A few recent events...

Have you ever had one of those moments when you stop and seriously ask yourself aloud "What the heck am I doing?!" That was me at mile 11. My hands were shaking, my body wanted to give out and all I could think was "Why on earth did I pay 50 bucks to run 13 miles?!" Despite my self-doubt I finished in a pathetic 2 hours 22 minutes. I blame it on the girl in the picture, somehow I let her convince me to do all kinds of things. Just kidding. It was actually kind of fun (minus the pain).


It was the Bear Lake half marathon and I actually ran into Lindsey Martin on the bus ride over, it was fun to catch up with her.

My baby sister got married. She is seriously gorgeous! We all got to stay at the Homestead for a weekend. The girls shopped, the boys golfed... what more could you ask for? Oh, and they had the most delicious chocolate fountain ever! I wonder if I could install one of those in my kitchen?

Caden learned a new trick. He winks. It is seriously so cute. However, I am a little concerned. He knows that when he does this it makes people laugh and he will do it over and over again just to get that reaction. I am afraid that I have a future class clown on my hands or do all toddlers enjoy getting laughs?

Should I be concerned?

I realize that I am generally not on the cutting edge when it comes to fashion. I do my best and I try to keep up. The other day I opened my garbage can and this is what I found...

Is my one year old trying to tell me something? Does he have some innate sense of fashion? (he surely did not get it from me and his father is worse than I am!) I suppose what might be more worrisome to most of you is that I didn't immediately take them out...instead I went and got my camera.

Why I am ok with not having a rich uncle...

Because we can all have an amazing view (if we are willing to hike a little)

Who needs money and lavish trips when you can go geo-caching with your family? (I have no clue how to spell geo-caching and its not in the dictionary-feel free to correct me)

Seeing this little face after a trip away is worth a million massages! (ok, that might be a bit extreme-I do love massages!)

This little face is pretty good too! What an adorable kid!

Why I wish I had a rich uncle...

Recently I became the recipient of an all expense paid trip to L.A. My very generous friend gave me her sky miles and had arranged for us to stay with her best friend. However, at the last minute we found out that my friend's uncle had an available hotel room that he had already paid for and was willing to let us stay in. Here's the part where I wish I had a rich uncle- he let us use room service and get massages all at his expense. (Who has enough money to do that?!)

Can I just say I love food! But I love it even more when it's free!

This is the ocean view from our room. Some people get to live like this all the time-I don't understand why I can't be one of them.

The point of the trip was to see the musical 'Mamma Mia' That's my good friend Amy in the middle and her friend Holly on the left. I was actually a big fan of the musical. The odd part was in the lobby afterward when I saw several of my former students. Apparently Hillcrest High was there on some trip.

Where has my baby gone?

Well, I am kind of hesitant to announce that my baby is no longer a baby. It is quite sad. Last week Caden turned one... we are starting to pick out colleges today. Alright he is still kind of a baby.

Here is the cliche 'rapidly shoving cake into my face before mom takes it away-no way am I allowed to eat anything this good' picture. I think the only reason you have a birthday party for a one year old is so you can have this picture (although the presents are nice also).

So I have to be honest...I really thought I could decorate a cake. I mean how hard can it be? We did a sports theme so I could easily make some sort of ball and of course it would be adorable. Turns out...they have cake decorating classes for a reason. My niece (who has no brothers and very little experience with sports) said, "thats a cool basketball Lisa!" No comment. It's harder than it looks!

Caden is walking all over the place, talking a lot more and is still adorable. It feels like I am going to wake up one of these mornings and he is suddenly going to be on his mission. Why does time go faster the older we get? Oh well, Happy Birthday Caderbugs!

A glimpse into my future...

I am not sure if you can tell what that is on Caden's face, but in case you were wondering I will tell you... It's dirt. I put him down outside and turned my back for maybe 25 seconds. When I turned around....

This is what I saw. I actually have a video of him shoveling handfuls of dirt and dirty snow into his mouth. (Of course rather than stopping him I ran to get my camera...I know, I know, terrible mother) I decided to embrace the moment and accept that this is probably going to be a continuous reality in my life for the next few years. Do girls do this kind of stuff?

The eternal winter...

Can I just start by saying... I really cannot wait for spring! Due to the fact that it is cold, snowy, and Caden is too young to really play outside in the snow we are bored. (ok, I am. Caden probably does not know the difference) So these are pictures of our inside adventures. Warning: They really are not very interesting, feel free to move on.


Caden has entered the stage of self-feeding. I do like the fact that he will sit in his high chair and eat for a long time (thus I am able to make dinner). I do not like the fact that most of the food ends up on the floor, on his clothes and deep in the crevices of his high chair. They really need to invent a self-cleaning high chair. I would fork out the big bucks for it! I love this picture because it shows his nicely spaced front teeth. (He just cut his 8th tooth by the way)

Wrestling with Daddy! Next to Mom and Dad chasing each other around the house with Caden in their arms... this is probably Caden's favorite thing.

Caden usually comes out victorious. It helps that Mom is constantly saying "be careful! not so rough!"

Ok, this isn't very adventurous but thank heavens for naps. He is getting better and better at taking them.

Home for Christmas?

I love spending time with family during the holidays but I have to say, sometimes I feel like I have run a marathon by the time it is all over! (Not that I ever have run a marathon but the way I imagine it feeling...you get the idea) There are so many wonderful things about having both sides of our family here in the valley (babysitters, babysitters and more babysitters!) but it gets a little bit ridiculous when you try to attend all of the Christmas festivities. However, I still love it and enjoyed it even more this year with Caden. I do have a confession, however, I did purchase toys that I believed would be fun for Caden as well as for myself... I know, I'm a terrible mother but I am so dang sick of his old toys! Here are a few pics from our Christmas... most of which did not occur in our home.


This is mom showing Caden how cool his new toys are... naturally he only wanted to play with the old ones.

This is Christmas eve with my side of the family. When we were growing up my mom always bought us matching pajamas, but I guess she decided to allow her grandchildren to be individuals... it definitely doesn't make for cute matchy matchy pictures. Oh well, these kids are cute enough!

Tom's family always has a sleepover on Christmas eve eve where they stay up all night playing games. This is us the next morning on our way to his extended family breakfast... the smiles are fake, we were so dang tired! I love Caden's Christmas outfit (Tom will kill me for using that word...apparently boys don't wear outfits)-he looks so handsome.

This is Caden on Christmas eve eve with his new SpongeBob SquarePants pajamas. I think bright yellow is totally his color!