Rich is 42!

Rich is 4 1/2 years older than me and I have always loved to tease him about how old he is. Even when we were both in our 20's. Well, here we are, 13 years later and we are both getting up there but lucky for me he will always be older than me so I don't ever have to quit teasing him.

Last month, my love turned 42! This year his birthday was on a Sunday so we got to celebrate him the whole day. Maya was so sweet and made him his favorite breakfast.

The others had picture envy and insisted I take a picture of them too since Aidan poured his glass of juice and Arabella salted his eggs.

Rich wanted to celebrate with friends and so we had a potluck! The Hiatts, Boxs and Christiansens all came over and we had the best night. We have such an awesome group of friends here!

Per Rich's request, I made pozole and a homemade chocolate cake. I love this birthday man so much and I feel grateful for every single year that I get to be by his side celebrating his birthday. Happy Birthday, my love!

Halloween

We started our Halloween festivities with a visit to the OKC zoo with the Christiansen's. They had such cute little displays that made it fun to stop and take pictures.

Eva and Henley were our cute little navigators.

Our next event was the ward trunk-or-treat.

Aidan decided last minute that he wanted to be Bob Ross, so I order a shirt from amazon but couldn't find a decent wig so we decided we would go ahead and just try to curl his hair. It actually worked out better than a wig, lol!

Then, finally, Halloween night. We went trick-or-treating in Hunters Pointe with friends.

The kids got waaaaay too much candy and had so much fun running around with their friends. We had a great Halloween.

Lily Girl

I know I always said that Eva completed our family but I was wrong. This past April, after years of waiting until it was the right time in our lives, we got a puppy!

Lily is a miniature Labradoodle.

 This first few weeks she completely flipped my whole world upside down and I was really regretting agreeing to this whole puppy thing. She isn't potty trained, chewed on everything and everyone and was just a huge adjustment for me. I binged training videos and obsessively followed puppy advice groups on Facebook. I ate, drank and slept puppy related everything! It payed off.

Lily is incredibly smart and quickly learned the concept of ringing the bell to go potty.

Day 1 of bell training

Day 2 of bell training

It still took her a couple of months  to be completely accident free but today she is 100% potty trained.

We've been having some fun teaching her tricks and she's a really fast learner. She can sit, stay, lie down, leave it, jump, shake hands and go to bed.

She is still a puppy so she isn't always obedient when I call her, especially when she's overly excited and chasing the chickens.

We've been so blessed to have such a great puppy join our family and we love her so much!  She's been so blessed to be loved by two families. The Hiatt's watched her for us the first time when she was just 4 months old. They fell in love with her and she loved them right back. They've become her second family and we share custody, lol!

The Hiatt's playing "let's see who Lily attacks first"

She LOVES her walks.

We love our Lily!

Happy Birthday Aidan & Eva

Aidan and Eva had their birthdays last month! It feels unreal that we now have a 12 year old. It also crazy that my baby is 6 years old! She is the age Aidan was when she was born and I just can’t even wrap my head around that.

                       

I actually hated the idea of their birthdays being just a day apart, but it has felt special and hasn’t taken away from either one of them. 

The birthday girl💖

We did streamers and balloons for Aidan too but he’s pretty cool now that he’s 12 so posing for pictures in front of streamers was a no go.

I feel like these two got to do a lot of celebrating. Eva asked for cupcakes for her class on her birthday. 

Aidan asked for our special marshmallow brownies for his class. Again, no pictures.

Eva also asked to go to chuck-e-cheese on her birthday so off we went! They all had the best time. 

Class treats and Chuck-E-Cheese clearly wasn’t enough celebrating for these two so we had a pool party!

The biggest change I’ve noticed is that 12 has been the magic number for Aidan. He’s been a part of the youth program at church since January and that has changed him tremendously but I’ve noticed even more maturity in him in just the past couple of months. He’s just about an inch shorter than me! He LOVES to read. His favorite book ever is always the one he is currently reading. Also, he is currently obsessed with this hat that his good friend, Jacob, gave him.

                                     

Eva is becoming sneaky and mischievous. She loves to pester her siblings when she thinks I’m not looking. Even though she is the youngest, she has always held her own but now seems to be the sneaky little instigator. She’s learning how to read and according to her teacher is incredibly artistic. She’s such a joy!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIDAN AND EVA!