Horses Then and Now, Still Going Strong!

Since I always wanted to blame something on my parents (like every good kid does), I blame the horse addiction that I have on them. As you can see from when I was little my sister and I have always loved horses. We had a great aunt (I think) that lived out on a farm and my mom and dad took us out there to ride the horses. I remember it so well, the chickens the dogs the hay and of course the riding. We walked down this road and I remember it being the coolest feeling.

When we were teenagers my mom and dad use to drive us 25 miles each way to the barn in our gas guzzling station wagon (its amazing they didn’t go broke) and we leased and then eventually worked for the barn. My parents were so supportive and my dad still gives us crap about waiting 45 minutes a night for us when we said we were ready to go. (Although secretly we know he like to listen to the ball games and smell the horses at the same time… Who wants to watch the games on TV, when you can watch your little girls playing with giant horses?)

So now sum 27 years or so later I still love the horses. I love spending time with them at the barn, cleaning stalls, feeding them, teaching others about them and of course riding them. My sister loves them still as well; so a few years ago we figured we would duplicate our old picture with a newer version. So here it is (my sis finally dug it up for me) and as you can see we are much bigger and don’t fit into the saddle together anymore ☹ But we can ride bareback and stay on, and that’s a plus right? We have lots of fun riding together and my mom and dad still buy me horse stuff for Christmas, I love it!!!














PS- Look Dad and Mom we still wear our helmets!!!

Snippets of babys first December

Ok so December flew by and I didn't have time to blog anything for Aydens first Christmas. So here we go... (on January 11th), better late than never I hear. :) Here are some of my favorite pictures from the season. The first one here is Ayden on Christmas Eve night. We always go down to my Aunt Pats for the evening and have dinner and a little talent showcase. I think Ayden was going for the cutest picture award. I love this one!
On December 24th we went to see Santa, fortunately we went early and only had to stand in line for 45 minutes. Which I thought was going to be a nightmare for him because he isn't exactly a sit still baby but Cy went and bought a pretzel and that kept him entertained for quite awhile. Then we finally made it up to the 'Santa' land where there was a little more room so I sat him down on the carpet (yuck, but is was better than a screaming baby) and he crawled around and entertained some little kids. He loved Santa, he sat right down on his lap and thought it was the coolest thing ever, and we got this very cute picture. Its a perfect 1st Santa picture.

Here is mom and baby on Christmas eve. Just thought that I needed a picture of me for once :)

Here is baby and Grandma and Ellis'. This was Santa's second drop for baby. He was spoiled just perfectly. He loves all his new toys, he has them all figured out already. Its great! He is getting so big!

Grandpa Ellis holding baby after a very long day. Baby held out really well for all of the hustle of the day. We drove through 2 really bad snowstorms that day and both drives were longer than normal but he napped the whole way through.
Here is Grandpa Hendricks and Ayden. This is at teh beginning of the day right after the first snow storm trek. Baby was just waking up but happy!
This is earlier in the month when Ayden and I got to go visit our good friend Keri and her baby Madison who is 1 month younger than Ayden. Ayden is crawling and Maddie is not so Ayden thought the stairs were pretty fun and Madison was the cutest and just sat there and watched him take off away from her.
My roomate from college got married down in Vegas on Dec 27th so we drove down to Vegas on Dec 26th for the weekend and went to her marriage at the Vegas temple. It was extremely cold that weekend it was about 33 degrees.. so much for catching some rays) so we sat in the car and waited to go to the luncheon. Ayden was bored so he thought he would take a turn with the steering wheel. I love this picture, he is so intent and you can see the temple in the background. It was still very pretty down there.
The first weekend in December we decided to bundle baby and go see the lights. It was a lot of fun and it was a good family adventure. Cy took all the pictures, except the one at the first of our blog, we got this sister missionaries to take this one and then we gave them our handwarmers because we were leaving and it was freezing outside!

December weddings

Ok so Christmas has been a whirl wind of course, and my posts are going to be a little out of order but thats ok. Cy downloaded all of my pictures onto his computer and I can't ever get to them because he is always watching the TV (his Tv doubles as a huge computer screen). So for now you get the story. The day after Christmas we headed down to Vegas for my old roomates wedding. Baby came with us and had a grand time hanging out with mom and dad for once. Then we drove home had one day to ourselves and then headed to Cy's sister Elaines wedding. It was in Logan. We have logged 2000 miles in one week. Lots of driving. (Not as much as Cy's twin sister who drove from North Carolina for the wedding though). But here we are after being up since 5am. Baby did good and persevered pretty well though it all. Lots of people cameras, noise and very little sleep. Its amazing he was still smiling at the end of the day.
Here is the beautiful bride Elaine with the cutest little 8 month old kid in the world. More pictures to come soon!

1st Christmas Tree

Here we are starting to put up the tree, Ayden got to crawl around and play while I struggled with the lights. He tried to help once or twice but got bored pretty quick and went to play with his toys instead.
Here Cy is after I most of the lights up. He was trying on the Baby Bjourne, and him and baby were prading around the living room. They both enjoyed that.

Here is Ayden and I hanging up his first baby Christmas ornament, that Grandma Ellis gave him. He liked the feel of the needles on the tree (its a live one) so he kept trying to feel them and didn't worry to much about the shiny ornament. It was a great start to a wonderful season. The only room we have in the house that is for baby and the christmas tree is our family room. So I thought for sure that with him crawling around he would be all over the tree. But so far the attraction is at the other end of the room. Either with the dog's water or climbing on the baby gate.

If looks could kill...Don't mix kids and cats!

After getting up 5 times last night and then starting the morning at 6:30am I was a little grumpy. So after Cy woke up at about 8am, I thought I would lay back down for a little bit. I got to sleep for about an hour when I heard baby screaming with all his might. So I run down stairs and he is just finishing up crying (he usually only carries on for about a minute when he gets hurt), and I see this little bloody face. Apparently Ayden was playing with our very cute cat Coonie for about 5 minutes and then Coon got a little sick of him (Ayden probably pulled his hair on his belly, that is is favorite place to go for) and Coon swatted at Ayden and got him in the face. Poor kid. But all is well now he and Coon are friends again. No hard feelings with either party.
This is the picture I took of Ayden right after the scratching with the shiny Neosporin nose.
This is the picture of Coon right after the incident. He photographs so well. I would not of posted this 'incident' but I couldn't resist after I downloaded the pictures and the two of them had the same look in different pictures. Coon always blinks in his pictures. He really is not an evil cat. He just looks like it... Needless to say he got his little toenails clipped. Now that is when he gave me the evil look.
Here is Ayden after in the next picture right after his 'evil look', no worse for the wear. The scratch looks great tonight. It amazes me how fast baby's heel. He will scratch his face (worse than this usually) with his nail and its almost healed in two days. Amazing! So the moral of the story. Don't go take a nap and let the husband watch the baby play with the cat.. My bad. :)

Thanksgiving Day

For Thanksgiving Cy and I took the long journey up to Logan (well not really to long its only about an hour and a half drive and I am grateful that we live so close to both or our families). It was a lot of fun. Ayden had a good nap on the way up so he was very happy when we arrived. We got to hang out with all of his aunts and soon to be new uncle Todd, grandma and grandpa (who avoided the the still camera but I did get some video of them), great Uncle Paul, and we also got some rare Great Grandpa time with Ayden. Ayden loves seeing his family and enjoys being the center of attention at all times. We had the traditional Turkey day dinner with Turkey, stuffing, mash potato's (that cy made), beans, sweet potatos, rolls, and grandpas jello. Cy slaved over some Marie Calanders pies for desert and of course we had to have ice cream (my favorite). It was a fun day and now everyone is tuckered out. Off to bed we all go.

Kristina getting her hair pulled :)















Elaine, Todd, Caroline and the new addition, Todd, hanging out on the couch waiting for dinner.


Grandpa and Ayden having a little play time.

Dehle's Turkey Day Dinner

Zandehle is my very food crazed Rhodesian Ridgeback, she is 10 1/2 years old and since I have had her she has not ever had a Thanksgiving dinner... so I thought she should get a yummy dinner for what a good dog she is. So here she is before and after. She enjoyed her dinner.