Catch up!

We survived our first holiday season with a little one.  We spent Thanksgiving in Heber and managed to see all of the family, which is actually quite an accomplishment.  I went shopping with Jerry's mom and sister for Black Friday.  We started Thursday night when we left Heber around 10 and got home Friday morning around 8.  It was fun but definately tiring!

I was excited for Christmas for two reasons: first, it was Ayden's first Christmas and second, I just love Christmas.  We put up our crappy Walmart fake tree when we got back from Thanksgiving in Heber.  We paid like $15 dollars for it so you get what you pay for.  Ayden loved the tree. He especially liked playing with the ornaments.  He eventually got pretty good at not playing with them.  I was kind of surprised he didn't bother the presents! 

I usually bake a lot of goodies for Christmas, but with work and having a little one that likes to get into everything that didn't happen.  In all honesty, it was probably better we didn't have a bunch of treats laying around the house!

Christmas Eve we drove around town and looked at the lights, which is a tradition from Jerry's family.  When we got home we got Ayden bathed and in bed so "Santa" could come.  I baked some cookies to leave for Santa so he would have some cookies and milk.  Santa's favorite part was the milk:) We actually made it to bed pretty early.  We left the Christmas tree lights on, which is a tradition from my family.  It was the only time we got to leave them on all night. 

We unfortunately did not get to sleep in Christmas morning.  Ayden is an early riser and was up by about 7.  We came downstairs to see what Santa had brought.  It was just another morning for Ayden.  In my family all of the presents were wrapped unless it was something big, but in Jerry's family none of the Santa presents were wrapped.  We compromised and
wrapped some and left some unwrapped.  One of the unwrapped Santa presents was a puppy dog pull toy.  Ayden saw that and the rest was history.  He wasn't in to opening stuff so Jerry got to open the baby's presents and his own.  Jerrys mom, dad, and brother and my mom came out.  We had all sorts of food and everyone left before I could have them take leftovers!  I had to work Christmas night which is why we stayed home.  It was kind of a bummer but double time and a half made up for it!

I have learned that when you have little ones your social life is not very exciting.  For New Year's we went to a restaurant in Vernal called the Red Onion.  Jerry wanted to go because they had all you eat prime rib.  It was pretty good for only paying $15 a person.  After, we stopped off at Walmart (my favorite store, not!) and Jerry got Despicable Me.  I got to watch about 30 minutes of the movie and then it was bed time for the little one.  After the baby was asleep, we watched Benchwarmers, which is one of my favortie movies!  This year was the
first time since we have been married that Jerry and I stayed up until midnight.  Lame, I know. 

As soon as Christmas was done, I had to start planning Ayden's birthday.  I know the first birthday is more for the parents, mostly the mom.  I tapped into my creative side and actually made Ayden's invitations. They turned out pretty good if I do say so myself.  I got even more creative when I decided to do his cake myself.  I had to work 6 of 7 days the week of the party so I was stressing a little bit about having only 1 day to get everything ready and take Ayden to his 12 month check up.  His head is in the 95th percentile and his heigh and weight are in the 10th and 15th percentiles!  Jerry was really sweet and cleaned most of the house for me.  I decided to do a race car theme for the cake.  I have a mold for a giant cupcake so I did that for the baby, cupcakes for the kids, and then just a regular side cake for everyone else.  On the baby's cupcake I frosted it green and then used chocolate frosting to make a
track and stuck a car on it.  I did basically the same thing for the regular sized cake, and then the cupcakes I frosted green and used a mini snicker bar and 4 M&M's to make a little car.  We fit a lot of people into our tiny little apartment.  I was stressing about not having enough room for everyone, but, as usual, I over thought it.  It was cozy, but worked out well.  We had sandwiches, salads, chips, dip, ice cream, and cake.  Both sets of grandparents, all the aunts and uncles, a family from our ward, a cousin, and a great-aunt were there!   It was quite the party!  I can't how fast this last year went by!  He is a little boy now, not a baby anymore!

I took Ayden with me visiting teaching last week and he found the dog food at one of the sister's house and tried to eat it.  Luckily I was able to fish it out of his mouth before he swallowed it!  Ayden has his first cold and hasn't been feeling the greatest.  Jerry has come down with it too so I have to sick babies to take care of.


I am catching this  up at work and it is 3:45 in the morning so bear with me if somethings don't quite make sense!

Injury Report

The last couple of days have been a little rough for Ayden and I.  I was playing with Ayden the other morning and he got upset and flung himself backwards and his head hit me right beneath the eye.  I woke up the next morning with a black eye.

A couple of days later, Ayden was playing in the kitchen and tripped over one of his bowls on the floor and face planted into the corner of the chair.  He cut the  corner of his eye and his face was all red.  I felt so bad.  That day was not a good day for him.  He was hitting his head left and right that day.

Work has been good.  I got to work in the ICU on Thursday and a few hours on Friday.  It is a whole different experience.  It is can be pretty intense.  There were three patients Thursday night, two of which were somewhat critical.  I got the third because I have taken care of him before.  Friday night I got to work and we found out the lady on a venitlator had a DNR so we had to take her off.  She passed within the hour.  It was kind of sad, but she was old.

Jerry and I spoke in church today.  It was the standard new memebers of the ward speaking assignment.  This is one reason I try to avoid moving!  I don't mind being in front of people, but for some reason I get really nervous when it comes to this.  I thought I had a pretty good idea of how I wanted to put it together, but when I sat down to write it last night, it ended up going a different direction.  Needless to say, I was up later than I planned.  Jerry's parents came out to visit and so they could sit with Ayden during sacrament.  All in all, our talks went really well.  I am just glad it is over with! 

Another year!

Jerry and I celebrated our third anniversary yesterday!  It has been great 3 years full of excitement.  I have finished nursing school, Jerry has gone back to school, we had a baby, vacations, and a new home. 

I had to work Sunday night so we had a quiet day at home. The orginal plan had been for Jerry and I to go to Vegas, but with me getting this job and moving, we decided to put that on hold.  We went to dinner at a place in Vernal called The Quarry.  The food was pretty good, but a little on the expensive side.  After we stopped at Walmart and got Toy Story 3 for Jerry.  I know it doesn't sound very exciting, but we had a good night out as a family.

Here's to a lot more good years!

Ayden's First Halloween

Ayden's first Halloween was probably not very eventful, but he was sure dang cute! I had to work so we got him into his costume and took a bunch of pictures before I had to go. Jerry and Ayden went to the ward Halloween party and I am sure Ayden was the cutest one there!

As you can tell from the pictures, Ayden was a tiger. Grandma Chadwick picked out the costume. Even though Jerry does not like Halloween, he pulled out his Jedi cape his grandma made for him a few years ago and was at least
somewhat festive! I felt bad I had to work, but I figured he is only 9 months old and really has no idea what is going on. Hope everyone had a fun and safe time!















Ayden and his pumpkin

I am Ayden, hear me ROAR!
He was actually growling when I
took this.

Picture Time!

This is a brief overview of the last9 months. So many more I wish I could put on. I will do better at posting new ones!

Life Changes

A lot has happened with our little family in the last 9 months and I haven't been very good at keeping things up to date. To be honest, I forgot that I had this for a little while!

Continuing from Jerry's last post, Ayden Brent was born January 27, 2010, at 9:19 p.m. at Timpanogos Hospital. He was 8 lbs 3 oz and was 21 1/2 inches after 30 hours of labor. There were some tense moments, but everything worked out just fine and he was born healthy and perfect! It seems this was just yesterday but these last 9 months have flown by. Aside from my skin tone, he is his father's son through and through. He is such an energetic little boy and loves to be on the move. He is a total boy. He is only 9 months old and already seems like a little boy. He is ahead of all the development markers. He had teeth and was crawling by the time he was 6 months. He started pulling up and walking along things not too long after that. Before we knew it, he started walking. He is getting better but is still wobbly. He has also learned to climb stairs and loves it. The only thing now is for him to learn how to go back down. He loves being with his Grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. He especially loves his Aunt Haley! I know this is a really brief summary of 9 months, but I will try and do better. I am on the laptop and all of Ayden's pictures are on our desktop so I will post them soon!

I have finally found a job as an RN after over a year of searching. This job has brought us out to Roosevelt. Everything fell into place with this job. I applied and interviewed for a position they had, but they ended up offering it to another person. I got a call a few weeks later from the Med/Surg nursing supervisor letting me know there was another position open and he wanted me to apply for it. He called me back a couple of days later and offered me the job right on the spot. Needless to say, we were so happy. So 3 weeks later I started at Uinta Basin Medical Center working nights. We finally have our own little place and get to use all the nice things we got for our wedding. We are excited to finally be on our own.

Jerry is now being Mr. Mom, and I think he is enjoying it. It has definately been an adjustment for him being home all day instead of at work. He will be starting back to school in January to continue on his path to becoming a teacher. In the meantime, he got all his papers turned in and processed to be a substitute teacher. Jerry thought this would be a good thing to get some experience. He still helps out the agent he worked for from time to time. It seems that office doesn't function well without him!

We are excited to start this new chapter in our lives !

Time to update

I am not any good at this and seeing as how Erin is still in labor (now 24 hours) I figured I had better put something up here for those who follow this.

We are getting much closer to where we need to be so that we can begin pushing. Mother and baby are doing very well still and we are excited to meet little Ayden. We'll take plenty of pictures so that everyone can see him when he comes.