Who Needs A Vacuum?

Payton doesn't officially crawl on his hands and knees, it's more of an army crawl where he pushes himself with his feet. He's been doing this for a couple months or so, and he can get around pretty fast! This is one of his favorite spots:

That's right, he knew his sister was eating and rushed over hoping she would drop something. We try to keep our floors as clean as we can, otherwise our human vacuum takes care of it.

This Could Be The Start Of Something Sweet

I'm not much of a goal setter and I don't usually make New Year's Resolutions. In fact I've always hated them, but this year I had a few things I decided I want to accomplish. Nothing too big, but things to better my life, even if its just something to give me some time to myself to relax and do something for me. So, here's one that is just that.

It's no secret that I love baking, and it's also no secret that I love cupcakes. I think it would be so fun to have a little cupcake shop one day. Seeing how I've never made cupcakes completely from scratch that didn't follow a recipe, I want to try to make cupcakes at least once month . So, I will probably post monthly on my cupcake of the month. To start the year off, for January I made a coconut cupcake with lime cream cheese frosting. I did use basic cupcake and frosting recipes as a guide to start this process off, but added my own adjustments to make them my own and give them the flavors.

The Result: My cupcakes didn't turn out as I hoped. The coconut flavor was pretty mild, and the frosting wasn't as thick or cream cheesey tasting as I wanted. They were still pretty tasty though, especially after a couple days. This is one I want to go back and work on more though. But as for February, I already have a new flavor cooking in my head.

And isn't my cupcake model so cute? I think so.

2010 (Let's Start This Year Off Right)

Our New Years Eve day started off with a trip to the doctor. We have been passing around colds in our house since the beginning of December. Payton's had gotten so bad that the congestion made him throw up a couple times, and he had a pretty dry and raspy sounding cough. I decided I should get him checked out just to be on the safe side. I was right, it was just a really bad cold, but he also an ear infection in both ears. So, off to Target we went, two prescriptions filled. Not too much later, Ben came home. We got everything ready and headed to my Aunt Melissa and Uncle Doug's for New Year's Eve with family. We had a great time talking, eating too much food, watching movies, and playing games. We didn't get too many pictures from the night, but here are a few:

Ben decided he wanted to be like Payton, so here they are trying to copy each other.

One of Payton's favorite poses, but Ben not quite getting it right.

Now they switched.

Ben finally got it.

Baylee stole her Uncle Scotty's best friend, Lexi for the night. She was so great with Baylee, and I hope Baylee didn't drive her too crazy!

Happy New Year!!! (There was even fireworks going off behind us):

(I got almost this same exact shot of Scott last year)

Thanks Melissa and Doug for having us over! We had a lot of fun!

Merry Christmas!

We had a great Christmas with my family this year! Here's a little on how we spent it:

Christmas Eve:
My Uncle Warren and Aunt Patti host Christmas Eve at their house every year. We alternate years with Ben's family, so this was the first year we were here for it. They do a Mexican potluck, a talent show, and a White Elephant gift exchange. Baylee surprised us a little by being the first volunteer for the talent show and singing Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow's song, "Picture", complete with motions. It was pretty entertaining. I put Ben in charge of pictures, but it doesn't look like he got too many before Baylee took over. So, here's a couple from the gift exchange:

There were some pretty great and interesting gifts. We ended up with Christmas socks, flavored hot chocolate, a CTR box and stickers, and High School Musical candle holders. I think the presents we brought were all stolen the maximum amount of times, except for the 5 pound bag of peanuts my mom opened. She was pretty happy when someone stole that one.

My sister slept over at our house. The kids passed out in the car, so I wrapped presents while Ben and Annie played the Wii. Baylee and I made cookies for Santa earlier in the day, and she wanted a picture to make sure we left cookies and milk out for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. She was pretty concerned about it.


Christmas!:
My parents and brother came over in the morning to watch the kids open presents. Scott got plenty of pictures for us. It got a little choatic considering there weren't a ton of presents..

After each and every present she opened, Baylee would say "Just what I always wanted!". It was pretty funny. I don't think she was too disappointed Santa didn't bring her everything she wanted, especially after the great note Santa left her. She did tell me she was a little sad that he didn't bring the Barbie puppy and vet set she wanted, but asked if she could get it at her brithday party with Mea (her cousin) this year. I had to explain to her she probably wasn't having a party with Mea this year since she lives in Utah, but that maybe she can get it for her birthday or maybe the Easter Bunny will bring it. That cheered her up.

Ben and my dad made crepes and bacon for breakfast. Later, the extended family all came to our house for Christmas dinner. It was fun to have everyone over, and the food everyone brought was great. I hope that everyone else had fun and didn't mind how un-spotless our house was. Somehow we didn't manage to get any pictures.


Since we were sick the Sunday before Christmas, we tried to get a family picture in our Christmas clothes before church the Sunday after Christmas.
We hope everyone had a great Christmas!

"Tis The Season

We had a crazy December! Despite having someone sick or injured from a scorpion sting (which also led to a tetanus shot) the whole month, we were still able to have a little bit of holiday fun and pull everything together in time for Christmas. Here's some of what we were up to when we could make it out of the house:

Ward Christmas Party At Church:

Ben and I were asked to be on the activities committee at church. This meant helping with the Christmas party. Ben did a great job putting the movie together for everyone to watch. It was a Grinch theme, complete with lots of candy, cupcakes, and cookies! Not to forget, the Grinch movie Ben put together (from pictures and a script other people did) and the Grinch himself.

Baylee did her part by trying to dance to the music that was playing while everyone was walking in.

We all sat on blankets for the movie, and I helped serve the candy at the end. As a bonus- since Ben had been up until 6 am finishing the movie, we didn't have to stay to help clean up!

Lights at Mesa Temple:

We went and saw Christmas light with our friends, Mike and Heather and boys, along with one of their friends and his two kids. Baylee was a little sick, and stayed in her stroller the whole time. Afterwards, we went to Dunkin' Donuts and hung out on the chairs outside since the lobby was closed. It worked out better for us since both our kids had passed out during the car ride there.

Setting up the Christmas Tree:

The weekend before Christmas, we finally got our tree decorated. Our tree had been up for a few weeks, we just hadn't gotten to decorating it. Baylee tried to help for a few minutes, but most of her decorations landed on the same section of branches at the bottom.

Zoo Lights:

We were able to go to Zoo Lights with my Aunt Melissa, Uncle Doug and cousin Ryan. We had a great time with them, even if we had to do quite the walk to get there, and even though my foot was numb. Baylee was still fighting whatever she had caught at the beginning of the week, and the only thing we could get her to eat that day was kettle corn at the zoo. We still loved going and I think it made Baylee and Ryan's day to finally see the Komodo Dragon.

These trees danced and changed colors to the music. It was pretty fun to watch!

Gingerbread houses:

Heather and I had been trying to decorate gingerbread houses with the kids, but between us and her being sick, we had a hard time getting together. We finally went over to their house the Sunday before Christmas. While the guys watched the game, we decorated houses with Baylee, Trey, and Mike and Heather's nephew. I almost think the kids enjoyed eating candy (and in Baylee's case-gingerbread) more than they did decorating.

Ben's Work Party:

For the Christmas Party this year, Ben's work had a pot luck luncheon. Everyone's family got to come in and have lunch, and Santa even made an appearance. Baylee was so excited for Santa! When we asked her to smile for a picture, she naturally struck this pose:

Added bonus for us going- Ben got to leave early from work and even took us shopping!

Like I said, we had a pretty crazy December. Next year I hope it's a little less germy so we can have even more fun and don't have to leave the shopping to a few days before Christmas. We did have a lot of fun when we did get out and do things though!

Family Pictures

While we were in Carlsbad for Thanksgiving, we talked Jenny into taking some family pictures for us at the beach. We were long overdue. I think the last family pictures we really took were from the Christmas right after Baylee turned one. So it really was time, especially since we have a new family member. Jenny did a great job and took around 150-200 pictures. A lot to choose from! So, here's some from our little "photo shoot":

Thanks for the pictures, Jenny! They are greatly appreciated!

Thanksgiving In Carlsbad

I am aware that this post is long overdue, but better late than never, right? I'm determined to get caught up on this blog! We had a great Thanksgiving with Ben's sister and family in Carlsbad, and I of course didn't do a very good job at getting pictures. We got there Wednesday afternoon and then left early Sunday evening. It was so much fun to have a family vacation again. I had been going through withdrawals, since our last family vacation was in July. I know that isn't too long for most people, but we had been getting kinda spoiled with at least little weekend trips every 2-3 months.

On Thanksgiving, Jenny somehow talked me into doing a 1 hour Zumba class. I was surprised that I was able to last the whole time, since we all know I am no Miss Fitness America. It was my first time to a gym in about 6 or 7 years, and probably the most I've done besides long walks since then. We had a low key dinner, for 4 adults and 7 kids, with the exception of Baylee throwing a fit over not saying the dinner prayer. The food was delicious, and Jenny was so cute to have a couple of little games (with prizes) planned for after.

Friday we all met Ben's sister Missy and family at the beach in San Clemente to hang out. It was freezing, but Baylee still was in heaven playing in the sand and ocean. These are the only pictures I really got from our trip. Other than this, we just basically hung out and enjoyed our time! We went swimming, shopping, and had a lot of yummy food and fun hanging out with family!

I love the beach, and really couldn't get enough pictures while we were there. It was so fun to see the kids playing even though it was freezing. So here's some pictures from there and a few more from the week:

Thank you Jenny and Andre for having us! We had such a great time! And thanks to Maddie and Jessica for keeping Baylee entertained and playing dress up with her! Of course, thanks for all the dress up clothes and paper dolls too!