Brand New Year

I have a free moment for once in a long time and I decided I would devote a little time to play catch up. Honestly, I probably wouldn't have even gotten to it now except that I have this nagging feeling that I really need to "journal" our past year. We usually do a Christmas card that I like to keep for our records, but I didn't even get the tiniest semblance of a chance to get one done this year. *Sigh* So with that said, here is a recap of 2009...

This year was huge for our family! We had a lot of big changes in our lives the first one being our new home. We love our home so much. Kyle and I often comment on how much we love the feeling in our home, the newness of it, and the fun we have renovating and decorating a home of our own according to our taste. We love being homeowners!

The second big change that happened for our family this past year was Kyle's lay off. It was a shock to us all and now we look back with such gratitude for one of our greatest blessings. Things had changed so much for Kyle as the firm underwent new managment and organization and Kyle was more and more unhappy as each day passed. We are so grateful for his new position at University of Phoenix. He absolutely adores his job and is praised almost daily by his manager for the hard work he puts in and his constant dedication. He works so hard to provide for our little family so that I can stay home with our young children and raise and nurture them. We are so proud of the strides he's already made in the short time he's been employed by University of Phoenix. The future looks bright for him!

The third and biggest change our family encountered this year was a beautiful little addition to the family. Landon Guy White was born on May 31st, 2009. I cannot even express in words how much he means to each one of us. He has the sweetest most loving personality I've ever seen in a child. He is constantly smiling and we just feel so much love emanating from his sweet countenance. What a blessing he is in our lives!

This year was a big year of growth for Chase. He learned his ABC's, how to count, talk , sing, and so much more. He's such a smart little boy who is charismatic and full of love. He loves reading "Moroni's" (The Book of Mormon) and saying prayers. He's come to love nursery and many times during the week will go put on one of Kyle's ties and walk around the house saying he's ready for nursery. One of his favorite movies that came out this year is "Up". You can frequently catch him pointing his hand in your direction yelling, "CROSS YOUR HEART! CROSS IT!" He astounds us with the knowledge he retains and his desire to learn. What a joy he is in our family!

I completed my application for the nursing program this past year and it has officially been accepted. Now comes the hard part of waiting and completing my co requisites before I am placed. Kyle is working toward his masters and has completed two of his courses thus far with straight A's! He's such a hard worker all the way around. He makes us very proud.

We took a few trips this year, mostly to visit family. Kyle, Chase, and Landon all got to experience their first trip (hopefully of many) to San Diego after Landon was born. My mom was so sweet to spontaneously plan the trip and treat us all to a MUCH needed vacation. It was AWESOME! In the summer we went up to Idaho and spent about two weeks catching up with Kyle's side and spending some time with them before Kyle started his new job. Then for Christmas we headed down south to Arkansas to be with my side of the family for a week and a half. We so wish we lived closer to family. We miss our families dearly!

The huge ward we moved into this year split recently and Kyle and I received new callings that keep us both busy (me more than him). They're the same calling in different auxillaries, as the secretaries in the Relief Society and Elder's Quorum Presidencies.

Kyle is gearing up for the PF Chang's Rock n' Roll 1/2 marathon coming up in just a couple of weeks. He's gained the endurance he needs for it and feels very ready. He's trained hard and we have no doubt that he'll do an awesome job.

I think that about sums it up for our past year of memories. I know I have other things to catch up on such as our holiday happenings, doctor's visits, and other little things but that will have to wait for another day. We hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season. Here's to a brand new year ! We hope it's a great one!

We did it again!

Last year we couldn't help ourselves, we had to elf ourselves! This year we've done it again with Landon in the mix, and they've changed things up over at Office Max's web site, which has made things all the more hilarious. Kyle really doesn't like me right now for chosing the picture I chose of him, but seriously, that's the best part of the whole thing! He has no idea how much it makes my day every time I see this. Whenever I need a good laugh I come in and watch the video with Chase, which brings me to another funny story. The first time I watched the video, I had Chase sitting on my lap. When we all started dancing and singing he pointed to Landon with his eyes as wide as melons and said, "LANDON?!?!" Like, "what the? He's never moved like that for me?!" It was hilarious, I wonder what was going through that noggin of his. After we watched the video he ran over to Landon and started pulling on his legs and singing, "Nandon, Nandon, NANNNNNNDUUUUUUUN!" He was a little dissappointed that "Nandon" doesn't quite have those moves in real life. I hope you guys all get a good laugh out of it too!

Side note: If it goes to the Jib Jab greeting card site when you click on the link just go back to our blog and click the link again. It should have this candy cane striped Office Max logo as it loads the video. Enjoy!

http://elfyourself.jibjab.com/view/nK1BtTtYdNm2rPYXxqNU

All Hallows Eve

This has got to be a record for me as far as longest post goes. So get ready for a picture OVERLOAD! No, really.

The many faces of Landon...

Chase eating Mommy's chocolate covered strawberries, yum!

Roasting marshmallows

Riding a tractor trike with Daddy through the little farmer's maze

The pig races!

Before the Honeybee ride started

Kissing cows. The look on Kyle's face says it all.

Goat lovin' boy!

The Goat Whisperer

Chase and Mommy on the carousel

Never am I more proud of my little boy than when he wears my shoes and flings his hand in the air like a miss priss, while he prances about the house.

Yummy caramel apples

Sweet Landon pumpkin pie

Me and my cute little pumpkin. Please try not to focus on how awful I look, bleh. Kyle was a football player and I was a cheerleader for Halloween.

After a long hard day fighting fires...

Hello wee little fire fighter!

Fire Fighter Chase to the rescue!

Landon, supervising the busy pumpkin carvers

Digging in!

I hope you all had a great Halloween! Halloween is the kick off for my favorite holidays of the year, as I'm sure it is for many. I love getting into the spirit of Halloween and stuffing our unwilling children into oh so adorable costumes, making frightful yet delicious treats, chili and cornbread, trunk or treats...the list goes on. It's awesome. This past week we spent a few days celebrating Halloween. We went to the coolest pumpkin patch/farm I've ever been to on Thursday. The admission was super cheap and included everything! All the rides were free, there were corn mazes, pig races, a giant slide, petting zoo, and tons more. That's my kind of Pumpkin Festival. We had such a great time as a family. We packed a picnic dinner and had lots of fun, then wrapped up the night roasting mallows while we listened to the band play. It was great fun for all.

On Friday night we carved our pumpkins and had our ward chili dinner and trunk or treat. We got the kids all dressed up and went to get our trunk or treating on. Kyle did the rounds with Chase whilst Landon (as a pumpkin) laid on a blanket in our trunk as I passed out candy. We had a lot of requests for him as opposed to candy, but I wasn't about to part with my little pumpkin pie! Chase got a lot of "licky pops" which are his favorite, so we called it a success.

On Halloween we had the missionaries over for dinner. My mom used to sign up for the missionaries to come over for dinner on Halloween night every year when I was growing up. They can never go tracting that night and no one ever wants to sign up to have them over on Halloween, sad huh? That happened to be the case in our ward. I think the sign up email went around our relief society a good 3 times with every day being filled except Halloween, so I caved. My mom would always make the traditional chili and cornbread dinner, so I followed suit. I've never made chili before, but apparently it was a huge success. The Elders had massive amounts and I wondered if we would have to roll them out of our house. One Elder had two heaping bowls of chili and 4 huge pieces of cornbread. He literally did not come up from being hunched over his bowl unless a question was directed to him. The funniest part was that he was humming while he was eating. When he said he really liked it, I had no choice but to believe him. He was pretty convincing. We had carmel apples rolled in Heath bar and drizzled with chocolate for dessert and some "goblin goo" (green sherbet ice cream and 7-up). We had planned on taking Chase trick or treating but he had plenty of excitement with the missionaries and it was getting too late when they left. He had a lot of fun helping us pass out candy and whenever the doorbell would ring he'd run to the door and yell, "OH! DOOR? DOOR?" He thought it was delightful in every way that we had so many exciting visitors in one night.

It's been a great Halloween. We're all coming off of our sugar high and taking it nice an easy today. We hope you all had an awesome Halloween too!

Officially waiting...

Just relaxing

Not too sure about this sitting up business

Positive it's not fun anymore!

Ahhh, this is better...

Sitting in the Bebe Pod


Chase and I were playing outside with water balloons the other day (hence the wet shirt) and he was getting into the Halloween spirit and running around the corner then popping out to "scare" me. This is him mid-BOO!


Playing with Landon in his crib


Landon enjoying some of Chase's cars

I finally did it. I completed my nursing school application and got everything into the nursing director. Now I am officially on the waiting list. Yipee! I'm glad that this first step is done, but I know the road ahead will not be an easy one in many many ways. I am positive the outcome will be marvelous though.

In other news, Kyle just finished his first class with an A! Way to go honey! We are so proud of him and the hard work he puts in. He's really had his plate full lately, working from 6am to 3pm, diligently serving in his church callings, training for his races, taking classes, and still donating his liquid gold *sigh*. He ran the Nike Human Race (10k) yesterday and felt like he did pretty well. We here on the home front think he's pretty awesome.

As far as the boys go, Chase just cracks us up everyday. He says the funniest things, albeit slightly snotty at times. He has started to sleep in a big boy bed (a twin mattress on the floor of his room). Even though he's perfectly capable of getting out of bed in the morning and after naps, he calls to me when he can hear me up and about and yells,"MOMMY, I HEEEAAARRR YOOOUUU!" until I come and get him or call for him to come out. I can't complain though, because it's really nice to sleep in a bit until I hear him playing or calling out.

Chase is very into hugging and loving and showing affection lately (he gets it from Barney). We went to the WIC office a couple weeks ago and as we were getting ready to leave the worker said goodbye to Chase to which he replied, "buh bye, love you!" she said ,"awww, I love you too!" I thought it was sweet.

Let me give you a little background information before I tell you this next story that happened also at this same appointment. Chase didn't use to like wearing hats or sunglasses. So to keep him from taking them off when we'd put them on him, we made up this little song and dance to the tune of "Ice Ice Baby" that goes something like this, "Cool cool Chasers nanana nanana nana na-na, he's a cool little baby, nanana..." Whenever he sees someone wearing glasses or a hat he sings this song to them. So we were sitting in the WIC office and Chase peeks around at the computer while the worker is typing and he spots a bunch of rubber duckies on top of the monitor, all wearing various outfits and accessories. He sees one of the ducks is wearing sunglasses and yells at the top of his lungs, "COOL COOL DUCK!" We all got a good laugh out of it.

Landon is doing wonderfully. The only complaint I have for him is that he's growing up way too fast. Landon is my dream come true. He is so easy, sweet, and happy! He gives THE best smiles, he eats great, and sleeps like a dream. He'll go down for bed at about 7 or 7:30pm and doesn't wake up until about 7:30am, then he takes 2 2-3 hour long naps during the day. He's super squishy and cuddly and he melts my heart with his charming smiles. He rolls over front to back and vice versa now and is starting to sit up pretty well. He loves to talk and play with toys and look at himself in mirrors. Whenever we drive somewhere he sighs and jabbers in the backseat pretty much the entire time. So cute! We feel very lucky to have him in our family. Here are some new pictures...

Frankie Says Relax

Hot fresh cinnamon rolls! Yummm...

The finished product

Kyle whistling while he works. Painting the kitchen...
Landon, rocking out!

This weekend we followed Frankie's advice (for the most part) and we relaxed. We took relaxing walks, barbequed, played with the kids (lots) I think we wore them out a few times! We watched conference, of course, and neither of us fell asleep during a single talk (we kept busy). We got a lot done this weekend too, surprisingly. The best part is none of it felt overwhelming. We cleaned the house top to bottom, painted the kitchen, shopped for groceries, and baked cinnamon rolls that literally took about 10 hours start to finish, but believe it or not are SO worth it!

Dear monday, look at you trying to pull a fast one on me... you may win the battle tomorrow since I just had such a great weekend, but after tomorrow I will continue my strong distate for you and all your Monday glory. Love, Jessica

Here are some pictures for everyone who's with me. Who likes Monday's?!