Happy Birthday Hayesie!!

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I can't hardly believe it, our Hayesie Daisy is now officially 2!!! That seems so crazy to me. Well, even though I may be in denial, we celebrated pretty hard. He woke up in the morning to balloons all over. He was SO excited. Then we party prepped and played at the park. We also went to lunch with Ash and Hayes got a #2 pizza. After we played some more and got ready for the party some more. His party this year was a doughnut party because Hayes LOVES doughnuts. He played and played and played and devoured his doughnut. It was everything a birthday should be. 

Happy 2nd Birthday to my angel boy Hayes! I love you forever! 

Dear Hayes:

I can't believe how fast those two years went by for me. It's weird too because thinking about you as a tiny baby seems like so long ago, and trying to remember life without you is nearly impossible. It was like you were always here. You are such a funny, spunky, happy guy and I feel so blessed that I get to spend my days with you. You are stubborn, just like me. You would think that both of us being so stubborn would make for a lot of problems, but you and I have the best time together (most of the time). You are curious and silly. You love to give hugs. The way you say Mom, or Mama, or Ma is music to my ears. You lighten up every room you go in. You are everything that's good in the world. 

I worry about you a lot. I hope that you use all of the traits you were given for good. I hope that you are stubborn in your beliefs and that you never let anyone sway you from what you know is right. I hope that you are kind and loving and welcome everyone. I hope you are curious about the world and that you explore things and go on adventures. I hope you always sing everywhere you go. I hope that you work hard and then you have fun. Your future is as bright as your personality. You are oozing personality, you are your own person and I love that you are you. Never change, but always push yourself to do better. 

You are the best thing that has ever happened to me and I love being your mom. Thanks for hugging me and yelling my name when you can't see me. Thanks for grabbing my hand and making me hid in the curtains with you. Thank you for making me sing Popcorn Popping a hundred times in a row. Thank you for being the sweetest boy. I love you forever and I am so glad you were born. 

Love, 

Mom 

Salt lake

Hayes and I spent the weekend in Salt Lake while Sam laid our new floors. It was fun to get away and to do something fun, plus we love to see Kati and Justin. We shopped and every once in a while we had to find an empty field and just let this kid run it out. haha. It was pretty low key, and we were so happy to come home to new floors in the house! Win win for us! 

Blankets

Hayes loves when I wash our bedding, and he especially loves it when I hang it to dry outside. He will go and get it and snuggle up in a ball on the couch or on the floor. I totally remember doing this when I was a kid with warm blankets. It was just so cozy and nice. He LOVES blankets! 

Lunch date

The other day Hayes and I went on a lunch date to In N Out Burger. It was fun to go with him and to actually sit in a restaurant. So many times we just eat at home, or if we do go out we take it home and eat it, so this was a nice change of pace. This kid loves ketchup and fries so he was pretty happy at our choice in restaurant.  It's fun to go do something different every once in a while. 

And lets be real, I had the cutest lunch date there ever was! 

Easter 2015

The older Hayes gets, the better every holiday gets. Easter is hands down my favorite holiday. I love every single aspect of it. Recently I gave a lesson to my young women on The Resurrection. I studied the lesson and really found so much insightful information, that really made me love Easter even more. One thing that really stuck out to me that I studied was that the resurrection will be given to EVERYONE. I think I always had in my head that the resurrection was something that you had to earn, but as I studied the lesson, it explained that it is given to everyone on the earth. I like that for a number of reasons. The first one is that I feel like that shows how much our Heavenly Father loves us, that he will give such an amazing gift. A resurrected body is such an amazing thing, one that I don't think I can fully comprehend. In the lesson it explained that resurrected beings are incapable of illness, and our Heavenly Father is just going to give that to us? Seriously, a body and perfect body that is incapable of illness? Wow! I can't imagine a more amazing gift, and that's something he has promised us. I just found so much love behind that and I think it really shows just how incredible our Heavenly Father is. 

The second thing I learned from my lesson, or that stuck with me is just how amazing the resurrection is. In a talk by Pres. Monson that I studied for the lesson he calls the Resurrection "The ultimate miracle" and it truly is. As I was talking to my mom about it, she brought up a cool thing that I had never thought of, but that was that Jesus showed himself to Mary very first, and how unique that was, especially for that period of time and culture. Jesus valued women and loved Mary so much that she was the first to be able to see this "Ultimate Miracle" in front of her. We talked about how valuable and symbolic that is. It was such a big learning lesson for me and I am now even more grateful for this season and the chance we have to celebrate "The Ultimate Miracle". 

I also love Easter because the weather is absoultely my favorite of the whole year, and the candy is hands down the best candy. It's one of the only holidays we celebrate with everything I love, candy, flowers, games, and we do it outside.It's perfect. 

This year we got invited to an Easter party at Sam's friends house. They have the most increidble pool you've ever seen in your whole life. Hayes LOVED the pool so much. They also have a water slide. We were a little hesitant to take Hayes down it, but after his first slide down, he was hooked and wanted to do it a hundred more times. He did really good wearing his life jacket, so he got to play in the pool for quite a while. 

They also did an Easter egg hunt. Hayes liked it for about two seconds and then wanted to get right back in the pool. He was bummed when we explained that swimming time was over. He didn't want anything to do with his candy. All the other kids were bummed too because Hayes found one of the special eggs with money in it, and didn't care one bit. haha. 

On Saturday, we did an Easter egg hunt at our house. Hayes did much better this time. He gets so overwhelmed and easily distracted when there are too many people around, so when it was just us, he did great. While he was hunting for eggs, he squeezed one too tight and popped it open. A candy dropped out and he suddenly realized that these "eggs" were actually full of candy. He yelled "TEET TEET!" (treat) and was SO excited. The funny part about it is I don't think he ever actually ate the candy, he was just excited there was candy in the eggs. 

He got an Easter basked and a new outfit. Overall, it was so much fun to see him hunt for eggs and have so much fun. I loved the whole process of getting things together and hiding the eggs. It really is everything I wanted when I found out we were having a baby. Even though we all know that parenting is hard, it is the best thing ever. Don't you think? 

Funny things Hayes does

Hayes is quite the character. He is very strong willed and has his own way of doing things. He is full force into the terrible twos (even though he isn't quite two yet). I have been working with him so much on using his words because I know once he is better able to communicate, things will be much better. I know that once he can explain to me "Mom, I want to go around my high chair a few times before I get in it." we will have much smoother days. I just don't know all the quirky little things he wants to do, so he gets frustrated with me. (and vice verse) 

Lately he has LOVED to lay on our bed. For the longest time after he fell off and broke he leg, I wouldn't let him even hardly sit on the bed, but the bigger he gets, the better able he is to get on and off by himself. I am sure partially he loves it because it has been so off limits, but that kid could sit on my bed for hours and watch George (if I would let him). He rolls around and sits and lays and just thinks its great. I try to talk to him and he'll say "Night night!" hahhaha, I think that's Hayes for be quite and leave me a lone. haha

The other funny thing Hayes has started doing is FREAKING out when Sam leaves in the truck without him. He absolutely hates when Sam goes without him and has throw some pretty epic fits because of it. It's so sad that he gets so upset, but it's funny because of how extreme it is. This is what happened when Sam backed out of the drive way and pulled his truck on to the street. Pure chaos ensued because Sam had the nerve to do that without Hayes. It's rough being a toddler. 

The last funny thing he's done lately is ask to go in his bed and watch George. This past week we were getting ready to go take him over to Sam's mom's house and for me to go work. We had breakfast and got dressed and I was taking Hayes out to the car. When I tried to put him in the car he went crazy and would not let me put him in. He was crying and screaming and I seriously couldn't fight him. I asked him if he wanted to go back into the house, and he answered "YA!!!" So I took him back in the house and explained to him that we needed to go, he started crying again and said "Night Night!" I asked him if he wanted to go back into his bed "YA!" again. So, I took him and put him in his bed and he was happy. He asked for George, and literally was so content. I felt terrible that I was forcing him to leave when all he wanted to do was stay home and watch a show in his bed. Luckily, Sydney was able to come over to our house and play with him there for a little while until he was ready to leave. 

I realize giving in to him and his funny requests isn't always productive, but I've been there. Sometimes you really just want to be home and watching a show in your bed. (this was also a Monday mind you). So believe me, I got it. I just laughed because it's fun to see his personality and likes and dislikes come out. It's fun to see he has a lot of my same traits, and it's mind blowing to realize that he's not just a baby, but a person that sometimes wants to just go back to bed and watch his favorite movie. Kids are something else I tell you. I worry about him and about teaching him, but as long as he stays as stubborn about his beliefs and what's right as he does about watching George, then I think he will be just fine. 

Family Pictures

I was looking back through my blog and realized I never posted our family pictures with the Cardon family. We had them done on February 20th over at the Tonaquint Nature Center and park. I LOVE that area, but I never realized how many different areas there are out there and just how adorable it is out there! We will definitely head back over there again. They turned out SO good and I am really happy to have these of our whole family.

We gave them to my mom for Christmas and we will have them printed for her for Mother's Day. They are kind of a pain to coordinate (schedules, outfits, etc) but I would so much rather spend the time and money to have some great pictures done than on just about anything else. I feel like we have experienced so much death lately and that really puts things into perspective. Pictures and great pictures are the only thing that really means anything after someone is gone. I have never heard anyone say " Geez we have way too many great pictures of this person, man, what a waste" It just doesn't happen. People love to look through old pictures and new pictures and pictures from their parent's childhood and their grandparent's childhood. Pictures are priceless. I almost want to make this family pictures gift thing into a yearly tradition.We'll see how that goes.

A girl that I know from work, Malea Ellett took these for us and did such an amazing job. She did not have an easy task and I think she gave us so many amazing shots. These are something I, and I know my mom, will cherish forever. The only thing we said is that we are going to have to get some new ones taken once Kate and Justin's sweet little guy arrives!