Sunday, wonderful Sunday

I love the weekends more than ever! Mainly because Mike is home and that makes Caitlyn and I very happy. Caitlyn's perfect world is her mom and dad right by her side at all times. My perfect world would be that Mike wouldn't ever have to work again and just hang out all the time with us and with Caitlyn so I could sleep!! As I mention often, Caitlyn is a crazy girl. First funny story is from church. We always sit on the very last row in the cultural hall so Caitlyn has plenty of room to roam in the back. She was walking around when she saw the bread come by and decided that she wanted some, so I gave her a piece. Well she decided that wasn't enough and proceeded to follow the poor little deacon around most of the way to the front to see if she could get some more bread. We do feed her and bring lots of food for her, but it never seems good enough for her. Then after church she started something that has continued all week. Mike was reading a book so she got all of her books from her basket and decided to read with him. She was very funny about it. She would get a book and open some pages and jabber away as if she was reading the book and then throw it to the side and pick up a different book. This went on for about an hour. She then wanted to share the pillow with dad while reading and then decided that her chair was the best place for reading and would read over there and than run across the room to get a new book. She is a funny girl and we love it. Mike has always said that he wants to teach his children to love reading and learning, so I think were off to a good start, if only we could insure it would last forever, yeah we'll see!!

18 Months, plus a couple days...

Our little girl is getting so big. It is hard to believe that she has hit the 18 month mark already. Everyone told us that things get really fun at 18 months. I think that Caitlyn has been fun for awhile but she just gets funnier every day. It is exciting to see her personality coming out everyday. Caitlyn was born was personality and attitude that has continued to grow since then. She is a funny little girl that is a little OCD at times and makes me laugh everyday, most of the time multiple times during the day. All that personality has its draw backs and the attitude comes out more and more, tantrums and screaming are two of her two new favorite things. There are some other things that she has started to do. Her new favorite is to clean, with wipes, and put a diaper on all of her stuffed animals. I think it is funny to watch even though it makes quite a mess, but I have learned that a little mess is a minimal price to pay for her happiness and not whining. She also likes to dress up all of her stuffed animals with cloths, bows, and especially shoes. She loves shoes and loves putting them on everyone around. It shouldn't be a surprise that my daughter's 5th word in the world is shoes. She also loves to put things in baskets and transfer them back and forth between baskets. Most people might think that is weird and boring but I think it is the funniest think in the world and that she is the cutest kid ever. I can't think of the other things that she does. Oh, she loves to take her dads hat and put it on and laughs hysterically and thinks she is the funniest thing in the world. Other eventful things have been a burst eardrum that started leaking blood, yeah that one freaked me out a little! And then the ensuing antibiotics for the next two weeks, which was horrible to give to her and made her pee smell horrible. She has attempted to go to nursery for the last two weeks, which has not gone so well. She runs in there and doesn't even look back, until about 15 minutes into it and then she realizes that we are not in there and freaks out. Caitlyn is not like some kids that can be consoled or distracted once she works up into a frenzy. So she hasn't lasted very long. Hopefully it will get better, they are supposedly splitting the nursery since there were 20 kids in there on Sunday. The leaders are great but 20 kids is insane and they don't like the parents to sit in there the whole time, which is understandable with that many kids and everything. So her are some more fun pictures of my little Rouske doing some of her favorite things. It is getting harder and harder to get a good picture of her because she moves so fast and when she looks at the camera she stops smiling for some reason, but she is still cute!

Where are you Spring?

I have learned that I don't really like winter that much. It is nice for about a week and then I am done with it. There is nothing fun about it and I think that it should only snow in the mountains and then be about 70 degrees at my house all year long! That would be my perfect world. So to help with this dream Caitlyn and I took a little trip to California where it is nice and warm!! My sister Holly just had her baby so we went to visit her and my other sister Mary and her two kids. It was Caitlyn's first time on a plane and it was a good thing my other sister Diane came with us or the person that would have had to sit next to us wouldn't have been a very happy person. She didn't really cry, just wiggled around and wanted to be everywhere, which is very normal for her. Being a first child, Caitlyn has never had to be around other kids for an extended period of time and this didn't go over very well at first. I time to socialize the little girl but we get to go home to her house after about an hour. So she had Evan and Sadie around her 24 hours a day. She would just cry every time Sadie came around and tried to touch "her" toys. After about 4 days she caught on to the fact that it was fun to have kids to play with and her and Sadie seemed to like each other! It was so nice to take a week break and be in warm weather and play outside all day. Caitlyn loved playing in Evan's "park" in his back yard. We even made a trip out to visit my grandma in LA and she had fun riding Sunny the dog and going to the beach for the first time. She wasn't so happy about the sand at first on her feet, but she liked it after a minute and played around and had so much fun! She is a funny little girl that doesn't like sand or dirt or anything on her hands, she gets that from her dad! So her are some fun pictures from the adventures. To make my hatred of winter worse it snowed the day that we came back and has been cold for the last week. I hear next week is supposed to get warmer, we will see!!

She loves me, she really loves me!

Every once in awhile Caitlyn does something that makes me realize that she really loves me or at least she is doing something cure to make up for being a stinker all day. A little background on my little Roo, she does not cuddle! Not at all! From the beginning of her life she has never been one to show affection, I blame it on the Richards side and their very large personal space issues. So she rarely hugs people, except her dad and always pushes me away when I try to kiss her. Well that was until the other night. Caitlyn was in rare form and being more of a stinker than most times and throwing fits like no other. So she was trying to get some more food and was grunting and crying when she pulls out from nowhere the cutest little "peess". It made my heart melt. So then we started reading books together with Mike and she was being cute again and I was giving her kisses on her cheek when she put her forehead on mine and leaned in and kissed me, yep the first time ever! I know that might not seem like a big deal to some but she has never done that and it made everything from the last week or month or however long totally worth it. So that is my cute story for the week and here are some cute pictures of the sweet girl!

Caitlyn getting ready to be the best big sister in the world. Her new word for the week is baby and she loves to give her baby her drink and food and put in her binki!

Being cute as ever. She goes in her house and lifts the window to see kermit come. She loves to ride her horse and claps along to the songs.

This is Caitlyn's favorite things is to watch the Weezer DVD that Mike got for Christmas. Her favorite song is Pink Triangle and she makes Mike dances with her and laughes so hard the entire time.

During the dancing she does some crowd surfing.

It's a Girl......

So the time has come for Caitlyn to move into the role of big sister. Yep, we're crazy enough to have another baby and it appears to be another girl. We are so excited, including Caitlyn although she can't quite express it yet! She thought it was funny to see the baby up on the big screen. The actual due date is up for debate right now and I will be doing all the persuading in my power to have it be as soon as possible. It was originally June 22nd, then the doctor's ultrasound showed June 29th, and then the one at the hospital showed that it wasn't until July 4th, there is no way I am moving back that far so I will have to cry and plead for the doctor to make it the 29th or sooner. For some reason July just seems way to far away. Plus they kept trying to move Caitlyn's due date back and she was 8 pounds 10 ounces when she was born a day after here original due date. So if they move me back 2 weeks I could have a 10 pound baby or something. Mike can't understand why this bugs me so bad but they just put me back 2 weeks to only 17 weeks pregnant, those two weeks matter in the end when my body hurts very bad. If you are trying to figure out the math, Caitlyn and the baby will be 21 months apart, crazy I know. It freaks me out some when I think about it to much so I just think about all the fun things to come like the fun of the little baby sleeping in my arms. I do miss watching Caitlyn sleep. So if you have any name suggestions I will take all that I can get. Nothing else as exciting as that has been going on here. Now begins the preparation for the big room transition and life transition again! Of course a fun picture of Caitlyn. We tried to find her some winter clothes so she could go sledding but these were the smallest ones I could find, they are 12 month, and they still are way to big on her.

Where did the year go...

So it is a new year and I decided that one of my resolutions, OK my only resolution, is that I will update the blog more than once a month. My goal is once a week or more, we'll see how it goes. I used to have the excuse that my computer was slow and I couldn't get on it because Caitlyn freaked out every time I got on it. But Mike took care of that with my wonderful Christmas present of a new computer and wireless Internet so now I'm set. So as for Christmas, it was wonderful and a million times better than last year. For a quick recap of last year's events, basically Caitlyn cried the entire day and screamed for three hours straight at the family Christmas party, it was enjoyable. But this year she loved opening her presents and all of the fun stuff she got. Mike and I decided that we spoil her way too much, but we will probably continue to do so her entire life, but at least we are aware that we are doing it. Caitlyn is developing such a funny personality. OK, she has always had a funny personality and likes things done her way, but she is expressing it more and is growing up and doing more and more funny things everyday. Her new favorite things include: trying to fit herself into any basket, bin or box that she sees. Sometimes she fits and sometimes she doesn't but she just keeps trying, it is very funny to watch. She also loves to dance. Her moves consist of mainly bouncing up and down and then she will twirl some and then start a marching motion and get her feet moving pretty fast. Her dad has her watching the Weezer and Traveling Wilbury's DVD's that he got for Christmas and she seems to love them. Lately she has been trying to dance with her big Clifford dog and her dolls, also very funny to watch. As you can see most of my excitement revolves around Caitlyn because I spend 95% of my day with her. I will try to think of other fun things, but I don't have any right now. Except the fact the workers at Dillard's need to be a lot nicer to people even if it is the semi annual sale and there are a ton of crazy women everywhere, it's not my fault the tags are pulled off everything.

Christmas pictures - Caitlyn looks like she just aged 5 years with the big girl pajamas:

Trying to drink from her new tea set - getting new shoes, that will fit her in a year or so, Caitlyn loves shoes and just carries them around all day.

She got some dolls, she loved them and just held them all day, now she likes to throw them across the room.

She also got a new car that she loves to drive.

Caitlyn loves to steal pillows and lay on them and lounge with her dad - she also helped grandma bake some pies and sweep up the mess for her.

She loves getting in things!

She went out to help dad put up the garland. I can't find mittens to fit her so these had to do for this year!

From Mike : My Mom

Just like clockwork. Halloween ends, November begins, and I filled with a deep sadness. I wish, in some ways, it was different this year, but alas it is the same. Four years ago today my mom passed away. While I don’t think about this everyday, I do think of my mom at least once each day. The sadness of those initial days, weeks, and months is not there anymore. Yet, somewhere in my mind and in my heart lies a sincere longing to see her again. There is a part of me that is gone and I will never get it back again. However, if there is anything that I have learned over the past four years, is that I am not unique. We are all going to suffer losses in our lives, disappointments, pains that cut deep – we will all go through the refiner’s fire in one way or another. The Savior’s Atonement wasn’t simply for our sins, but was also for our suffering. He loved us so much that he was willing take our pains upon His shoulders. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that. That being said, November 14th is a day for me and my four brothers. It is a day that we can feel sad, that we can cry, and that we can feel sorry for ourselves and our loss, and no one can deny us of that.

My mom was the best mom in the world, but I may be biased. I miss being able to see her. I miss being able to tell her about my life. I miss the comfort that only she could provide. I am sad that she can’t be here to see my sweet little Caitlyn grow up. I am sad that Caitlyn won’t know her grandma in this life. If I only had five more minutes to tell her how much I love her, but I know that would not be enough. I wouldn’t let her go.

Five things I loved about my mom:
1). She was the most intelligent person I have met.
2). She could make your worst day better in a matter of minutes.
3). Although somewhat reserved, she always had friends.
4). She could make the best school lunch bars
5). She was an example.

I am going to hold my family a little tighter tonight and maybe I can force a hug out of Caitlyn. Just as I did last year, as I put Caitlyn to bed I will tell her stories about her wonderful grandma Cathy. I love you mom.