Our Fire House Visit and Lunch with Friends

Caiden's birthday this year fell on a Tuesday. I didn't want to have his party on a weekday but it really worked out well because my mommy's group (Stafford Mommies on FB) had plans to tour a fire house and then have lunch at a local pizza place aferwards. I made some cupcakes for all the kids so that after lunch we could have a little celebration for Caiden's party. It was a lot of fun. We were a little late (shocking!) so we missed part of the tour but still got to see all the important stuff like the uniforms and trucks. The firemen were really good with the kids and gave each kid a chance to sit in a fire truck and turn on the lights and pretend they were driving to a fire. It was really cute and a really cool experience that I'm sure some of the older kids will always remember. It was during spring break so we had a few elementary age kids with us who really had a great time a the fire house.

Nothing to fear folks....Fireman Caiden is on the way!

Not one to be shown up by the boys, firewoman Ayla had to show them how it's done.

 Happy Birthday to you...Caiden!

 It was the first time a cupcake or really any baked sweet was put in front of him. He was a little hesitant, so first he just looked at it. Then he licked it with the tip of his tongue. Then...

 ...he shoved his face in it!

"YUM!"

Easter

This easter was fun! It was the first year that Ayla really seemed to understand what was going on. She kept asking about the Easter Bunny for days before. We attended not one, not two, not three, but four egg hunts! The first one was at a local elementary school. Unfortunately I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures of the event.They have the kids all divided into age groups. Ayla was with the 2-4 year olds. They have an area roped off and they literally just throw a bunch of plastic eggs into the roped off area. They weren't really hidden at all. There were hundreds of eggs. But the search was over in literally one minute and Ayla had only found three eggs. There were so many kids there. I saw a couple little kids crying because they didn't get any eggs. I think it would really be better if the  age groups were divided with 2-3 in one group and move the 4's up with the older kids. But it was still fun. Then we went inside the gym of the school and they had little canrnival type games to play and the Easter Bunny was there. A picture of your kids with the Easter Bunny was included with the price of admission. Caiden sat on his lap and smiled big for the picture. Ayla was a little leery about it, so she stood next to the bunny...but not too close.

Later in the week my mommy's group friends had an easter egg hunt at one of my friends houses. Again, I forgot my camera! Ugh! But it was cute. Just a few kids and most of them were little. It was nice. It really helped Ayla to get the idea of how to look for eggs since the first "hunt" we attended was not a hunt but more of a gather.

Easter morning we were a little crazy trying to get ready for church so we didn't have time to search for our baskets. Luckily the Easter Bunny called and said he was running a little late and would bring the baskets by in the afternoon. While Caiden and Ayla were taking their naps the Easter Bunny hopped on over and dropped off some goodies for them.

The silly Easter Bunny hid Ayla's basket under the computer desk!

"Hmm what did I get?"

 "Look Mom!"

 The Easter Bunny brought Ayla a large chocolate bunny, some Reese's Peanut Butter Eggs, (coincidentally those are mommy's favorite, it's almost like the Easter Bunny knows me), a jump rope, and a Rapunzel Barbie. Ayla was thrilled!

 The silly Easter Bunny hid Caiden's basket in the open cupboard of the kitchen set.

 Caiden also received a large chocolate bunny, some Reese's Peanut Butter eggs, and some matchbox cars inside of plastic easter eggs.

 The Easter Bunny was going to hide some eggs outside but since it was forecast to rain Mommy asked the Easter Bunny to hide them in the house. It never did rain, but Ayla still enjoyed looking for the eggs in the house.

 Caiden thought maybe an egg might be hidden in the teapot.

 We went to Grandma and Grandpa's for dinner and enjoyed some family time with them. After dinner Grandpa set up a little easter egg hunt outside for Ayla. It was getting pretty dark so we searched by flashlight. It was fun!

Quickie Visit with Some of Our Favorite People...

Cousins!

My sister Tina and her family took a vacation to Florida to see her in-laws. On the way down they stopped to see us for a little while. Because of the horrendous traffic in and around the DC area they didn't get here until hours after they had anitcipated so they were only able to stay for a couple hours. It was so good to see them.  The kids LOVED playing together especially Ayla, Raquel, and Camila. They get along great together. At one point when all the adults were sitting at the table all three girls marched by dressed up as some sort of princesses and playing "music" on some sort of instrument. Ayla informed me that they were a marching band. It was so cute. We loved seeing them and wish we could more often. We are pretty determined to. Ayla pesters me quite a bit now about seeing her cousin friends as she calls them, so we'll have to make the trek to NJ soon.

Caiden and Penny played on the floor together. No Caiden does not have a really red, long tongue, that is a plastic strawberry from the kitchen set hanging out of his mouth. He constantly chews on them.

 The girls playing in Ayla's room. They wanted to get some of the dolls and stuffed animals out of the net but I guess they didn't want to bother the adults so industrious Raquel got the idea to whack them out with a broom. Smart girl!

 Cutey Camila

 Ayla's inside the laundry hamper and Raquel was rolling her around.

Normally this is not permitted in our house but I let it slide because they were having so much fun.

 Camila provided us with some ambiance during our dinner.

 Ayla in the hamper

"Yee haw!" says Princess Raquel

 Pretty Penny

She has grown so much. I hadn't seen her since she was one month old. She's so cute and so tiny (for a Moreno baby!)

I didn't get any pictures of them, but Tina and Felipe were there too! :) We loved seeing you guys! Miss you!

Tongo Drum and New Purse

A couple weeks ago close friends of ours moved to North Carolina. We went over and spent an evening with them a few days before they left. They were getting rid of somethings that they didn't want to take and one of the things they were getting rid of was an authentic bongo drum. Matt (our friend) asked us if Ayla could have it since she played with it at their house. We said...yes? And yes with a question mark on the end, I wasn't too sure how I felt about my child bringing home a drum. Anyway Ayla loves it, she constantly plays with it. She insists on calling it her "Tongo" drum; I've told her 50 times it's a bongo drum but she still says Tongo drum. It's cute! She pretends that she is in a marching band and beats on it all the time. Luckily for me she likes to use "drumsticks" (baby spoons) to beat on it and this makes it a little quieter than if she were to use her hands. Thank you? Matt and Jamie....

The other favorite new item of Ayla's is her new Dora purse. I went to a consignment sale last weekend and bought it for 50 cents. She LOVES it and takes it everywhere now. She actually so far has been pretty responsible with it too. I was sure as soon as she took it out of the house it would be gone forever but she has been pretty good at remembering it. Here are some of the funny comments she has made about her Dora purse: "Mom my new Dora purse matches lots of my outfits!" "Mom my new Dora purse even matches my jammies!" "Mom my new Dora purse helps me to twirl better!" "Mom my new Dora purse has a secret pocket where I can keep all my yipstick!"  "Mom my new Dora purse makes me look like a big lady." "Mom would you like to share my new Dora purse" (said to me as I was running around the house looking for my own purse:)) "Mom can we put the car keys in my Dora purse" (asked as we were getting out of the car to go shopping)... the purse was worth every penny of that 50 cents and so much more!  

Chunky Monkey is 10 months old!~My Pretty Princess

Caiden turned 10 months old on February 10, 2012! I know I say this every month but I really can't believe that he is 10 months old. It seems like time has flown by, but at the same time it seems like he's always been with us.

 My little chunky monkey continues to delight us with his antics and his happy personality. I don't have any official stats this month but when he went to the doctor last week for an ear infection :( they weighed him with clothes on and his weight was 20 lbs. 14 oz. He's still a little shrimp, my friends little boy who is six months old is longer than him; but that's okay, there's not much chance he'll be tall.

Just last week he started pulling up to stand on things. We pulled a leap frog activity table out of storage for him and he loves it. I figured he would. He's so smart he realizes that this is his toy and he grunts at Ayla when she moves in on his territory and tries to play with his toy. Anyway, a day after bringing the activity table home he was crawling around on the floor and kept reaching his little fingers up to play with the table while I was watching Jeopardy. I wasn't looking at him for a minute or so and when I turned back to him he was standing up at the table playing with it, he had the biggest grin on his face; just waiting for me to notice him. It was so cute; but I was a little upset that I missed the first time he pulled up to stand. He now does it on just about anything he can. He also figured out how to go from a crawling position to a sitting position, and open cupboards and drawers. We have some diapers and wipes in a bin in one of the cupboards of our entertainment center. One of Caiden's favorite activities as of late is to open this cupboard, pull out the bin, spread the diapers all over the room and pull out wipes one by one. He laughs hysterically while doing this. Guess I'll have to put a lock on the cupboard.

 He is a very good eater and has eaten everything I've ever given to him. I gave him taco meat last week and he ate that but then cried a few minutes later and I felt so horrible. I didn't think it would be too spicy for him but I guess it was. His favorites are applesauce, bananas, cheerios, ground up spaghetti with meat sauce, avacado, and noodles. I rarely give him baby food anymore unless we are out and about. It has become pretty hard and (trying of my patience) to try to feed him with a spoon. He continually grabs the spoon out of my hand (or tries) over and over and when he doesn't get the spoon he gets irritated and spits food all over; so I try to let him eat things he can pick up with his fingers. He does pretty well and feels like a big boy so he's happier. I just have to watch him because he tends to try and shove whole handfuls of things in his mouth and I've had to dig out five or six cheerios from his mouth a few times. He continues to spit up after eating a bottle, and not just once but numerous times. I'm not sure what it is. I've tried different formulas it doesn't seem to matter. I just recently found a kind of formula specifically for spit up and he has been drinking that for a few days now. The spit up has continued but definitely decreased. So maybe this formula is helping; but of course it's expensive and there is no generic version of it. Ayla used to spit up too but when we switched her to soy formula it stopped, Caiden continues to spit up. Hopefully when he turns one and I can start giving him milk or soy milk he'll stop.

I wanted to add  some thoughts on Ayla as well, I feel like every post lately has been about Caiden. She continues to grow in every way. She is in size 4 shirts and size 3 pants. Long torso and short legs, this is a Forsythe (Lucas's mom's family) trait. She also contiues to learn more and more. She cracks me up on a daily basis with what she says. She has become enthralled with princesses and princess movies. We watched Beauty and the Beast the other day and after she got over her fear of the Beast when he was "mean" she loved it. Since then she has decided that she wants to have fireworks at her wedding (apparently Belle does in the movie?) and she talks about getting married in the temple which is as "beautiful as any castle". (I helped her decide that one :)) The other day we had the missionaries over for dinner and they were asking her all kinds of questions. She started talking about getting married like Mommy and Daddy did and they asked her what colors she wanted at her wedding; without missing a beat Ayla piped up "White with blue stripes!" We all died laughing. I have no idea where she got that from. She also seems to have some sort of seperation anxiety going on lately. She gets very upset when I have to leave to go anywhere without her and she asks me over and over "You're coming back right?" "You would never leave me?" I'm not sure where this is coming from or why it started. She even asks this when we take her to primary on Sundays. I am just trying to reassure her in every way I can and hoping that she'll get over it soon. She also has developed a fear of robots. From what you ask? I'm not sure, I suspect that one day when I was tutoring Daddy watched Transformers and she saw some of it. He insists that this didn't happen; I'm not too sure. So anyway, now she has nightmares about robots and comes into my room in the middle of the night crying about a robot in her closet. We read a book about a kid who kept getting out of his bed and what his parents did and that seems to be helping. She continues to love singing. She sings all the time and asks to listen to music quite a bit. She listens to music while she's eating her lunch; and we sing together every night before bed. Her current favorites are "Twinkle twinkle little star", "Book of Mormon Stories", "The Other Day I Met a Bear", "Going on a Bear Hunt" and for a quiet song before bed "I Am a Child of God."  

I love both of my children so much! They are my world. I am so grateful that Heavenly Father blessed me with them and gave me the opportunity to be their Mom.

Here's some pictures of my beautiful kids!

 Since it is so hard getting Caiden to sit still while taking his picture, and even harder when there's a paper involved; I thought that it would work well and be cute if he stood at the gate while the sign was taped to it.

 Uh oh, he noticed the paper. This photo session is just about over.

 Playing with his new favorite toy!

 "Ugh, this slider on my toy is really hard to pull!"

My beautiful little princess