TWO!

Kaydance turned 2 this month. She is such a little person, and we absolutely LOVE it. She has (mostly) learned how sing Happy Birthday and was so excited that her birthday was coming.


She loved helping me make her cake, and especially loved the cleaning up...


And she got spoiled, as usual, with all her presents.




We just can't believe our little baby is two years old now. And speaking of two and babies....

catch up

We've been pretty busy since I last posted. I think I'll mostly let the pictures do the talking. Trevor and I got to go to Park City for a week for bus training/anniversary celebrating. Four years down, an eternity to go. We got in lots of shopping, eating, movie watching, playing, and SPENDING MONEY! We did get to hike to Timpanogas Cave on our way home- a first for me. Trevor had been before, but afterwards we figured it had been about 10 years ago. He didn't remember the cave being that small.


Fourth of July was lots of fun. Trevor's cousins came down and we spent time on the mountains with them. When it came time for fireworks, we just stayed home and did some of our own. Kaydance loved doing the sparklers and the poppers (even though she didn't have great success.)






And at the end of July we got to go to an AWESOME concert with our parents. Journey, Foreigner, and Night Ranger. It doesn't get much better than Jukebox Hero live.


And now for a few random points. My dad has his own little zoo in the backyard. Currently, he has goats, a turkey, pigeons, and doves. At least, that's all I'm aware of. Every time we even mention Papa Rusty's house, Kaydance immediately wants to feed the animals. Papa is so good to let her feed them. She absolutely loves it!!



And here's just another picture of the red head. It's not often that she falls asleep just anywhere. She has a routine for nap time, which is wonderful, but it's always so cute when she falls asleep somewhere random.

Growing Up

Our little Kaydance has been doing a lot of growing up these past few months. First, she has started sleeping in a big girl bed and she loves it. She doesn't sleep as long as she did when she was in her crib, but it is a lot easier getting her to go to bed. She gets really excited to get to sleep in her new bed, instead of screaming because she has to get in a crib.


Every night before bed we say family prayers. Kaydance has always had a hard time holding still with her arms folded. Most of the time she just lays down on the floor and plays while either Trevor or I say it. But lately she has wanted to say the prayer. It is the cutest thing. She copies us word for word and loves to have her turn every 3 days to say it.

One big step that she has taken is her interest in the toilet. She is only 21 months, but has started potty training herself. I'm not sure that I'm really ready for that, but I'm trying to do my best. She tells us all the time that she has to "poop in the potty", and more often than not it actually happens.




When she started having success, I wanted to reward her. I know that candy is not the best option, but that's what I went with. She caught on really quick that every time she went potty she got a piece of chocolate. Pretty soon, she just started saying she needed to go so she could get some chocolate. Luckily, we've worked our way out of that one, and we just do a silly/happy/celebration song and dance when she goes. She likes that well enough I guess, because she hasn't asked for chocolate after going in about a week.


We still have her in diapers most of the time, but I've put on some panties a few times and she loves wearing them around. She was so excited to help me pick out some princess ones at the store.


This little red head of ours is getting so big and so smart. Speaking of red hair, hers is getting pretty long now. I actually tried to do a pony tail today, instead of the pigtails on top, and it looked so cute.




We're so glad that this beautiful little girl is ours forever. WE LOVE YOU Kaydance!!

Got Milk?

Let me just start by saying that Trevor drinks a lot of milk. I mean A LOT. I go to the store about twice a week, and each time I pick up at least 4 gallons of milk. It is because of this that the idea of getting another fridge/freezer for the garage has come up. I need a fridge just for milk. SERIOUSLY.

We were talking to our friends about this, and all the boys started talking about the "gallon challenge." Most of the them had tried to do it, but none had ever succeeded. Trevor had never tried it, and so we picked a day that we would all be together for dinner for him to do it.

The whole challenge is to drink a gallon of milk within an hour and hold it down until the hour is up. He started out strong, drinking about a third of the gallon at once. (This is a pretty usual amount for him to drink at a meal.) He kept it nice and cold in the fridge and drank a little more about every 10 minutes or so. He was getting pretty full, but never felt like he was going to throw up. He had about 10 minutes left of the hour and he decided to just finish what was left (about 1/8 of the gallon) so there would be no questioning as to whether it was within the hour or not. He had 3 people timing him, and he finished the gallon with 6 minutes to spare.

I'm proud to say that my husband successfully drank a full gallon of 1% milk in 54 minutes (equating to about 1600 calories. YIKES) and gained the respect and recognition from his fellow men, or should I say boys. They were all envious of him and in awe to see such a sight. He never did throw up, but missed out on the delicious navajo tacos we had that night because he was so full.

Winter

I'm a bad blogger... what can I say? It's been almost a whole SEASON since I last posted. So, instead of trying to write multiple entries to fill you all in, I decided to combine everything and just make one post with LOTS of pictures.

Thanksgiving is always awesome in Moab, since we are both from here and both of our families are still here. We spent Thursday with Trevor's family and then Friday with my family. It's so great having two days of feasting followed by about a week of leftovers. Since our parents still do all the cooking, ( I'm a little nervous for the day to come when I have to make the Thanksgiving dinner myself) I decided to make a creative dessert. It didn't end up looking quite like the picture, but still tasted just as good.








Christmas, again, was spent trying to divide our time between both our families. Thanksgiving is a little easier since we do two different days, but there's only one Christmas Day. Plus, all of our siblings on both sides were here over the holidays.





It only took Kaydance a few minutes to get the hang of opening her presents, and she had plenty to open. She got spoiled; we started at our own house, then moved on to Grandma Knutson's house, then to Grandma Merrie and Grandpa David's house, and then finally to Grandma and Grandpa Tangren's house. It was a long day filled with opening presents, playing with presents, visiting, and eating lots of junk food. I love Christmas!





This winter was also Kaydance's first real time being out in the snow. I think we took her out for a few minutes last year, but she was only about 4 months old then, so that doesn't count. She loved being out there and building a snowman with us. She loves snowmen now. We taught her how to sing "The Snowman Song" and she sings it all the time now... so cute! (I need to get a video of her singing it.)





We did, however, get to go on a hike a few days after Christmas when it was a little warmer. It was actually really nice weather and some of us were in shorts and t-shirts. Kaydance loved being outside. I guess I've been keeping her inside most of the winter because I HATE the cold. I know that shouldn't keep her inside, but I'm still learning that, I guess.





All in all, we had a great winter, minus the snow. We loved spending so much time with all of our family eating way too much food and staying up way too late.






I love this little girl!

Fairy Princess

I know this is way late, but aren't my posts always late? For Halloween we decided to dress Kaydance up as a fairy princess. My mom bought her this cute tutu and the fairy wings for her birthday a few months ago, so we decided to put them to good use. She made the cutest little fairy! Trevor and I, on the other hand, weren't so enthusiastic about dressing up this year. Maybe when we have kids a little older who will remember dressing up, I will dress up with them.

We only took Kaydance trick-or-treating to "The Grandma's houses" so as to not take up the entire night. But of course, she has 5 that live in Moab. It ended up taking us about 3 hours to complete the rounds. She made out like a banshee, and therefore, I have been eating way too much candy the last few weeks. :(




Getting Ready

Silly Baby

Kaydance is one of those kids who gets really wound up when she gets tired and doesn't want to go to bed. We took this video of her one night when she was being especially crazy. She actually settled down a little when she saw we were recording her.