both chose to be attached to these ones. I bought this for Caiden before he was born because Addysin loved hers so much. I had to buy a second one for Addysin because hers was disgusting from sucking on it. We COULD NOT got anywhere without her blanket up till she was close to 2 1/2 .Caiden isn't that bad with it. He just has to have it to sleep, with his ugly soothie hospital binkie.

In the beginning, Caiden only sucked on his binkie to fall asleep. I couldn't make him take it is he wasn't tired. Then around 15 months, it bacame a part of him. The conbination of the blanket and binkie make him a cuddle bug if I am holding them (which he was not as a young infant). Does he love me or them?

Weaning him of it will not be easy, but right now it makes my life a lot more easy. Especially when he face plants into a door frame HARD and gets a goose egg such as this...

 So I dont care if hes attatched to it. You ugly binkie, we love you.

Let me do your hair!

I am going to try picking up the pace with doing hair in our home. I have really slowed down since I had Caiden. I'm getting my life back together, now that he is 18 months. I prefer to work during naps around 12-2 or in the evening when Chris is home to watch the kids. Email me to set up a time. Andreadawnlee@hotmail.com Here are my prices:

Hair Cuts

• Womens Hair Cut:  $15
• Mens Hair Cut: $10
• Infants/Kids Hair Cut: $3-8 Varies on amount of hair they have/ how much I'm cutting
• Bangs Only: $5

Color

• Highlights/ Lowlights: $45 half head
• -OR-
• Highlights/ Lowlights: $2 per foil up to 10 foils (after that I consider it a half head)
• Additional Color: $5 each
• Toning Blondes: $8-10 Varies on amount of hair
• All Over Color: $35-45 Varies on amount of hair

Waxing

• Eyebrows: $5
• Upper Lip: $5
• Sides of Face: $5
• Chin: $5
• Full face: $15-20 Varies

Our first family snow day ever!

January 23- This is the first day Addysin and Caiden have ever played in the snow. This is the first year she was old enough to love it and the first year shes had snow pants and boots. So we got Caiden some stuff as well and went sledding at Rock Canyon Park in Provo. Since its super popular and we went in the afternoon after a big snow, the snow was packed hard. It was a lot of fun though. We bought a tire and our friends had a raft, which could hold 3 kids and safe without an adult. My camera died and I never got a picture. Addysin loved it! It scared Caiden. Caiden was such a cutie in his clothes.

My boys

We came home and hadn't had enough of the snow so went outside and built a snowman. The kids abolutley loved it. Addysin loved building the snowman with me and Chris. Caiden loved going from door to door (our neighbors) knocking, waiting for an answer, then going to the next. It was adorable. They were both so happy to be outside playing for the first time in a long time.

Chris shaped and molded our little man to perfection. The day he started to melt, Addysin looked out the window while eating breakfast and declared, "The snowmans falling over! I need to go help him!" A month later, she still asks, "where's the snowman?"  I tell her he went home to the mountains.

Our winter home in Utah

...as well as the rest of the year.

My struggles

My #1 struggle in life... Laundry

My #2... keeping up with the family journal. AKA blogging

Sentimental Christmas Decor

Here are our special ornaments thus far. They dont match, and our tree is going to look like a mess of mis-matched stuff someday. But that is what makes a family Christmas tree so special! We plan to always give our kids an ornament on Christmas Eve each year.

Our first year married, Chris' parents gave us this frame with our wedding picture.

2006- Our second Christmas, Addysin was just born and we hadn't adopted the tradition yet. My mom bought her first ornament. I'm so thankful she did because Addysin would have been the only one without a "baby's first Christmas" ornament.

2007- Addysin's second Christmas.

2008- Our fourth Christmas.

2008- Caiden's first.

                2008- Addysin was completely obsessed with Mickey and Minnie Mouse. I was ecstatic to find this amoung one of the last ornaments at the Hallmark store on Christmas Eve.

2009- I figured why not get them the same exact thing since 1. these moose are adorable, and 2. Caiden thinks that everything Addysin has he NEEDS, and 3. having a couple matching ornaments might be nice.

Here are the stockings I made just before I got prenant with Caiden. I knew/hoped we would have another baby really soon so I made him one. And, believe me or not, I knew we were having a boy next. I also made the stocking board with my crafty sister in law, Kira.

This was our first nativity we bought Christmas 2006. Yes, its not very appealing, and its very small. Ok, its tacky. But we got it for $3 and we brought Christ into our home. Its something we will always keep for sentimental reasons.

Another slightly tacky, sentimental decoration. This was a gift. Every year I struggle to find somewhere to put it. We keep it because Addysin LOVES it. She will play with it without moving or breaking it.  She talks to them, acts like they can talk to each other, and doesn't care that they cant move an inch. Its her imaginary world and definitly her favorite Christmas decoration. Its like the snow globe that I grew up with. I was appalled that my mom wanted to get rid of it one year. So I wont do that to Addysin.

Blogger has a new editor!

Good news! I just found out that blogger has a new editor that allows you to copy and paste, add pictures where you want them, move them around,  "undo" and "redo", and if you have been working on a post for a bit, it dates it as when you posted it, instead of when you started it. You just go to customize, then settings, then basic, and scroll down to posting. Change to the new editor. I just love that I can copy and paste. There is no spell check, and I dont think you can add videos so just switch back and forth as you please. Also, once you start moving pictures around, things get pretty crazy and messed up, but with some mistakes and an hour of playing around, I got it down. Thank you Blogger, you read my mind. Copy and Pasting, here I come!

The Holidays- flu style

Yes, it has taken me weeks to get this posted. I dread uploading so many pictures because it is to time consuming and anyone that knows me knows that I cant leave any detail out. A REMINDER: this is our family journal so it is detailed.

To begin the holiday season we put up our tree November 1st and it was beautiful with all our special family ornaments. Addysin LOVED having the tree up.

Caiden LOVED destroying it. I would (as part of my clean up the house routine before bed) re-decorate the tree in the beginning. Then I gave up and figured next year would be better.
Two days before we were planning to leave I got the worst flu of my life. I want to throw in that I did get the flu shot in September, which gave me the flu mildly the day after the shot, and I still got the flu intensely. Forget that for the rest of my life, I'll take my chances without the shot. I was over it so we headed to Washington.
We left at 2 AM- yes, 2:00 in the middle of the night- on Monday December 21. We were going to leave at 4:00 but I didn't finish packing until 2 and Chris fell asleep for a couple hours while I was packing so I woke him up and he was delighted to leave. He always gets so anxious to get going on road trips and loves traveling at night. We got there around 11:00. That night was the Bleazard caroling party that my parents have at their house every year. It has always been a tradition that started when my grandparents lived in the house on the farm. Addysin went with my cousin Brittani and sister Ashley. She held the lyrics and acted like she was singing the whole time. Totally in to it.

Next day, My kids and my nephew Austin had the flu.
Playing cards, classic Bleazard pastime.

The next day Sara and my nephew Nova had the flu.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve and Christmas Nobody was throwing up! What a delight!

We started going to IHOP on Christmas Eve for breakfast 4 years ago. This year was the first time we had to wait a while to be seated. It was a bit annoying.

Ashley, Emily, Sara, and my cousin Sarah.

Addysin thinks my dad is the funniest, coolest guy.

For Christmas Eve night, we spent it with Chris' Family. They had been at the Oregon Coast all week so that was the first time with them, and last time-due to the flu. We felt so bad that we spent no time at all with the Lee's. We had a great night with them. Chris' parents came from St. George, Becca and Caleb drove from Arkansas with their new born, Tony was there, and Melissa and Ryan live there. I have no idea why I didn't get any pictures. Melissa, do you have any?

Christmas Day

My nephews Nova and Austin with Addysin.

Our Family stockings.

My mom got everyone red and green shirts and comfy pants for Christmas eve/Christmas morning instead of pajamas this year. It was funny and we had some good laughs when we opened them.

This snow globe my parents have had since I was really little. We all loved it when we were young, imagining that we were inside it. Addysin and Caiden loved it too.

The coat we gave Bryan.

Ashley, Sara, & Emily- 3 youngest

It was a fun day with no flu, my prayers were seriously answered.

After Christmas, John, and Jessica got the flu. On Saturday night, around 3 AM I was woken up by Chris bolting to the bathroom and missing the toilet. Upstairs we found Kara that had come down with it only 30 minutes before. I thought the smell of smoke would cover up the stench so I burnt a Match that set off the smoke detector. (by the way, that doesn't work for throw up) The detector woke up my dad that came out to check on things. He felt queasy and went to the bathroom. Then he began to faint and ended up falling on my sister Amy who was sleeping in the front room next to the bathroom. She SCREAMED with fright- of course- who woke up my mom and all of the flu bodies came running to see what was going. We found him on top of her not knowing what on earth just happened. An hour later Amy had the flu. My mom and I spent the next 3 hours bleaching the house. We missed Church, missed our nephew Jackson's blessing, and our nephew Nathan's baptism. Kara and Adam darted out of the house to try to get away from the flu so Adam wouldn't get it, or so they could get back home before he did. They made it to Burley, ID. Enough said. They stayed a positively miserable night in a hotel. The next day my mom and Ashley had the flu. On the bight side, Emily and Bryan never got it! I'm not sure how they escaped it. Yeah, too bad the flu shot failed me.

I'm not sure if they were happy we came or disgusted with us, but we made some good memories over Christmas with our families, besides having 15 people with the flu. I promise to never leave my house again until long after we're over the flu next time.

We didn't get to do much or see anybody while in Washington, but we got to be with family. It wasn't a total lost cause. I think...

She loves helping in the kitchen.

This is what we gave my parents. I'm a little disappointed in the unreadability of the font, but it turned out decent. "A Circle of Strength and Love Founded on Faith, Joined in Love, Kept by God. Our Family Forever Together"

We came back nice and healthy on New Years Eve to a party at Greg and Cassidy's. That was a lot of fun, but unfortunately our kids wouldn't go to bed due to their messed up schedules from vacation.

Caiden, Elizabeth (our neighbor), and Addysin. They have become great friends.

Addysin finally had a melt down after midnight.

Happy New Year!