"Papa?"

My dad came to visit for a week and we had so much fun!  Soren loves his grandpa, the morning after grandpa left to go home Soren walked around the house saying, "papa?  papa?", sweet and heartbreaking all at the same time!  

My dad got here Friday afternoon, we picked him up from the airport and headed down to Houston for the BYU vs University of Houston football game.  We got hooked up with some sweet tickets on the fifty yard line, it was awesome.  The game was Saturday afternoon, we left straight from the game to go back to Dallas.  Soren slept the whole way home, it was great!

We spent the rest of the week eating, hanging out and going to the park.  Soren and grandpa went on a walk every morning and several more walks throughout the day.  Soren loves all the attention and outside time he gets when grandpa comes to visit.

Fashionable...?

Fashion may not be his strong suit, but he is still cute!

My dad sent him these armbands and he has recently become obsessed, but he doesn't like them on his arms, only his legs!

He loves wearing our clothes.

Birthday Party

On Saturday we had Soren's 2nd Birthday party.  It was a lot of prep, but it was fun and totally worth it!  We had about 15 kids there and they all had fun just running around and playing.

State Fair of Texas

Friday evening we took my mom to the State Fair, it was our first time too!  Our third year in Texas, but we haven't gone yet because the first year I was 9 months pregnant and Soren was born.  The second year I was too sick with my Crohn's disease to have any desire to go.  

We picked Richard up from work and then rode the train down.  We didn't get there until about 6, so the shows were wrapping up so all we did was walk around and eat lots of fried food (let's be honest, that was the real reason we were there anyway).

We did catch the last Ostrich race (unfortunately, it was not nearly as cool as it sounded).

The fair takes place wrapped around the Cotton Bowl.

We intended to take pictures of all the food we ate, but we were too excited to eat it and forgot most of the time.  We had (all fried) avocado fries (nasty), fried frito pie (SOOO GOOD!), fried oreos, fried spinach dip, picnic on a stick (chicken, pickles and tater tots), funnel cake.  After all the fried food we all needed a drink and something cool.  So we got a fresh lemonade and some ice cream.  The ice cream was really gross so we ended up giving it to Soren. HA!

"Big Tex" is the icon of the state fair.  He burned down last year, so this year they had a brand new one.

My mom was here last week and we had a great time!  We spent most of the first few days planning Soren's birthday party, but Thursday morning we took a break to take Soren to Jump Zone to play. At first he wasn't so sure about what to do or if he wanted to do it, but once I coaxed him down the slide once he had a blast.  He spent about 20-30 minutes on the inflatables, but then he enjoyed playing on the arcade games (it will be a sad day when he starts wanting money for them...).

As you can hear in the video he went down the slide and as soon as he got to the bottom he would say, "again"

Birthday

Soren's birthday fell over conference weekend so we didn't do anything big, but Sunday morning we did have him open a few gifts that he had received in the mail.  Thank you Great Grandma Christensen for the shirt and Great Grandma Hart for the book!

Happy Birthday, Bug!

Two Years Old!!!!

2 year stats --

Height:  33 inches (10-25%)

Weight:  27 lbs 10 oz (25-50%)

He is potty trained.  Woo hoo!

Favorites --

Activities/Things:  Being outside, playing at the park, gymnastics, dancing to the music, looking at books

Food:  fruit, green smoothies, sandwiches, hot dogs, graham crackers, popcorn

Books:  Things That Go, My First Alphabet, Pregnancy Journal I kept with him, Abby's First Book of Shapes (Sesame Street)

Show:  Sesame Street, Blue's Clues

He has started picking up sooo many words in the last month.  I feel like one day he had like 5 words and the next he just started repeating everything we say.  Here is the list (there are probably more, but this is what I can think of right now and they don't sound like the word, but they are getting closer and we know what he is saying):  mama, dada, radley (rara), car, truck, cougars, go, keys, cheese, ice, more, thank you, on, off, hot dog, pop tart, popcorn, tall, yeah, no, night night, bye, hi, grandma, grandpa, Tate, puppy, jump, banana, clean (he only says this singing the clean up song which he learned in nursery), Jesus, Elmo, Blue, eye, nose, shirt, shoe.  

That is all I can think of right now, but I know there are more.  The best thing he says is "ra, ra, goooo Cougars."  All actions included.  it is awesome.  Love this boy!

Soren is the sweetest little boy and he is hilarious and he knows it.  He is very social and loves to show off.  He always gets a lot of attention from everybody when we go out.  He makes everybody feel like they are his favorite person.  He loves to say hi and give big smiles to everybody he sees.  He loves to have dance parties and play with his puppy.  They are best friends and love each other.  He keeps me on my toes always going from one thing to the next.  If he is every quiet I know there will be a mess waiting for me.  :)  He loves to play games and he is getting more cuddly which I love!  

I just can't get enough of him, he is at such a fun age!  I got a little emotional on his birthday on Sunday because of how fast the time is going.  I am not sad that he is 2, but it makes me so emotional to think about how fast it has gone.  I feel like the next time I turn around he will be leaving me to go to school all day.

Love this little bug so much!

Poor Car

Last week, Richard got in an accident.  Bummer!  He is fine, but the car not so much.  We are glad that he didn't get any injuries and we are glad that it was not his fault!

We are assuming the car will be totaled (it is 12 years old, not in great shape and the airbags came out), it's dead.

We were feeling a little stressed and doing some research on cars trying to decide what we were going to do.  (This is our only car, so it was urgent).  Richard was telling his dad about the accident when his dad offered to sell us his car for super cheap.  He has been wanting to get a Prius, but hadn't taken the plunge yet.  This was the perfect opportunity, it benefits everybody.  :)  We gratefully took him up on the offer.  We were heading down to Austin that weekend anyway.  

So we got a rental car and drove down there and then drove the rental and his dad's car back home.  Hurray for family that is willing and able to help us out when we need it.  We really didn't want to put a lot of money into a new car right now (we just updated our kitchen!) so it was the perfect solution!

Anniversary #5

Our five year anniversary was 2 months ago and I just realized I never posted about it.  On our actual anniversary (a Wednesday) Richard brought me some flowers.  We always celebrate our anniversary the weekend before or after because it is too hard to do anything during the week.  We don't do gifts, we just put the money into doing something together.  

This year we lucked out!  Last November I won a raffle prize at an auction.  It was an overnight stay at a fancy hotel along with a $75 gift card to a steak house.  So we have been saving it and decided to use it for our anniversary.  We dropped Soren off at his cousin's to have a sleepover and we headed to the hotel.  Got checked in and headed to dinner.  It was DELICOUS!  And the hotel was super fancy.

In the morning we picked up some breakfast and headed to the temple.  We did an endowment session (we were excited to see the new video!) and then we did a few sealings.  Then we headed to pick Soren up.

It was so nice to have a night to ourselves and get to go to the temple.  I am more in love with Richard every day.  Watching him become a dad and interact with Soren has only made me love him more.   He is an amazing husband and father.  He works so hard to provide for us and always does his best to balance work, church and family.  It is not an easy task!

Only when we have a gift card!  :)

Phone Dump

He loves to take pictures with my phone

Washing the screen door

Dancing at story time

I cannot get enough sleeping pictures.  Love him!

He has recently become obsessed with hats

He loves to brush his teeth

Hanging out with cousins

Enjoying a pretzel at the mall

Apparently he only likes the frosting.  Works out well since I only like the cupcake.  :)

Eating spaghetti like mom does!

Watching Sesame Street with cousin Max

Max didn't quite make it.

My cousin scored us some tickets to a Cowboys game!

Watching the airplanes while playing at the park

He loves toilet paper

Eating lunch at Sam's Club

Eating sour straws while daddy plays softball

Making faces

Decorating his pumpkin

Coloring and conference.  Great combination.