Poop Happens...still

I had taken off Kohen's diaper (just pee) when I realized the wet wipes weren't in the room.
So after about 20 seconds of trying to find where Stuart had placed them I hear Kohen come out of the room and turn to see poop smeared on his hands, feet, legs, bum...etc.
You know that "song" they play in scary movies "dun dun, dun dun, ..." ? It would have been appropriate to have playing as I slowly entered the room and saw where else the poop was smeared. All in 20 seconds people. Haha

Here's Kohen in his glory.
Yes, I stopped to take a few pictures since having a kid means messy stories like these and I can't help but think they are kind of funny.

The ironic part is that I LOVE clean carpets and had just cleaned them.

Our Christmas Card 2011

Hope everyone had a fabulous Christmas season!

I'll Be Home For Christmas

Christmas #4: Technically we didn't make it home for Christmas but like I said...we like to spread the joy.

Just my baby boy thinking he's big stuff.
He loves playing the piano. I don't know who he's seen play but he would sit on the bench, open the hymn book and act like he was reading it as he played.
He loves that Gramma and Grandpa's house is always stocked with food and he LOVES that he has access to it. It seemed like he was always grabbing a granola bar or fruit strip out.
He decided this time that he was too big to slide down the stairs and wanted to walk down.
He's loved the remote (and phones) since he was really REALLY young. This time he found the remotes despite our effort to hide them.
Kohen loves to follow the cat around and call after him. At one point I told him to sit on his bum and wait for the cat to come to him. He understood the sitting on his bum but instead would scoot around chasing the cat on his bum.
The ottoman. Kohen found many more uses for it including using it as a stepping tool and climbing it in. He was obsessed.



Opening his presents and helping put them together.


Playing outside was a must.


I LOOOOOOVE HIM!


Playing with Auntie Krista...while she played with his toys. :)


Folsom Zoo
I've gone numerous times growing up and was excited to finally take Kohen.
He loves animals and making animal noises so it was fun to let him see the animals in person.
We also got to go on the train ride. It's the only mini real steam engine left in the US.


Having fun playing


My dad got a back massager thing for Christmas and everyone lined up for massages.
Kohen was by far the biggest fan. We have an idea as to what we should get him next year :)


New Years Eve was pretty low key. We had some family friends come over and as a result Kohen got to stay up very late taste testing and showing off. I kicked off my New Year in bed snuggling with my baby in my arms-best New Years Eve! (Sorry hun).Snuggles



Uncle Ben is always fun

My cousins came over one night for dinner and Kohen had a BLAST!
Kohen insisted on sitting at the kids table instead of the highchair and was CRACKING UP at the kids doing silly things. He seriously thinks he is big stuff and would follow them around doing everything they did and would laugh at all their jokes. It made me sad we didn't live closer.


All four of our Christmases were so fun and we were so glad
to be able to spend it with our families!

Where Are You Christmas?

Christmas day was very low key ...very different actually since it was my first away from home. It was nice in a way to be able to just focus on what Christmas was really about with out all the hustle and bustle of present opening and such.

Santa Baby

When I heard our gym was having a Christmas party with a FREE Santa I was happy!
As friendly as Kohen is I had a feeling a picture with Santa wasn't going to be a super easy one and was reluctant to pay $30+ for one. Kohen had been sick the week previous so we went in, took the picture and left. Perfect!
I think Santa thought he was going to be traumatized so he suggested Kohen sit on my lap. Although Kohen just really wanted to play with the baby on the floor. I think he was fairly oblivious to Santa.
K=16 months in this picture

My Grown Up Christmas List

Our 2nd Christmas was with Stuart's family. As mentioned previously, everything got shifted a day earlier. We like to spread the Christmas fun :)
Although we were all adults (with the exception of Kohen) we were like little kids opening gifts and just having a good time.

Kohen decided one picture wasn't enough so he decided to take one with
Shaun and Marta as well.
What's funny is that no one coordinated their outfits yet every "family" was matching.
(We missed you Tim, Shane/Lina & fam, Junior/Lillie & fam and baby Michael)



Kohen was a pro by Christmas morning at opening gifts.
He had to check out a few by climbing on them too.

Christmas Eve we had dinner, games and lots of laughs.

Cuddles with Nanny and Grandpa Rupp

Kohen's cool tool set from Uncle Junior and Auntie Lillie they sent all the way from North Carolina. So glad they might be moving back! :)

Have A Holly Jolly Christmas!

As soon as Stuart was done with the semester the Christmas fun began.
We wanted to have a Holly Jolly little Christmas of our own so
We delivered Christmas goodies to friends....

Technically the decorating happened before Thanksgiving

Saw the awesome Christmas lights at the park (pictures don't do it justice)

He was excited about the penguin lights since his favorite movie is "Happy Feet"

As you can see Kohen LOVED them! Most of my pictures were just of him running around checking everything out.

This is actually the park that Stuart proposed at exactly 3 years ago.
Little did we know we'd be living here and have an adorable little boy that would run around in that exact same park.

Gingerbread houses
Well ... sort of. See the picture of the ONE gingerbread house? Apparently I didn't see that side and thought there were three little ones. But when we opened it up we found out otherwise.
It worked out fine though (other than they were hard as a rock and not worth eating).
Stuart wants to start a new tradition of decorating letters for Santa but we'll let the kids vote :)
The picture with the candy-less cookies were compliments of Kohen. While Stuart and I were busy cleaning up, Kohen was busy sneaking candy off of the cookies. I don't think he cares which tradition we choose as long as there is candy involved. haha

The top right picture is mine. The middle two were Stuart's. (Just clarifying)

Christmas Morning
Kohen was great at not touching the gifts (or the tree except for a couple intentional episodes haha). But as soon as the present unwrapping began he kicked it into gear.

Side note about the blocks above: We had wanted to get Kohen blocks since he's at the age where he likes to stack and build things but I knew better than to get hard blocks that could be used to whack someone like a younger sibling further down the road. I didn't really care for small ones either even if they were soft because they would be more of a mess than stacking material. I saw online some cardboard ones that were exactly what I was looking for BUT I did not want to spend our whole budget of $30 on cardboard blocks (and not very many either). So I decided to find boxes around the house and wrap them in fun duct tape. I got three different kinds because I was having fun (nerdy) and I think it cost less than $10 bucks tops! Sweet! Except for when Kohen stood on a few. But hey, at least I didn't pay $30 on them :)

We knew we wanted to get Kohen something sport-wise since he LOVES playing soccer, catch... but went back and forth as to what. I have to admit, Kohen was a pro from the start at his new T-ball HOWEVER

..it apparently wasn't challenging enough because shortly after he began getting creative. Haha
He'd play with a tennis racquet, eyes closed, two balls, or any other ball he could find.

Stuart and I had gotten Kohen some dvds at the pawn shop for like a buck (sweet) when he was sick the week previous so we wrapped up the cases so he'd have more gifts to open. :)

Although Christmas is never the same as when you are a kid, it's a new kind of fun shopping for your kid, watching your kid open presents and of course have fun!

Four Christmases

This year we did not have an ordinary Christmas, although, we did get to technically have it 4 times! (More detailed posts to come). We decided to have our own little Christmas at our apartment a couple days before we left out of town. It's fun watching your child get excited to open his presents and experience all the fun parts of Christmas. Kohen seemed to be somewhat oblivious to the presents until it came time to open them. Then he was everyone's helper...whether they wanted it or not. Haha

The 2nd Christmas we had was a day early since Stuart's parents were leaving to Hawaii Christmas Eve to meet up with Stuart's other brother and his family.
Kohen was in heaven with all the gifts and attention. And as you can see, he had to test everything out by climbing on it.



Christmas day was very low key. We went to Stuart's brother's ward and just hung out.

And the 4th Christmas came a couple days after Christmas where we had more presents to open and give once we reached CA.

The Best Is Yet To Be

As much as I enjoyed our vacation I have to admit I was excited to get home and write my New Years Resolutions. Call me a nerd, graphomaniac, ...etc. but I love writing lists and goals. Frankly, I am actually fairly good at completing my daily "Things To Do" lists and achieving my goals too.
Although I am not going to write my goals here, I thought I would share a brief over view of them to help hold myself that much more accountable.
I have 40 goals separated into categories such as:
Physical
Health
Spiritual
Mental
Home/Family
Marriage
Personal/Other

I've been feeling in a rut lately. Feeling very unimportant because I don't have a real job, any worthwhile talents, a formal college education (degree/completed), "The American Dream" (house, car, dog, ...), a looming dental school debt about to hit us with a lot of uncertainties about the economy and our future....etc.
I try not to let others views and worldly pressures effect me but I have to admit I get weighed down by it more often than not. I have sooo SO much to be grateful for. SO, to help show my gratitude to my Heavenly Father I've decided that I am going to take advantage of this new year by bettering myself in ways that I can actually control and keep working on being the best "Home-maker" (wife, mother, cheerleader, caregiver, teacher, uplifter, ...sometimes slave haha....) because that's what really matters.

Side note: I was reading some articles on goals/resolutions and stumbled across an article called, "The Best Is Yet To Be" by Jeffery R. Holland. It wasn't what I had expected but it was of course a great article and reminder of moving forward with faith.

Here's to MAKING our year a good one by choosing to better ourselves!