My birthday & Valentine's Day

Last night after my husband got off of work, he came home and was searching around for something. 
Then, he goes back outside and comes in singing happy birthday. He is holding 3 pieces of cake stacked on top of each other on a paper plate. lol Sounds silly, I know but Walmart and the other grocery store was closed so he went to the gas station and bought those individual cake pieces. He drove around looking for a store and looking for a candle. Anyway, it was so sweet because of the effort he put into it! He was bummed that he couldn’t find a candle, but I loved it. 

Then, this morning I went to Walmart when I woke up to buy some things because Tayven has his Valentine’s party at school today. I bought his class some lollipop valentines. I also bought the hubby a gift! We usually don’t buy each other things for Valentine’s Day (well we haven’t for the last few years), but after his efforts last night plus working and going to school he deserved something! Here's what I got him:

I got home and woke Tay up. He put stickers and wrote his name on each Valentine. Then he got ready for school and left.

Family & Food + My Birthday part I

Our original plans were to go to Vegas, but due to a few different reasons, we decided not to travel that far. Instead, we drove up to Provo. One reason was to use our gift cards and the other was to spend some time out of our little town and sort of celebrate my birthday. Here are some pictures on our way up there:

we rented a motel room for the night, took our bags to the room, and looked up where Olive Garden was (where one of our gift cards were for).

Here's the motel room. 

 I've always wanted to eat at Olive Garden. In Hawaii, I would see commercials and I would drool! It was such a tease since Hawaii doesn't have an Olive Garden! 

This is my ziti! It was sooo yummy!!

After eating, we drove around and looked at what kind of stores and restaurants there were (for future trips) and then we hung out in the room and watched TV. 

For dinner we ordered Apple Bee's Carside to go (another of the gift cards were for here). I got the Philly Burger 

Continued in next post..

50!

My mom turned 50 on January 30th. My aunties (her sisters) threw her a surprise party. A week before the party, my aunty had asked me and my siblings to write her a letter. Here is my letter:

To my mommy and best friend,

                First off, you are fifty! Fifty, Mom! I can’t believe it. Hehe It’s ok though because you definitely don’t look it! I was asked to write you a letter and I’m unable to think of what I want to say. There is a lot to say but since I talk to you regularly, I feel like I’ve said it all. I’ll just start off by saying that I appreciate all that you do for me and for the boys. I just want to make sure you know that everything you have done is appreciated and none of it goes unnoticed.

                You are my best friend, not just my mom. We’ve always had each other’s back (so to speak). I’ve cried on your shoulder and you’ve cried on mine. We argue, fight, have gotten mad each other (these are rare but they have happened), but we’ve also had so much more good times together. You raised me to be the best I can be. By your greatest achievements, personality traits, and efforts, you have taught me that I can be a great person and a great mother to my children. You’ve taught me to not care what others think and to treat others how I want to be treated (cliché I know.. but it’s true). By your mistakes and bad choices, you’ve taught me many things as well. No one is perfect and EVERYONE makes mistakes, so I don’t care about the things people have to say about you nor do I care what they may think (besides, no one but ME has been there to know anything anyway). You and I both know that you are a great person with great intentions who loves everyone and is always set out to please everyone (which you should stop and learn to say no :P ).

                I honestly have no idea what I would do without you. I still can’t believe I even moved here to Utah. I bet no one would have thought that, huh? I miss you like crazy every day. I miss our daily ventures to “run errands” where we would land up buying things we didn’t need. I miss the days when you would bring me food I was craving or food just because (you know I love food). I miss having my mom with me. I miss your 10 minute meals. I miss your hoarding.. HAHA. You’re so far away and it sucks. But you know what? I’ll see you again (hopefully SOON) and we’ll make the best of it. I’m also going to work on getting you to move up here.  ;)

                Are you crying yet? If not, stop holding it in and trying to be tough! Hehe. I’m crying while typing this, so it’s ok Mom. I guess I’ll end it here. I hope you have an amazing dinner and I’m grateful for Aunty them for making this dinner for you. You do deserve it! I truly wish we could all be there, but it’s ok. You’ll have a good time anyway! I wish you a Happy Birthday and MANY more years to come (I need you!)  I love you so much, Mom. Forever and Always.

Love your daughter,

Caprice <3

My aunties took those letters, printed it in a nice font, and framed them. They set it on a table along with her cake and a picture of her and her siblings. 

Here is my mom (who does not look 50!) with Rayne and her husband Harold. 

Here is my little big sister (she's younger but a lot taller than me) and my older brother with my mom. 

It's just missing my older sister and I. 

My mom said she had a great time. She was really surprised. She loved the letters. Everyone was crying when they were read. I wish we were able to be there, but I'm just glad she had a good time with the rest of our family. :)

Titan is ONE!

He turned a year old on January 14th.

I picked up a cake for him. Nothing special because I didn’t call ahead of time. I just picked from what they had there and had them write on it for me. We sang for him and ate cake here at home. 

This year went by so fast. I know everyone says that, but this year truly did. It went by faster than any other year. With Tay and Trent, I was excited when they turned one. With Titan, though, I’m sad. When I look at him, I still see a baby. I know he’ll always be my baby, but I just can’t seem to accept that he’s pretty much a toddler now. He’s slowly becoming independent. 

He walks and even runs everywhere. He plays rough with his brothers and loves running away from them or chasing them. He babbles a lot more, is making new sounds, and says a few words. He loves to dance. He can now point, but it's kind of with his whole hand rather than just his pointer finger. When we ask him, "where is ___?" (mommy, daddy, or his brother's names) he will look in their direction and sometimes will even point. We do this thing where we make a humming noise in his ear. Well, the other day I put my ear near his face and he did it back to me! 


He is really goofy! Just like his brothers and parents. hehe :) He's also very loving and can be dramatic. He'll pretend cry and pretend laugh. He is a ton of fun. 
Another thing is that it has been one year since I’ve been breastfeeding! I am very proud because with the other two I didn’t make it past 2 weeks of nursing. A whole year! No pumping, no substituting formula, and not starting solids until after 6 months really and even then he didn’t even want baby food, so we waited to give “table” food around 10 months. I’m proud and happy to have nursed this long. Happy that my milk supply stayed up and that he was a boobie monster. 


Here's some pictures of his birthday:

His Cake

His big brothers were quite excited for him. :)

"mm I am going to devour this!"

hehe

Opening his gift from his birthday buddy, Zeb. 

His excited, goofy face!

He loves it. (so does his big brothers haha)

Tayven is 5 years old!

This blog entry is late because he turned 5 last Monday, September 6th!

The day of his birthday I made his cake. I messed it up because I didn't know that the tube of frosting I bought didn't come with a decorating tip. The writing came out super thick. Tayven said it was still nice and he liked it. :) Overall, his birthday was nothing big but he liked his gift and we celebrated it together.

For his present, mommy and daddy bought him the Iron Man life size helmet he wanted. 

Here he is trying it on:

Here he is with his nerf gun, lol (Trenton had frosting on his nose) :P

He was going to celebrate at school the next day, so we had to do his birthday poster. 

He drew his family

and himself

I took cupcakes for his class and he brought home a gift bag that had crayons, a marker, a name tag, a lollipop, and some Dots candy.