Landon had his 2nd Birthday on November 21st. I just can't believe how much he's grown in the last two years. It has been such a crazy experience as a mother watching him go from his first steps and the first smiles to being a toddler. He suprises me daily with the new things he picks up, the good and the bad. His birthday party was a lot of fun.
My parents graciously opened their home to us for the night. Karina was there with her camera so of course she was the designated photographer. She tooks some great pictures. I often wonder if sometimes she would rather put down the camera and just be able to hang out like the rest of us. I don't know though, she seems pretty dang happy behind her camera.
I made my first real cakes! i can't even tell you the last time i really baked. I was so proud of myself. i made three cakes into sports balls. I thought they turned out pretty good. They even tasted somewhat decent. For the baseball cake i used red velvet with a cherry pie filling in the middle, the football was chocolate with a chocolate cream cheese filling (nick made the filling, it was to die for), the tennis ball was lemon cake with lemon pie filling. I had a lot of fun trying to make them look the way i wanted. I even go the tennis ball to look a little fuzzy. Okay, that's enough bragging, i don't usually have a lot to brag about when it comes to my cooking skills so i had to take this opportunity while i could!
He had a lot of fun opening his presents. It was hard to get him to go on to the next because he'd want to play whatever he'd just opened. The funniest moment which luckily Karina got on camera was when he opened his hot wheels. It was like he'd never seen one before, he was so excited, you'll just have to see the pic down below. Another good moment was when he opened the train set we got him and he decided it was better suited as skate board, also down below. I also thought it was pretty funny that his cousins and friends enjoyed helping him open his presents, especially Denton. I acutaully don't know that i've ever been to a kids birthday party where the birthday boy or girl was the only one opening their own presents... It's like a team sport to see how fast they can get it opened and passed around to be played with. kids crack me up!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LANDON!!

Is Nick actually going to be a Border Patrol Agent... We'll just have to wait and see...

I haven' t posted about the border patrol yet. I wanted to wait until Nick had passed pretty much everything... Let me tell you , this has been quite the long process. The application was a fat stack of papers and it seemed to take forever to be processed. If there's one thing i've learned in all this it's that with the Border Patrol there is a lot of WAITING. We had a few set backs here and there... The physical fitness test wasn't as easy as Nick thought so we had to go through the whole application again. Also, when he took the medical exam he struggled with his vision and hearing so he had 30 days to retake that and by some miracle he passed both of those the second time around. Other than that things have just been moving along SLOWLY... he took a written test which had three parts to it: knowledge, language, and character. Luckily, he spoke spanish on his mission so he was able to be tested for his spanish. Now if he gets into the academy he doesn't have to stay as long while the other people learn spanish. That makes me happy! He also had an oral interview with a panel of 3 border patrol agents. It was a little nerve racking... They asked the wives to come for an orientation before the interview... Waiting for him to come out of that room was not an easy thing to do... so once that's passed you wait... and wait some more... They also do an extremely extensive background check going back like 10 years... They send this guy to your house to flash his badge at you and ask a bunch of questions then he goes to everyone you've ever known and asks them a bunch of questions... So, now that we're at this point we just get to... (you guessed it) WAIT!! Once all your stuff is done you just wait for them to send you a job offer and they tell you when you need to report to the Academy which is in New Mexico. I guess they typically only give you like 2 weeks notice to get down there. When they send the job offer they also tell you where you will be stationed after the academy. We put our 1st preference as Arizona and the 2nd as California. I really don't want to live in California because it's too expensive... other than that i have no beef with the state. We think our chances are pretty high for going to Arizona but we'll just have to wait and see...

IT'S A BOY!!

We had our ultrasound two weeks ago. He was a little shy at first, he just didn't want to show us anything. When the technician first got a peek she thought he was a girl and than he decided he was proud to be a boy... ;) I'm really excited! i have to say i was suprised. i really thought we were going to have girl. so when we new for sure i think there was a little part of me that wished for the frilly pink clothes and hair things... but i've wanted a boy all along and it didn't take long to get really excited! Landon will have a playmate, well, eventually... the other day he was sharing one of his trucks with the baby by driving it around on my stomache. than he took it away and said, "mine!" i thought, "oh dear..." but we decided he could go get the baby another toy to play with and that satisfied him... So there i am driving on my stomache with the car landon had gotten for baby when nick walked into the room... i have to say the look on his face was priceless... he came and sat next to me and said, "i think you've lost it..." it was pretty funny... We're all really excited for baby, no name yet just baby or brother... we'll have to post later a list of what we come up with... it won't be long... we don't agree on much in way of boy names...

Karina took some amazing pics of Landon and the three of us. There would have been more but the light was pretty much gone when we could do it. I'm so happy with what she was able to get though. So here is what we have. We'll try to get more later... my favorite by far is the one of Landon in the hat with the ear flaps!!

it's been awhile...

We took a trip down to Utah for conference but i haven't put my pics on the computer yet so that'll will have to come later... We had a great time! Things didn't exactly go as planned but that's just how vacations are supposed to work, right? the first thing we realized was that we had left landon's shoes... what kind of parents are we?? well, we both thought the other person threw them in the car... so we made a stop in boise at the outlet mall and got shoes... we stayed the first night in logan because nick had never been there and wanted to see the tabernacle. I think Logan is beautiful! It was fall and there were rolling hills with colorful trees and underbrush... The old architecture of the tabernacle is worth seeing as well as the tabernacle in Brigham City where we stopped after Logan. I don't know if we were supposed to do this but we kind of snuck inside the Logan tabernacle.. the back door was unlocked and no one was around so we just went in... te he hee... it was beautiful. i'd been inside once before and i really wanted Nick to see it. it looks so old like Brigham Young could have just Spoken there the previous week... ok, maybe not that old... i'm sure its had some work done... but it was really cool... while in Logan though the main highlights of the city were a sock outlet... very interesting... we left with more socks than i wish we had... and the other place we visited was a pepperidge farm outlet store... I don't know if you've ever had milanos cookies but they are rediculously expensive here's a pic:

yes... they are so yum! well, they are like $4 bucks at the store but at the outlet a bag like this was $1.60... or you could buy them buy the pound! they are also the makers of the oh so famouse goldfish but we had just bought a costco box for the trip... darn it!! anyway we had fun there... if you're ever in Logan i would definately recommend a stop there... it's worth it...;)

Most of our time in Salt Lake was spent at Temple square just seeing everything again. The day there we got to Temple square in the evening and most things were closing but the Temple grounds were beautiful and we let Landon run around and look at all the fountains. it was nice to just relax and not have a full itinerary... Saturday we ate at The Roof... they had a special for conference... it was $17 a plate instead of $30. I supposed to be a fancy style buffet... I have to say it was pretty good but i don't think i'd pay $30 for it... even $17 was a little steep. I think The Garden resturaunt which is across from The Roof is probably a more reasonable choice... That's just my opinion though... Plus you pretty much get the same view from both which is spectacular.

It was really great to see Jake and Elaina. Landon grew a little attatched to Jake... and i'm not really sure why but ever since staying with them Landon's been obsessed with football... hmm... i think Jake may have had some influence there... it was really funny one night, Elaina came to meet us for dinner and she walked up to our table and Landon pointed to where she'd just come from and was saying "jacob? jacob? jake? I hope Elaina knows that he loves her too. He still talks about both of them.

We were able to go to the Sunday Morning session of conference. It was fabulous as was all of conference. My favorite part of the whole session was just after the morning music program people were quietly chatting amongst themselves and all of a sudden it got really really quiet and everyone stands and the Prophet walks in... it almost gave me chills. It's wonderful the reverence that we show the Prophet and it was like the spirit was all of a sudden really strong. It's just such a great way to start a session. We were lucky enough hear President Monson speak. I've always love him so much. There's something about his voice that is just really calming to me. His talk that session was called, "Finding Joy in the Journey" it was a wonderful message. I also really enjoyed President Eyring's talk entitled, "Our Hearts Knit as One".

I'm really glad we were able to make this trip. It was wonderful to be able to spend the time as a family. I was really impressed with how good of a traveler Landon was. We didn't really have any problems... he watched movies, played with toys, colored and slept. He was even content to just look out the window some of the time... He's such big boy now... He'll be 2 next month... where has the time gone? well, on to the next baby... ;)

The Fair

Well I might as well do one of these. We went to the Evergreen State Fair on Labor Day. The weather started out worrying us a little, but soon cleared up and was a great afternoon. Landon's favorite part was probably being there with his uncle Tim. We were a little disappointed that there wasn't really anything interesting to buy. I always thought you go to the fair to get things you wouldn't normally think of buying, that are quite useful. There wasn't anything that caught our attention.

While we were there I was very tempted to come home on a new ride. I found a motorcycle sale and one kept calling to me. A sleek black 2008 Yamaha V Star Silverado.

That is one sweet ride. Think of the chicks I could pick up (wink, wink... just kidding)! Not only does it look cool, it gets 50-60 mpg! That's about 3 times the mileage our Santa Fe gets. The best part is, I have the ok to get one. We discussed it and we decided to wait until we move to Arizona. Better weather for riding, plus think of driving a moving truck and riding a bike across several states. It'd be tough.

Just cant get this thing out of my head! Wow! another part of the equation as to why I don't have one yet, is the money... that's where you come in. I mean, isn't it sad seeing a grown man just stare at a bike on a showcase floor, and know that he cant bring it home. He slaves, day after day, still with no hope of riding into the wind. It just crushes a guy. I know seeing that tares my heart out, and I know it does the same to you. And if you donate a little money to Nick's Motorcycle Relief Fund, together we can make sure this doesn't happen to one man.

So please lend your support and make dreams come true. You can make all the difference in the world. Click the link on the side to donate and make magic happen.

YAY!! WE'RE PREGNANT!!
i know most everyone who checks this knows already but i thought i'd make it official... we're really excited! we're a little over a month along so we've got 8 months to go... i'm really hoping for a boy but i'll be totally and completely happy with whatever we get. my little one is about the size of a sesame seed right now. it's crazy how fast they grow! ok, well, i'll keep udating anything new...

Jetty Island

this was just a spontaneous day trip to everrett. they have this small ferry that takes you out to Jetty island. landon loved the ferry ride. we weren't exactly dressed for a day at the beach but that didn't stop us from from playing in the water and sand anyway...

landon is helping daddy dig for clams. nick only found one clam and it was the size of a quarter... that's a pretty big whole for such a small clam... half the fun was making the whole and then jumping in it...

this whole was a lot bigger than the last and it wasn't for clams.. it was for nick... landon was helping by putting sand on daddy's leg... half the time he actually tried very hard to put the sand back in the whole... it was pretty funny...and this is nick in his humangous whole... my job was to cover him and it wasn't easy... i think landon was a little weirded out by only seeing daddy's head. he went to give him a big wet kiss and as you can see it was a little wetter than nick was expecting... the best part was that he was stuck and couldn't do anything about it... landon tried to make up for it by shaking sand all over nick's face... it was priceless... landon decided it was his turn.. he actually got into the whole after nick got out and layed down... so i helped him out a little...his arms didn't really want to stay under... he was pretty calm the whole time though... i thought it was going to freak him out... i was impressed...the dirty bum... he does this stance quite often, why not on the beach, right?
the walk back to the ferry... the end of a wonderfully spontaneous day...

ok, so this is our trip to pike place... this is the end of the outside strip. it was packed!

the ballon man of course!!

just one of the many produce stands...
aww... the good old public market! seattle just wouldn't be the same without it...
we got stuck a couple of times... this is probably one of them... apparently people there don't like strollers... it did give a few opportunities for photos... you win some, you lose some...

this guy was awesome! i love this song... and you've got to love the kilt... it was funny because people around us were singing along all the way down the hall... and the kid in front of his case looks like he's quite interested in the money he's acquired. sorry for the lack of filming expertise... i'm fairly new at this...

i saw this on our walk back to the hotel and i thought it was picture worthy...

nick and i took a walk around the city. we really like old buildings... don't ask why, i couldn't tell you... the door here has some great details... i also really like the window above the door...

good ole space needle... you know, sometimes i look at it and i don't really get it... it doesn't make a whole lot of sense... but what the hey, it's an icon...

ok, i know posting the space needle 3 times is a little much but i just liked if from different angles... the tree softened it up a bit...

i promis this is the last pic of the space needle...