Visitors

We had visitors in February. Juan, Cami, Amelia and Maya came to visit for a few days. It was so much fun to see them and meet new baby Maya.

 Ginger and Sam also came to visit and they were our official 1st House Guests. (my parent's house was maxed out, so we made the toy room into a guest room and there you go) I'm thinking I should make them a plaque or a trophy or something, because that is big. Ginger and Sam also told us some wonderful news. They're expecting a baby due August 11th! Yay!!! They'll be the bestest parents ever!!

 Darren, Me and Maya

Judson was so excited to have Amelia back to play with. They love each other so much and have so much fun together. Whenever we would go over to my Parent's house Amelia would run up with a big smile saying "Ju, Ju". Which is her Judson, of course. It was so much fun to watch them play.

 Such a cute picture. This was Judson hugging Amelia Goodbye!

It was so fun to have visitors. We love our families and look forward to everytime we are able to visit. We'll have to head out to Austin next Winter. Warm weather in January, Yes please!

P.S. Thanks for the pics, Cami. I stole them all from your blog.  :)

Mom and Me

I was able to take a few days off work this past week and spend some one-on-one time with Judson. We had so much fun. We went to the Zoo, went shopping (which included playing with toys in the toy section), went walking, watched shows, played games and went to lunch with Dad at work. It was great to be with him all day. This morning when I said we were going back to our normal schedule Judson started crying. It made me happy that he loved spending time with me too. It also made me sad that I had to go back to work. I'll have to take more work breaks just to be MOM. It was FABULOUS!!!

January 2012 Family Update

We don't really have a lot going on right now. I feel my lack of blogging and it bugs me. I want to remember even the most minute detail of my life for always, yet lack the drive to put it in writing. I thought I would do a little Family Update post, just to fill my blogging void.

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Darren is working and working hard at Fidelity. His shift changed this year and it's not the greatest shift, but we're one week in and it seems to be going fine. He works Sunday, but gets 4 hours off to come to church with us. The good news of the shift is he gets Thurs, Fri and Saturday off. Nice to have all 3 days off at once. It's been so good to have Darren home in the evenings with us. I'm loving watching and hearing Judson playing with his dad. The other night Darren took Judson to bed and Judson requested the song I Am A Child of God (all 4 verses, of course), I loved just listening to the two of them singing. Judson loves his Dad and Darren loves being a dad. I love them both so much and am so grateful for both of them!

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Judson is loving Preschool. He loves the activities and the social aspect of it. I'm so happy he goes willingly and reports that he had a fun time when it's done. He loves to learn and will ask questions about what he has learned. He's so smart, and I love it! I need to be better with him having him work on letters and sounds at home. I'm sure he'd love it, I just don't get around to it. He loves going to the library and picking out books to bring home and read.

He loves, loves his superheroes and I often have to cut off the talking about superheroes or he would go on and on forever. It's so fun to watch him develop different likes and dislikes. I'll ask him why he likes or doesn't like something and his answer is always "because". Not really an answer, but I'll get him to expand on that soon enough.

The other little thing he has started doing lately is trying to tell when something is a joke and when it's not. He'll often ask "are you just kidding?" Most of the time we are, but I can tell sometimes he's hopeful that he doesn't have to clean up or go to bed so he'll ask. Funny kid!!! I love him to pieces!!

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As for my update it's pretty boring. I'm still working at Roseman, the Pharmacy/Dental/Nursing University, in the finance department part-time. I really enjoy going to work each day, but I'm glad it's only for 4 hours. I'm focused on budgeting this year and making better choices all around. I know those goals are so general, but I really need the broadness to help me focus. Contradiction, right? I think it will help, just the same.

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I'm excited for 2012 and the new opportunities it will bring. Judson will turn 5 and start Kindergarten. That is our big event for this year. I hope it's the only big event, but we'll see.

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Happy 2012 to all of you!!!

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Just for fun enjoy this picture of Judson at our favorite place to eat out. Chick-Fil-A.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year

My goal for 2012.... Be 3 days behind. CHECK!!

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We had a wonderful Christmas!!! It was so much fun. The joy that Judson brings to the holiday's is still surprising. He loved, loved, loved all things Christmas this year and looked forward to them all.

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I didn't take many pictures this year, but enough to get the idea. Here is Judson as a Wise Man at the Stokes Family Nativity on Christmas Eve, Eve.

Judson was a Shepherd for the Farr Nativity on Christmas Eve. Darren and I were Mary & Joseph and Wise Men. 

 Christmas Morning Judson got to open his Santa present before church. He has been asking for the Batcave all year, and Santa pulled through. Judson plays with it every chance he gets. Yay for toys they really want!!!

 East Canyon this year was a little short on snow. Sam and Darren found a snowy patch and took shovels and gathered all the snow they could find to make a fairly decent sledding hill. The kids seemed to enjoy it. And the bonus was it wasn't very cold and not very far to climb since the hill was maybe 20 feet. 

 We celebrated New Year's at East Canyon this year. We usually check out on the 31st, but this year we stayed until the 2nd. It was fun to play games, eat A LOT of food and celebrate the New Year together.

Hoping 2012 is as wonderful as can be!!!!

Probably Comet and Cupid....

We went to Thanksgiving Point last night to walk around and see Santa's reindeer. Who thought Judson would get so worried? He wasn't scared of the reindeer because they were in a corral, but he made sure to mention that the fence went all the way around so they can't get out. He also wondered where the rest of the reindeer were. There were only 2 here and there are a lot more in the song. He kept asking when we were going to see the other reindeer. We tried to explain that they were probably in other cities so other kids could see Santa's reindeer too, but he still wanted to see them. He did enjoy seeing the 2 that were here. He kept making a grunting noise and saying that is the noise reindeer make.

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We were intrigued with the drive through lights at Thanksgiving point. The line was at least 2 miles long, so we opted out of that.

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We did go to the Christmas Utah house. On the website it says this is their last year, so go if you can. It's always GREAT!

Judson vs. Santa

Judson has had a love/"fear for his life" relationship with Santa over the years. Take for example his very first picture with Santa. Not too bad, eh? Yes, I'm sure he had no idea what was going on, and had he looked up he would have freaked. However, he loved him that year.

2007

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The next year was definitely the "fear for his life" year. He wouldn't even go near this Santa at Winder Dairy. (good thing because rumor was that he had pink eye. Santa, not Judson. Yuck!!).  

2008

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 And I'm pretty sure this photo speaks for itself. (One of my favorite pictures of all time, though.)

2008

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 We didn't even attempt to take Judson to Santa in 2009. Last year we saw Santa at Toys R Us, but Judson would have nothing to do with him. He even freaked out if he was in our sight line.

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So, 2011 comes. We have been prepping for this all year. Judson brought up how he was going to sit on Santa's lap this year so I went along with it and encouraged it. We talked about how Santa is nice and just wants to get Judson presents.

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It was still a little bit of a struggle to get him here. He had a death grip on my leg, until Santa offered to let him hold the bell. That won!! Judson did it!! He sat on Santa's lap and asked for the Batcave. YAY Judson!!! Now, if he can grasp the whole "being nice" concept, that Batcave may find it's way here come Christmas.

2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love, love this picture!! I smile so big everytime I look at it. I took a picture of Judson with his pre-school crafts to send to Darren and this is the look Judson decided to go with.

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We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Snow, came quickly...

And left quickly! That's the best kind of snow. It was perfect because Judson was able to build a snowman with his Dad and I watched from the warm house. The snow was gone by the end of the day, yet the snowman is slowly melting, melting; small, small, small.

 

 

 

Halloween Festivities

We had family parties Halloween weekend. It was a lot of fun.

Donut eating contest at the Stokes'. Darren ate the most before his donut fell off the string. Congrats Darren.

The kids contest was fun to watch. The donuts were too big for the kids to eat off a string. They still tried and did really well!

Our Ward Party was fun. Judson played games and went trick or treating around the church.

We love our Pumpkin Porch. It looks so cute!!

Judson and Barrett at Grandma's on Halloween.

Seeing Double

Judson and his cousin Trajen have the same Spiderman Costume. It was fun to have them dress up alike. You had to watch them carefully to tell which one was which when they had their masks on. Judson is on the left sporting his superhero pose. So cute.

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Happy Halloween!!

Halloween Costume #1

Judson has been so excited for Halloween this year. It's fun to watch. He had his Halloween party at Preschool today and was able to dress up. He has 2 costumes. The Cowboy is his costume #1. I figure this is his most Preschool friendly costume. He's the cutest cowboy EVER!!!

Witches

We made our annual trip to walk around Gardner's Village and look at the Witches. It was a lot of fun. Judson is still nervous around the witches and won't go close to them. I kept telling him they're just fake, but he wasn't buying it. Still, he was excited each time he spotted a witch and would run closer (just not too close) to look. Notice he wouldn't sit next to the witch in the photo. Darren was his safety buffer.

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Judson spotted the monster guy thing and wanted to make a face just like him. He's so funny!!!

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We also stopped in the sweets shop and Judson was so excited to get this little chocolate sucker. I think the picture is super cute!!

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One more thing that I wasn't going to mention, but is too funny not to. In the baseball Witches photo; Judson went up to these witches and said, "that one looks just like Grandma Stokes". Ha, ha. So funny!!! I think my mom has a shirt just like that, but the resemblance is very little after that. I did tell my mom I wouldn't mention this on the blog, but I wanted to. She won't mind, I'm sure...