Spring is Almost Here!!

Oh I am so loving this warm weather! It is so nice outside! I just want to go to parks, ride bikes, take walks, wear shorts, go to the zoo, go swimming, whatever! BUT I HAVE A COLD! It makes it miserable, and all I want to do is enjoy life! Nonetheless, I AM going to enjoy this warm weather somehow. Actually, I already have. Yesterday I went for a walk with Cailen. We took the stroller and Cailen LOVED being outside! He was singing, pointing at cars, making funny noises, it was lots of fun! I was supposed to be running for my marathon training (ok alright, half marathon) but since I am feeling so crummy this week, I've been walking. I am still trying to make it a work out, but I am keeping it low key. Here is an update on our month of March so far! I feel like it has been AGES since I have really written anything worthwhile and I doubt this really counts, but I am taking this time that I have to say hello to everyone out there in blog world and to let you know that I am still alive. Yes, I am writing instead of taking a shower but I am still alive :) How I want to have a sassy day like Megan or get out of the house with the family like Kendal but all that will have to wait until I get better from this darn cold (and shower)! Perhaps we'll go swimming at the rec center today...Maybe the indoor humidity will help said cold...


On to my month of March:

My son is ADORABLE! Just in case you weren't aware. His smiles are just infectious and oh so sweet. Here is his eye-squint smile. I think the nose scrunch one is my fave though. Here, Cailen thought he'd hang out in his crib playing with his dear friend Eeyore. I thought I'd take this opportunity to catch his wonderful knowledge of body parts on video! Enjoy!

Cailen has oatmeal pretty much every morning. He LOVES it. Which is great, because it's pretty darn easy. He is a pro at eating by himself (which I LOVE) and sometimes he gets his own little opinion about where he would like to eat breakfast. This morning, he must have been missing his daddy already because he decided to take his breakfast into the bathroom to eat it while Mark showered! Ha! Sweet boy.

Cailen went with Mommy and Daddy to the zoo the other day and loved it! The day before had been so warm and so we were a little hopeful (it had also been free day at the zoo so it'd been packed. We wanted to miss the crowd so with our memberships, we went the next day). Little did we know it was going to snow the previous night and so it was a tad colder! It was a bit windy (Mark was being SUCH a baby) but otherwise wasn't tooooo bad. And it was EMPTY! We had the place practically to ourselves, which was pretty awesome because Cailen wanted to walk every where himself. That would have been chaos had there been a soul there, but seeing as we were the life of the zoo, we wandered whereever we pleased. He was so great, walking THE ENTIRE zoo on his own, hills and everything (you know, the hill up to the giraffes?). He especially liked the monkeys of all varietys (my friend Erin will kill me for calling all primates monkeys, sorry Erin, but "monkey" is a much easier word than primates and all the different types. Have YOU heard a 2 year old say orangutan???). Here he is with one of his "friends," one of the only pictures I managed to get the whole outing! CRAZY! I was a little ticked with myself on that one because this is the FIRST time Mark has joined us at the zoo!! I wanted PROOF! Anywho, this picture will do because the gorilla (right?) is funny looking at Cailen was enthralled. All in all, good times.

I MADE BREAD! This is a fantastic milestone for me, I just want you to know. I am so excited that I finally, FINALLY learned how to make bread from scratch. THANK YOU THANK YOU Aunt Barbara! I was really excited to go over to her house and then just a few days later, I was brave enough to try it on my own. It didn't turn out EXACTLY the same, but still pretty good! I am proud! The recipe is at the bottom of my post if you'd like it :) It's super simple, made without a bread machine, and can be made in under 2 hours (using the quick rise). It only needs to raise once! That's awesome! K, enough pushing of the bread recipe. Here are the pics I took of my experience.

My cool KitchenAid mixer I finally used (wedding present, ha)

Apparently the best yeast to use.

Quick rise method in the oven

Ta-da!

(they were a little toasty and a little dense; I think I didn't let them rise long enough and maybe cooked too long? Still figuring that out)

WARNING! GROSS PICTURE!

So my (step?) father-in-law has a few rental properties. He asked Mark to help clean one of them up so that they could get some new tenents in there (P.S. Ours is available to rent in South Ogden if anyone is interested-2bdrm condo, way cute, see pics here). The former tenents were pretty much evicted and just picked up and left. WOW! Talk about trashed. I didn't realize anyone would or could ever leave a place so gross. It seemed like they left half of their stuff too! Bed frames, clothes, hangers, furniture, even alcohol (we happily threw that away). It was crazy. I think I am going to try to take the mirror they left though...If Mark salvages it for me. Anyway, Cailen and I were the lucky people to be the first in there after the people moved out and I took a few pictures. I don't think they even do the grossness justice. I put this one picture in here because it does do the sink a bit of justice. Think of this but...EVERYWHERE! Nasty. We're thinking of burning the clothes we all wore when in that place. Cailen ran around like he was at a party. It was scary, I had to keep an eye on him so he wouldn't like, eat styrofoam or something. *Sigh* We ate Chick-Fil-A for dinner while sitting on the floor and he was in heaven. He felt like such a big boy dipping his chicken nuggets into my polynesian sauce too as he sat with Mom and Dad. It was kind of funny and cute. Anyway, here's the one picture I'm showing you. I think Mark's about done cleaning the place now (like a week later). Whew. Not soon enough.

Eww.

Cailen is such a dork. It makes for such a hilarious life. This one morning, Cailen decided he did not want to take his pajamas off. I tried unzipping them but he would not let me finish! He would pull at his pajamas, try to close them back up himself while saying "jammies, jammies!" Because he didn't let me take them off, I couldn't get any other clothes on. He didn't care about that. But he did care about the shoes. He wanted those on. So...he had me put them on. Over his feet. With his "jammies" on. Dork. I'm not quite sure why he is so concerned in this picture. Maybe he thinks I'm about to take his "jammies"off again.

Side note: The reason Cailen is holding a picture of the Bountiful Temple while he rides in the car is because he is lately obsessed with temples. Which is adorable. We went this past Saturday to the Draper Temple open house. It was pretty cool. I definitely need to go do a session there. Anyway, Cailen loved it. He was so excited to go. I'm not sure why. And he loved the pictures of Jesus he was able to see. We gave him this picture to show him what he was going to see and then he rode with it to the temple. This same morning where he refused to take his "jammies" off, he also refused to get off the bed and come with me (I was going to work and he needed to come with me!). Suddenly, he wanted to see the temple. He wanted to go to the temple! Luckily, the people I work for live conviently close to the temple, so I told him I would take him to the temple and he happily came to me and got in the car. Silly me, I completely spaced driving by the temple on the way to work, so Cailen didn't actually get to see the temple...I swear it was an accident! Sorry...long side note. But cute story.

On to something else. My sister Heather is moving to Utah!! WOOHOO! I am excited. It will be cool (and weird! ha) having her live so close again! It's been 9 years since we've lived in the same place. She is moving to SLC somewhere and because we don't know where yet, my mom and I are helping look for places! So if anyone knows of a pet friendly place that she can rent, let me know :) Here is a picture of my mom and I checking out the yard of this one place. Cailen discovered a ball in the yard and was in heaven. Silly child. I love him.

Cailen has this thing for strollers. Not sure what it is. He loves to sit in the play-strollers, he loves to push the play-strollers, etc. In the latest play-stroller that he discovered, there was a cow and a backpack thingy. So we hooked Cailen up to tote the cow around and I thought I would capture the moment. This is what Cailen and I did while Mark and my cousin/Mark's friend Zak watched the Jazz game.

Last thing, cute video of Mark and the Munchkin messing around :)