Summing up our fall happenings!

Wow I have been missing in action when it comes to blogging. I haven't even gotten on my blog period because our computer has been sickly with some virus. That means I should have gotten tons done right, nope, not really. But here's to updating!
Our fall started with a bang! My baby sister, Kinz, had to get all grown up and get married. Good thing I really like Cody. He's probably my favorite brother-in-law on my side of the family and that's not because he's my only brother-in-law on that side ;) We had a lot of fun getting ready for the wedding. Bridal shower, shopping, temple, decorating, some good pre marriage talks that only sisters should talk about, if ya know what I mean! We're so happy that our family is complete now. No 3rd wheels.

The calmest the boys were all night. . . Seriously.

Cody fits in perfect!

Then Andrew and I celebrated our 5 year anniversary on September 16th! My parents watched Hayden for us while we went out to dinner and then went and watched The Help. We both loved the movie.
One, out of many things I love about Andrew, is that he is VERY considerate of me and is always thinking of me and how he can make me happy. A couple of weeks ago while Andrew was running errands he was at Target and bought me the book The Help. He put the book in a gift bag and got a card and everything. The card itself was the best thing!

What he wrote on the other side made me cry. He's the best husband in the whole world. I'm so glad he's all mine!

Hayden has become Mr. Independent. He thinks he's so big and wants to do everything by himself. He started feeding himself a few months ago and rarely lets us help him eat. He does a pretty good job by himself.

He still loves to "read". One of his favorite spots in the house is the landing on the stairs and that's where you'll find him. Just looking at all of his books. He's gotten really good at pointing out everything and trying to say the name of it as well.

 

Anywhere he can sit without help is always a winner in his little world

A few of Hayden's highlights:
Hayden is so funny and is constantly making us laugh with the things he does. He knows all of his body parts including his pee pee which is hilarious because when we ask him where it is he leans over and tries to lift his stomach up and point at it. I think it's important that he knows what that weird looking thing is :)
For some reason he likes eyes. Sometimes he'll sit there and poke your eyes out while saying "U eyes, U eyes, U eyes"
He really picked up on saying thanks. I would almost say it was one of his first words. We'll give him something and a lot of the times he says "thanks" on his own. He kind of has a lisp so it's even cuter. When he says please it's "Thhhhh" So sometimes he'll be standing there pointing to something saying "thhhthh".
He knows almost all of the animal sounds. Of course he knows what an elk and deer sound make now thanks to Andrew. Andrew was watching hunting with him and they made a deer sound and Hayden picked right up on it and started making the noise without Andrew saying anything. One of my favorite sounds he makes is a snake or a bee because with his lisp it's even better!
When Tiff watches him she'll say "You who!" and Hayden says back "awh yoo" (where are you).
Whenever you say do you want to go see Cade his face lights up he starts heading to the door and the whole times is saying "yeah" "yeah" "yeah". They love each other. When they first see each other Cade usually cups Hayden's cheeks and gives him a kiss and then they hug. It is priceless!
Hayden's growing up so fast but is still our little snuggle bug and always snuggles and lets us rock him before nap and bed time. We love our little guy!!!

We had a lot of success with our garden this year. For some reason our produce grows like it's on steroids and we add nothing to the soil ever! I think we just have good soil. We always plan it out and have fun planting and harvesting. Notice I left out weeding. We do that very rarely and everything still survives. A gardener's dream :)

Even Hayden helps harvest

Andrew is the one that cuts all of the peppers up and puts them in bags and then we freeze them and put them in all sorts of stuff throughout the year. They are so yummy!

Some of the many bags we picked. Andrew, once again, the "master harvester", stewed the tomatoes this year. We usually make salsa but since I had Hayden our salsa tastes so weird to me and I'm the only one that thinks that. So we've (WE, who am I kidding) Andrew has tried different variations with the tomatoes and I have found that I use them quite a bit in cooking and am thankful to have them. We'll definitely do them again next year.

One of the 8 mounds we planted. I love red potatoes!

 Since it has gotten colder we've had to be a little more inventive inside. Tiff and I trade babysitting and call it the Babysitters Club :) It is SO nice I don't know why we didn't do it sooner. I watch Cade on Wednesdays and she watches Hayden on Fridays while I work. Sometimes we use each other in the week as well. But those are the for sure days. It's so nice when Cade comes over because Hayden and him just go downstairs and play. It works out great! One day we decided to make a fort. OH how they loved it! It was so fun for me as well.

And they have as much fun wrecking it as they do playing in it

Halloween was interesting this year. I decided that Hayden was going to be a fisherman. The thing that was going to make his "costume" was the fisherman's vest. Well I decided that I would just whip one up. Well, Andrew gave me a sewing machine for Mother's day and on Halloween day was the first time we got it out. That morning Andrew basically learned how to plug it in all the way to threading and putting the needle in it. Then we learned how to sew during Hayden's nap. It was quite comical really. We made our own pattern out of a paper bag. Cut some of Andrew's old scrubs for the material and ta da out came a little boy's fishing vest.

A side note. We had NO idea what we were doing so we just imagined what it should look like (I felt like we were sewing by sight like people do when they play the piano by ear) so when it turned out and we got it done before Hayden woke up from his nap and before we had to leave to go trick or treating and did it on the first try with minor setbacks. . . We were beyond excited and proud of our work! What was even better we didn't pay one penny for his costume. We already had everything!

They went to visit Grandam Sargent at work and got some loot. Cade's obviously a little disappointed or  concerned about his.

After we went to Grandma Sargent's work we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa Johnson's house and had pizza and ate. Hayden went trick or treating with all of the cousin's for the first time. Whenever we'd bring him to a door the people would ask us "What can he eat?" Are you kidding people? What can he eat? You really should be asking US what do you like. We were the ones using our child to get candy :) It was so cold that we only went to a couple of houses. It was a fun day!

The beginning of November we went to Ogden so Andrew could take his NCLEX. That was the closest place he could do it at. So we stayed over night and Andrew got up and took it the next morning. He did so good and passed!!! It was a ton of pressure and a load off of Andrew's shoulders. We are so proud of him and all of the work that he's done so far. Now he's officially official! GOOD JOB ANDREW!

I was also able to get a little get away as well! For the girl's birthday in our family my mom took us all to Utah to go shopping. She drove, paid for the gas, paid for the hotel, paid for lunch at The Cheesecake Factory (YUMO), and gave us birthday money to go shopping! It is the best birthday present ever! My birthday is first, then Emily's in September, then Kinz's in November, and then Tiff''s in December so we decided that we'd do it every year and go the first weekend in November. Right in between everyone's. It was so much fun. I didn't get any pictures, but one I wish I would have gotten was when we did water aerobics in the hot tub/ whirlpool. It was hilarious! Thanks so much Mom for taking us and thanks so much Dad for paying for it all. I have the best family and we had a blast being together. We added it all up and total between all of us we spent over a $1000! So there ya go Utah we're helping with the economy :)

We're SO excited for the holidays and the feeling that comes during this time of year. We've been so blessed and thank our Heavenly Father every day for the many blessing that we have and know come from him.

Summer in a nutshell

I have been totally removed from the blogging world these last couple of months. We really haven't been too busy, I just think the last place I want to be is inside on a computer. We've been LOVING the warm weather and are trying to live it up until its all gone. Here's our summer in a nutshell:

We started out July with our birthdays. Andrew and I are so lucky to have our birthdays a week a part so we kinda celebrate them somewhat together. Mine was pretty low key. Since in my opinion breakfast is better than any other meal of the day, my mom invited us over to the house and we had breakfast. My favorite! Then we just hung out and my family got together later that night for pizza and a competitive bad mitten tournament at our house. It really sparked a fire in some. . . Bryan.
 For Andrew's birthday a week later we went boating. It was our first time out. That's pretty sad for our family. After a way fun day of boating we went to Jakers that night for dinner. My aunts gave us a gift certificate there and it was so appreciated since its our favorite.

 Andrew had to work the night before his birthday so I brought this cake up to the hospital and was there at 12:00 a.m. He had no idea.  I was the first to wish him Happy Birthday and let his coworkers know as well.

 Kinz's lover, Cody, came home from his mission at the end of June. So it was his first time out as well. Now the two love birds are engaged and getting married September 3rd. So excited!

Cade. . . livin' the dream

To be a kid again. So care free!

 Hayden even rode the tube. He has no choice but to like water!

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Tiffany has this cute little pool that she brought over one hot day. Her and I basked in the sun and ate our share of Otter Pops while the boys played around. It was my definition of what summer is all about!

 

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 To go right along with swimming, Tiff and I signed Cade and Hayden up for swimming lessons. It was so convenient for me since it was a hop and a skip away to the pool which was very handy. There were 3 of them in the class and they had a really good teacher as well. We were only able to go for a week because Hayden came down with a fever the whole last week of swimming. Now I wouldn't say that Hayden can swim across the pool after taking the class, but it was fun and worth it. :)

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We (and especially Andrew) were beyond excited when Andrew was done with his LPN classes! He had a pinning ceremony at his school and received his certificate. . . well kinda, he was the only one that didn't get his because they somehow either got stuck together with someone else's or they forgot to print his out. It would only happen to Andrew.

They were handed out alphabetically so when Andrew was the last one standing there, something wasn't right!

 I felt extremely white trash because I forgot my camera and had to use my phone, but we got it. Good job Andrew, we're so proud of you!

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Since Andrew has been a free man for a little while he planned an overnight backpacking trip with Trent and Cody to Iron Bog. He was really excited about it and they had a lot of fun.

Andrew and Cody did the "Iron Bog Challenge" where they jumped into the near freezing lake. They said that by the time they swam back to shore they could already feel their muscles cramping up because it was so cold. And yes that is patches of snow on the shore. They'crazy!

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Hayden has been such a little trooper this summer. We've decided that he could be outside all day long and be just fine with it. What's bad is we aren't outside near the amount that he'd like. Hayden would like to present this. . .  (it's a big deal since it's taken him so long to get there)

. . . .So at 14 months he's finally walking! Now I wouldn't say that it's his first choice of transportation however. He's been "walking" to people and short distances to things for awhile, but in the last 2 weeks he's really decided that he wanted to do it. It's about time little man!
We try to stay cool down in our basement and this is one of Hayden's favorite things to do.

He'll sit in this little cubby by the t.v. and throw the ball to himself. Sometimes he'll do it continuously for like 20 minutes. It's better than any toy he has.

Hayden was being such a ham this day. We had fun.

The "fishy face" at lunch

Then cheeser. Love him!

We've been doing really good and just soaking in all the summer we can get!