Our Weekend

We have had quite a busy weekend. I am sad it is almost over. The first weekend in a while we didn't have any photo shoots, but it was definitely a very full weekend. We started out by getting our old apartment cleaned out. We have been waiting until our lease is up to clean it so we didn't have to do it twice. If you are wondering if this means that we have been renting to places for the past three months the answer is yes! And if you are wondering if we are excited to finally only be paying one rent payment the answer is heck yes!!!

We did take a short break in the cleaning to get our taxes done, and I will tell you I left happier than I have ever been after doing taxes. For the first time since we have been married, we haven't owed any money. Not only did we not owe, we are getting money back!!! Thank you Kade! These are pictures of Kade being oh so patient while we cleaned out our old apt.

After cleaning we went to my Auny Jeny's house so I could help her plant her garden. My plan was to help her so she'd help me since I have never planted one before. However, cleaning took WAY longer than planned and I ended up planting probably 3 feet worth of seeds in her garden. Hopefully she will still help me! After the "hard work" in the garden we had dinner and watched Lost. We are still getting them caught up. Plus we love watching it again and catching things we didn't catch the first time. Jeny had some beautiful daffodils on her kitchen table, so naturally I took some pictures.


Tara (2 from left) and Spencer (2 from right) (cousins) went to the festival of colors and I had to get a picture of them with their friends from that too because they looked down right awesome.

Before we watched Lost we did play a little Rock Band on the Wii. Kade played too and it was pretty cute. He loved it! This picture (above) shows his cheese. He loves cheesing it lately.

Going solo.

Then today we went up to Eagle Mountain for Colin and Sarah. Colin blessed their 3rd baby. There are some pictures of baby Sydney on my photo blog, I didn't get any today. Nickell Photography Blog. These are just some pictures of the kiddos having fun. Kade is a big flirt and loves Lily. Here he is hammin it up with food in his mouth. So polite!

Be one of the first 3 people to leave a comment on this post and you'll receive something handmade from me sometime in the next year. But there is a catch, you have to do the same thing on your blog. (so if you're a reader but a non blogger you're out of luck)
I think it's pretty cool that you get to pass on the joy of gift giving. I'm not quite positive what I will make for you most likely it will depend on the people who reply, and my creative juices of course! :) Good Luck!

I Just Like Him OK?

I have been getting all the pictures from my phone onto my computer. Here are a few of Kade that made me laugh or just think he's cute. Some are old, some are new.

Coming soon to a Blair Blog near you: A short-film on helicopter leaves and their many uses. Just for you Mel.

Spring Fever Relief...

It's been getting warmer here and we are so glad. I opened the backdoor yesterday while I was holding Kade just to see how warm it was. He was so excited he almost jumped out of my arms. So we went upstairs, changed and went outside to play. He was so happy. The top right picture makes me laugh because he would find the helicopter leaves, and then rip them. Every time he ripped them though, it gave him the chills. It was so funny. The the bottom right picture shows his cheese that he has been giving a lot lately. If you look closely you can see his 5th tooth that came in recently. #6 is on its way. I can't believe that he turns 1 in 2 months! He's now saying, Mama, Dada, Hi, and Hi-Da (every time I'm on the phone with Aaron I tell him to say hi to dada. Now it has turned into Kade saying Hi-Da every time I am on the phone with anyone, he'll just say it over and over again with a huge grin on his face!) Anyway, here are a few pictures from out backyard adventure!

click image to enlarge

**Ash, now you understand why I always have a billion pictures on my blog. You can't ever choose just one.

Kade

He so good. We got lucky to have such an easy kid. He comes on shoots with us all the time and he just does this. He's 10 months old now, he hates sitting now. He'd prefer to stand or be crawling around. I'm afraid walking is close. Which means gates more child proofing etc...

My Birthday

Not a very event filled birthday this year. Kade was really sick, I was recovering from the flu, and Aaron had school and work. We made the best of it though. Aaron woke up early to clean the house for me before he went to work in the morning, I woke up happy! Then I spent the day wiping Kade's nose. Fun huh. That evening, we ran to the store to pick up some cough medicine for Kade. I saw that these lovelies were on sale 10 for $1. I got $3 worth. Sweet. Then we went here... and rented this...And this... got some and went home. Fancy eh? Aaron got me a gift certificate the Hale Center Theater which I love, and then from my mother-in-law I got a necklace and gift certificate, and from my mom I got a new sewing machine! Yay! All the gifts were a surprise. After we ate, we remembered how much Serena (Aaron's sister) loves "Madagascar 2" so we called her up and had her come over and watch it with us and have birthday cake.
This is what Kade looked like pretty much all day! You can see my new sewing machine in the corner of the picture!
Aaron being his incredible self. He is wearing his backpack because he was going to do homework during the movie, he's carrying the cake and plates for us and he's in his pjs complete with a bathrobe. This is the side view obviously.


This is a view from the front, obviously. A pretty mellow birthday, no frills for sure but it was fun.

Hopeful

This happened last month. I don't know why it has taken so long to blog about.

In my jaded view of the world I am often discouraged. My mind gets too overwhelmed with the hurt and anger of the world. Especially now with the increasing homelessness and poverty of people all over the United States. Watching the news, it seems to be a rarity that a story involving some kind of happy ending makes the headlines. There was even a commercial on TV the other night about hunger amongst children in Utah alone encouraging people that could to donate to the Utah food banks. It was something along the lines of a little girl rocking her baby to sleep, singing a lullaby about how they couldn't have dinner tonight. It brought me to tears.

We were grocery shopping. It was pretty late at night. We were in a hurry trying to get home so we could get Kade in bed. We desperately needed to do our bi-monthly grocery shopping! A man got in line behind us. Just a quiet guy, with his cart full of his own families groceries. About half way into our purchase, this man behind us asked the checker to stop ringing up our groceries. He said, "charge them for what you've already scanned. I'll purchase the rest for them." WHAT? Who does this? The checker looked at him with wide eyes, as did we. We insisted that it was ok, we could take care of it. It's not a big deal. It was over $120 of groceries that he was offering to pay for! He turned to us and said, "really let me do this. I remember what it was like to be young and married with a baby." (I don't know if we just looked super homeless that night or what.) After going back and forth with this for a while, he continued to insist that he pay for the remainder of our groceries. Thank yous stumbled from our mouths.

We walked out of the store dumbfounded. It took me so long to even get my mind wrapped around the idea that someone would just do this for someone they didn't know, without asking for anything in return. It gave me hope that the world still has good people in it. Generous people that are willing to serve their fellow men. Heavenly Father knew I needed that.

I don't feel like we are in need of a lot. We have a happy healthy little boy (minus his cold he is going through right now), Aaron got a new job in January. A good job, in a country where finding a job right now can be near impossible. We are so happy in our marriage. I married my best friend and couldn't ask for a better husband and father for Kade! We haven't ever gone hungry, and we have a roof over our heads. But Heavenly Father knew I needed a reminder that there are still good people in the world.

While we can't go around helping people pay for their groceries, I have decided I want to pay it forward. I kept trying to think of some huge thing I could do to pay it forward. It always came down to just a lot of small things. I have always thought that service should go "un-bragged" about, so I'll leave it at that. But I do challenge everyone else to do small acts of kindness to strangers. Remind other people that, like me, think kindness and respect are coming near to an end, that there is still happiness and generosity!

Sad

Kade has been quite sick today. Fever and all. He hasn't wanted to do much else but this. I even try to get him out. I will open it up and put my arms out...to which he usually responds by reaching for me. Today, he just looks up at me and then reaches for the tray to be put back down.

Splish Splash

Kade loves bath time. He loves bath time. I love his hair in this picture!

This is a face we have been seeing a lot lately. He has officially learned how to pout.

Funny Memory

I was looking through some old pictures and came across this one from the day Kade was blessed. I started cracking up. It makes me laugh every time I see it. Silly Abby!

Until Later...

We've been really busy and that is all we've been doing. Being busy. This is how we feel....