Bridget's 7th Birthday and Thanksgiving

This year, Bridget finally got to have her first friend birthday party, and she was so excited about it. I had planned to do one last year when she was in Kindergarten, but with a newborn, it was one more thing that I just couldn't take on.

Her actual birthday fell on Thanksgiving day this year, so she had her friend party the Saturday before, and then got to celebrate with family again on her birthday.

Like most little girls lately, she wanted a Frozen themed party. We chose to do the party at our house, playing games, eating cake and ice cream, and opening presents. Because it was her 7th birthday, I let her invite 7 friends. Sadly, only 3 of them came and only one parent actually bothered to RSVP saying their daughter couldn't come. I was pretty irritated by the poor turnout and rude parents that didn't RSVP because I had gone to a lot of work, but I guess that's what you get when your child attends a low-income school. Anyway, enough of my ranting. At least Bridget wasn't as disappointed as I was.

Here's a few pictures from the party:

We went to West Yellowstone to spend Thanksgiving with Nate's parents, and two of his siblings and their families. The girls couldn't wait to play in the snow and spend time with their cousins.

Grandpa plowed snow with his tractor into a hill for the kids to sled on.

The birthday girl 

Dayton wasn't a big fan of his first snow experience and only lasted a few minutes outside.

Bridget begged to open her presents on the morning of her birthday, so I told her should could either open all of them that morning or open one then, another later, and the others after that. She chose to open all of them that morning.

She loved all of her gifts, and was thrilled to get just what she asked for from Nate and me - a set of Frozen PJs that included a bath robe and a locket.

After a yummy Thanksgiving meal, we had pie as well as the pumpkin dessert I made and stuck a candle in so we could sing to Bridget.

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Birthday, Bridget!

Nate's Birthday

Nate had to work on his birthday this year, so we kept our celebration pretty low-key (which he prefers anyway). We went out to dinner and then came home for cake and ice cream. He's always nice to let me experiment with new recipes for his birthday, but there's always the dilemma of cake vs. pie. He prefers pie, but I prefer cake and have many more cake recipes than pie recipes I want to try out. In the end. I made a caramel apple cake with apple cider frosting. It was good but probably not one I would make again. Our friends Sandy and Bill also stopped by to join us for cake and ice cream.

As for his presents...his main gift was a 6 month membership to a massage place in hopes that it would help with his headaches and the knots he always has in his upper back. And since I needed to give him something he could actually open, he got a new pair of slippers. Happy Birthday, Nate!

Dayton's 1st Birthday

I can't believe our sweet boy is one already!

 

He was all smiles that morning.

Our dear friends Sandy and Bill (aka Grandma Sandy and Grandpa Bill) stopped by on their way out of town that morning.

We started off the party by letting Dayton open his presents. He did a pretty good job and Bridget and Felicity couldn't help but jump in and help him.

 

This airplane toy from Grandma and Grandpa was a big hit.

Then it was time to move on to cake and ice cream. Once again Bridget and Felicity were ready to step in and blow out the candle for him.

At first he wasn't too sure about the cake (pumpkin with cream cheese frosting)...

But within a few minutes he devoured it.

 

By the end, he was pretty tired and ready for a bath and his crib.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAYTON!

Kimberly's Birthday and Ogden Temple Open House

I couldn't have asked for a better birthday this year. We spent the day together as a family, kept busy but not too busy, and made some great memories.

When we found out a few months ago that the Ogden Temple House would be taking place this month, I immediately knew that's what I wanted to do for my birthday. Nate took the day off work, and it was a Wednesday so we knew it wouldn't be insanely busy and easy to make the ticket reservation. Our neighbors and friends across the street, RaeAnn and Brian, came with us which was fun since Brian is a member of our church but not active and RaeAnn is not a member at all. It was just a walking tour, but the line moved at a pretty rapid pace  - almost too fast to really enjoy it. It is absolutely beautiful and so different from the old Ogden Temple they tore down. Afterward we took some pictures:

Notice that Felicity's dress is wet in this picture. Within a couple of minutes of coming out of the temple, she quickly ran to the fountain nearby. As soon as she saw the coins people had thrown in, she wanted to try and get them, and I was 3 seconds too late from stopping her from falling into the fountain.

In the tent outside, they offered a free picture in front of a photo background of the temple.

After the temple, we headed home for lunch, a nap for Dayton, and I ran a couple of errands by myself while Nate made my birthday cake.

That evening we tried out a restaurant that was new to us (Taggart's Grill) because of its rave reviews. It was about a half an hour drive up Weber Canyon to get there, but so worth it. The food and service were excellent and the atmosphere was beautiful. The kids enjoyed walking around the outside and enjoying the peacocks that roam around as well as the koi pond. We will definitely go there again - hopefully without kids next time.

Happy birthday to me! Nate made that beautiful and delicious carrot cake from scratch. Dayton tried with all his might to stick his hands right in it while we took a couple of pictures.

Because I love to both give and receive practical gifts, Nate got me just what I asked for - a new diaper bag and also a new pair of nice flip flops.

Felicity's 3rd Birthday

Personally, I love celebrating birthdays, so I do my best to make them a big deal. Felicity happened to be looking forward to hers for a few months now, so I was happy to make it a fun day for her.

Her birthday fell on a Sunday this year which also means it's General Conference. That made it a little more challenging since we couldn't go out to eat and had to plan things around Conference. But we did start the day off with our traditional birthday cake pancakes complete with candles.

I should also mention she was pretty sick with a nasty cold thanks to the RSV that ran through all three of our kids. It's no fun to be sick on your birthday, and we even had to take her to urgent care the night before because she had an ear infection.

We made the best of everything and had a few family members and neighbors over for cake and homemade ice cream that night. One of her presents was a scooter (the only request she made for a present).

She also got some jewelry since she's always borrowing/stealing Bridget's.

I had so much fun making her cake. It was certainly a labor of love, but it turned out better than I thought it would, and it was delicious. She still loves Curious George more than any other cartoon. I love the cheesy grin on her face in this picture.

 

And here's a video of the last half of the birthday song. It sometimes takes me a bit to remember how to take videos on our new camera which is why it's missing the beginning.

 

Her other gift was a swing set. Felicity loves to swing, and a couple of weeks before her birthday I asked our good friends and neighbors, Brian and RaeAnn, if they wouldn't mind helping us pick up a used swing set for her if I could find one we wanted on the local online classifieds. They were happy to help, and they absolutely love Felicity. Brian actually found this one for us for FREE, picked it up, hid it at their house, and then helped Nate assemble it a couple of days before her birthday. Both of the girls LOVE it and have spent hours on it already.

 

Happy birthday to our favorite 3-year-old in the whole world!

We love you, Felicity!

Dayton's Blessing

Today was this handsome boy's baby blessing at church.

Nate likes to give me a hard time because I didn't make Dayton's blessing outfit like I did for the girls. But it's not my fault that patterns for boy's blessing/christening outfits are either way too summery for this time of year or way too girlie/ugly. Instead I bought an outfit and made an alteration to it. The cute little vest he's wearing had a super big and ugly collar that went all around it. A few minutes was all it took to remove it and sew the vest back together, and it looked much improved. What a cute boy!

 

The blessing was perfect, and I'm happy to say that Dayton didn't fuss at all. I'm so grateful to the wonderful woman in our ward who has the amazing ability to take notes short-hand, so she's able to take notes during the blessing and then transcribe them so we have a written copy of his blessing. She did the same for Felicity, and I love it!

 

Those that participated in the blessing circle were Nate, Bishop Bradford, Grandpa Scott Waldron, Grandpa Ian Wilkinson, Uncle Brant Waldron, and Great Uncle Blaine Holmes.

 

Afterward, we squeezed people into our house for some lunch and family time. It was a beautiful day!

A family picture with Nate's parents on the left and my dad and his wife on the right.

I'm so lucky to be this sweet boy's mom!

Bridget's 6th Birthday

Last year I promised Bridget she could have a friend party for her birthday this year, but I obviously didn't know at that time that I would have a newborn baby to take care of this year. So we decided to give Bridget the option of having a friend party or she could have a family party plus both a mommy/daughter date and daddy/daughter date of her choice. Thankfully she chose the second option which greatly helped my stress-level. I think she ended up getting the better deal in the end though because her birthday celebration has lasted for several days.

With her birthday falling on the day before Thanksgiving this year, it made for quite a busy several days for us. Her celebration actually started the Sunday before with Megan coming up to spend the evening. We had cupcakes and she got to open her present from Megan since Megan wasn't going to be here for her birthday. She was extremely thrilled with the unicorn Dream Light Megan got her.

On Tuesday, she got to take treats into her kindergarten class since they didn't have school the next day.

On Wednesday (her actual birthday), we started the day off with birthday cake pancakes and letting her open one gift. As you can see from the picture, Felicity was more than happy to help her blow out her candles, and Bridget was pleased with her Disney princess slippers.

Because Nate's family has their big annual Pie Night the night before Thanksgiving, we chose to celebrate her birthday at lunch that day. Nate's parents came as well as my dad and our good friend and neighbor Susan who's like another grandma to her. We had pizza (her choice) and then a Coldstone ice cream cake. I would love to have made her a cake, but I needed to lighten my load this year.

She could hardly wait to open presents and got some very nice thing including this shirt..

...and this Merida Barbie doll.

 

 

For her mommy/daughter date with me, we'll be going bowling and out for ice cream. For her daddy/daughter date she wants to go see the new Disney movie Frozen. Like I said, I think she chose wisely and got the better deal this year.

 

 

Happy 6th Birthday, Bridget!

Nate's Birthday

Another year has come and gone for Nate. Even though birthdays aren't a big deal to him, he obliges me and lets me try to make it somewhat special for him. Sadly, he was unable to take the day off from work or even work from home, so it was more his kind of celebration than mine.

I spent the afternoon making his cake (German chocolate) and was grateful both Dayton and Felicity took good naps at the same time making it much easier for me.

That blanket he is holding has Dayton in it even though you can't see him at all.

We didn't go out to eat because I didn't want to take Dayton out to a restaurant, so we got takeout from Zupas. I should also mention that some people Nate works for took him out to lunch at a hibachi house, so he got a really nice lunch too.

Because I am the giver of practical gifts, Nate got a new desk chair for his birthday. With as much as he works from home, it was time for a new, comfortable chair since our old one was one we purchased when we got married over 7 years ago. It was far from comfortable anymore.

Happy birthday, Nate!

Dayton's Birth

As I expected, my due date with this pregnancy came and went. I must admit I was pretty grumpy about it too because I was so ready to be done with pregnancy and hold my baby boy. As I sat in church on my due date (10/13/13), I seriously felt like I was going to be pregnant forever - no contractions at all up to this point, and I was 3-4 cm dilated and 70% effaced at my appointment just 4 days before. If I had known what was going to happen that night, I certainly would have made an effort to go to bed much, much earlier.

At 2:30 am, I woke up needing to go to the bathroom but soon realized it was much more than that. I crawled back in bed not sure if I was having real contractions or not. They were different than what I had with Felicity. With her, I would feel my whole abdomen get tight and then relax. These felt more like cramps and were really low in my belly. Nate was sleeping away while I timed them, but after just a few I was sure they were the real thing because I got the "baby shakes" really bad just like I did with Felicity. I'm honestly surprised I didn't shake Nate awake as I laid there for 45 minutes timing and shaking. It wasn't until my 3rd trip to the bathroom during that time that he woke up. Then he timed them with me for quite a while. They were really irregular, short, and not very intense at first, but soon they started getting stronger, lasting almost a minute, and became more regular. I hate having to wake someone in the middle of the night to come stay with our kids, so I held out as long as I could and finally started getting dressed and throwing last minute things into my bag about 5 am. We called my Aunt Jennine at 5:30 and she was there a little before 6 am. At that point my contractions were only 2-3 minutes apart, and I just kept praying my water wouldn't break or I'd be in trouble.

I look terrible in this picture, but it's just before we left to go to the hospital, so I was living on 3 hours of sleep and in pain.

We got admitted to the hospital quickly, but the bad news was that they were really busy and it was also shift change time for the nurses at 7 am. I got gowned up and walked and walked around my room waiting for a nurse. Finally a nurse came in, and I told her I really needed to get my IV so I could get an epidural. She checked me (I was 6 cm and 100% effaced), so they very quickly got me my IV and got the anesthetist in there. I didn't know that once you hit 7-8 cm, your epidural might not work. Luckily, I got mine just in time and ended up being very, very numb. My doctor came and broke my water about 7:40 am, and about an hour later, he was ready to come. Thankfully, I was so numb, I didn't feel the need to push because we had to wait about another 20 minutes for a nurse to help her with the delivery.

I pushed through 3 contractions (about 7 minutes I think), and he was here!

When he came out, I asked my doctor what she thought about his weight because I was expecting him to be about 8.5 lbs., but she said he was well over 9 lbs.!

I was shocked when they told me he was 9 lbs. 12 oz. and 22.5 inches long! I can't believe he was that huge! No wonder I'd been so uncomfortable the past month. Soon after, Nate asked me if I was ready to commit to the name we'd been thinking about, and I was. So we named him Dayton Scott. Dayton is just a name we both liked, and Scott is after Nate's dad.

After I got moved over to postpartum, we let Jennine know she could bring the girls to meet him anytime. They were both so excited and each wanted to be the first to hold him.

We had a few other visitors during the time I was there. Jennine got her turn to hold him after the girls, and Megan came to visit after work that night. My friends Corey and Desaray and their 2 girls also came that afternoon, but I forgot to get a picture. The second day, my dad and Bev came to visit too.

Some of our visitors

Our first photo as a family of five

My stay at the hospital was really nice. I had wonderful nurses in labor and delivery as well as postpartum. I also got to spend a lot of alone time with Dayton since Nate had to spend more time at home with the girls this time. There was lots and lots of snuggling going on. Love it!

One of the other things I was REALLY looking forward to was the spa services they offer for free with the cosmetology students from the Applied Technology College. This program wasn't around when I had Bridget, and they were on Spring Break when I had Felicity so I was hoping I wouldn't be disappointed again this time around. Luckily, I got my pedicure!

Dayton Scott

Born October 14, 2013

9:04 am

9 lbs. 12 oz.

22.5 inches long

Look at those cheeks! They've certainly been getting a lot of kisses. We are so thrilled to have this little boy join our family and grateful he's healthy and all went smoothly with his arrival.

Kimberly's Birthday

My birthday this year turned out to be a very nice day, although if you asked Nate he would disagree because it didn't go quite like he had planned.

He made a nice breakfast, took care of the kids the majority of the day, cleaned most of the house, did a bunch of yard work, attempted to make a birthday cake from scratch for me, and made dinner. He felt bad because he ran out of time to get the whole house cleaned, didn't get the yard work finished, and then the cake fell quite a bit after he took it out of the oven. He made the exact same cake for me last year, so we're not sure what happened, but it was too late in the day to try and make another one so I told him to just take the girls and go buy one. Bridget's a chocoholic like me and picked out a beautiful and delicious cookies and cream cake.

We also met Megan and my cousin Lisa at Macaroni Grill for lunch. We hadn't been there in several years, but it was one of my favorite restaurants when I was in college. Sadly, it was not nearly as good as I remembered. The free birthday dessert I got was really good though, and they sing happy birthday in Italian to you so it wasn't all bad.

Like I said, it really was an enjoyable day for me. And now I'm hopefully another year wiser as well as older.

The evidence that he did in fact try to make my cake.

The cake we ended up enjoying