He's 5

It all started 5 years ago...two lines on a pregnancy test...the excitement of a growing belly...the first time hearing the heartbeat...to butterfly like feelings when the baby moves...then watching your baby move on the ultrasound...did I mention the never ending growing belly...ready to pop! And then you have the sweetest, most innocent thing in your arms that you can't stop looking at in awe. You fall in love all over again!



And then they grow up. We celebrated Cody's 5th birthday. It was all about Wall-E! It's hard to believe that my little guy is growing up. He's talking better, asking lots of questions, learning about life at school and church. He knows how to write his name, ride his bike without training wheels, skateboard and now is starting T-Ball. Where has the time gone?? He's not my "little bear" anymore.





Cody with his cake and birthday crown from school.

Life did not exist before Cody

Cody has not embraced the fact that his Mommy and Daddy were alive before he came to us. The past few weeks Cody has noticed pictures of Daniel and I before we were married and before or at our wedding. He's not been too happy that he's not in them with us. We've tried to explain that he was living with Jesus or that he was in my tummy so he would understand but he does not accept these explanations. One picture he saw was with me and my Dad dancing at my wedding and he told me that he didn't want Mommy being a princess and why he wasn't in the picture! The other picture was when I was getting ready for prom and he crinkled it up and said that he didn't want to be in my tummy anymore! I try to tell him it's when Mommy was younger and in school and he didn't even recognize that it was his grandpa standing with me!! When he sees a picture of Daniel and I without him he gets very mad and says he doesn't want to live with Jesus anymore and he wants to be with us. It's cute, sad and funny but I am getting tired of running to my picture's rescue before it gets destroyed! Anyone have any good recommendations or have had this happen with your children?

Another Utah trip

Daniel and I celebrated our 8th wedding Anniversary this past month. Hooray!

Daniel had an edible bouquet sent to me while he was at work.
We also decided to take another quick trip to Utah with Autumn, Ryan and the boys since Utah finally got some snow. We had to borrow snow clothes but the boys ended up having a blast sledding down a hill close by.

Cody loved making snow angels

The boys managed to be their crazy selves!We took the kids to a couple of museums that had a lot of fun things for the kids to do. One of them had this helicopter outside for the kids to play in.

Great Grandpa Bell got down on the ground to do some wrestling with Cody. It scared me to death but great grandpa said it was okay! And Uncle Alan thought it was pretty funny too.
At one of the museums they got to make some cool little pimp daddy hats

We had a fun time!

We couldn't stay away too long!

Thanks to my parent's Christmas gift we were able to once again get annual passes to Disneyland. I actually started the day a bit in a frantic realizing while on the tram that I forgot to put deodorant on...which could be very stinky on a day that is suppose to be 80 degrees!! (yes it is January and 80 degrees here in California) After combing Downtown Disney for someone who sold deodorant, we spent the day at California Adventure park trying to see and do things that we have not done there before (hard to believe that there is stuff we haven't done but we usually do the same rides for the kids). The weather turned out perfect and it was not crowded in the park so that makes for a great day of Disney fun!

This was King Triton's carousel. A change from just the regular horse carousel at the Disney park.

Lucky us only had to wait 20min for the new Pixar mania ride. Cody loved every second of it. Big hit!
We visited the pixar aquarium show where you got to see and talk to Crush the turtle.
That too was a big hit.

Cody swimming in Nemo scenery

Daniel and Cody with the Nemo back drop.

We got to see and take pictures with Lightening McQueen too. Nothing better than a fast, hot car. I wish they would make a Sally car for us girls.

We also forced Cody to try the Soaring over California ride and he was so not into it until it started, but said he really liked it afterwards. I don't know if it was that he liked it or he liked the bribe candy we gave him for trying a new ride. Whatever works, right?

Here's to trying something new!

I was inspired!

Today I went to this store to get some curtains that were on sale and I was amazed with what I saw. I think I have been in this store maybe once before to look at dish towels but never really looked around. They have some of the coolest arwork, huge bamboo plants and pots and things from Thailand and other countries. I have definately found my inspiration for what I want my house to look like. I am sure it's not for everyone but I was definitely inspired! Check it out sometime.

A Happy one

This Christmas came and went pretty quickly. It's definitely fun to have a child around this time of the year. I'll hear him randomly singing Jingle Bells or Santa Claus is coming to town and it makes me laugh inside. Among all of the gifts I did try to remind Cody that it is Jesus's Birthday and that is why we have presents but I think he got lost in opening the presents during that.

Santa turned my boys into skaters this year and got me ready for more convenient exercising...big surprise! Santa gave both Daniel and Cody skateboards. Cody loves going out everyday and practicing. He surprisingly is doing well and we've seen a bit of an athlete in him yet even though he's taken a few good spills on the back and butt.

Cody made out pretty well this Christmas and has been pretty entertained with all the toys. Lets just say that Cody's gifts this year took up half of the couch. Unfortunately he left his much loved light saber in the shopping cart at K-mart today and by the time we got back to the store it was gone. He has been pretty bummed about that.

Cody with his gifts from Santa

Daniel also got a new pack for hiking since he, his brothers and Dad are going to be climbing Mt. Whitney this year. Good luck to them!

We thank our family and friends for the wonderful cards, gifts and time spent together this holiday season. As the economy has hit many of us hard, we've been very lucky this year not to experience the loss of job and our hearts and thoughts go out to the many who did and are in tuff situations this past year. We truly hope this next year will be better for everyone.

Lets make it a healthy and happy new year!

What do you do 2 weeks before Christmas?

The past few weeks have been pretty busy here at our home. With Christmas just a couple of weeks away I really felt the pressure to get everything done so I was over half finished with my Christmas shopping...phew...but had many more things to do!

We spent about half a day trying to figure out what to do for a family picture for our Christmas card. This was not the final picture but this was where we started off in the morning on a damp/rainy day. My hair was nice and straight, Cody was all smiles, clean, and Daniel was not upset, and bribing Cody that if he could sit still and smile for one more picture (which was actually like 10 more pictures) he could have a sucker.

Cody had fun taking pictures with me but when it came to a family picture...forget it! As you can see in the picture my hair started getting wavy from the damp air quickly

The Young Women's President at church was out of town for a couple of weeks and it was my month to conduct in Young Women's and teach the first Sunday of the month. I made some ornaments that I used for my lesson about doing good works this month.

Cody and I also made some other ornaments. Cody had fun painting his ornament but eventually dropped, and broke it.

We had a fun Santa visit at our ward Christmas party. Cody was pretty excited this year to tell Santa what he wanted. We are having a Wall-E obsession this year.

Daniel got the lights put up outside quickly and we had to find a tree, decorate and of course Cody had to put the star on top of the tree before any decor was put on.

We made our annual goodies this year. This is Cody frosting a sugar cookie and about to lick the frosting off his hand. We made about 4-5 dozen this year, along with fudge, chocolate dipped pretzels, and Daniel made his famous homemade salsa to distribute. One of my larger projects though this year was to make our 12 young women fleece, knot tied blankets. I did about one a day, some days two. I didn't get any pictures of me actually cutting and tying the blankets, but all of the work was worth it when the girls opened them up and really liked them.
Other than that, it was just the final shopping details I had to finish for the family and try to stay dry (from the rain) while doing that. It was great getting people's Christmas cards in the mail also! We can officially say that we are ready for Christmas. How about you???

We wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!