Austin, Katie, and Kaden

I can't put my arms down!!....

Have you ever seen that movie "A Christmas Story" when little Andy is put in this gigantic snow suit that it packed so tight he can't move? That's what I thought of when we put Kaden in his snowsuit! Kaden LOVES to play in the snow! We just had another good snowstorm and Kaden just had a blast playing in it! The funnest part is his adorable snow suit we got from Aunt Holly last year! We thought it'd NEVER fit him, but here we are. Kaden likes to play in the snow...but doesn't like the COLD feeling so much. Here are a few pictures from our LAST snow storm....so that's why there's not much snow on the ground.

Family Pictures!!

Here they are!! Our professional pictures we took last week are back! We're so happy with how they turned out! Enjoy!! Much thanks to Eliza J Photography!

Here are just a few cute ones from Kaden's 18th month of life :-) He's got TONS of cute clothes from Aunt Holly...here's his ADORABLE snow boots (that he just can't get enough of) and his amazing church outfit! SO cute...we love em!

FALL

WOW. Thats all I have to say.

My meds for In Vitro came in the mail today....I was expecting just a few small items. Here's what I have to look forward to! All this is going inside me within 1 month!

Pre-Halloween Pics

Halloween is SO much more fun when you get to share it with your own kids!
Our little UPS guy :-) Would you like a package?

Halloween party at Dad's work! Stevens-Henager College!

Mom's Halloween Cosumes when she was around Kaden's age ;-) So fun!

Scarlett O'Hara from Gone with the Wind

Tiger Lilly from Peter Pan

Present!

Dr. Katie!

Get Away.........to Park City ;-)

Austin and I just got back from our trip to Park City!! It was SO much fun! We dropped Kaden off at my mom's....and went away for a 3 day trip. We felt, after all that we've been through this past year with infertility and all the other emotional roller-coaster events....we decided we needed to kind of re-gather ourselves. Have some good alone and relaxation time. It was SO hard to be away from Kaden....we missed him TONS! Everything reminded us of him, and we called every 5 hours or so to see how he was doing! Good thing we were only an hour away, that made things not as hard. :-)
So, while in Park City we splurged on a nice condo called the Westgate Resort and Spa with a full size kitchen and jetted tub and everything! Everything was top of the line....brand new....and looked so expensive! Definitely nothing like anywhere we'd stayed before! There was even a Sauna Steam Room in our own room!

As usual with any trip we take, something always goes wrong! We just have to kind of laugh at the situations we get put in! The 1st night we got there...I was SOOO excited to get in a nice cozy big jetted tub and relax. We go to turn the tub on and the COLD water handle didn't work. It just spun around and around as if it weren't connected to anything. GREAT, we thought. So, we tried to fill the tub up with just the hot water. 3 minutes of that and we couldn't even put our feet in it it was SO hot!! Great, now what do we do? So....austin and I went into the kitchen and got some big glass bowls. We went into the bathroom sinks and started filling up the bowls up with cold water and ran to dump them into the tub! Picture us...all ready for a relaxing night in an expensive condo....and here we are making multiple trips from the bathroom to the tub with big bowls of cold water. Needless to say, our efforts were hardly enough. The tub was still piping hot by the time I got in it....and the whole situation was SO annoying. Not exactly how we pictured spending our 1st evening on our vacation! So, the next day, we had to call the maintenance guy to come and look at it....again totally inconvenient... then ultimately the problem with the tub couldn't be fixed! So what'd we have to do?? Pack up ALL our stuff again and move to a new room! Ugh!! Of course all of this happened...right after we'd made a huge trip to the grocery store and stocked up on a fridge full of food! One more thing to pack up. ugh. So...we made the move to another room and noticed lots of stuff was dirty. FANTASTIC! Crumbs on the table..smears on the mirrors...and oh, the shower door didn't close. But the tub worked! GREAT! At this point, we just had to laugh and try to have a good time! We called and got the resort to give us a $50 voucher to their restaurant called the Grill. It's a highly over-priced "fancy" restaurant that we hadn't planned on attending. But hey, what the heck.
1st and 2nd rooms we stayed in:

Our $50 voucher and dinner at "The Grill"! They even lit a candle at our table for "setting the mood"

All in all, we did have a very fun time. We did a bunch of shopping...exploring the town, and eating out. It was much needed and SO much fun. Austin in my best friend and there's no one else I would've rather gone with! Here are just some more pictures of our fun!

...and lastly....here's some cute pictures of our little guy recently. The 1st one is Kaden in a cute outfit Aunt Holly gave him!! We love her.

Playing with Daddy's glasses! "Hello sir! How may I help you?"

Well, it’s been about a month since our last post, so here I am with an update. We’re back in Spanish Fork trying to resume life the way it was 3 months ago. So far, so good. Austin recently got a promotion at work to be Stevens-Henager College Registrar! So far he loves the new job and the new authority. We’re SO proud of him and how he provides for our family. Kaden is growing up SO fast as usual, he gets to go to nursery next month!! Ah! It’s a blessing, but also kind of a scary thing at the same time ;-) My little boy….in nursery! He’s added a few new words to the vocabulary… “monkey, hot, yeah, pretty, and wee!” He also learned his first family member name aunt “Meggies”, which sometimes sounds like “monkey”…but we say it counts! As usual….we notice each day him able to understand a whole lot more. Austin and I can deliver full blown sentences at him and he knows what we’re talking about! He’s also learned to respond “yeah!” to any statement delivered at him in the form of a question. We say…. “Kaden, do you want to go on a mission?” “YEAH!” Austin likes to mess with him by asking things we know he wouldn’t say yeah to if he only understood the words! ….. “Kaden, do you want to go to prison?” “YEAH!” Anything works really ;-) We’re actually LOVING being parents and watching our little guy grow and progress! It’s not all fun and games though…we’re finding out. This parenting thing is harder than it seems sometimes. He’s getting to the age where he’s purposely pushing buttons to see what he can get away with, ignoring when we say “no” to something he wants to do, and the all famous whine when he’s trying to get what he wants. All are frustrating in their own separate ways…but we’re learning how to deal with them.

As for the baby situation with us…we’re set to have the In Vitro Fertilization procedure in mid-December. For right now, we’re trying to mentally, financially, and physically prepare for the event. The pre-procedure medicines and shots I’m going to have to start taking next month carry some serious side effects. I’m most likely gonna be super sick and emotionally unstable for a while! Good thing I have the sweetest husband in the world to take care of me and have patience with my “monster” self. We are also blessed with wonderful and supportive extended family members around us, so we know we’re gonna get through it okay. So, right now we’re just preparing…we’ll keep ya posted on future events to come. We appreciate the prayers in helping us through this tough time in our lives! Austin and I are taking a mini-staycation to Park City next week and we’re SO excited! We’ll post pictures when we get back. We’re going for some much needed alone time and stress-free time!

Amidst all this busy-ness in our lives…we’ve got 4 family members with big baby news! Austin’s Brother Devin and his wife Brittany just had a beautiful baby girl, Katelyn….much congrats to them. She’s adorable. Austin’s sister Megan is pregnant- just found out it’s a girl! Exciting! My sister Brittany is pregnant as well- just found out it’s another boy!! Super exciting! And last but not least, my brother Allen and his wife Meggan are expecting a baby soon as well!! Whew! (In case you didn’t notice, all the sisters/sister-in-laws between Austin and I are named Megan’s and Brittany’s. Weird huh?

Anyway, much congrats to them! I’d be lying if I said I didn’t hope I was in their shoes right now!

So life is good…we continue to be blessed as a family. Here are a few pictures and awesome videos from the past month. Enjoy!