She Had a Birthday...Shout Hooray!

After stressing about it for awhile I decided to not have a big party for Sienna this year.  I figured that she wouldn't care anyway as long as there was chicken nuggets, grandparents, and presents.  Done, done and done.  We invited all the Grandmas and Grandpa to meet us at McDonalds for dinner and then head over to the house for presents and cupcakes.  This girl made out like a bandit!  These are all the presents she got:

 She was very excited to open all the presents and have everything all about her!

 We missed "mama" but we were really excited that Grandpa was able to come!

 Grandma Hudson and Grandma Swanson...

 Sienna and GG

 Thanking Daddy for putting all her new toys together!

 This is as good as it gets sometimes...

Even though it was a small party she still loved all the attention and got seriously spoiled!  We are so grateful for our parents and grandparents and everyone else who helped to make Sienna's day so special. <3 br="br">

Look who's turning 2!

This little love of my life turns two tomorrow...and I'm not sure yet how I feel about it.  She is growing so much and while she has always been full of spunk and sass she is developing more and more into her own little person everyday.  Here are some of my favorite things Sienna can do, for your entertainment and so I can remember later.

*Sienna loves music!  She loves to dance and is getting better and better at keeping the beat.  She loves to sing in the car and with mommy.  She recently made up her own song that went like this : "Halloween, Halloween, BIRTHDAY!"  It was really beautiful.

*She is 99 percent potty trained.  I would say 100 percent but she isn't quite tall enough to climb up on the toilet herself yet.

*She refers to herself as Nena.

*Mommy is still number one with Grandma in second but Grandpa and Daddy are quickly climbing up the ranks much to both of their delight. Aunt Sam and Uncle Jake are also pretty high up there and she is always excited to Skype with them in Idaho.

*She is very dramatic.  Sometimes all it takes is a stern look from Mommy to make her burst into tears and sometimes she hits the stubborn switch and folds her arms and just walks away.  She has also been know to plug her ears and say, "I no hear you Mommy."

* She parrots everything...good and bad.  She will say the words she remembers when I read books to her and from the songs that we sing.  She also will scream "Come on" at cars with me as we try and navigate traffic on our way home from Aunt Tracy's house.  This last one I'm not especially proud of.

*She loves babies.  She loves her cousins, especially William.  She likes to bring him his pacifier, and blankets and she especially likes to give him kisses.  She is also very fond of making ANY of her toys into babies, wrapping them in blankets, and bouncing them while shushing.

*She likes puzzles, coloring and stickers a lot as well.  She is getting good at identifying colors while coloring and is starting to show interest in big kid puzzles.  We are currently trying to teach her to only put stickers on paper and on people if you ask first, instead of on the remote, her toys, mirror doors and Mommy's bottom.

*Sienna is fancy.  She loves jewelry and is often found putting a skirt on over any outfit including pajamas.  She then proceeds to twirl, lift up her skirt and tell me that she is a princess. She likes to pick her own clothes and shoes and can do a lot of the dressing herself.  Today she made a request for braids in her hair.

She is pretty much amazing and we could not possibly love her more! 

Halloween Wrap-up!

 We continued with the fun tradition of having the Rick's family come over to help us carve pumpkins.  The grown ups got down to business and the girls got to work playing in Sienna's room.  It was so fun carving pumpkins while listening to the girls giggling in the other room!

 

 The finished products!

 Our Pumpkins with the pumpkins...

 Family picture

 ...proof that Kathryn was there too!

 Tonight Sienna decided that she wanted to wear the dinosaur costume we borrowed from Aunt Katie instead of her witch costume, which we also borrowed...thanks Aunt Katie and Rachel.  She made one stinkin' cute dinosaur.

 Getting ready to hit up the neighborhood...

 Side view for good measure (p.s. Like the bow I put on it?)

 Off we go!

She LOVED trick or treating!  She walked up to every door, knocked, said trick or treat and made sure to thank each person afterward.  I was so proud of her!  Everyone thought that she was so cute and on more than one occasion we had to wait at the door longer so they could get the rest of their family to come sneak a peek at her.  We hope everyone else had a great Halloween too!

Trunk or Treat!

Tonight was the trunk or treat/chili cook off for my parents ward and we made sure to invite yourselves!  Nick has a big research project happening right now but took a break so that he could party with us.  Sienna was a little hesitant about her costume at first but Daddy explained that she could be a nice witch and that seemed to fix the problem. 

 Playing with silly grandpa before the festivities...

 Sienna has reached that unfortunate stage of being so cute but completely unphotogenic.  Seriously, I can't get the girl to look at the camera to save my life...

 Getting ready for the cake walk!

 Working hard, walking in circles for our cupcakes.

Sweet Victory!

 Sienna and her cousin Jill

We had so much fun and Sienna was excited about trunk or treating as soon as she figured it all out ("Trick or Treat", open the pumpkin purse, "Thank You!")

  She should be a pro by Halloween!

Pumpkin Patch!

Nick got an awesome Groupon to Dave's Pumpkin Patch a couple of weeks ago and we were very excited to check it out this weekend.  We invited our friends Dave, Larissa and their daughter Bailee to come with us.  We started our day by enjoying a pancake breakfast with the witch.  The girls didn't really like the witch but definitely enjoyed the pancakes.

 

Being Silly...

After meeting the witch Sienna and Bailee had a blast playing in the corn pit!

 The groupon even included a pony ride for the girls!  I was a little worried that Sienna wouldn't want to do it because she refused a couple months ago when we tried with Grandpa but with some reassurance from Daddy and petting the horses before she was totally on board.  This was probably my favorite part of the whole day because I was so proud of her.

 We also took a trip through the corn maze and got super lost...

 Finally, we picked out our pumpkins!

 As you can tell by the picture above it was a long morning and Sienna was getting tired of mommy and all her picture taking...but we found the perfect pumpkins.

We had a great time and were so glad we got to enjoy it with friends.  Nick even picked up some spaghetti squash for us to try later this week at the little farmer's market they had.  It was such a fun day!

Daisy Award...

So here is the story...

My BFF in college, Jessica (sixthdonbro.blogspot.com),

 has "honored" me with a made up award.  It's called the Daisy award and with it I get to entertain everyone with a random post about seven unusual/ strange/ unknown things about myself...you lucky dogs! 

Honestly, I had a really hard time with this.  I don't really know what makes me strange because to me I suppose it's just normal.  Also I spend so much time with the little, that I can't remember the last time that I thought just about myself and who I am aside from the coolest mom ever. 

Without further ado...

#1- I had boy short hair all the way until like 8th grade because my mother thought that if I grew it out my naturally curly hair would go away...it was mildly tragic/traumatic...especially the white girl fro that took place prior to it finally growing out. 

(That's right...if I'm going to show off the fro and the denim Mickey shirt, I'm throwing everyone else under the bus too...sorry.)

#2- I hate playing games.  I firmly believe that games hate me.  You should ask Nick about the window and force field fiasco or Chad Langstraat about Blockus or anytime he tricked me into playing Settlers of Catan.
I once threw a controller at someone because he said that I sucked at Dr. Mario.  I get WAY too frantic especially during games that require you to be fast like Catchphrase.  My "friend" in college thought this was very funny and challenged me to a high stakes game of Twister...I lost..because even twister hates me...which led to him getting to put eggs, yogurt, jam, ketchup and mustard in my hair.  There's photographic proof of this but I'll spare you and my dignity.

#3- I'm really bothered when Foreign actors trick me into believing that they are American because they have perfected the accent so well and vice versa.  Examples below:

#4- I knew Nick for a totally of four months when we got MARRIED.  Multiple people asked me if I was pregnant when I told them I was engaged and one thought that I was joking.

#5- I store treats in the microwave.  This stems from my childhood, I'm not sure why my mom did/does it, but to this day one of the first things I do when I visit my parents is check the microwave.

#6- I am SUPER uncoordinated.  If there is something to spill it will be spilled.  I even spilled water all down the front of me on Nick and I's first date.  If there is something to bump in to and knock over consider it done.  Also I have fallen up the stairs multiple times, down the stairs in the Smith building at BYUI surrounded by close to a bajillion people, and fallen multiple times outside of church (one time while wearing a wrist band that was supposed to improve balance...yeah, I'm that cool.)

#7- Even before I was a mom one of my favorite places in the whole world was/is the children's book section of Barnes and Noble.  Sitting on the floor reading the lastest Mo Willems book in the middle of B&N never fails to make me smile.  It's even better now with Sienna because having her with me makes me seem infinitely less weird now :)

I now choose to not pass the award on because...let's be honest...this is kind of a game and I hate games...so I win.

Daddy's at School.

 I say this A LOT lately!  Sienna is talking more and more and is often wondering where that silly dad of hers is during the day.  Nick has been working so hard since he entered his program for Respiratory Therapy  and I literally could not be more proud of him.  I can't believe that come April he will be graduating! He has been so dedicated and has made a lot of sacrifices to guarantee his success.  He has even been put on the Dean's list for his great grades!  Luckily, he has also had the opportunity to make some good friends, participate in some community programs and overall enjoy what he is doing.  Here are some pictures of him at school...

 

First term...

 

 School takes a lot out of you.

 Dissecting a pig's heart

 Vent Race (He's in the front holding Buzz Lightyear)

Trying on CPAP masks

He spends half of his time at school now and half at clinicals.  His favorite clinical site so far has been working at Sutter and hopes to have the chance to go back either through clinicals or with a job after he passes his tests.  I'm so grateful that he has found something that he loves to do.  The only downside is that he has turned into quite the smartypants. :)