Goodbye 2012!

You all might have noticed that we didn't do a Christmas card this year, or last, or any other year for that matter. We aren't very good at the whole card thing... hardly any Wedding Thank Yous (sorry), hardly any baby shower thank yous (sorry), no birth announcements, nothing. Anywho, I thought since we didn't do a formal card, I'd write up a quick recap of this past year.

It is completely mind blowing how fast this year went. It was a great year for us and we definitely made a lot of memories. We started the New Year in good ole Arkansas and are ending it in Idaho, just the way I like it. This year we have moved three times and the third was finally into our very own house.

Todd has had three different jobs in one year, I think that's a record for him... but maybe not. I have to say, I married a pretty remarkable man. Many people probably already think this, but Todd changed jobs for me... and him, but mostly me. Todd did enjoy working for Wal-Mart (for the most part) and was pretty happy in Arkansas (for the most part). But he knew how much I wasn't enjoying Arkansas, even though I would never tell anyone else that, he knew. He tries so hard to make me happy, and he always does. I'm thankful for his hard work and determination. I know he is working a lot harder here at Melaleuca:) but we are all very happy we moved home/closer to home. I have no updates on me, I'm a mom, and this was definitely a year learning more how to be a mom, but that's about it. Hayden had an exciting year. He learned to eat, crawl, walk, and many other things. He went on his first very long car ride, moved three times and changed states. Gus, well he's Gus. He's still learning how to deal with Hayden, haha.

By the way, we had a great Christmas, filled with family, friends and yummy food!

I have been very sad as this holiday season comes to an end. I love the Christmas season; songs, movies, treats, family; it's just great, I hate to see it end. I've also been dreading this year ending. Who knows why, scared I guess. But now, I look forward to 2013. I think it is going to be a great year. We have family and holidays to look forward to, a house to make perfect and a little boy to keep watching grow. We have been blessed this year, and we look forward to this new exciting year!

From our family to yours, we wish you all a very Happy New Year! May love and happiness fill your hearts and homes this coming year. Much love!

New Home

This post is a little past due, but we bought a house. The process went really fast, much to our relief. We saw the house a few days after getting back to Idaho, decided it was what we wanted a few days later and closed on November 15h. Its a brand new house in the Woodland Hills development in Ammon. It has three bedrooms upstairs, and an unfinished basement that we hope to partially finish this spring/summer. We are loving our house, and it is so fun to say "our house." I don't like posting pictures till something is completely done, so hopefully by the New Year, I'll have most rooms done and can post pictures. As you can see we have no yard. This is the one and only thing I very much dislike about this house, but it too will soon be fixed come spring... I look forward to that day.

In other news, we have been so busy, and so sick. It first started with Hayden getting a fever, then a cold for me, cold for Todd, minor flu for me, strep for Todd, and then a strep rash for Hayden. You might be wondering what strep rash is. Well it looks like someone has leprsy. Hayden had it really bad behind his ears and I kept telling him he might lose his ear. Luckily, after a trip to Urgent Care and antibiotics, his ear is looking lots better. Hopefully sickness will keep away from our household for a bit.

Hayden is now a full on walker. He gave me a late birthday gift and started walking like crazy on November 18th. He is such a cute walker, and I love when my little boy holds my hand as we walk (one day he wont want too). Todd is enjoying his busy job, and I am enjoying buying things for our house. Our to-do list this week is: finish sanding kitchen table, stain kitchen table, chairs and side table, paint chairs and paint our refridgerator. Yes, you read that correctly, we are painting our fridge. We bought one fridge but it was BLUE. So we returned it and bought a new one. Apparently the kind of fridge Todd really wants the sides mostly come in grey, but all of our appliance's sides are black. Since Todd can't live without his fridge and since I can't live with un-matching appliances, we are painting it... yippee for us. I'll let you know how that goes...

Well that's all I can muster right now. I hope your holidays are going well!

Family Pictures

Two weeks after we got home, we made our way back to Utah to take some family picures. Our friend Callie Hobbs took them, and they turned out great. Here are a few of my favorites.

A Tale of Three Parties

Hayden's birthday was basically a birthweek. With us traveling through Utah on our way to Idaho, we had an Altom birthday party for Hayden. We arrived in Layton around 4ish and most of everyone came around 5. Not only did we all look fabulous (mostly me), we also were extremely tired. Hayden enjoyed the family and of course being out of the car, but when the celebration turned mostly to him, he got a tad overwhelmed. This picture pretty much sums up the night...

His grandma made him his very own cake, and everyone supplied him with wonderful presents. He may have not been the most appreciative birthday boy, but we were grateful for our wonderful family celebrating with us.

On his actual day of birth, we gave him his walker, which he didn't like at the very beginning, and had a pizza party for him with my parents. Cocoa Bean supplied the cake for us this time, and Hayden did a much better job at eating his treat.

He touched my lens... hence the blurriness 

His actual birthday party was on the 13th. I tried to keep it as simple as I could and it still was stressful, sigh. Anywho, we made cupcakes, my cousin made balloons to put in the cupcakes, had pizza and opened presents. He did excellent at this party and loved having everyone there. Thank you all who helped make his birthday week great! We sure do love being around family and friends again!! xox

The Big 1!!

Wow, I have had quite the blog hiatus recently. It is amazing how busy we all of the sudden have become. Our wonderfully long trip from Bentonville to Idaho Falls, was rough but not too bad. Hayden did amazing for being in the car for almost three days straight. It wasn't the best three days of my life but we made it home and just in time to enjoy some Idaho fall before the winter began.

This post is mainly about Hayden turning one, I'll get to parties and other happenings later.

A couple of days before we left Arkansas, I took Hayd in to get his first round of the flu shot. By the way, he did way better than me at getting that dang shot. Anywho, I asked if we could weight him real quick since he wan't going to have his 1 year appointment till November. The nurse weighed him and he weighed 17.3 pounds; I want this kids metabolism! He is such a little pig but barely gained a pound in three months. A lot can change but I have a feeling he may be built like my dad who weighed a whopping 145 pounds when he and my mom got married. When we were waiting in the waiting room, Hayd was playing with some twins. The mother asked how old Hayd was and we discovered all three of them were about a week a part in age. My kid looked three months younger than her twins. He is still working on the walking, slower getting some courage. He got a push toy from us for his birthday and he loves pushing it around. He took his first few steps on October 18 but I still think it will be another month or so before we have a real walker on our hands. He is working on about 8 teeth right now and still eats pretty much anything we put in front of him. He enjoys making lots of messes and taking everything out of drawers (which was really helpful when we were packing). I knew Hayden had a little eversion to other people and kids, but since we have moved home, he is slowly getting better with people and wanting to play with them; it makes his mommy and daddy very happy.

I can't believe we have a one year old crawling around our (or I guess my parent's house at the moment). This past year indeed went faster than the speed of light. I keep doing the "this time last year..." thing. It was love at first sight, or rather love at first sign of pregnancy, haha. I cried basically everyday I was pregnant with him because I was grateful to know I was becoming a mommy, and I pretty much have cried everyday for a year because I know how truely blessed I am to be his mom. He has been my greatest accomplishment and my greatest joy. Todd and I sure to love our little one year old and thankful Heavenly Father trusted us enough to raise this sweet spirit.

Timeline of Month Pictures (I know some of the lighting is really bad):

It's amazing how much they grow in a year. Love you Hayden Jack!

p.s. he is only wearing two different sizes of onesies in these pics:)

Ohhh We're Movin' on Up!

Not a whole lot has happened during this last month, except we are moving... again. As I pack for the 11th time of our marriage, I keep getting the odd feeling of deja vu. Todd accepted a job in Idaho Falls with Melaleuca. Todd used to tell me, and I never doubted, that he would never work for Melaleuca. All he really knew about it was it had a call center, and most of all the women in my family have worked at the call center. As much as Todd likes working at Wal-Mart, we have not become the biggest fans of Arkansas. I think a year is plenty of time to decide if you like a place or not, and well, we don't really like it. Todd began the job search awhile ago, neither of us really banking on moving anytime soon. But after much prayer and Todd's hard work, Todd got a great job. Arkansas will always hold a special place in my heart; it was the state where Hayd was born and lived most of his first year (and the place of Olde Tyme donuts), but its time to move on. We are really excited for Hayden to grow up around family and for us too! This may not be the last move our little family will make, but it will be a great one. We leave Bentonville October 7 and we will make it to Idaho Falls (after a quick stop in Utah) on the 9th. This move has stressed me though; Todd not so much. I worry about Hayden's birthday, his shots, getting sick, Hayden dying from falling down stairs, family pictures and getting my hair done... all worthy stressers. We already have so much planned once we get home, which will be such a change from doing nothing:).

In other news, Hayden has some serious teeth coming in. I feel like it took awhile for him to finally start getting teeth, but all of the sudden four are coming in. He hasn't been as peachy as he was with the first few teeth, but still not bad. Hayden still isn't walking yet but loves pushing around boxes; he really wants to walk. He also had his first chocolate chip cookie today, and absolutely loved it! Hayden has a lot of change coming his way, which I hope he handles well. He has a move, new environment (climate and house), actually being around people, switching to whole milk and I suppose we should have him stop using bottles (so he doesn't use them till he is five like some people I know...), all which I stress about daily, motherhood=tough.

Anywho, that's the latest... oh I think I'm getting sick... goody.

We look forward to seeing lots of you!

I love this messy little guy. Such a funny boy.

11Meses

Mi bebe tiene ahora 11 meses, and I cannot believe it. This year just keeps going at the speed of light. It was a year ago that we got our maternity pictures and now I have a crazy little boy. We are not sure on Hayden's current stats but according to Wii Fit he is around 18 pounds, and since the wii is so accurate and we are always so good at guessing, he's probably around 16, haha. His 3-6month onesies are finally getting somewhat tight. He eats like a 300 lb. man at a buffet, so I keep thinking he'll chunk up but since he is always on the move, maybe he never will. He has three teeth coming in on top. His two front teeth are coming down at the same time but very far apart. He is going to have a HUGE gap!! And since we have a finger-sucker addict, they will probably be very buck. Needless to say his cute days are numbered... JK... sorta;)... nothing new teeth and orthodontic work can't fix. I think he will have big teeth, like his parents. It's very scary sticking your fingers in his little chomper; he's got quite the bite. Luckily teething so far hasn't been too much of an issue, knock on wood. He has become a clapping, high fiving, dancing and shaking his head "no" fool. We were at a wedding a week ago and when everyone started clapping when the bride and groom came in, Hayden joined in; pretty much the cutest thing. He claps when there is any sort of clapping on TV and will also dance when there is any kind of music; he even dances when I sing. The habit of always shaking his head "no" is funny, but is probably going to get a little obnoxious. I keep trying to teach him to shake "yes" but it isn't happening. He is still working on standing by himself and walking, I still think it'll be a few more months till that happens. He is basically the cutest, happiest little bugger, and we love him.

He is such a pain to take pics of now!!

 Cheesy smile

 Cheesier smile!

You may be thinking, "Oh he looks tired." Our little guy gave himself two black eyes last week. He fought the coffee table and the coffee table won. He had such sad eyes, I felt so bad for him. I thought about editing his eyes but then that would be lying about the 11month old we have.

It also has been two years since we loaded up our clothes and dog, and headed to NYC. It also has been 11 years since all the awful things that happened in NYC, in Pennsylvania and the Pentagon. I remember being so scared but so proud of Americans that day. We absolutely love NYC and are grateful for the time we had there; we still talk about those few months all the time!! We wish we could live there someday but me thinks, actually I know, we need A LOT more money. We hope NYC will always be apart of our lives, and I hope Americans can stand together like we did 11 years ago, and never forget!