Birthday Week!

Since Danny's birthday and my birthday are only a week apart, we call the whole week birthday week, and celebrate all we can! :)

We started the week with Danny's birthday with lunch at Texas Roadhouse with friends (YUM!!) and Avatar in Imax 3D. Everyone LOVED it (but I was pretty bored. just not my kind of movie.) The 3D was really amazing though.
Then we met up with some more friends for bowling at Boondocks. (Love that place!!)

We ended the night with brownies and ice cream at our house. Happy Birthday Danny!

The majority of Danny's family has birthdays in January so we had a big party the day after Danny's birthday. Here's Danny opening his gifts.

Our cute nephew Canyon. This picture is just TOO good!

All the January birthdays.

On Friday I went to the Cheesecake Factory with my mom for lunch. UH-MAZ-ING. I always love that place. This time I tried the 30th anniversary cheesecake at it was to die for!

On Saturday (my birthday) Danny surprised me with breakfast at Sill's with my friends and siblings. My brother Michael was really in the birthday spirit :)

Danny made me wear this ribbon.

We asked the waitress to take our picture. Why do people have such a hard time with cameras?!? Poor Danny is only 1/2 in the picture...

That night we used our free Jazz tickets from the Sing-a-long we went to in December. We were in the 2nd to top row in the whole arena, but it was still really fun.

The Jazz pretty much blew away the Nets. I think the final score was something like 117-86. We knew it would be like that because the Nets have won like 3 out of 40 games this season. How embarrassing... I almost felt sorry for them, but hey, they're in the NBA!

The next day we celebrated our birthdays with my family. (We will forever have 1 birthday) My family made us wear these crazy things for the whole night. Danny's button had Yoda and said "birthday Jedi knight" ha ha.

Opening our presents. I got my Cherry Hill pass, and I can't wait for summer to use it! Except I hate summer... ha ha

It was such a great week and we were so spoiled! Thanks to all of our friends and family that made it such a great week!

We had a big snow storm and decided to take Caydence on her first sledding trip. She was so cute all bundled up. She cried the first 2 runs, so we let her watch Danny go down a few times. She then tried it again. I think she was still terrified, but she didn't cry! I am REALLY bummed because I filmed it with my flip cam and when I plugged it in to the computer to upload the video it said I needed an update (I haven't downloaded my videos in a while). I did the update and it erased ALL of my videos! I'm trying not to freak out, but all of my videos from my NYC trip are gone, this Christmas, and more. At least I had already downloaded the pictures of Caydence's first steps, or I would literally have a breakdown. I'm trying to keep calm. Maybe they're in the computer SOMEWHERE...

Disaster...

In our almost 4 years of marriage, and ALL of my cooking experience before that I have NEVER had a dinner disaster. I have had some recipes that weren't all that great, or that could have been better, but they were always edible.

This morning I got up early so I could make this chicken soup with a leftover carcass before I headed to playgroup. It was full of vegetables and goodness. I was really excited for it.

After playgroup I ran to costco and to the bank. My mom said it was supposed to boil all day, so I didn't even think twice about it.

I walked in the door around 2:00 and out poured tons of smoke. I ran to the kitchen and found this:
Those used to be vegetables, and a whole chicken carcass with lots of meat still on it! And it was filled to the top with broth! Dang it. Guess it's a PB&J night...

STOMP!! plus a few other random things...

My amazing sister, Nicki, gave us tickets to STOMP for Christmas, along with a coupon to babysit Caydence! It was in Provo, so we headed down early and of course hit in-n-out burger, AMAZING! I can't get enough of it. The show was amazing, we just wanted to jump on the stage and join in! It reminded us so much of our drumline shows and we were really jealous to not be playing too.

We asked a stranger to take our picture and it was terrible, so we asked someone else, and it was a little better.... so this is all we got...
And in other random news... does anyone have a love-hate relationship with redbox like I do?

They sent me a code for a free rental because "2009 was such a great year" and "I was one of their loyal customers." I only rented something because it was free. There wasn't really anything in there I wanted to see. And I went to return it the next day, and I went to all 6, yes, that's right, 6 redbox locations within a 1/2 mile of my house and one was broken, one had a HUGE line, and the other 4 were FULL and wouldn't accept my movie. I was pretty frustrated that I couldn't return my movie. I was trying, but I literally could not! I couldn't find one that would take it until the next day, so I had to pay for the movie after all! I know it was only a dollar, but still frustrating. I love that redbox is so cheap and easy, but it's sometimes really annoying.

On a happier note, Caydence had her first experience with:

She really didn't know what to do with it, and it took her about .3 seconds to put it in her mouth. I'm sure it was pretty nasty because she didn't do that again.

The Happiest Place on Earth!

WARNING: PICTURE OVERLOAD!! I was just going to pick a few highlights, but there were so many I wanted to include!

We just got home yesterday from an amazing trip to southern California! We had such a blast!! The whole reason we went was for my cousin Jeff's wedding, but we decided to make a vacation out of it. Here's Jeff and Natalie coming out of the temple. Aren't they the most perfect pair? Barbie and Ken?! :)
This was only the 2nd sealing I've been to since we've been married, and the first time I've been in the San Diego temple (except the open house, which I don't really remember).

We spent our first day in Los Angeles, first stopping at the La Brea Tar Pits. It was just about as exciting as it sounds..... But we got a fun picture out of it.

Then we had lunch at the original Tommy's. AMAZING! Nicki and I couldn't decide between the chili burger or the chili tamale, so we got one of each and split them. Verdict: both amazing!

We then bought a star map and drove around looking at homes. We didn't have much time, so we only saw about 4, but this was the favorite. Recognize it?!

SEAWORLD

We spent the day after the wedding at Seaworld, and Nicki had so much fun she wet her pants :)

We loved this rapids ride especially because some nice couple gave us their panchos! We also loved paying 25 cents to soak them as they came by!!

Is there anything better than Shamu? Yes, 3 SHAMUS!!!!

Watching shows with the fam.

Caydence touching the starfish. Everyone was so cute with Caydence and so much help! Danny didn't fly in until the next day, so everyone was really nice to help us a lot.

This was as we were going into the Polar Express 4D movie. Caydence had her one and only meltdown of the whole week, so she and I just walked around while they saw the movie. Her tantrum lasted about .5 seconds, so then we just wandered around. Not bad, considering we drove 10 hours in a van packed with 8 people to get there, and she hadn't had a nap in days, and she was hungry, and we did a ton of driving while we were there. She was really an angel child.

This is what she did instead.

DISNEYLAND

We decided to do something new this trip and go to Legoland instead of the usual Disneyland, but when we got there and saw it, we knew we could never betray our favorite!!

After a full day at Seaworld, we got up early and headed to Disneyland for the day. (We were there for 15 hours, with the biggest crowds of the entire year because it was New Year's Eve, and Caydence didn't complain once!! She was amazing)

We asked the workers if it was the busiest day of the year, and they said it was by far, so you can imagine the kind of crowds we were dealing with. But we still had such a great time! We abused the fast pass system, and so we hardly waited in ANY lines, and because of the stroller, 2 people got to ride each ride twice! It was golden!

Caydence was just BARELY tall enough for autopia, but not tall enough for the picture. They wouldn't let her ride on our laps, so she is in the middle of us. You can kind of see the top of her head.

Caydence's favorite ride was It's a Small World. She danced and "ohhhh'd" the whole time.

Outside of Small World. They still had the place decorated for Christmas which was way fun.

Dumbo

The boys liked Dumbo the most, especially riding together :)

We asked some random guy to take a picture of us in front of the castle. He did a great job of getting in the castle, but not getting in Caydence. She was in her stroller right in front of us. Ha ha. Oh well, Danny isn't in it either because he hadn't gotten there yet from the airport.

We wandered over to Small World at night to see the awesome Christmas lights. We just happened to get there right as they were doing some mini-show complete with "snow" made from foam bubbles.

Danny and Dad fell asleep at dinner. We were all really tired. We got there at 9:30 AM and didn't get home until after 1. We just really wanted to stay because we heard the New Year's countdown and party were amazing!

Free New Year's hats from California Adventure.

Happy New Year! You can't tell, but my ears lit up.

We decided to start walking out of the park at about 11:45 so we could see the fireworks at 12 and then beat all the crowds out the front gate to our cars. If you've ever been to Disneyland, and know the main street area, just imagine the ENTIRE street from the castle to the exit completely filled with people. It was NUTS!! They had it all roped off and made the sidewalk one way for people walking to the rides. But it was still wall-to-wall people. We ended up trapped right in front of Cinderella's castle right at midnight just in time for the amazing fireworks display. It was awesome! What a fun night! After that things cleared out pretty quick so we were able to move again.

On Saturday my family drove home, but Danny and I stayed the weekend. They were so nice to take Caydence home with them so we could have the weekend all to ourselves.

I took Danny back to Beverly Hills/ Bel Air so we could continue the star map tour. We saw some amazing houses. This was my favorite. The map said it was Dr. Phill's.

The pictures don't do it justice.

Then we went to Graumen's because Danny had never been there. And back to Tommy's for lunch because Danny missed it the first time.

We walked down Laguna Beach on Sunday. We had the most amazing weather the whole time. It was nice and warm. It was really hard to come back to snow....

GORGEOUS!! We even saw 2 dolphins!

We had such an amazing trip! Caydence was such a trooper, and everyone had so much fun!! Can't wait to go back!!!

Christmas!

I know that Christmas was only a week and a half ago, but it seems like an eternity!! We were so focused on our trip (pictures to come) and getting all ready for it that Christmas was really a whirl wind day, and I am finally getting to post about it!

It's tradition that we spend the night at my parent's house on the "big bed" (aka every mattress in the house piled into one room so we can all sleep together.) Paige was waking me up about every 15 minutes starting at 4 AM to ask what time it was. Needless to say, I got very little sleep, but who cares, it's Christmas!!
Caydence was more interested in this book than anything else.

And of course her milk. (New PJ's from Grandma Wariner)

Matching hats made by Great Grandma Eynon.

Caydence and Aunt Nicki. She got her a cute sock monkey (you can kind of see its face)

Caydence only understood Christmas a little more than last year (so we didn't get her much :) But every present she opened, with every rip of the paper she would say "wow!" It was pretty funny.

Those are all the pictures I got of our whirl-wind Christmas! We were also able to talk to my brother Matt who is on a mission in Argentina, and that was pretty exciting. He hit 1 year on December 17th, and his birthday was December 22nd. I still can't believe how time has flown!

We had an amazing dinner made by my mom, and then packed until 2 AM! I was up at 6 because it was the only time all of my ward friends I grew up with could get together before we left for our trip and they all went home. It was so good to see all of them and catch up on their lives! Then 10 hours to California right after that! It was a great holiday! As soon as I get some of the pictures from my family's camera I'll post all about our trip!

On the "Twelfth Date of Christmas"

We did it!!! We actually got in our 12 dates of Christmas just in time. We spent the night (Christmas Eve) with Danny's family. They usually have a big family party on Christmas eve, but their family from out of town couldn't make it until the day after Christmas so they postponed the big party until then. Unfortunately, Caydence and I were leaving for California the day after Christmas, so we still had a small outing with our immediate family on Christmas Eve.

We decided to do something different (and to give Danny's mom a break from cooking 2 Christmas dinners). We started the night with ice skating at the Galivan Center. I have lived in Utah for 15 years and NEVER been there! We had such a blast. It was pretty hard getting used to ice skating after a REALLY long break, but everyone did really well (especially Canyon, it was his first time!)
Caydence even got in on the fun!

Aren't her skates the cutest thing ever?!

She looked pretty cute all bundled up. It was probably -15 degrees! But it was so fun!

Then we went to dinner at the Macaroni Grill (another first for us.) We called probably a million restaurants in SLC to find one that was open late on Christmas eve (because Danny was supposed to work until 7) and this was the only one. Danny ended up getting of early, but we still went, and the food was AMAZING!

We ended the night at temple square looking at the lights, but I accidentally left the camera in the car, so no pictures.