Happy 1st Birthday Lucas!!

My sweet baby boy, Lucas, turned 1 today! I can't believe a year has already passed since the day he was born...but I'm pretty sure we all say that with each of our kids on each of their birthday's. He is such a fun little boy and bring some serious laughter and fun to this house! Spencer has his daddy/son bond and it is amazing....but it's also amazing how much the girls just adore him and love playing with him (ok...99% of the time).

We had a little family birthday for him today, he opened present from Mommy & Daddy, his sisters and from my friend Val who was staying with us this weekend. He loved his "boy" toys that he finally got! We have lots of gender neutral toys in our house so adding a dump truck, parking garage, plastic animals and a foot ball....oh and of course his 1st Gator's hat, well they were great additions to his toys!

Happy Birthday Lucas Brock, my sweet baby boy! Mommy loves you bunches!!!!

xoxo

The day Lucas Brock was born, October 13, 2008!

His 1st birthday today, October 13, 2009!

All over again....

We are having another boy and couldn't be more excited. I can't believe it! I am really still in shock from seeing the ultrasound yesterday. Up until a couple weeks ago I had no idea if it would be a boy or a girl. I kept thinking there is no way that Spencer is going to get another boy, no matter how bad he wanted one! I was so wrong. I have been telling him for a couple weeks that it's a girl, but really I didn't have a clue. With both Lucas and Kaylie I had a dream about them and knew for sure and I was right with both...but didn't have a clue this time around. So I guess as much as I didn't want to know the sex until the baby was born, yesterday was a surprise for me!

The whole family (all 5 of us) were there to see our new baby boy moving around in my belly. Kendra journaled about the experience while we were there and just loved watching the baby. Kaylie kept calling the u/s tech doctor so she didn't respond to Kaylie cause she didn't know she was talking to her, but she really loved seeing the baby's heart and asking about what parts we were looking at. Lucas...well he sat on Daddy's lap and wiggled like always until we let him down, but blocked him off from going to other parts of the office. The tech did all the measurements and then finally said "Ok let's see what we have here"...I was so nervous and excited. When she said it was a boy, I did was I always do...started to tear up and couldn't have been happier.

I have to admit though, I would have loved another little girl...might have to try for 1 more in a few years! I do miss the bows and cute outfits that you don't get with a boy. However, with a boy you do miss out on some of the drama. This really is perfect for us for when we finally move into a home. The girls will have their own rooms and the little boys will always share. The house is even and no more girls over ruling the house ;)

Here are the ultrasound pictures from yesterday, there was no question about if he was a boy or not. Kaylie asked if the picture showing he was a boy was actually a butterfly...kinda makes sense when you look at it!

I'll try to blog more about what's been going on with the rest of the family later!

xoxo,

Kate

Ok so it's been a month, but I have a valid excuse for not posting lately. Things have been crazy busy in our house! To top it all off we are having another baby. I can't believe I am saying that when I have a 9 month old right now. I am starting to actually get excited though since I'll be done having children and that's a nice thought. I am a miserable pregnant person so I can't wait for this pregnancy to be over with! (yes already)

Well we have had a bunch go on since June when I posted last, I am now 29 years old...crazy! Summer is going good, we were busy doing stuff all the time, but we've been home bodies this last week cause I've been sick...I know the kids are dying! They just got super excited when I told them they could watch High School Musical 3, which I didn't know I was agreeing to cause Kendra had Kaylie ask!

Lucas is constantly making messes in the house, which we laugh about sometimes because they are things that you just wish he wouldn't do, but you can't get mad at a cute boy like Lucas!

The girls are the girls...they fight and they love each other, it's a daily adventure with them! I do love when all 3 kids are playing and enjoying themselves in the room. Today Kendra was having fun taking pictures of Lucas with graham crackers all over his face. I love those moments when they are loving one another!

Here are some fun pics from the last 2 months.

Pics we took for Spencer's tie for Father's Day!

4th of July, I made the girl's outfits!

Kaylie's dress is my favorite I've made so far!

I love when Lucas lays his head down, he loves his Daddy!

My Baby Boy

Ok so I haven't posted for a while and let me just say, a few BIG things have happened. Well big for me! This post is mostly about Lucas, since he is the one doing the newest things :)

My friend, Kathy, buzzed my baby boy's hair on May 15th, he really needed to have his hair evened out, there were some long strands and it just bugged me.

Before

During

After

Lucas got his first 2 teeth on the 22nd & 25th. Boy was I excited for this day to come. Teething for him was horrible, painful and he didn't sleep very well for 4-5 weeks. He was waking up about 1-2 times a night and I was so sleep deprived. I am loving him being back to sleeping his normal 11-12 hours a night. Now if I could just get to bed earlier I'd be good!

And now for the fun part, my baby boy started crawling on Saturday and now he is on the move all over the house. It is the cutest thing ever. 

So now I have a baby on solids, with teeth and ready to destroy my house! He is such a curious one that I don't know what I'm going to do. Kaylie wasn't like this and didn't head for the dvd's (well she does now, but that's only because she knows how to work the dvd and ps3 player). So we'll see how it goes, but I'm loving having a boy. I mean I love my girls, but a boy is so different and I'm loving it!

Hair & Share!

Check out this great site for girls hair-do and an awesome contest. I love it!!

http://hairandshare.blogspot.com/

Little Gator

So last Sunday on our family walk to feed the fish at the lake we were suprised with a little gator eating the bread and scaring away the fish! Spencer said it was about 4 ft. in length so it wasn't too big, but big enough to keep me from not wanting to be near it! I did get a bagillion pics of it and the kids loved feeding it. 

Happy Mother's Day!

Well today was a great Mother's Day! I really couldn't have asked for a better day, well except church could have been at noon so I could have had breakfast before I left. But all in all I had a great day with my family. We had family over after church and I made Tortilla Soup (thanks Gretch) and it was yummy! We had a great time just hanging out and the guys watching TV like they always do! Anyway here are some pics.

Fun for the kids!

This last Sunday I needed to get out of the house after church so I called Brenda and asked if she wanted to take the kids on a walk. Kaylie didn't get to go to church cause she was a little sick and Spencer headed out of town for work. So I took the 3 kids and we went to Brenda's and took all 4 kids to the lake to feed the fish some bread. Well on the way there is a big green field of grass so before we headed home we let the kids run around and they loved it!

Girl's Night- Part I

Ok so we have a good friend who is moving back to Utah, Brooke. So we had a girls night to get together, play games, eat junk food and have fun....we did all that! I'm gonna miss you Brooke!

Sea World

So on Friday night I went to Sea World with some of our friends. When my family was here all 4 of them bought a 1 day pass...well you get the second day free. You show them your pass on the way out, give them your name and they print a pass for you to come back. So I gave them the names of 4 of my friends :) Is that bad? Hhhhmmmmm....

Kaylie is sure going to miss "her Troy" and of course Brooke & Cocoa!

Easter Break---Lots of pics!

Some of my family came to town for Easter and it was awesome. My mom, Aunt Deborah, her husband (now my uncle) Kevin and my cousin (Deb's daughter) Makayla all came. We stayed at Paradise Palms while they were here in a townhome and it was great. So nice to not all be bunched up in a 2 bedroom hotel room. We had so much fun.

We ventured to Sea World, Universal, Downtown Disney/T-Rex, Prime Outlets, and the worst....Premium Outlets!! Sea World was actually alot of fun and although we have 2 year season passes we don't go as often as we'd like. It was the perfect day, actually the whole trip the weather was great, except the 1 day we wanted to go to the beach it was horrible weather...the tornado day! Anyway, I'm glad they were here for Easter, I don't get to spend many holidays with my family so it was amazing for me to have them here.

Thanks guys!! LOVE YOU & miss you tons already!!!

There are so many pictures I want to post, but I'll save you and pic my favorites :)

Sea World

Easter

Downtown Disney

Universal

Sea World & Luau

Pool Fun

So...

Lots of entries to read...keep on scrolling down!

My Baby Boy!

Lucas is getting so big. He will be 6 months old this Monday (the same day Spencer turns 30)! We have been trying to sit him up and crawl lately...obviously that isn't happening yet, but we sure laugh playing around with him. He has also been eating baby food. I thought I'd try making his baby food and so far so good. I have done Organic Carrotts, Organic Sweet Potatoes and some Broccolli..ok so I am rethinking the broccolli because I know that causes gas, but I'm going to try it anyway until I can get to the store to get some other veggies. Now I know you are supposed to try 1 food a week at a time, but so far he has been fine with everything. He loves food and I swear he could eat a ton!

Also...help! Lucas was sleeping 12 hours a night from the time he was like 3 months old. Now for the last 4-5 nights he has been going to bed between 7:45-8:30pm and then he is waking up by midnight crying and screaming!!! Then he finally goes back to bed, but I have to feed him to get him to be happy. Obviously that is what makes him happy, but I can't keep doing this every night. I'm kinda tired! Any thoughts? I'm waiting for my "On Becoming Baby Wise" book for ages 5 1/2 months-18 months to arrive. Yes, that is my Baby Bible!!! So any advise would be great about now!

Pre-School

We signed Kaylie up for preschool at Discovery Zone, she starts on August 25th and we are really excited. We were invited to her school the other night for story time and to see Curious George...oh and to get us to purchase some books from their book fair.

Kaylie loves playing at "her" school! She had a really good time roaming around the room looking!

In the car headed to school!

It was really loud in there with all of the kids playing with the musical instruments!

And then Curious George...she didn't care for him at all!!!

Bags!

So I wanted to attempt a purse or a bag just to see if I could do it. I found a free pattern online that is awesome!

http://mamaspocketbook.com/freebies.htm You should try it out, way easy!

Bag #1- using the actual pattern to make the purse. This purse is reversible!

Bag #2- making a smaller bag, altering the pattern a little for Kaylie's friend, Emma, at church. This bag is reversible too!

Bag #3- making a diaper bag using the pattern, but changing it up alot to make pockets inside and just to make it more of a diaper bag instead of a purse! Brooke & I made this bag for her, she is having a baby boy in July, but leaving us to move to Utah this month :( :( :( :( I'm sad!!!! this was my second attempt at this bag, but I forgot to take pics of the first one I made for my friend, Dawn, who is having a baby any day now!

Babies Babies and more Babies....

Ok so we have a few prego friends and they have had their baby showers recently.

Troy & Brooke's Shower. It was a couple shower and it was a blast. I had a great time hanging out with all of our friends and watching our husbands play these games!

The Invite by Katie

The Parents to Be

The nasty games Erleen & Gretchen made us play! LOL The diaper game was so so much more fun with men involved!

The Diaper Cake by Katie & Kathy

Kathy & Katie

The game that my husband ruined for many of us! His is the one with the black object you are looking at thinking "is that what I think it is?" and the answer is yes!

So for our friend Stephanie, she already has a boy and is pregnant with another so Kathy & I had a Baby Sprinkle for her!

Invite by Katie

Adorable cake by Celeste (Skinny Cakery)

Another Diaper cake by Kathy & Katie

Steph with many wipes from Teal!


Cutest burp rag by Gretchen

Tummy by Baby!

4 Years & Counting....

Ok so I have a ton to post about and I don't want to bore you by rambling on and on since I'm sure you only want to see pics anyway!


So now where to start. I haven't posted in over a month and I feel like that is the census amongst most of my friends also.


First things first...Happy 4 Year Anniversary to Me & Spencer!

Happy Valentine's Day

For this Valentine's Day we had a picnic in Celebration. We went with Kevin, Terri, Kacey, Michael & Makenzie, Steven, Brenda & Jordan and Kathy & Andrew. It was a lot of fun and we had some nice ice cream at Kilwin's afterwards. We are hoping to make this a family tradition, we had a lot of fun just relaxing and hanging out.

Feeding the ducks Doritos with Daddy, Michael & Makenzie

At the Water Splash Area

Happy 3rd Birthday My Little Love!

My little baby girl turned 3 on February 3rd. We had a super fun party for her at the park again this year. Thank you to everyone that was able to make it and for her wonderful gifts, she had a blast!

Talking to Daddy on the phone after she woke up so he could wish her a Happy Birthday!


She is so grateful when she gets gifts...I love it!


I love my presents!

Kendra & Boston looking on as Kaylie opens a card.

Wow Wow Wubbzy! She LOVED her cake!

I just had to post this picture of Kendra & Andrew, my friend Kathy's hubby. Kendra got home and said "Andrew is just so funny, he kept making me laugh" My kids just love Kathy and Andrew!

For Kaylie's birthday I took her to get some special cupcakes at Sweets by Good Golly Miss Holly in Waterford Lakes in Orlando. They were yummy, we ate them all that night. She loved them!

Surprise!

If you've been reading my blog the last couple days...I've been posting about my vacation but I've been posting them backwords so that you start from the top with the beginning and you go down until the end...this is my last vacation post :) So now you can read it in order... :)

So here goes...

Well I decided that I wanted to visit my family so I called my aunt who had a free ticket she was going to let me use. I thought it would be fun to surprise my parents and just show up. So I got my ticket and that next Tuesday.

The plane ride was fearful, but the kids ended up being perfect...both on the way there and on the way back to Orlando. I receieved many compliments on how well my children travel. I'm lucky I guess!

A few people knew that I would be there because I did need a little help with my plan. I called my brother Ryan and he picked me up from the airport. We headed straight to my mom's office where she was slammed with work. I came at the wrong time for her work schedule, but that didn't matter. We sent Kaylie into the office alone and then Ryan followed. I guess my mom looked at Kaylie and thought that it looked like her, but didn't have a clue why my brother had a little girl with her so she was just confused. Well then I walked in with Lucas and she just stood there in total shock. She came right over to Kaylie and just teared up, it was so exciting. Until she got home from work that night she just couldn't believe that we were there and were able to surprise her. It was a blast! I'm glad we did it this way and because of this she even got a couple days off!!!

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

Time to Bake

Kaylie loves baking and loves being a helper so when we are with my mom she loves it. My mom let's her cook cupcakes whenever and pretty much let's her do what she wants. Kaylie made cupcakes and cookies and decorated them all on her own!

Ice Skating-Northstar

Well I wanted to take Kaylie to the snow since we were in Reno during the Winter...that so didn't happen. The show that was on the ground was much more like ice, not fun to throw at anyone and surely not snowman making material. We did get to take her ice skating and while it was fun, it only lasted 2 laps around the rink and we were done. I do have to say that was perfect for me! I didn't want to even go around the second time, but Uncle Ryan joined Kaylie, Makayla and myself so I went. Kaylie had fun but was done with her skates after that.

Best Uncles!

My brothers are so awesome with my little ones. They constantly have Kaylie laughing or crying :) and they were great with Lucas. When Lucas was crying a ton because his schedule was way off...they had the "special hold" Thanks Ryan & Jason for being awesome brothers and super uncles.

Happy Early Birthday Kaylie & Makayla!

Well since we were in town my Mom wanted to celebrate Kayile's birthday at her house, it was a lot of fun. Since my aunt Deb and cousin Makayla were there we celebrated Makayla's also since it's 3 days after Kaylie's.

The most fun probably came with the cake so I'll start with that.... You probably had to be here for this, but this pics should be enough!

So my mom went with Kaylie to order the cake so Kaylie could pick it out. My Mom came home and said they got a Tinkerbell one, that's what Kaylie wanted. The next day we were going to be out ice skating so we had Joe (step dad's brother) pick up the cake for us. When we got home from ice skating I looked at the cake and asked my mom if this is what the picture of the cake looked like. She about died. She had ordered a cake where the kids picture is added and the put that printable sugar paper on the top of the cake...she asked for it just without Kaylie's picture.

This is the cake that was on the table...




I told my mom there is no way I was going to let her pay $20 for that cake (even though that was a cheap price), but whatever. So since we had to run to the store I said I was going to bring the cake back and we'd ask them to re-do it for the next day and we'd have the party then. So we did. I went to the bakery (my mom wouldn't come with me) and I showed the girls at the counter the cake. They were suprised at what a mess it was so they went and talked and came back and said to give them a few minutes, they'd fix it for us. I figured, no big deal......Well 40 minutes later and after them telling us about 25 minutes into making the cake that they weren't actual cake decorators...they were sandwich makers, this is what we came home with. The girls there were very nice, but they should have never attempted to make a cake and should have never forgotten to mention that they didn't do it for a living....We gracefully took the cake home and just laughed! The did give us half of the money back and are supposed to call my mom to give her the remainder of her money back for the mess! It's funny though because those girls thought they had done such a great job, they were so proud they did that for being sandwich makers....seriously? I could have make a cake look like this with the tools they have, I hope I could have done a better job and not sprayed so much green that it actually looked like grass was growing on this cake!
Sorry the pic is sideways...I can't help it!





Oh yeah and this is what the cake was supposed to look like :)

Happy "Way Early" Birthday Girls!!

See you later Mom!

Well we had such a fun week at my mom's house, she loved her surprise and we loved seeing her. She is so awesome and I wish I lived closer to her...so I could bug her more often :) Love you Mom, you're the best!

Surprise Dad!!!

So I was able to surprise my Dad also by showing up at his house in Ripon, California. He just looked at us and asked "what the heck are you doing here?" I said, well I was at mom's last week so we are here to surprise you! I had such a great time visiting with him. When we are at my dad's we do alot of just hanging out and relaxing...I really loved being there. Kaylie loved being with her Grandpa and I loved seeing him with his new grandson, Lucas Brock! Thanks Dad for everything, we had a great time with you! We love you!!!

It's Hailing!!

Ok so we didn't get to experience the snow, but we got to see some hail in Ripon. It reminded me of a story back in the day when we were little and it snowed, I think I was about 12 years old. I am not going to tell the story because it's kinda mean now that I look back on it, but it was funny then. Laura...you should know this story...it has to do with your brother and our old neighbors :)

Anyway, so we had a birthday party for Kaylie while we were at my dad's house. We had some family join us and it was fun....at first :) And then it started to hail, which was really cool. My dad made Kaylie a mini snowman, that she eventually brushed off the grill where he put it. Shortly after the hail was when it because funny...the electricity went out and didn't come back on until almost 2 hours later when the last person was literally getting into their car!

Kaylie is ready for her party!

Enjoying being outside but not being hit by hail.

She said it kind of hurt!!

Scott ran with Kristi out into the hail!

I know, this is kind of a sad snowman :)

Great Grandparents

My kids are really lucky to have both sets of their Great-Grandparents on my side still alive. (that sounds odd to say) We were able to visit and spend time with both my Grandma/Pa Hicken and Grandma/Pa Rasmusson. They mean alot to me and I'm glad we get to spend time with them when we are in town, even if it isn't much. It means alot that my children are able to enjoy the time with them when possible.

Most of these pictures are them with Lucas since he is the newest member of our family...that and Kaylie was usually off playing!

Grandma Hicken

Grandpa Hicken

Grandma Rasmusson

Grandpa Rasmusson

4 Generations, Me, Lucas & Kaylie, My Dad and My Grandpa & Grandma

Kristi Poo

I loved being able to hang out with my sister, I sure miss living near her...well my brothers too, but this post isn't about them :) (Plus none of them will probably ever even read this)

I really loved seeing my sister with Kaylie & Lucas...she was way nicer to Lucas :) Kaylie kind of got into her stuff here & there. My sister was usually gone when we got up in the morning but on the weekend Kaylie would go into her room and yell "GOOD MORNING" and she would yell it until Kristi finally said it back.

Handcuffed!

My sister's friends, Kadee, had some handcuffs that Kaylie couldn't get enough of. It was hilarious. She wanted to handcuff everyone and anything. Finally they tried to give her a doll to handcuff and that didn't work so we handcuffed her!

Laura--My Best Friend

Well Ripon has something no other town has, Laura. I miss living near her so every time I get to go back to California to visit we see each other as much as possible. This time we had fun watching our little ones play around at my dad's house. Laura has a 4 year old daughter, Naomi and then she has Owen who is 13 days younger than Kaylie and she just recently had a daughter, Emme who is 3 1/2 months older than Lucas. It's crazy that we have been pregnant together twice and will have 2 kids in the same grade. Cool how it all worked out that way and wasn't even planned :)