Summer Updates

If I were to give you all of our summer happenings from the beginning you would be here all day or just quit reading after the 10th paragraph so I'll kept it kind of brief. Plus hopefully some of you follow me at my other blog to stay a little more updated.

Basically this summer has been busy and fun from May to now. It seemed like we were gone visiting family and had family visiting all throughout May and June. Then in July we had Sara, Collin and Addie staying with us for 2 weeks. We had a blast having them here by the way!

Some people would say that's got to be crazy and sometimes it is, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I just love my family and all the commotion and have been glad we've got to see everyone at one point or another this summer. Also my best friend from high school came home from her mission at the end of April and moved to Provo so I've got to spend a lot of time with her. I've missed her and Sara SO much!

For updates on the girls; Mia is talking just as much as ever and even though she still has a little sass sometimes she's quite often my sweet, little helper. She LOVES to help me with just about anything I'm doing. I've also started to notice how friendly and not shy she is unlike me. Often times when we go to the park or someplace she'll just go find some kid around her age and start playing with them and by the end everyone around is her friend. She'd always rather be playing off with some little friend then me or Eric.

 Livy is pretty social too but more from a distance or if I'm holding her. She'll give just about anyone a cheesy smile but when they go to lift her up she freaks out. Plus she loves following all Mia and her friends around acting like she's part of the group. Livy is still not walking. She's making small strides to getting there but still highly prefers crawling. I guess I can't complain.

Oh and I can't forget the biggest update which is our new dog. For those of you who know me, you know I never wanted a pet. It was a battle Eric and I were constantly facing since we got married. One day I let it slip out to Eric that even though I still didn't personally want a dog it wouldn't be that bad having one as I always made it out to be. Since every time before that moment I refused to even slightly consider it, this statement seemed to light the spark and low and behold about 2 months later we came home with a 7 week old Beagle. We named her Missy. Even now I wouldn't call myself a dog lover, but having a dog has certainly changed my perspective on pets. Mia loves Missy and it's helped her get outside and active a lot more this summer by herself.

Life has been very good to our little family. We're still loving our neighborhood and our house. It's been fun to see all the pretty flowers blooming around our yard all spring and summer and to watch our garden grow. This year was definitely a learning year for that but it looks like we will get a little food from it. 

 

Happy summer!

Our Camping Easter Weekend

We'll pretend that it hasn't been months since my last post and that Easter wasn't more then a week ago. I've been behind in SO many areas of my life right now that I figure I need to start somewhere and just take it day by day. Luckily this blog post made it on today's list or maybe it's that my kids only seem to be satisfied to play if I'm sitting here and not moving around the house.

Anyway about Easter, as tradition has it we went out to Vernal to celebrate the weekend and be with Eric's family. This year his grandma rented us a trailer and along with their own trailer we went camping near the spot that we usually have our Easter egg hunt. We hadn't been camping since Mia was 4 months old, so I was at least grateful we were trailer camping and not tent camping in April and with 2 kids. Besides some light sprinkles of rain and Eric and the girls having super bad allergies, it was good camping weather and we had a fun time.

We pretty much didn't see Mia the two days we were on the mountain as she was highly entertained playing in the sand and dirt with William. Livy wasn't as happy since she wasn't able to be fully mobile and explore all the places Mia was going. Such as life when you refuse to learn to walk.

For some reason I didn't even think to get a picture of Mia finding all the Easter eggs. Another example of how my mind is failing me! Mia loved it though!

We went back to Eric's grandparent's house Saturday and went to church with his family on Sunday. His grandma got the girl's these adorable matching dresses. If only it was easy to get a picture of them both looking at the camera and smiling. Oh well!

Our Christmas Story

Is it already past the point to talk about Christmas? Probably. But hey, better late than never...right?

This year for Christmas we went out to Vernal to spend it with Eric's family. They sure know how to host a great Christmas! Before going though we decided to open a few of our presents at home so we didn't have to take as much and to get Mia into the swing of things.

A few of the gift we opened where from my mom.  She did a homemade Christmas this year and I think it was a HUGE success! Everything we got was so cute and well done. It's convinced me a little more in trying it. Now I just need to find my motivation to start early enough to do it.

My mom made me 3 different necklaces, the following picture being on of them. I loved them all!

And Eric got this shirt where it's a road map on the back so the girls can drive cars on it and give Dad a back massage at the same time.

Mia got this cute PVC pipe chair!

We left for Vernal a few days before Christmas and helped to get things ready, spent an afternoon making lots of holiday sweets, stayed up late every night playing games, went sledding and shopping.

We had a great Christmas Eve dinner and had a little program afterwards focusing on the greatest gift of Christmas; the Saviors birth on this mortal earth and His life and work while on it. After putting the girls to bed Eric and I played Santa and put together the castle we got Mia for Christmas. All Mia has been asking for is a princess castle. She even braved her fear of strange men (yep we're back in that stage) and sat on Santa's lap to tell him so. I couldn't wait to see her face Christmas morning since she got excited just talking about it.

Christmas morning came and the first thing she opened was her princess castle. Sadly, it wasn't quite the reaction I had hoped for, but she still loves it and has played with it everyday since getting it. This year Mia was a lot more into opening presents instead of opening one and wanting to play with it. She wanted to open everything so we let her open Livy's gifts as well as some of ours. We all had a great Christmas and enjoyed all the gifts we received.

The big gift this year was the go cart that Eric's little brother got from Santa. He asked me to take a few pictures of it at many different angles haha.

The rest of the day was spent enjoying being together, eating more food and playing more games!

Livy got this cute activity garden for Christmas that her and Mia like to play in.

After the Christmas holiday we came home in time for Eric to do all the work that had been dumped on him on his vacation days...lame and to get ready for our big New Years Eve party we were hosting. I would have never got it all ready without Eric's grandparent's help since they were gracious enough to come out a day before New Years Eve.

To my regret I only snapped this picture before the party began of the decorations I spent the afternoon putting up and with my iphone no less. Sad! However, all the 20+ people who attended said it was a lot of fun. We had lot's and lot's of snacky food, played games and watched the New Years Eve movie. We had so much going we didn't even get to pull out Just Dance before we rang in the New Year. It was fun to have everyone over in our new house and to actually have space for everyone!

Now the holidays are over and it's time to get back into real life, which I'm not too sad about. Is it just me or do the holidays seem to bring out the worst in kids? Now that I'm back to real life I've also got some projects lined up involving the guest bathroom and bedroom.

Also starting next week I'll be joining blogs with Sara over on her blog. I will still be posting family updates on here, but I hope we guys can all support us and follow us there if you aren't already. We plan on blogging about our experiences as mother's and wives, our projects and just making it a place where others can come and connect and get inspired!

Now that my novel is finished...Happy New Year!

The Christmas Season at the Caldwell's

Once again it has been a whirlwind of a holiday season and Christmas is less than a week away! I feel like when I was younger the month of December went by a lot slower and Christmas day couldn't come soon enough. Now I'm on the other end and I could use at least another week to actually get to enjoy the season and finish everything I need to do!

Since we moved into the house the 1st of December I spent most of one afternoon the next week putting up the Christmas decorations for us to enjoy even though the rest of the house was barely in order. The only thing we didn't get to this year was putting up outside lights. Oh well, there's always next year. Our house will be pretty bare once Christmas is over since that is pretty much the only things is our front room and decoration for the kitchen.

So let's get to the little Christmas "tour" around our house starting with our tree.

 Most of you know Eric and I both grew up with real Christmas tree's and have continued that tradition since we've been married. The last 2 years we've been able to keep this tradition alive thanks to Eric's grandparents who found and cut us a tree down while they were getting their's and then brought it to us. They're pretty much amazing for doing this and we got a beautiful tree this year! I especially liked that we were able to keep the tree tall this year.

There's nothing like a real tree right in your living room :)

And for the rest...

I'm looking forward to the coming Christmas's in the house. I'm sure each year will be added upon :)

To finish I'm sharing this year's family Christmas card.

Hope everyone is enjoying the holiday's so far!