1st hair cut

Cal's hair has been driving me crazy for the past couple of months, but my mom begged for me to wait and let her cut it on his first birthday. So I waited... and waited... and waited. Then one week before she got here, I couldn't stand it any longer. One night after his evening bath, I put him on my lap in front of a "kids love trains" youtube video and snipped away. It wasn't anything fabulous, but just trimming up the back and sides made it all better for me. Check out how long it'd gotten.

It was nice not to have to tuck his hair behind his ears anymore. Ya, it was still long, but not driving me crazy anymore. I sure was excited for Gram to give Cal his first "real" haircut though!

Check out all that hair:

Cal was a champ and sat super still the entire time. But yes, that is an ipad with the train video playing. Cal sure loves trains!

I tell ya, he was glued to that ipad!

My baby looks like such a big boy now!

Thanks Gram for the handsome haircut! 

Happy Birthday Calvin!

My baby boy turned one today!! I can hardly believe it - this year flew by way too fast! He's been stuffed up with a runny nose and fever for the past 2 days so we postponed his birthday celebration until Sunday (when both sets of grandparents can be here). We did other things to make it a special day for the birthday boy though: pancakes for breakfast, pizza for lunch, chicken/broccoli for dinner, swinging at the park after nap time, and bubbles outside in the evening. It was a good day. And even though he wasn't feeling up to par, he still let me take him out for a quick birthday photo shoot - giving me tons of handsome smiles. He's such a happy little boy! I feel so very blessed to have him a part of our family! Love you Cal!

Catching up

Can't believe I've only done two posts this month! On my morning runs I like to organize my thoughts and I usually write blog posts in my mind while I run - it's quite therapeutic for me. But then later I realize I never actually recorded any of those thoughts, events, frustrations on my blog. I have a lot of catching up to do before I forget.

Spencer's been working non stop this month and I'm exhausted from evening after evening of doing bedtime alone or just having bedtime pushed back later than I'd like it to. The whole time change threw everything off and Madi's never ready for bed before 8pm anymore! Oh how I miss the nights of everyone in bed by 7pm!

My girls are going through some weird stuff right now (which is a whole other post by itself though). It's just completely draining and has kept me on my toes. Spencer and I talk daily about how desperately we're in need of a vacation - just the 2 of us!

My mom flies in tomorrow morning and will be here all weekend (Dad will join Thursday night). Looking forward to having an extra set (or two) of hands for all the things I've got going this week. Cal's birthday is Wednesday - gotta figure out a present for him and what cake to make. And I'm determined to set some real solid Easter traditions this year. I'm pretty much stealing all my ideas from one of the Eyre daughters (Spencer teases me about being obsessed with the Eyre family. It's true though- all my ideas come from their books or blogs lately). Check out her ideas here.

Anyway, my bed is covered in clothes, and my desk in Easter ideas to finish. So I gotta run for now. Happy Easter Week!

Today

It was a blow-up the pool kind of day!!

I about passed out getting that thing blown up, but it was totally worth it to see my kids having such a good time!

March

This month is a busy one. I was doing some calendering with Spencer last week when I realized that every single weekend this month was already booked with something. Last Saturday Spencer sailed out to Santa Cruz with his dad and some other guys from 2nd ward. I was determined to make the most of our Saturday without Spence so we picked up Boppi and had our own beach outing:

Then this weekend was packed full! We had a visit from Uncle Curteis (Thursday and Friday night)! It was Cal's first time meeting Curteis and the girls were over the moon with excitement to see him! Curt taught Madi some cords on her guitar, watched Elle do tricks on her trampoline, and checked out all the "special things" they'd been dying to show him.

Friday night I left Spence and Curt in charge of the kids and took off for a General Primary Training with the General Primary President, Sister Wixom. My presidency actually got an invitation to take part in a small focus group meeting before the training. It was awesome and such a treat. I love meeting the leaders of our church and feeling of their spirit and love for all of us. She even invited me to join her at the pulpit and share my experience of ward council. She's an awesome lady - one of those kind of people that make you want to be better.

Saturday morning we said good-bye to Uncle Curties. The kids armed him full with pictures and drawings to take back for their cousins:

Saturday night Madi got to perform at a dinner/dance/auction fundraiser for her school, held at the Las Posas Country Club. I'm always so amazed that Madi never gets nervous to perform. This was a huge group of people and she couldn't have been more excited. She picked the songs (Star Spangled Banner, Do Re Mi, and The World is a Rainbow), practiced on her own during the week, then walked onto the stage Saturday night and did her thing! Incredible!!

Tonight we ate dinner at Spencer's parents. We so appreciate their invitations, especially on super busy Sundays like today- I was basically at church from 10am - 5pm (with an hour break to run home, get the girls ready, feed our out-of-town neighbors fish and cat, grab stuff for my after church teacher training meeting, load up the car, and get back to church). Plus it's a real treat to see pictures like this one - Cal snuggling with Boppi. Such a sweet picture and I'm totally dying over how big he looks!!

It's also nice to eat dinner and let someone else deal with Cal's recent pickiness and fussiness. Grandpa Al always seems to have the touch.

I do wish time could slow down a little! This weekend was a busy one, but our upcoming week is even busier! Monday night is my only free night of the week! And for a homebody like myself, it's not something I look forward to.