What a year!

This past year has been a big one!

• We moved FOUR times! Crazy right? We are planning on not moving again for two plus years.
• Adilyn turned one! (What? Now she is almost 1.5 years old. Where has all the time gone?)
• Orion got a new job! (He makes lots more money and we are living in the lovely central coast)
• We went to St George Utah. Adilyn met her great grandparents for the first time.
• We went to Yosemite! Adilyn ate mounds of dirt and loved every second of it.
• We took plenty of trips to the coast before we moved. In the end we moved over here just before the end of the year. Adilyn started to become a great car traveler. She still hates sleeping in a pack n play though. She ALWAYS wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to sleep with us. We never get enough sleep on trips :( 
• For the first time ever we got our pictures taken professionally and I still have not printed any out. I have a serious problem of accomplishing anything without writing it down first. Thus no pictures printed out and no pictures on the wall. 
• Most importantly this past year has brought us closer together. Orion and I have had our ups and downs this past year. But we are ending on a high note! Adilyn of course is getting cuter and smarter everyday. We are one happy family.

Christmas

This Christmas morning was wonderful! Orion got home from work and made sure Adilyn and I were awake. He wanted to open presents so bad! He was like a little boy. It was cute.

Adilyn was excited for her bubble wand! She did not really want to play with anything else.

 That was until we emptied out her stocking. She realized she was getting treats! She tried to eat through the bags.

 Her she is thinking daddies stocking is hers too.

 My favorite stocking stuffer for her. She is the cutest little elf.

 I swear she is such a ham. I told her to smile and this is what I got. It is either her crazy face or her with her mouth wide open.

 The only present she actually opened. After this she was over opening presents. We had to open the rest of the presents and constantly tell her to look.

 Her favorite toy of the day. Although her doctor set is a close second. My mom is in the hospital right now so we went to visit her. Adilyn insisted on bringing her doodle pad. She doodled on the drive over and while we were in the hospital room. 

Oh her cheesy smile. I sure do love that girl.

Christmas dinner was suppose to happen at our house this year, but plans changed. My mom went into the hospital on Christmas Eve so we ended up having dinner there. Orion and I packed up dinner and brought it to her. Lucky for us Adilyn had her doodle pad to entertain her while we set up around my mom's hospital bed. Although Christmas did not turn out exactly how I planned I was happy to be with family. Hopefully this is the only Christmas that my mom will have to spend in the hospital.

I am so grateful for all that we have this Christmas season. We have been so blessed with a new job and a new place to live. It has been wonderful to live close to my parents again. Although we do miss our friends and family that live in the Central Valley. I am especially grateful for health care and all those who work in it. 

Four years ago

Four years ago I had a pretty sweet boyfriend. I loved him so much. He was so handsome and kind. I had just gotten back from college and wanted to spend every second with him. I did not really know that in little over a week my boyfriend would become my fiance. I was so young then (lets be honest I am still young) and had no idea what life would be like. It seems like forever ago and just yesterday that Orion and I were making out on my parents couch. Sorry mom!

Life has been hard the past four years and it has been wonderful. Getting married was crazy and magical. I wish I could have slowed down time on our wedding day. I wish I could have spent more time imprinting that day on my soul. I wish I could have loved Orion as much that day as I do today. I wish I could have told myself then, that in four years your life will be completely different than you thought it would be. It is better and more challenging! But most of all I wish that I spent that last four years loving my husband more and not finding faults in him as much as I do. I have to remind myself that this man I married is not perfect and neither am I. I have to remind myself that before I expect perfection from him I should be perfect. Which I clearly am not.

Most of all I am grateful that he puts up with my crazy and loves me even when I don't feel like someone who deserves it. I am grateful that he asked me to be his forever and that he means more today then the day he asked it. I am grateful that we are both too stubborn to give up on our marriage and each other. I am grateful that as we draw closer to each other we also draw closer to our Heavenly Father. Christmas time always reminds me that life is such a gift no matter how hard it gets. We are all truly blessed to have a life to live and love others with.

Adilyn's Favorite things

 Adilyn loves to help me clean. Well she sort of helps. Mostly she drags the broom around the house.

 Apparently the carpet needed to be swept.

 Adilyn was having a very fussy day so I thought maybe if I swung her around she would be happy. Turns out she loves it. In reality she loved it too much. I had to carry her around in that bag for a lot longer than I wanted to. She cried when I put her down but my arms were killing me.

 We check the mail daily. Sometimes multiple times a day. She just loves it.

 She also is developing her own sense of style. She likes to pick out her own shoes. If I let her she would probably pick out her outfits.

 Addie and Kenzie are also her closest friends. She just loves to play with them. Too bad we moved away from them :(

 Chocolate is also her favorite. She will steal it from you if you are not careful.

In fact she will steal any food from you if you are not looking. She just loves to eat all the time.

Halloween (a month late)

We recently moved so keeping this updated has been on the back burner. I have been too busy packing and then unpacking. Trying to keep my little tornado out of trouble. Also trying to have some down time. Halloween snuck up on me and I was happy that I just got pictures.

 We went to a pumpkin patch just a couple of days before Halloween so there were not very many pumpkins left. Also the day turned out much hotter than we thought. We were hot and sticky by the end of our walk.

 She was excited she got to run around in the dirt. At one point she sat down and started digging around. Apparently she was not that interested in picking a pumpkin.

 We picked these out for her. Well she picked out the little one after we kept telling her to pick one.

I just can't help but laugh at this picture. It captures her perfectly. She was so excited that we let her carry her pumpkin around the house.

 Then it was time to carve the pumpkins! Adilyn of course had to get right in it.

 She is trying to lick it here.

 Then the tasting happened. She hatted it. Yet she kept trying it every couple of minutes.

The final result. We left two pumpkins alone so Adilyn could play with them. She stacked them outside the door. If they were moved by someone she would notice as soon as we went outside and had to move them.

Getting ready to trick or treat.

 Here she is with her boyfriend in the background. Dawson is our friends son. He is less than a year younger than Adilyn so she is not robbing the cradle that much ;)

 The leopard in the wild!

 She found a chicken and a lady bug on her hunt!

It was disappointing the amount of houses handing out candy. We barely got any, I mean Adilyn barely got any. But she had a blast. After the people handed her candy she would try to walk into their house. She is very friendly like that. Over all Halloween was really fun. Adilyn had a blast hanging out with her friends and saying hi to everyone. Orion and I enjoyed staying out later (past 7pm bedtime for our little lady) and talking to other adults. It is amazing how much you miss other adults once you spend most of your time with a one year old.

Dress Up

 One of our favorite past times is dressing Adilyn up. We think it is so funny to  see her in different outfits. She thinks it is the best.

 She likes to pick up our jackets and bring them over to us. That way we will help put them on her. She then proceeds to take the off or try to walk around in them.

Look at that little pot belly. She is such a piggy but you can't tell most of the time. Normally she looks really skinny and it makes me jealous that she can eat so much and not get chubby. If only I could do that.

Catch up

 The funniest pants Adilyn has. My mom loves buying Adilyn clothes. These pants are suppose to be leggings, I think. One day Adilyn got her pants dirty (there is no shock there) and I just grabbed a pair of pants for her. Turns out they were barely there pants.

 She thought they were fun to play in. I could not stop laughing. Orion said she looked like an old lady.

 You can't really tell what the shirt says, but it is the best picture I could get. The shirt says BYU Idaho baby. I got this shirt in the mail when I got pregnant with our little lady. It only took a year before I could get her in it.

 Orion was thinning Adilyn's toys out. She just wanted to make a big mess.

Until she realized I was taking pictures. She is such a ham. Always wanting to have her picture taken and make you laugh. It makes her happy to make you happy. I just love that about her. The other day she was so upset and would not stop crying. Nothing I did would comfort her. In fact she kept pushing me away. I got so frustrated that I started crying. She immediately stopped crying and gave me a hug. Then she wiped away my tears. I love my sweet lady and her caring spirit.