Hooray for Holidays!

You'd think that after having a baby, I wouldn't want 23 guests for Christmas, but that's exactly what happened. Elina loved the attention and we both cried when everyone went home. Luckily we were in our new house and had plenty of room for everyone!
True to "tradition" sickness hit the entire Caine side, but gratefully both Elina & Aaron stayed healthy throughout the season. Due to the sickness, New Years found Bryce, Grandma Caine & I playing games all by ourselves. It was actually a nice break from the hustle and bustle of the Holidays and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves :)

Blessing Day

Both the Caine & Robinson sides were able to stay until the 28th (except Kristy's family) for Aaron's Baby Blessing. I loved seeing him in the same blessing outfit Bryce wore as a baby. Bryce voiced a powerful blessing that I hope someone wrote down. Afterwards, we enjoyed a small luncheon of soup, rolls & salad at our house.

I must have "new mommy brain" because I didn't even think to take pictures with the grandparents. Just taking a picture of just our little family was quite the experience. As you can see, Elina was not thrilled to sit still :) All in all, it was a beautiful day!

Our Trip to Curious George, UT

Mom, Elina, and I went to St. George, UT for a day trip on Saturday. It started out with Elina saying that we were going to “Curious George” instead of St. George. It was a fun trip, we went to Jack in the Box for lunch, and Elina drank milk, picked cheese off of her grilled cheese sandwich, and refused the apple sauce. We then did some shopping, and dropped by Uncle Marlen’s and Aunt Phylis’ It was fun! (My favorite pic is the one with Elina with a colored pencil in her ear–she looks like she is at the epitome of boredom.)

Babysitting

Kathy and I babysat the Bishop's kids, and it was really fun to see what life would be like with 6 children. It was a lot, but it was also very full feeling--hard to describe. We watched Horton Hears a Who.

Giving Thanks!!

Thanksgiving brought much to be thankful for. The biggest was the birth of Aaron Thomas Caine. He wasn't due until Nov. 30th, but made a surprise entrance 5 days early. Because my entire family had planned on coming to our house for Thanksgiving...we decided to stick with the plans. I actually had a great time. The cousins would play with Elina allowing me to sneak upstairs for naps!
We were also grateful for the extra hands after receiving notice that our home insurance would be canceled if we didn't build a rail on the back deck by Saturday. The "guys" went to work and were able to finish in time! What an awesome family!

Aaron Thomas Caine!!

We are so excited to introduce everyone to Aaron Thomas. He was born on November 25th, 2008. 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long. With Elina, I had all back labor, so it was “interesting” to see what “real” labor felt like. I didn’t like it much :( In fact I ended up going to the hospital and my contractions weren’t even that close yet. I was just dying to know what I was dilated to! I was at a 6! Okay, here’s where anyone should have already decided what they want, because I chickened out and ended up going natural…again.

“Why?” You might ask. Well, the nurses said, “you’ve already done it once so you know you can do it”…and we’ll let you use the hot tub….plus I really didn’t want a catheter :( dumb reasons, I know…..BUT, next time..I’m really going to get an epidural! So, to make a long story short, everything went REALLY well and we are both doing excellent! My recovery was way faster this time. Yay!

Duh-Cling!

We were going to be lazy this year and not dress up for our ward chili cook-off'/Trunk-or-Treat, but Bryce had a "great" idea while driving home from work. Sheri had given us a cute duck costume for Elina, so Bryce thought he'd tape a burned-out light bulb to his head as if to say "duh". I stuck dryer sheets all over me and was the "cling". Get it...."Duh-Cling"..hahaha. Okay, so it was a stretch, but at least it was something :)

The New House!!

On October 25th, we were very blessed to be able to move into a foreclosed home two streets over. We're very excited to stay in the neighborhood! When our friends/family helped us move, they only moved the large furniture but left, for instance, the books from the bookshelves. Waiting until after the move, I hadn't cleaned in two weeks! With that in mind, you can imagine my horror when a Realtor called and asked if he could show the house in one hour. Being 8 months along, there's no way I could get it presentable by myself, so I threw Elina in the stroller and headed over to the house, knocking on doors as I went. Thankfully, two of my neighbors were able to come. We flew through the house, throwing random things into bags & piling everything in Janelle's van. Vacuuming, mopping, etc. As the Realtor pulled up, we were rolling up the vacuum cord & setting the last can away. Whew!! Thank you, Thank you for stay at home moms!!! (who are also willing to serve)

Skyfest!

We had such a fun time at the annual Skyfest last year, that at 7:00am, I pulled Elina out of bed, threw on some warm clothes and headed down to the Bicentennial Park. She was mesmerized by the balloons and couldn't take her eyes off them. I'm excited for the years to come when she'll be old enough to really enjoy them!

Summer Harvest

When Bryce and I were first married, we made a random trip to Lowes in St. George. We walked out with a grape plant. Having no idea if they would even grow in Cedar City, we stuck it in the ground and hooked it up to the drip system. After three years, we had this awesome harvest of grapes. Yum!! I also had to show off my roses. I've never considered myself to be a "green thumb" but I'm discovering that I really enjoy plants. Who'd have ever thought :)

Picture Day!

My sister, Sheri, blessed her baby Thomas on September 9. My entire family made it, so we decided to take advantage of the moment and take family pictures. They didn’t turn out as well as we would have liked, but we had fun none-the-less. Matt & Jeralyn let us stay with them so we didn't have to crowd everyone out at Sheri's. Elina had a great time getting more acquainted with Leah. They especially loved dancing together!!

Summer Sunset!

We haven’t had very many awesome sunsets this summer because of the lack of clouds. We just happened to catch this rare display on August 31st. Yay for sunsets!! I love summer evenings…but I’m getting excited for FALL!!

Here comes the Parade!!

I have many fond memories of going to the Parowan Labor Day Parade as a child, so I was excited to take Elina for the first time. There's something about a parade that stirs patriotic feelings & small town togetherness! Being quite the animal lover, her favorite was definitely the horses....oh & candy! (she "shared" most of it though) Her least would have to be the fire engines at the end...too loud! Even though it was a little chilly, we had a pleasant day and I'm glad we went!

Wedding Bells

Wahoo, my good friend, Tatiana Holland is now a "Bennett". Andrea & Ryan were nice enough to let us pile in their SUV for the trip to Richfield. We had a great time and Elina rode relatively well. It was a very small reception, so I'm really glad we made the effort to go. With Tatiana heading off to the East Coast, I'm sure this will be the last time all of us "old roommates" will see each other for a very long time! Wow, such great friends and such great memories!

Are there Bears at Bear Lake?

Our little family went on a weekend whirlwind trip to Logan in July for our Robinson Reunion. We had a beautiful time at Bear Lake, not too hot, and a little wind. The trip home however was another story. After driving for almost 9 hours…(stops & things) we decided to NEVER do such a short weekend trip again!! Ahh, the days of no stops, no crying, no bathroom breaks are forever over :( That’s okay. It just takes a little more planning now :)

Half Birthday…Is that cheating??

We celebrated Elina’s half birthday on July 12th. We figured that her birthday is just too close to Christmas. Our awesome neighbors knew we were looking for a slide and gave Elina an entire swing set. Perfect timing!! It actually turned out to be a little chilly, but the kids had fun in the water none-the-less. We invited a bunch of Elina’s little friends. She LOVES people and had a great time.

"Boop"

Elina is almost 18 months old, and she has developed quite a little vocabulary:

Na-ps - with a pause before saying the “ps”, this means “snap” which means alligator, crocodile, etc. Elina has a hard time sounding “s” at the beginning of a word, so she says it at the end.

George - she actually says this one pretty good, it means Curious George

Up - she’s got this one “down” as well (no pun intended), this means get me in mommy’s arms pronto

Boop - this means Book. It cracks me up how she’ll wake up in her crib without us knowing, and then suddenly the first word we’ll hear from her is “Boop”

Mamma - you guessed it

Dadda - I love it when she calls my name, but Kathy and I both know that she’s a momma’s girl

Milp - whole milk is her favorite

Eat - she says this one very good, but sometimes she says it to interrupt mommy or daddy when trying to put her to bed for the night. She’s a sneaky one.

Eas or Peas - depending on the context, this means either “please” or “peas”. The peas are out in the garden, so she knows she gets to go out in the back yard with mommy or daddy when she says “peas”

Chees - sometimes that’s all she’ll eat, she especially likes string cheese

Bath - splish splash

Ice - this is a staple for Elina. She loves ice chips and prefers them over virtually any other food. I hope she doesn’t go on her first date and just order parsley and ice water. I’ll have to train her on how to down a 32-ounce steak!

No-s - this means “snow” with the “s” at the end

Nose - this one’s on our faces

It’s a BOY!!!

Bryce, Elina, and I went to our ultrasound today. Annie was nice enough to come to help out. It’s funny because we both had feelings like the baby was a boy, but you can never be too sure. This was our first experience with a 3-D ultrasound. Because “Mr. wiggly” wouldn’t hold still, it was difficult to get a good shot, but it was exciting nonetheless. So, we’re having another Elina….boy style :)

Great Scotts!

Wow, what a reunion!! We spent the 4th of July weekend at a nice campground in Lehi. The days were full of races of every kind, water fight, pinata, card games, fireworks, talent show, yummy food, great company...etc.etc. We ended the reunion with a nice program to celebrate Grandma Scott's birthday. Everyone wrote down their favorite memories of Grandma (we made one for each year) and read them to her. We are blessed to have such a close family and it was fun to spend some great quality time with everyone!

Youth Conference

I’ll let Kathy tell more about this, but it was really neat to be with all the youth of our ward for the trip up to Salt Lake last Wednesday and Thursday (6/25 - 6/26). I mainly spent the trip watching Elina with Jeralyn, Matt, and Leah. Elina seemed to enjoy herself, but she was a little whirlwind. She got on this spitting kick, and thought it was so fun to spit on their end table, not to mention my face. :) It was very nice to be on Temple Square and see some of the exhibits, and also the Joseph Smith movie. I’m so grateful to be a part of the Church and its wonderful and inspired heritage. ~Bryce

My Mia Maid Councilor came up with a great idea to visit Humanitarian Square up in SLC for an activity. The perfect opportunity came for Ward Youth Conference (they alternate between ward & stake) It took a lot of planning but was fun/rewarding to see the hard work come to fruition. We served at the Humanitarian Center, hiked, visited the Salt Lake Temple and had an all around great time. It's much different as a leader though. When I was a youth, I had no idea the effort it took to put on a Girls Camp or Youth Conference. I just showed up and had a great time. I should have been soo much more grateful for my leaders. I guess we all learn...eventually :)

Tons of Fun in WashingTON!

These are some of our favorite pictures from our Washington trip. It was really special for Kathy and I to see Elina latch on to Bamma and Bampa so fast (of course the ice cream and the frequent visits to the doggy sure helped). We loved Seattle...especially the Children's museum. Elina was just the right age to enjoy hours of fun there!

It was certainly a trip that we’ll always cherish.