The Best Christmas Ever!

We had such a great Christmas I can honestly say it was probably the best one yet! We were able to spend it with both our families and a brand new baby, Santa Claus came and totally spoiled us. What more could you ask for?

Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning we spent with my family and had a great time. It was Michaels first Christmas since his mission so he was very excited! We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner with my Grandma King and Aunt Kathy and her family. That to me is the best part of Christmas, yummy snack food, dinner and family time. After dinner and visiting, we all sat around the Christmas tree and opened our one present, PJ'S (that's another favorite part). Then it was off to bed so Santa could come!!!

Cayson was pretty darn excited aparently, he didn't go to sleep till 1am and then was up every 2 hours after that. Finally, about 6:45 we just decided to wake everyone else up so we could open presents.

After presents Aunt Ronda and her family came over for our traditional breakfast. We had to scarf it down and head to Hyrum so we could be there when Jons brother called from Brazil. He was only able to talk for a little less than an hour so it was a short but sweet call.

Then we spent the rest of Christmas Day with Jons family. We opened presents, ate yummy cheese fondue, read the christmas story with flannel board and all.

Cayson with Grandpa howell and his sweet new cowboy boots and glow worm

I hope that you all enjoyed the holidays as much as we did!

2 Month Pictures

2 months

My sweet baby is exactly 2 months today! Time sure has gone by at lightening speed. It is getting hard for me to even remember him as a newborn, it's crazy. It truly seems like it was only a few days ago that we brough him home from the hospital, but maybe it's all those sleepless nights and my ability to differ time is gone...

We also had his 2 month well check today. Talk about the saddest thing EVER!!! Cayson is doing great though. Length: 24 1/2 95 percentile, Weight: 10lbs 9oz. 25 percentile. So I guess even though he spits up gallons at a time he is gaining something, he is almost double his birth weight. We did find out though that he has an immature colon which is causing all his fusiness and gas. The only thing that we can do for that is to stop breasfeeding and give him a special kind of formula which is expensive or tuff it out for a few more months. We opted for the tuffing it out. I feel so bad for our little monkey and his gas.

He also got the first 4 of his immunization shots, which was so sad. I knew that he would be getting them so I made Jon come with us for moral support. Jon had to help hold his head and the doctor held his feet while i sat back and tried not to pay attention. I knew that if I did I would probably end up bawling. His cry was the saddest cry I have ever heard (it was so cute though). I will admit, I did cry a little when he wouldnt calm down and then Jon had two babies to comfort. We were able to get him to sleep before we left the doctors office and he has pretty much slept all day today. He has been such a trooper and not really fussy at all since we left.

Tomorrow I am taking him to have his 2 month pictures taken so check back to see the little monkey!!

Great Grandma King

Over the weekend we were also able to take Cayson to meet his Great Grandma King. She is currently in a nursing rehab facility so she had not been able to come see him. She has become quite the crazy old lady lately so I was a little worried about going there and having her hold him. When we walked into her room and she saw that we had the baby with us she was so excited and happy. As she sat there holding him she talked so sweet to him and couldnt have been prouder.This picture is so special, she harldy ever smiles or laughs anymore and holding Cayson that smile never left her face. She was just so peaceful!
4 Generation picture


Cayson, you have such a loving family and I hope that one day you relize just how special you are to your parents, grandparents and great grandparents,

Thanksgiving fun

We had great thanksgiving! It was very relaxing and just what we needed. We spent the day with Jons family and had lots of yummy food. Jon played video games with his brothers, I looked and looked through the ads and Cayson slept the day away.

Jons mom with the 2 grandkids, Felix & Cayson

In the evening we went down to South Weber so we could do some Day After Thanksgiving shopping with my mom and brothers. We planned out our attack (which was very small i might add, there really wasnt anything that was a killer deal and worth dying for) and went to bed. We were up at 3 and ready to roll.
My sweet dad offered to watch Cayson for us so both Jon and I could go and because he didnt want to wake up early. Cayson usually wakes up around 3 to eat so i fed him right before we left and put him back to bed. Unfortunately for my dad, he didnt stay asleep and was wide awake the whole time we were gone. (Guess he should have come afterall) He was a trooper though, he even fed him a bottle and changed his diaper. Thanks dad!!!

3 years already?

Yesterday, the 16th, Jon and I celebrated our 3 year anniversary. I seriously can't believe that it has been that long already. I guess it's true what they say" time flys when you're having fun!" I can truly say that the past 3 years have been a blast and I can't wait for the MANY more years to come.
Celebrating this year was a little harder than it has been in the past because we really wanted to go on vacation but had to be back today to welcome home my little brother. Yes, we could have gone somewhere after but who wants to leave on a vacation after not seeing someone for 2 years? NOT ME!!! I wanna spend every available day I can getting reacquainted.

We woke up early and drove down to Ogden to go to Dennys for breakfast. (Jon loves this place and would probably eat here everyday if he could but, since the closest one is an hour away, special ocassions will just have to do). Later in the day we drove to Park City to do a little baby shopping and get me some new clothes too. I had a really hard time though finding any maternity clothes that I liked. I guess I am just too picky. I ended up getting a few shirts and a new swim top. Jon, on the other hand, made out like a bandit. You would have thought that he was pregnant and out growing all his clothes! After a long day in Park City we drove to Salt Lake for dinner and to sleep. While there Jon had to take me to all the "cool" places he used to play at when he was little. To be honset I was a little scared to be wandering around where we were but he loved reliving his childhood for a few hours.
All in all we had a great day! Even though it was short, it was so nice just being able to spend the day with my sweet Hubby uninterrupted and just doing whatever we felt like. Marrying him has been the greatest thing that's ever happened in my life and there's not a day that goes by that I'm not entirely greatful that I am married to my best friend for ETERNITY!!!

He's HOME

Finally, the day has come, today we welcomed home Elder Calder! It was actually really weird but exciting to say the least. When we got to the airport (an hour early due to the stupid flight updater thing) it really hadn't hit me that we were there to pick up Michael. Until we waited, and waited and waited ever so impatiently for him to walk down the stairs. Every person in a suit that came down to the baggage claim area got a rise out of all of us, especially my dad. It was pretty funny watching him, he was like a little boy waiting for Santa to come. It was torture though. All those days of counting down and being excited that he only had a week left was nothing compared to how I felt when we got there.
There were 4 other families waiting for missionaries to come home while we were there and luckily Michael was the first one. I don't think that any of us could have handled seeing them with there missionary while we waited. But, at last he finally came and it was quite funny to watch him.... He was just following the traffic to the baggage claim and started going down the escalator (where there was a traffic jam), he got a few steps down before he even saw us and when he realized that it was gonna be awhile he turned back around and started running back up the escalator, pushing everyone out of his way. It only worked for a second and then he just jumped the rail and ran down the stairs. The reunion was great and we were all so excited. Oh, and the other missionaries came justa few mintues after Michael so the other families didn't go through too much torture.

I will admit that it is a little akward having him home. He is so quite and humble and actually willing to help out. I am sure all he needs is a few days to warm up and get used to normal life again but either way, WE ARE SO EXCITED TO HAVE YOU HOME MICHAEL,GOOD WORK!!!

I guess it's time

Some of you already know that Jon and I have been keeping a pretty BIG secret for a while now, almost 22 weeks to be exact. So, for those of you who haven't heard.........we are going to have a baby! He will be making his way into this world on or around October 23, 2009. That's right, you read correct it's a BOY!

I do apologize for not telling all of you sooner but I have seriously been struggling with this. I know that this should be one of the happiest times in our lives right now but it's just not what I expected at the moment. Not that I don't want children, I just didn't plan on one coming anytime soon. I have become so used to it being just the two of us I am a little selfish and don't want to share my sweet hubby, but I guess that the Lord had other plans for Jon and I and I am doing my best to adjust to the idea of us becoming 3.

As far as the whole pregnancy thing goes it has been interesting to say the least. At first, everything made me nauseated and I mean EVERYTHING. The thought of all food, the smell of food, the smell of the shop, Jons deodorant, even the smell of my own house. Lets just say that I was pretty miserable the first 14 weeks and to make things worse I didn't throw up so there was no relief. Things are great now (other than frequent trips to the bathroom) and I can't complain. Hopefully they stay that way....

Memorial Day

Memorial day was also our friend Ben's birthday so we had double celebration that day. We woke up early and went to Ben & Jen's for a very yummy birthday breakfast and then planned out our day of hiking/bday celebrating. We decided that we were going to do the White Pine Lake trail up by Tony Grove, so we got all our gear and lunches made and headed up the canyon. We got half way up the road to Tony Grove and saw the strangest thing.... Snowmobilers. That's right, it's the end of may and we see snowmobilers. We all laughed at them for thinking they would have something to do this late in spring and continued on our way, Well we tried at least. As we came around the bend we saw the worst thing possible, a snowed covered road. I couldn't believe it, here it was almost June and the road is still closed because the snow pack is still too much. So, we ended up having to turn around all broken hearted and figure something else out. After exhausting all our options we decided to just go for a scenic drive up the canyon. When we got the top of the canyon I remembered this trail that my grandpa took me on when I was little so we decided to give it a try. There was still a little snow on the trail, but hey, at least we were able to drive all the way to trailhead. It wasn't what we planned on, but it was so nice to just get out and finally enjoy the fresh mountain air and have a fun day with friends.

New and Improved

Ok, maybe not improved but definitely new. Qualified Auto is officially Aatopia Auto Care. I personally really HATE the name but am also out numbered by the boys who like it and therefore, was out voted. Sad day!
Business is doing really good which is why we had to change the name of the store. At the end of summer we will be opening a new location in Ogden and then hopefully a few more after that. In order to grow out of state we could not use the name Qualified Auto because there are over 100 other Qualified's across the nation and for legal reasons we couldn't have the same name and have more stores. It has been really hard for me to deal with the name change but if it means that soon we will be able to have lots of stores and me not work anymore I guess I will deal with it.

We have taken the graphics off the truck, changed the banner on the side of the building, and gotten our new shirts. I will admit though, the shirts look pretty dang good! I really like the truck without the graphics and even better without the shell. I think that Jon has fallen in love all over again with his truck, which makes it even harder for him to want to part with it. ( We are trying to sell it, so if you know of anyone who is looking for a truck send them Jons way)

The end is in sight!

I can't believe it, 12 more days and michael will be HOME!! It's crazy how fast time fly's.The past 2 years have seriously gone by so fast. Everyone says that when it is your own missionary it feels like they are gone for 10 years but I do not feel that way at all. The fact that I dont live at home anymore probably plays a little into it but being able to email him every week for an hour really helped too. I am sure that for michael though they have gone on and on, but either way, we are so excited to have him home. Keep up the good work Elder, only a few more days. We are all so proud of you and your decesion to serve our Heavenly Father and the people in Canada. See you SOON!

Right now Michael is in a litle town called Peace River. Its more north than the Indian Reservation where he last was. He has recently picked up fishing and can be found at the river every chance he gets.