Thanksgiving Weekend

Everytime we are up at Mom and Pop's house rodney thinks it is fun to climb up into the dogs bed and pretend that he is sleeping.

This is right before Thanksgiving dinner. It was quite delicious! My favorite was the mashed potatoes and gravy. Rodney at a little bit of everything and didn't seem to have a favorite.

He helped me make the pie crusts. He saw me rolling the dough out and had to have a turn. We are teaching him early! I have to give a shout out to Mom for teaching me how to do pie crusts! I have made quite a few pies lately and think of her everytime. It is one of the many things I have learned from her and by far not the most important.

Halloween

These pictures are at the ward Halloween party. My friend Amber brought Liam and Declan to town and came with us to the party which made it that much better! We went off of her costumes for her boys the boxes of cereal and made Rodney their milk. I had a lot of fun making the costume. I guarantee there isn't another costume like it out there! My friend Lacie thought of dressing him all in white, we thought of the letters and the got milk on the back and Pop contributed with the goldfish carton top painted to match the rest! It was definitely a collaborative effort! He wasn't too fond of the hat but he got used to it by the time we went trick or treating on Halloween night.

We had to constantly stop them from sitting down in the hallways to eat the candy they just got. At first they didn't understand what we were making them do. haha!

Someone in the ward gave my friend Lacie this sword when she was playing with Rodney and didn't know who it was...so we couldn't return it. It has become one of his favorite toys. He calls it his pshhh pshhh. It's pretty funny. We made that noise once when he played with it and it

stuck as its name!

For Halloween we went down to Justin and Sarah's house. This is the second year we've gone to hang out with them. Last year it was a surprise trick or treat from us that turned into hanging out and this year it was more planned. I didn't think it would be near as fun to do it alone with him as it would with cousins! We had so much fun! Rodney loves playing with them and really he looks so much like them too that we joke that he might as well be another one of their children. haha! Their street is so fun. People decked out their yard with haunted houses and there were so many kids on the street that you almost had to wait at every sidewalk for the people before you to come down. At the scariest haunted house Rodney did pretty good until we got to the doorstep and the lady was sitting in the dark and you couldn't see her face through her wig. She then said happy halloween in a very scary voice. That set him over the edge! He wanted up and had a death grip around my neck until we got to the next house. By the end he was saying trick or treat but it sounded more like tick keek but it was really cute. I am bummed I don't have any pictures of all the cousins together, but whats new? I always forget my camera... I think its genetic!

Awesome family pictures!!

My friend Dani took these pictures a little while ago. She brought them by the other day and I am just now getting enough time to sit down and look at them all and couldn't wait another minute to post them!! I love them. These are just a few of my favorites. I posted the boots one even though it is on my header so that family that just get the emails can see it too. That one just might be one of my favorites. I thought of it to hang in Rodney's room as part of the John Deere theme but I just love how it turned out! Thanks Dani! Which one is your favorite family photo? I need to pick one to update Mom and Dad's family picture wall, and I just can't decide!

Utah

How great of a Mom am I that I only have pictures of Rodney while we were playing at a park. Not one picture with Grandma, Grandpa, Great-Grandma, Jeff or Stephaney... nothing. It almost makes me want to cry. We won't get to see them for another 6 months and by then Rodney will almost be two. TWO!?! What?! ugh. Well here are some pictures anyway.

Rodney was sitting very well on a concrete barrier around the park. And then we realized he was trying to be just like somebody...

His Dad who was just sitting up a little ways. Mom thought of taking the picture from this angle. And I am so glad she did, because really, how cute is that!?

This is the only picture that I have from our trip to Utah for the family reunion...again, I'm a LAME-O! But at least it's a good one. We took him to the pool for the first time and he had a ball! We went to a pool that was huge and he would have stayed there so much longer if we would have had time. His favorite was jumping off the edge of the pool to Mark or I. He also loved to wander deeper into the pool until the water was all they way up to his chin. EEK! He sure was brave for his first time in any kind of water outside of a bathtub or shallow pool in the backyard. We had a blast.

For our trip for the family reunion we had a quick trip because we were close to the end of the semester and couldn't miss very much. We got there a day early which is when we went swimming and the next day we went up to the Heber Valley Camp which was very fun. We got to spend quality time with Sean and Anna, Brad and Angela, Justin and Sarah, Amy and gary, and Jeff and Stephaney. We had so much fun doing not much of anything but enjoying each others company and I wouldn't have changed it for anything! We did do the paddle boats and a ropes course that included a zip line which I braved for the second time. That thing is tall...

The second time we were just in Utah we spent 8 days of our break between semesters. I brought my Jean quilt that I cut squares out when I was pregnant for Rodney (yes that was almost 2 years ago...don't laugh!) But it's completed and another smaller one for Rodney is mostly finished but we didn't have time to finish both. We got to go through a session at the SLC temple. AMAZING! So beautiful and I am loving the tradition with Jeff and Stephaney we have started. Every time we go to Utah like this we go to a different temple for a session. We decided that next time we will go to the Draper temple. Quite exciting! We got to eat a few meals of the delicious Wallaby's grub. Went to a few parks. Mom, Dad, Mark and I went on a double date to Sundance to use some tickets they were given to a dinner and a play. It was a pretty good play. Mark and Dad would have much rather been fishing which they did all but 3 nights that we were there, but they were good sports about doing what us women wanted for a night. Jeff and Steph were nice enough to watch Rodney so we could go. But really the quilt took up quite a bit of our spare time. Mark loves it. Makes all the time spent on it worth it. And it is nice to finish a project that took so long to finally finish.

Camping!

Mark and I have been talking about camping for ever since we have been dating...and we finally got to go! With company no less! One of Rodney's very best friends is Liam. They are about 5 months apart in age and get along as well as you could expect 1 year olds to get along.


Rodney was making too much noise while Mark and my friend Amber were resting so we went for a walk and I took a picture to mark his age of 19 months.

Liam thought it was great fun to sit in this backpack whether it was on somebody's back or not. Which meant there was one less toddler to chase! Wahoo!! Especially for his prego mommy! Kudos to her by the way for camping and sleeping sans air mattress the first night...

This is Justin and Amber our great friends that are cooking up some breakfast for us. Donuts I believe!

This was us all hanging out at camp. I don't remember which day. We were up there for two nights. Although I don't know if you would call them nights or not because we didn't sleep very much. Well, maybe I should clarify that Rodney didn't sleep very much which meant that we couldn't sleep very much... He decided that wake up time was 4:00 am both mornings. The first day we were up there we took turns watching kids so we could all rest up as much as possible to catch up for lost time.

All in all it was great fun and we found an even better place to camp that will be FREE!! next time we go up there. We went up to dowdy lake and found our camping place next door at westlake. I think I would rather take up our own water to this new place we found than to worry about our toddler keeping the whole camp up with his very capable lung strength! So we are excited to go up again. Especially with such great friends!

Rodney Update!

This is while we watched the rightfully named "best fireworks in all of Colorado!" They were amazing. So many fireworks so little time... Rodney loved them. He didn't have quite the attention span yet to watch the whole show but he did point to the sky and stare.
This is Rodney's makeshift pool at Grandpa Friesens house. He decided the dog bowl was plenty big enough to take a dip and cool off... he did this multiple times throughout our weekend up there. Silly boy! We joked about how Grandpa is too cheap to buy him a real pool. haha!

Up in Nederland they just opened this carousel that this guy bought from the saltaire (sp?) and recarved the animals and such, repainted, built an enclosure. It is absolutely amazing and totally worth it. It's only buck to ride. Rodney rode once with Me and Mandy and once with Grandma and Mandy. Not only was I trying to get pictures of this cutie pie on the carousel but so were about 59 others. Maybe a little exaggerated but there were others.

This was when we were trapped in the cars with the rain outside waiting for the fireworks to start. I booted him over to G&G's car after a while. He had more fun over there anyway! I just love this picture!

Dirty face and all!

Rodney is really starting to show his personality more and more. He is such a little ham!

These are pictures from the 4th of July when it started to pour rain. So we decided to have some fun with the camera. Rodney started out less than enthused and then he started to get into the faces. This may or may not be a real scream...

We had another breathing scare with Rodney a few weeks ago which resulted in another hospital visit. Mark has athsma as does most of his family so it is no surprise that Rodney is showing symptoms. We were up all night with him because he kept waking up to cough and we did about 5-6 neb treatments before 5:30 so we packed him up and headed to the ER. After being there for 3-4 hours he was still at a 7 out of 10. 10 being not breathing. We headed home with not only this awesome neb mask that resembles a turtle, but about 5 prescriptions to control his airways. He knows when I break out the mask how to hold it and will sit there until it is gone. Assuming Mickey Mouse Clubhouse is on the TV...

He has 10 teeth now with a few more coming in. He was lopsided on the bottom teeth there for a while but now he has all four instead of three so we are much more balanced. Along with 2 new molars. The other two are threatening to come in anytime now! Don't you just love those cheeks!? His hair also decided to come in all of a sudden. It is getting longer and very blonde on top. We blame the sun for that one!

He longs to go out front and run in the sprinklers everytime they go on. He never ventures into the grass while they are on but he will run up and down the sidewalk.

We had our 18 month appointment the other day. He is now in the 11th %ile for height and 1% for weight. He is still following his curve for weight so we aren't worried at all. He now says quite a few words including: please (w/ simultaneous sign language), look, that, dad, dog, katie, he does say mom but Katie more often, car, truck, duck, and a few other words I can't remember right now. He loves to give kisses. He loves to jump to us off of the coffee table. We love our little man and can't remember life without him!

This one's for you Mom!

Someday I will figure out how to move around pictures. Any tips?! Mom requested a post with my latest cakes, so you all get to enjoy them too! My dream is to do cakes on the side but for now I am just trying to get the techniques down and practice, practice, practice! All for fun! On my birthday last weekend we were up the mountain for Mark's step-brothers wedding. Auntie Bug (she also did our wedding cake) was doing the cake and she allowed me to tag along the process this time. I wanted to see how she did her cakes. Little did I know she would let me pipe the whole thing!! It was crazy fun for me and a great birthday treat. I hadn't ever done piping like this before and she was very supportive. Here is a picture closer up to see the real design. The lighting is better here.

This one is for my friend Becky's baby shower this last weekend. It was so fun. I got the most delicious carrot cake recipe from Auntie Bug (she has been doing cakes for about 25 years she said) So I practiced it on this beauty. Frosted with cream cheese frosting covered in homemade fondant. mmm....

Top View

Side View

I am very excited to do Grandma's birthday cake coming up this New Years Day...although I will most definately do some other cakes before then!