Adventures in dogsitting and more

Meet Ginger. Tom volunteered our family to take care of her for a few days. (funny how Tom goes to work all day and really I am the one who has to watch the dog) Luckily, Ginger turned out to be a very good dog and I was tempted to return one of my children in her place (totally kidding mom).
Caden loved chasing after Ginger's ball with her. This entertained him for hours. I don't think she was AS fond of the game, but she endured nonetheless.
Ginger became Connor's preferred race track. She had cars going up and down her back almost continuously. I think she was very happy when he took his naps. We enjoyed our time with Ginger and a certain 4 year old continues to pray for her every night, but she taught us that we are not ready for any additions to our family.
I have a hard time imagining that this is the most comfortable place in our house to sleep but maybe the cold tile felt good now that it is heating up. Don't worry, we did not leave him there all night...there is nothing worse than tile face in the morning.
As we were walking into the childrens museum the other day Tom noticed something very inappropriate on this cow. I am not going to tell you what it is, but feel free to see if you can find it as well.

Finally, last Saturday we went to a primary activity. Caden had a lot of fun and the wonderful primary presidency here did an amazing job. However, I did find it a tad amusing that whenever there was time between activities instead of playing 'Popcorn Popping' they played 'Party Rock Anthem' by LMFAO. Then they even had the boys dance to it as part of the program. Now these children were adorable and awesome little dancers (I am very sad that I forgot my camera) but I thought it was a little unusual for a primary activity.

One last little story: Two weeks ago we had a Regional Conference that was broadcast from Salt Lake City. I don't know if this happened with all of the songs because I spent most of the time in the hallway with Connor but one of the hymns was simply too slow for the people in this stake. So they would sing a line at a tempo that they preferred and then just wait until the piano caught up. I found it so amusing that they refused to adapt to the tempo and it reminded me that sometimes we need to sing our hymns a bit faster.

Good news: we have trips planned for the next two weekends so hopefully I will have more interesting blog material in the coming weeks.

Birthday part 2

No birthday would be complete without a party. We invited some friends from our ward over for pizza. We wanted to go swimming but we ran out of time.
This was Connor's turn with the pinata. He would get too distracted by everybody counting and would barely tap the pinata. It proved to be a pretty tough pinata to break.
Caden was SO excited for the pinata. He had gone to a birthday party a few days earlier and the pinata broke right before his turn.
All of the kids with their candy. I think I am going to incorporate the pinata into all future birthdays, it was a lot of fun.
I think the only success I can claim as a mother is that my 4 year old chose a birthday cake that was covered with fruit. It wasn't healthy by any means, but I still consider it a huge success.
Finally, the highlight of the day was talking to his grandmas and cousins on Skype. How did we ever survive without this marvel of modern technology?

4 years ago...

This sweet little boy came into my life. (the one on the right)He got a new bike (and helmet), a transformer, a trio building set, and bubbles.


We took donuts and juice to his class at school. Caden has a serious crush on his teacher.
He is finally warming up to girls. He no longer protests when he has to sit by them.


Tom took the day off and he and Caden spent the afternoon together. They went to the arcade and played with Caden's new toys. Caden is so lucky to have such a fun dad.

Update for the Grandmas

Lego boxes have many purposes when you are 20 months old. Now if only we could convince him that one of those purposes is to actually contain the Legos. If he is not dumping out every container of toys in our house he is definitely running away from his parents. This game of chase is especially endearing when I am wearing high heels and we are in the very dangerous neighborhood that surrounds our church. I hope I am not the only mother that is unable to resist taking the arms length photo whenever her child is cuddling and the camera is within reach. These photos are rarely flattering but I love Connor's face in this one. Connor turned 20 months last week and I nearly cried. He looks so old now and is growing very fast.
Caden had to make a model of a building in the community. You will never guess who came up with the idea to make a temple. He was very excited to take it to school. Last night Caden and I were talking about school and he said, "Mom, I like to hold Ms. Daisy's hand." My reply, "Oh brother." Speaking of Ms. Daisy, yesterday Caden was getting frustrated with me and he shook his head and said, "Oh my God, Oh my God!" Tom and I both got that stunned look in our eyes. Apparently this is common phrase at school. Maybe we will homeschool after all. (totally kidding)
Caden loves to be silly and will do just about anything to make people laugh. He is going to turn 4 next week! He is learning so much Spanish, I am constantly amazed. He loves to color, trace and draw pictures. He will literally spend 2 or 3 hours drawing, coloring and writing.

These are the flowers we ended up making for New Beginnings. My girls came up with a combination of two of the kinds I showed them. Ah man, I just realized how horribly boring this post is but I just wasted 20 minutes writing it so I'm publishing it anyway.