Kayden's First Talk in Primary

Kayden gave his first talk in primary...It was on prayer and he did such a good job. The whole room was silent while he gave it. He did such a good job.

Here is his first talk:

There is a very important person that I talk to everyday. This person is someone that I love and respect. I may not be able to see him, but I know he listens and loves me very much. He is our Heavenly Father and we speak to him by praying.

When I pray to him I make sure that I am not distracted. I fold my arms, close my eyes and bow my head. This shows Heavenly Father that I love him. I show my respect to Heavenly Father by using words like thee, thou, thy and thine. This also shows Heavenly Father the reverence I have for him.

My mom told me a poem she learned when she was a little younger. It goes like this:

Thee, Thou, Thy and Thine

Are special words that say

I love my Heavenly Father

And respect him when I pray.

I am thankful I can pray to Heavenly Father and he hears and answers prayers.

Kayden Starts Preschool

I was trying to be so strong, but I will admit...as soon as I walked out of the room from dropping Kayden off tears started rolling down my face. Kayden loves preschool. He looks forward to it everyday. He goes Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He has changed in so many ways. He loves learning, reading, singing and playing on the play ground. The teacher, Miss Michelle, told me that Kayden started crying that first day as well. So sad. Since then, Kayden has told his teacher multiple times that she is pretty. He has tackled a few of the kids and we had to end that.

We are so happy that he was able to get in to this program. I never knew how good it would be for him.
Silly Kayden...
Cool Kayden
Showing off his cool back pack.

And My handsome little man!

The Workman Boys Chicago Trip

The Workman Boys (Ryan~Tyler~Mark) have been talking about doing a boys trip for as long as I can remember (it is mostly Tyler that gets it started and Ryan goes along with it and Mark says he doesn't want to go until the last minute!)SOOOO...they had a blast. They flew out of PHX on Friday afternoon. Got to Chicago around midnight (they missed Taylor, Ryan's cousin, opening up his mission call). Got a rental car and drove to their hotel.

They woke up Saturday morning and didn't stop moving. They did some sight seeing and then got in the car and drove 3 or so hours to Champaign, IL to watch ASU play against University of Illinois. Unfortunately, ASU lost but it was still a good game to attend with a lot of ASU fans. They drove the 3 hours to their hotel and were annoyed all night by prank callers on their cell phones. They finally turned their phones off.

The next day, they went to a Cubs game and did more sight seeing. I loved getting the pictures randomly throughout the day. They came home on Monday morning...bright and early and Kayden never wants his dad to go back to Chicago! :) Here are some pictures from there trip...I can't commentate them though because I really can't remember what was going on in the pictures.

Utah 2010...

We always make a trip to Brigham City when we go to Utah. I thought my mothers head stone looked really good...Besides that fact that some lime-a-way needed to be taken to it. The flowers that someone put on here were beautiful.
And the progress on the Brigham City Temple was absolutely stunning....BEAUTIFUL
There was a cute old man that was there taking pictures and he had a little step stool and he was kind enough to let me use it to get a decent picture over the fence that is around the temple grounds.
I heard that there is going to be a parking garage under the temple and that is what you are seeing here.
Kayden and Oakley...Annette and Neal's dog. I want a dog that is as well behaved as this dog is...she is such a good dog.
We went to Hogle Zoo and got the adventure pack and that included the Carousel...Ryan loved it. HAHA
Kayden for sure did...look at that smile. :)
Little Keith (although I still call him baby Keith) was so cute trying to figure out how to do this. It took a couple of tries for him to do this.
This is Alice showing him how to do it. lol
The fun group of Hogle Zoo goers...we tried to get Karl and Kiersten to go, but they had something come up. I love Zander's face and what Kayden is doing...I think little Gage is distracted by Kayden's little move.
All the walking kids decided that they needed to put their heads in the dinosaurs mouth. This is Zander...
And Kayden...
And Little Keith...he actually ws the one who started it all.
And little Rosie...oh my goodness...she has to be one of the most photogenic little things. I didn't post all the pictures but every picture I took she pulled a different move.
Isn't she the cutest????
And then there is Gage. He kept doing this when we were eating lunch. He is so adorable.
He was all excited about a dinosaur that was at the zoo...I actually think he was growling back at it.
I think Alice was just as excited as Keith was to be at the zoo. :)
I thought this picture of Annette and Gage was so cute.
Look at those cheeks.
All those boys being perfectly content watching the animals.
On the train that goes around the zoo.
Gage...the little 'Firecracker'.

June 13th 2011 - Kayden's Surgery

This day was seriously the saddest day of my life. He was so mad about everything. We got to the hospital at 6 in the morning and got checked in. Kayden went through and did all the stuff he was supposed to like weighing in...and then in the end they gave him purple pajamas...he was not happy about that one bit.
We were in the pre-op area chilling and the doctor came in and saw us as well as the 'sleep' doctor. The ENT that was taking the tonsils/adenoids out informed us that because of Kayden's age he would be staying the night at the hospital to make sure there were no complications. It was seriously the worst night of my life. Kayden never has really been one that was up all night as a baby, but with nurses coming in all night and all the stuff connected to Kayden, it made for a really long night.
When Kayden woke up from the surgery he woke up and was immediately ticked off. He tried pulling his IV out and ended up slapping the nurse. Luckily, the anethesialogist was in there and gave him some more meds to knock him out so the nurses could get his IV corrected and taped down.
I hope that no child of mine has to have this surgery again...it was miserable. BUT if anything good came from it...Kayden is a sound sleeper now and doesn't wake up not being able to breathe anymore.

MY Goodness...Playing Catch up!!!

Well, I hate to do this to you all...but I hardly anyone reads this anymore so I guess it is more for my journaling purposes. If you do read this, then expect a picture overload...It takes me having to call in sick (Kayden is sick not me) for me to sit down and update the blog. Life has been very busy, but we are being blessed everyday.

This first set of pictures is of the CUBS GAME...Every year we go to a cubs game as a family and we always have a blast. Over the year we have found all our cubs gear on sale and have slowly bought it. It was fun to be all decked out in Cubs gear, but it was very unfortunate that this was the only game they lost while they were here.
I am sorry about the sideways pictures...I can't figure out why they are doing that. Kayden looked especially handsome with his hat and outfit. He LOVES baseball and understands the game pretty well...however, he has a hard time sitting there for the whole game.
Ryan and Kayden went down and watched batting practice in hopes that they would catch a ball. They weren't able to catch on this time.
It isn't very often that Ryan and I are able to get a picture of just us. We both really liked this picture.
Kayden on the way to the game...he loves looking at the pictures right after I take them.
And he enjoys taking pictures of Ryan and I. He is pretty good at it.
This was at a Spring Training game...right after this picture one of the batting coaches walked up and gave Ryan and Kayden a ball.

PLAYING IN THE LEAVES

This is not something we get to do very often in Arizona and this is something that I miss doing. However, there was a horrible frost this year that basically killed the leaves and made them fall. This was the second or third time that they had been raked up and we let the kids play in them. They had a blast and I caught some really cute pictures of Kayden. They were with my phone, so they aren't the best.


KARL AND KIERSTEN/EASTER WEEKEND

Karl and Kiersten came down from the cold (aka UTAH) over Easter weekend. I didn't get a lot of pictures while they were here, but I think Kiersten did...I just need her to send them to me. We had a blast. This was the first time I have really been able to get to know Kiersten. I already felt like I knew her, but have never had a chance to hang out with her. We laughed SO hard and Kayden loved having them here.
Kayden got ahold of the camera and snapped these silly pictures of Kiersten and Karl.

Coloring eggs...*sigh*....you should have seen Kaydens hands/arms after doing this. It was insane. He was all sorts of colors, but he had fun.
You can kind of see his hand in this picture. Karl and Kayden definitely colored the majority of the eggs. Kiersten and I were dead set on making ours look pretty.

DISNEYLAND 2011

Kayden had a perma-grin the whole time we were there. He was so happy and was willing to try every ride we could get him on. He loved Space Mountain, the cars, the rockets, the Matterhorn, the Buzz Lightyear ride, Midway Mania, and Soaring over California.
He thought this 'rocket' ride was so fun!
It was so cute when he saw Mickey Mouse. We got our pictures with him and when we were all done I went to grab our camera from the person who was kind enough to snap a picture and Kayden let go of my hand. I turned around to see where he was running off to and Mickey had opened up his arms for a hug and Kayden had run right into them and gave him the biggest hug. It was so sweet.
Walking up to Mickey Mouse...you can't go to disneyland and not see mickey.
Goofy is one of Kayden's favorites, but he was so scared of him.
Kayden didn't miss a nap both days that we were there...he is a very faithful nap taker.
Kaydens two favorite favorite favorite characters...My favorite is Mater...for sure. I think Mater is hilarious.
Kayden and I waiting in line for 'It's a Small World'...he couldn't take everything in...it was so cute. He was pointing at everything
Waiting in line to get in to disneyland...the first day...nothing like having the pictures in backwards order...lol!

Sorry for the delay in posting, but life happens (or passes) to fast now a days!