A LOVE-ly Valentine's Day

We had a great Valentine's Day weekend. It started on Friday night when Casey got home. He sent Weston and I to get the mail because he said he had a headache and when we got home there was a trail of petals leading to the bathroom, which was decorated with flowers, candles, and candy. My book was sitting on the side of the tub with some sparkling cider, he had relaxing music playing, and I got to take a nice bubble bath while he made dinner and took care of Weston for a few hours. It was a very appreciated and much needed break for me. I love my husband! On Valentine's Day, I did my yearly tradition of hiding Valentine's Day cards where I knew Casey would find them throughout the day and as usual, I centered most of our celebration around food. Charity got to join us for dinner and dessert and then we watched the Olympics (which have been dominating a good majority of our time lately). We also gave Weston two little books about colors and one about the ABC's which he liked. All-in-all, it was a great weekend and I'm so glad that there is a special holiday set aside where I get to show my family I love them!

Breakfast. Egg in a hole, strawberries, and a strawberry-banana smoothie. Dinner. Chicken Piccata, asparagus, and sparkling cider.

Casey thought I should be in a picture with my dessert, so here it is. You can see the beautiful flowers I got and the candles from my relaxing night.

Dessert. These are called Chocolate Clouds and I found the recipe 8 years ago with the intention of making it for Valentine's Day someday. It was actually really simple, so I don't know why it took me so long to make. The hardest part was making the chocolate bowls because the water balloons kept popping, so I think I'll use regular balloons next time.

Weston enjoying his own bowl of chocolate mousse.

Monster Jam

At the end of January we went as a family to Monster Jam. It was the first time we've had the box all to ourselves and it was pretty nice. I wanted to go because my Dad used to take us when we were younger and I always had fun. I still remember one time when Grave Digger lost control jumping over some cars, lost a wheel, it rolled off into the wall, and made a big hole at Jack Murphy Stadium (now Qualcomm). Arco Arena didn't have as much space to work with, so it wasn't as cool as I remember it, but still fun. Weston loves trucks, so I thought he would like it too, which he did. He was a little frightened by the noise at first, but we kept the glass closed so it wasn't too loud and he was fine after a few minutes. Now he calls all of his bigger trucks "Digger" because we pointed out Grave Digger the most often.

Whenever he would watch, he would plaster his face to the glass like this.
Grave Digger. The star of the show.

Weston found the ice by the end of the night and was highly entertained by it as well.

Twinners

A few weeks ago we went on a walk one morning. It was pretty chilly, so we got all bundled up in our sweats, sweatshirts, etc. Weston had just gotten this outfit from Casey's dad and loves to wear his BYU beanie. Casey just happened to pick a very similar outfit, so they were my twinners for the morning :)

We have a nice little duck pond close to our apartment
Weston decided he was hungry while feeding the ducks. Luckily the bread we took wasn't too stale :)

Christmas

Merry Christmas! :) A little late, but that seems to be how I roll lately. It is one of my New Year's Resolutions to be on top of my blogging though, so I'm definately working on it little by little. We had a great Christmas up in Vancouver this year at Casey's Mom's house. I love Christmas and I especially love getting together with family and celebrating our Savior's birth, which we did a whole lot of. Thankfully, my husband was on top of picture taking this year, so we have pictures to document it. Thanks to everyone for our great presents and well wishes! I've seen that most of you had a great Christmas already, so I hope you enjoy the pics from ours :)

Our family picture. Actually getting our Christmas card out this year is another one of my new goals :)

Our family walk with a Humane Society Dog. Nate often takes them out for walks and gave us the idea to go as a family.
The kid's Christmas party put on by Grandma. They also made Christmas necklaces and ornaments.

Preparing the Christmas Eve meal together. We had an assortment of cheese, meat, crackers, fruit, veggies, and dip. It was delicious!

After dinner we acted out the Nativity Story. We drew names to find out our rolls and then picked out our outfits from Nate and Misty's dress up boxes. Weston was our little shepherd. I just love this video. As I mentioned above Weston was a shepherd and Casey's mom was a sheep, so naturally Weston felt the need to do some herding.

Everyone in their costumes. Casey was Joseph and I was a Wise Man.

Family bowling time. Charity gave up a lot of her turns to let the kids go.

For lunch one day we went to the Blueplate Diner. It was featured on Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives, so of course I wanted to go. It was pretty good, but it was small and popular, so that meant a lot of people, little seating, and they actually ran out of their specials. When we got home we had Weston open a present that we didn't want to transport. It was a scuttle bug bike and you can tell from his reaction that he was excited.

Out of Africa

Casey went to Angola for work at the beginning of December. He was given the opportunity because he speaks Portuguese and that is what they speak in Angola. They didn't have any freedom, had to do everything together, and were heavily guarded the whole time. Here are a few of his favorite pictures from his visit:

He had a layover in Frankfurt, Germany so he went to the famous Christmas Market. The office where he spent most of his time.

One of the many bodyguards watching over them. They had to have bodyguards with them 24/7 because Angola recently went through a civil war. Most of them were british and have some impressive resumes, including guarding The Queen, General McCrystal while in Iraq, the Spice Girls, etc.

Downtown Luanda. Casey said the place is a dump, but is one of the most expensive countries to live in because they import everything. Dental Floss was $11 and the building you are looking at costs $6,000/month to rent an apartment. Crazy, I know.

Poverty - people just threw their trash down the hill. Trash was everywhere.

There is a ton of traffic and there are almost always people in the middle of the road trying to sell random things to drivers: Christmas trees, pants, belts, toys, etc. This kid is selling toilet paper.

This was my favorite picture because to me it just screams Africa with all the bright colors. On the weekends, Casey and his coworkers would go to a local beach that Casey said was kind of gross, but he brought home a lot of pretty shells which weren't lacking there.

The little boy looks so cute just hanging on his mom's back

Some of the food. They had steak at every meal and a lot of seafood. This is Casey's lobster lunch. You would think that Casey would be in heaven since he is such a steak lover, but overall, Casey thought the food was disgusting.

The only picture we have with Casey in it. One night they went to a churrasco for dinner. One of the best meals they had.

A Snowy Visit

At the beginning of December Weston and I went to Utah to visit my parents. Unfortunately, I didn't get a lot of pictures, but we had a great time none-the-less. We were there for a week and went to their Christmas ward dinner, enjoyed looking at the snow, seeing my sister and brother, and hanging out with Mama, Papa, and Jonas. One of my favorite things was playing games almost every night with my parents and Jonas. I am a huge boardgame person and this just made my day! Weston really liked playing with my parents dog, Pink, or terrorizing her I should say. He had a hard time not being able to go outside very much because it snowed a lot of the time and was 20 degrees. Casey kept saying, "just let him play in the snow, I'm sure he would like it," so when we were at my sister's, I let him go outside and 10 minutes later he was at the door whining to come in because he was so cold. The worst part was the flights to and from Utah. We had layovers both ways for the first time and being 6 months pregnant and having to carry a 1 1/2-year-old part of the time or bend over in our seats to get him snacks, etc. was a little uncomfortable. Weston was great, but it was a little long for both of us, and I think I'll stick with direct flights from now on.

Weston in the dog's bed. I wasn't a huge fan, but he thought it was funny :)

Nimbus Fish Hatchery

While Janelle and Garth were in town for Thanksgiving, we headed down to the Nimbus Fish Hatchery in Folsom. It was more fun than I thought a fish hatchery would be, but I'm sure it helped that we were with family and there were a lot of kids. They had steelhead, salmon, and trout. My favorite part was watching Weston feed the fish and say "blub, blub" (that is the sound a fish makes).

Weston and Casey looking at the steelhead

Everyone feeding the fish
Weston and I just looking. The fish food smelled disgusting, so I left the feeding up to Casey :)

Everyone at the end of our little field trip

Thanksgiving

We had a great Thanksgiving this year with plenty of family. Janelle and Garth came up and Ashley's parents were in town for Spencer's blessing, so Jason reserved the church building for us to gather all together. It makes it so roomy and gives the kids plenty of space to play. Ashley gave out food assignments and it all turned out wonderfully. We were so grateful to have family close and also have family come in to town to help us celebrate this special holiday.

The food. It was all delicious!This was the munchkin table. Only Ryden was interested in actually eating his food that day. I made the pumpkin pie and I always do one with a Jack-O-Lantern face, but this one was my pride and joy. I had to cut each of those leaves out by hand because I didn't have a leaf cookie cutter.

Making the Climb

One morning we were in bed and we hear Weston start to whine, which means he is up and ready to get out of bed. It was kind of early, so we waited to see if he would fall back asleep. Instead, we hear a slight thud and then we are both surprised to hear the door click and feet pattering down the hallway. Weston shows up at our door carrying wipes and says, "stinky" (which he was). That was around the middle of October, but it was very infrequent and he still stayed in his crib most of the time. Come the middle of Novemeber was a different story. He became a pro at climbing out and thought it was quite funny. We usually put him down for bed no problem at 8, but one night he just kept climbing out every 15 min. Finally around 10:30, I had decided that we were going to convert his crib to a daybed the next day, but Casey said we might as well do it right then since he was already wide awake, so we did. We had to lock his door at first and he would fall asleep at the door sometimes, but I think he realized that it was pointless to try and get out and goes right down now. We figure this is good practice for when the new baby kicks him out of the crib and he gets moved to a twin bed. I have to admit, it was a fun little milestone since he didn't make it too hard on us :)

Halloween Fun!

We had a lot of fun this Halloween with all the different activities we did. Weston of course was more into the holiday so that helped a lot, and he was an elephant because that was one of the first animal noises that he made. He really liked his costume, which was nice too. Our Halloween festivities started off with our ward halloween party, then we carved pumpkins, made some Halloween treats, then taking Weston out trick-or-treating with Paisley for the first time on Halloween. The funny part about trick-or-treating was that whenever someone would open their door when we knocked, Weston would always try and walk in.

Weston getting his face painted at the ward party

Helping himself. He's not shy :)
Family Picture. Weston loves suckers!

Opening his halloween package from Mama and Papa

He loves to put things on his head. This was one of his favorites.

Carving a pumpkin for the first time. He thought the bowl was the place to be.

Getting into it

Helping Dad empty it out

The finished product. We decided to go classic for his first one. I also made roasted pumpkin seeds for the first time, which turned out good.

Our Halloween breakfast. Pumpkin pancakes with chocoloate chips.

The treat I made for a some family and friends

What I put the treat in. I got the idea from Martha Stewart and it was super easy.

Weston knocking on his first door at Jason and Ashley's complex. Doesn't he make the cutest elephant? We think so :)