Birthday Boy....

We had a birthday party a week earlier at Mom and Dad Whicker's. We were cowboys and girls:) It was nice to have everyone around- even Great Grandma and Grandpa Whicker, and Ali and Perris were there. Lots of fun!

Our little guy really turned two on Friday! It started out with flax seed buttermilk pancakes, flipped by the Birthday Boy himself.

The day was fun of activity. Brinly's little preschool group had a fun tour of Krispy Kreme- Cade came with and they both enjoyed themseves thoroughly.

Last but not least we went the mall, had dinner at Red Robin (complete with free almost entierly free meal and sundae's courtesy of the Red Robin Birthday club). As you can see Cade was happy with the meal:)

Following the meal, we went to Build-a-Bear. Cade chose a puppy dog and named him Doggie. It was fun to have an interactive activity!

He is filling the bear here (with the help of the worker) by pushing the foot pedal.

Then he added the heart.And gave it a bath! (combed the fuzz off). Pretty fun day! We sure are glad he entered our family 2 years ago. He is a happy, happy boy full of light and joy. We love him!

My little Sista!

So, my little sister is engaged! Exciting!! This is the picture I got of them in their "planning" stages at Mom and Dad's. It was fun to watch them make plans and brought back a TON of memories. Oh, the days of planning a wedding...
Her fiance Perris seems like a really nice guy...SO similar to Shane in humor and lack of seriousness personality:). They seem really happy together. We look forward to their wedding on June 6th!

Resources

My friend got new couches and was willing to give us her old ones. They needed a good cleaning and a few repairs, but they look great now. I'm excited to have matching furniture!

We're Having A....

Alien...no just kidding:) This is a 3D ultrasound of our 15 week old baby (now 19 weeks). I decided to have this done for a Christmas present to surprise Shane. It was fun, I've never done an ultrasound for pure entertainment:) Mom, Dad, Lynds, and Kate came with me. It was great. So, we are adding a little GIRL to our family (proof below, I think). Brinly is more excited than I ever thought. She prays every night that her new baby sister will grow up and come out. And she often points out items at the store or clothes that are too small and says- "Oh, that can be for my baby sister!" In fact, just yesterday, she put an entire rack of little pink onesies into our shopping basket- in hopes to give to her little sister:) I'm glad she is so excited- we are too.

Coastside

The day after Christmas we headed out to Oceanside, CA to visit Troy and Becca. We stayed in a timeshare and enjoyed the short visit. This met our goal of going to the beach, though it was too cold to do any wading:) But we saw some interesting animal life, including a seal and huge pelican.

Here we are on the boardwalk.

Cade enjoying the ride! His facial expression is worth noting.

Christmas Eve & Christmas Morning

Christmas Eve was an exciting one. We were all eagerly anticipating Shane's return! He actually walked in the door several hours before we expected him- so it was a great surprising reunion. Oh, we were so glad to see him. As you can see from the picture below, Cade was in the tub when he walked in, thus the towel:) It was a wonderful Christmas Eve.
Of course we had to do the traditional Nativity reenactment. Brinly HAD to be Mary, and enjoyed playing the part. Cade was Joseph- for a minute or two- but he looked really cute:) Lynds and Kate helped as well. They were great sports to do this with the kids.

Look at that cute couple!

Christmas Snow

Well, if you haven't heard, Las Vegas got snow- like 5 inches of solid sticking snow mid-December...quite the novelty here (30 years since it last snowed like this in LV). We were grateful to be here to enjoy it b/c we miss true winter! It so happened that just two days prior I had gone to Good Will looking for snow gear for the kids b/c we were traveling up to northern Utah a week later, and found snow suits! So, they were set, and played for a good couple of hours in the beautiful white wonderland. It made for a great memory- the only missing component was SHANE! But he was getting plenty of snow in Denver:)

Please ignore the snot on my son's face-- this was the only picture I could get of all of us.

Brinly making snow angels- she loved it! I think it spawned a few Virginia memories. She would have stayed out longer if I would have let her:)

Cade truly enjoyed the snow- except for the few times his mittens fell off and his hands were touching bare snow. He is warm blooded you know- he has lived in the heat most of his life. We was really cute...he's pick up snow and show it to me and say "See, see!" in a super high-pitched excited voice.

The snow kept falling all evening and into the night. By morning, about a third of it had melted and by the end of the day it was all gone except for in a few shadows. Loved it!

Christmas Festival

We tried to keep really busy while Shane was gone just to keep me from going too crazy. One weekend we went to the Henderson Christmas Festival. It was fun, but so windy that we didn't get to do as much as we had liked, but it was still fun for us.


Brinly and Cade both enjoyed the petting zoo IMMENSELY. Cade kept calling everything a doggy. Fun.

They also had a snow pit. Even though we were seriously lacking in proper snow gear, the kids enjoyed the ice mess:) I did get nailed in the face by a lovely strange child once.

Brinly enjoying the snow- she still remembers Virginia winters.

This was so humorous. Cade's first experience sitting on Santa's lap. I knew it would be rough b/c he was having serious stranger anxiety ever since Shane left, but it was shear horror for him. Brinly looks cute as usual. She was very excited to have the experience. This was at the Ethal M. Chocolate Factory, and they passed out free chocolates to all the kids after their photo.

We have enjoyed decorating a gingerbread house every Christmas. This year I wasn't up to making my own, even if that usually consists of graham crackers...so we went the Walmart route:) It turned out better than any of our previous houses...though it didn't quite taste as good. The kids definitely had a good time...mostly sneaking licks and candies.