Snap shots of April

2nd birthday

We had a great time ringing in Cash's second year of life, actually third but you know what I mean. The celebrating got spread among a few days due to some ear infections and what not..tis the season!

The day started with his Favorite Breakfast: French Toast with butter and powdered sugar

A few hours later a double frosted peanut butter cookie. I don't know where in the world he came up with that idea...

Corn dogs at Arctic Circle followed by running like a crazy man on the toy. Two year olds are so easy to please.

And a couple days later a little cake and present action at Nana and Pop's house.

Cash's gifts this year included: a Buzz and Woody tent, t ball set, tickle me Elmo, alligator hat, buzz gun, and cars. The kid has a serious love for any thing toy story.

He thought it was so funny to scare all the kids with his alligator hat.

Although its really freakin me out I have a two year old, I'm loving this age. I love that I can somewhat carry on a conversation with him, and he can generally understand everything I'm saying. I love seeing his little sense of humor develop. He loves to make people laugh and crack jokes (what he thinks are jokes in his head) and laugh, and laugh like he is the funniest thing ever. He has such a sweet little personality. He gets seriously stressed out seeing other kids cry and is always trying to hug them and make them feel better. At least a couple times a day out of the blue he will stop what ever he is doing and wrap his arms around me for a few seconds and then continue with whatever he was doing. Its times like that I consider this the best job in the world.

Cooked'

I had never heard of the Cook Islands before planning this trip. All I knew was that it was located in the south pacific somewhere, and that's all I really needed to know. Well after spending a week there, I am trying to find a way to go back as soon as possible. It really was the most amazing place, a trip I will never forget.

Along with my Mom and Dad, Luke and Whitney, and Troy and Jemaica we soaked up as much sun as we could, got plenty plenty of R&R, and cruised around this little island all week. The Rarotanga Beach Bungalows, the place we stayed at was the coolest place. They only have 5 bungalows all together, and we rented 4 of them. So we really had our own little slice of the island all to our selves. We rented scooters, which for me was probably one of the funnest things we did there. You can drive around the whole island in about 40 minutes, so we often would jump on our scooters, wind in our hair, and cruise around and discover the island.

Our day would start out with the most delicious breakfast. We all so much looked forward to mornings just for fruit that they had at the breakfast. It was a first for me having passion fruit or papaya, and I cannot believe what I was missing out on.. oh how I will miss that fruit. You just can't get fruit like that here in Utah. After breakfast, we would usually get our suits on and some of us were off to snorkel, and some of us were off to read in the sun. Side note; I read two full books while I was there, and I am by no means a fast reader. That just tells you most of my time was spend lounging in the sun, sipping on a diet coke reading. After a couple hours, we would either go explore the island for a yummy local place to eat, or just break out some more fruit for lunch. I'm tellin ya the fruit.. wow.

After lunch, more lounging, or snorkeling, or scooting around, or napping. Nights usually consisted of dinner, something similar to a luau, but cook island style. A little show put on by the locals.. man they can really move those hips! After dinner we played some pretty intense, competitive card games, all while munching on some Tim-Tams (a really yummy chocolate cookie made in New Zealand) or coconut chocolate.

Our own little Bungalow

And in between all of this there was a lot of laughing and joking, deep conversations, and sun burns. Quiet front porch reading while listening to the tide coming in. Trying to figure out what we were going to do without our luggage for the first two day.. damn you delta.
Missing snuggling our kids, talking to the friendly locals, and realizing we may never see this place again so trying to remember every little thing.

While on the scooters, the boys got caught in a serious down pour. So they just took there shirts off and decided to embrace it!

No biggie, just drinking fresh coconut juice.

This picture is cute, and kind of creepy all at the same time.

A little bit of the gorgeous scenery

There is a mountain in the middle of the island that Mason, Troy and Luke hiked to the top of. They said you could see ocean surround the island on all sides from the top.

Holiday 10' Time line

Dec. 24th 7-10pm

Sushi extravaganza with the folks. New tradition started.

Dec 25th 9am:

Santa came and did his thing for a very happy little boy.

Dec. 31st 7-12pm:

Rockin' party at the Marriott residence.

Two very tired little boys eating cookies in bed wondering what all the fuss is about.

Along with several other holiday get togethers we had a great time this Christmas with our little family. Starting new traditions, realizing everyone should have children.. just for the fact of seeing them at Christmas time, being around the people we love most, and watching Cash soak it all up.

Happy Holidays!

4 years

On the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building is where we celebrated our fourth year anniversary. And let me tell you the Roof did not dissapoint, worth every penny. Just the desserts alone would have been worth it for me.

I guess staring at the Temple makes me feel a little nastalgic. As I sat there looking out the window of the beautiful view of the temple and surrounding city, I felt very grateful. Grateful for the life I have. Grateful for a man who loves me. Grateful for the little person we made. We talked about how fun it would be to live in down town Salt lake and live "that" kind of life style.. ya know all cool and urban. The truth is I like my life just the way it is, and I think its pretty cool. The truth is I didn't think my life could have been this cool.

I asked Mason as were were sitting there what his favorite part of the last four years was. He said hands down the day Cash was born. I agreed. He said that day broke him down to his bare Essentials.. we both laughed because that doesn't even make sense, and becuase that is a cosmetics line. And then I corrected him and said no, Bare Minerals. Then he held up his fork with chunk of prime rib on it and said since we are talking about the day Cash was born,"this looks like your placenta". I agreed.

Bug bites, sheep, and elephants..

I noticed one morning Cash had a little red dot on his forehead... 2 hours later it was the size of a golf ball! Apparently he's allergic to mosquito's, or spiders or whatever it was that got him. Besides looking a little alienish and people at the grocery store staring at him like I beat my child, he didn't seem to mind. I don't think it bothered him a bit.. maybe blocked his vision a little.

We had a fun filled Halloween this year. Started with the Nord's party at the nursing home, the Friends party at the Marriotts, and the Salmon party at my house. The rain put a damper on things (literally) Halloween night, but Cash still had a great time mostly answering the door at Nana's house and just say "Hi, hi, hi" to all the kids at the door. Here I am with my sheep. We found a little trail of Cotton balls everywhere we went..no worries it didn't take me very long to glue them on, only like 3 weeks.

Cash had his first visit to the zoo last week along with Jemaica and Piper. I think he enjoyed it, I was hoping for a little more excitement, but it was a good change of pace and I think the last of our good weather for a while.