Happy 1st Birthday Ayden

Happy 1st Birthday Ayden!
On Saturday April 18th we had a BBQ for Ayden's first birthday. He started the party by taking an unusually long nap (3 hours), so he kept his guest waiting for about an hour but they didn't seem to mind because they were all eating pulled pork sandwiches and drinking italian soda's. Ayden had had bronchitis all week so I am glad he took a long nap. He held out well though all of his presents (he got a ton, so thank you everyone!) and his cake diving. He doesn't get a lot of sugar and he doesn't paticulary like his high chair (to confining) so the combo was pretty funny to watch as he picked through his cake delicately. He's a cutie!

Ayden has brought so much joy to our lives. His laugh brings a smile to everyones faces everytime (I will post a video of that later, its to cute) and he is a pretty mellow kid. He falls down and gets back up without crying, he laughs at everything, he is a little 'mover and a shaker' (as Grandma Ellis says), he loves everyone and everything (including the animals, yeah!!), and we can't imagine life without him now! Happy birthday!


















Cake and sun... umm anyone have any shades?













Done with cake... next activity please!













Sharing the joys of cake filled hands with dad! Mom got cake handprints on her sweatshirt!













Life of the party, Ayden with all of his friend in his present circle.



















A fun toy from Great Aunt Pat and Great Uncle Laren













Enjoying the new 'goods' with Nate. Ayden's cousins gave him a webkins Nemo, I am sure in this day in age he will know how to use it by the time he is two :)












Grandpa and Grandma Hendricks (with D in the background scavanging)



















Grandma and Grandpa Ellis












Our little birthday boy!













Hanging out after the party. I wanted to get a shot of his skinny little body so as he starts growing more in the next year we can see how much he has changed.

Easter bunny and Ayden

The Easter Bunny and Ayden had a photo shoot on Friday. Ayden loved it and the bunny enjoyed it to. In fact this bunny is friends with Ayden. The bunny belongs to Darcey and Rena Aydens babysitters. They apparently have quite the relationship. Ayden chases the bunny and the bunny chases him.

Cutest boy in the world

We went to get some pictures of Ayden done this last Saturday. I have been trying to get it done for the past month but time just seems to get away from me. But we finally did it. We took him to Target because I had a coupon and there was no sitting fee. I brought him three outfits to change him into and when we got there we were told that kids get to fussy and we would be lucky to get two changes in. So we went in and started taking the pictures. Aydens new thing is when he sees a camera he just smiles so he was in heaven. We got 3 outfit changes and about 50 pictures taken in 20 minutes. Not to shabby. He loved it and as you can see we got some very cute pictures. Enjoy!


He is just so dang cute!! I can't believe he is almost a year now. Amazing!

1st surgery

So today we had a fun experience with Ayden. We got to take him in for surgery to have tubes in his ears. We have been battling ear infections since he was 3 months old and he has been on all kinds of antibiotics so finally the doctors said it was time for tubes (I said this three months ago but oh well, they don't have to live with the poor kid) .
So we got to get up at 5am and go to the hospital. Ayden couldn't eat anything after midnight and he only had a little water at about 2am so I was thinking he was going to be a bit grouchy but as you can see at 6am he was pretty chipper. They were trying to get the SP02 monitor on his toe and he hates having his toes touched (he gets that from me), so it took about 10 minutes to get an accurate reading. We finally got it and then he was the 1st surgery scheduled for the day. He was pretty styln' in his baby hosptal gown (they definitly do not look this good on adults).

He started gettting hungry right before they came and took him but he held it together prettty well. The nurse took him off to surgery and he didn't even care. The surgery took about 10 minutes and the doctor came out and told us everthing went well and that he had a lot of thick fluid behind his ear drum. He was in recovery for 2 minutes (until they were sure he was breathing well) and then they brought him back out. He was mad but not as bad as I thought he was going to be and he calmed down in about 5 minutes.
Here's an after shot, leaving the hospital. He slept all the way home, woke up ate a little breakfast played for a bit and now he is taking another nap. I wish I could recover that fast. We will see how he does as the day continues! I hope it will help him sleep better at night. That is my greatest wish!! :) But we are really happy all went well today! Now hopefully he can start to hear all his words better, the doctor said he has been hearing like he is underwater all the time.

Karissa bithday and Ayden playing

So we haven't had much going on lately except Ayden growing, and myself getting older. I turned 31 years old in January. I feel like I am getting old. Its funny because as you grow up you can't wait until you turn 12 then 16 then 21. Then after about 25 years old you want to start counting backwards. They always say you are only as old as you feel. So I guess I still feel younger, for now. We will see after another year of chasing Ayden around. :) He never slows down. If he ever stops moving he is asleep or he stops for 2 seconds to give you a brief moment of peace and then he is off and moving again.

Here Ayden is getting ready to go out to the barn with me. He loves it outside but doesn't like that he can't get on the ground and cawl around. Its way to muddy!
Here is my brother and Ayden hanging out at our house for my family birthday party. I also had a barn surprise birthday party, but Jessica and Cy forgot the camera, (opps) but Jessica Smith had a camera but I have not been able to get them from her yet.


Ayden and I opening presents. The paper and ribbons are the funnest for him to play with. He likes to eat the paper. Yummy!

Here we are posing for a birthday picture. This was the first time he had really seen ballon's and he loved them. He pulled them around with him for a week. He had a blast!


And last but not least, here is Ayden all ready for bed and wiggly as can be. He never slows down until the last second before he closes his eyes.

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!