18 months

As I mentioned in my last post, we had Aiden's 18-month check-up exactly when he turned 18 months - on the 17th :)  He weighed in at 23 pounds 9 ounces (50th percentile) and is 32.5 inches long (50th). We were pleasantly surprised that he did not have to get any shots!! I had anticipated he'd be getting his second Hepatitis A, but it hadn't been 6 months since the first dose, so they're going to hold off until next time.  We were totally fine with that ;)

I thought I'd post some of the pictures from the last few months that I haven't gotten around to posting.

• We started letting Aiden feed himself at the beginning of March and he's getting pretty good with his fork!  Over the last month though, we've kind of just fed him ourselves because he gets so messy when he feeds himself, but we're trying to be better about all sitting together at the table and letting him do it himself.  I mean, he has to learn!

• I put this on Facebook a few weeks back, but I am officially one of those moms.  Aiden gets so excited every time he sees these carts at the grocery store that I can't not get one for him. They are in high demand though, so we can't always get one, and then if Aiden sees another kid in one, he seems so let down.  It makes me feel so bad!

Lucky for him, Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles have a similar car at their house :)

Grandma and Grandpa Christensen also recently got a similar truck, but somehow I haven't gotten a picture yet.

• Aiden loves to pull things around in his little wagon.  I think it's stinking adorable.

• Our ward friends in the complex (across the lawn from us) "inherited" this dog from someone moving out and, for a while, whenever we came outside with Aiden, he'd make a beeline for it :)  He is definitely a dog lover!

• Lately Aiden will make little nests for himself.

Here he used the plastic bags I had sitting around to recycle.  Notice also that he has started doing a cheesy smile..haha.

And here he used a bunch of clothes we needed to put away. I love that he's clutching his soccer ball :)

• Speaking of balls, Aiden spots the ball bin right away whenever we're out running errands!

We were in CVS here and let him play a while b/c he was so happy :)

• And, of course, he still loves to be outside.

He knows that we often sit on the steps while he runs around, so lots of times he'll sit on the steps with us for a minute before he starts playing :)

We have also been getting some good use out of his trike! Several weeks ago we finally put the push bar on it.  I used to think it was totally dorky, but we discovered that it steers the trike (Aiden's legs are still a little too short to pedal) so now we bring it with us basically every time we go to the pool, mailbox, or just on a walk :)  Aiden loves it!

• He is in the phase that every toddler goes through where he loves to put our shoes on and walk around :)

• Our little stinker is such a little techie.  He has definitely messed up the format on our computers a few times, where we've been completely clueless as to how he did it, but luckily fixing it is usually a matter of simply restarting it (knock on wood).

• We turned Aiden's car seat around a few weeks back.  I think we were more excited about it than he was ;)  It's really nice that we can see him now.

And here are just a few more random pictures :)

I realized that I never wrote about Aiden's stitches being removed on April 24th (accident story HERE), only on Facebook.  I'm grateful Tanis was able to come with.  We had to hold the poor baby down while 2 nurses worked to get the stitches out.  They were so tight that one of them had to pull up on them while the other snipped - definitely a little traumatic :( Luckily there's a playground right outside our doctor's office, so we let Aiden play a while afterward :)

We went to visit Daddy's office a few weeks ago and went to lunch.  Aiden decided to drop his crayons in my water..haha.

It also happened to be Grandma's birthday :)

On this day we shared a smoothie out on the porch while we were waiting for Daddy to come home and Aiden insisted on bringing the silverware from the dishwasher out with us ;)

And lastly, I just love this picture!  Totally bummed that it's a little blurry - I think Aiden may have smudged the lens or something :(

Nursery!!

Aiden monkey turned a year and a half on the 17th and went to nursery (at Church) for the first time today!  He was supposed to start last week, but we got invited to Kellan Wray's (Cody and Kristell's son) baby blessing last week :)  And it turns out that we were subbing nursery today, so that worked out!  One of the guys that home teaches us is actually in the nursery and he and his wife were going out of town, so I volunteered Trent and I to sub :)  They split the nursery into two and we only had 3 other kids besides Aiden and 2 of them didn't make a single peep, so it was an easy day. Aiden was actually kind of the rowdy kid..haha.  He kept spilling his water, climbing on the table, taking Asher's snack - oh my!  He'll catch on ;)

And I totally meant to get a picture with Aiden after his first day of nursery, but I completely forgot.  Plus, by the time we get out at 2:30, Aiden can barely keep his eyes open, so we put him right to bed when we get home.  One of these days I'll figure out that if I want a picture, it has to happen before Church!

Luckily we got these pictures last week, which was technically supposed to be his first week ;)  Trent took several, but Aiden would not look at the camera.

People just love his little bow tie :)

P.S. I am working on Aiden's 18-month post.  I had misplaced his stats from the doctor, but luckily I found them!  I was thinking a certain someone may have thrown them away ;)

5 years!!

Trent and I celebrated our 5th anniversary yesterday!  I cannot even believe it's been 5 years, but it's been a GREAT 5 years at that :)

Trent is everything I could have ever hoped for in a husband.  He is seriously the most patient man I know (well he is the son of Tanis, whom I just mentioned is one of the most patient people I know HERE).  He is happy and easy-going and dedicated and an amazingly hard worker.  He is a fabulous teacher - I swear people anxiously await the weeks that he teaches in Church.  He is such a great daddy and Aiden can't wait to play with him everyday when he comes home from work :)  My sisters love him and I'm always telling them I just don't know if they'll be able to find someone as good as him..haha. Anyway, I don't think I have adequately described this perfect man of mine, but you get the point!

Many of you know that eternity totally freaks me out (almost to the point of a panic attack sometimes), but I am certainly grateful that I will have Trent by my side through it all.


A few weeks ago Trent took a day off work and we spent a fun day together as a little family.  We were out shopping and, on a whim, we decided to splurge on sunglasses for each of us as anniversary gifts. I've realized living in AZ you have to have good sunglasses, so I'm willing to pay the big bucks for a good pair ;)

I've misplaced our wedding photo c.d. somewhere in this little apartment, so these 2 pictures from last night will have to do.  This was before we headed to dinner at the Cheesecake Factory.  Sporting our new sunnies :)

Trent surprised me with a dozen roses after work :)

Also, this next week we're going to Taylor Swift's Red concert.  I don't care what anyone thinks, I love Taylor Swift and Trent likes her too! Her concert is actually completely sold out (I was so sad!), but the other day we found someone selling theirs, so as originally planned, we are going to see her for our anniversary ;)

Love you forever Trent Noel!

Handprint Aprons

Just thought I'd show off what Aiden made for each Grandma for Mother's Day :)

Grandma Knuckles

And Grandma Christensen.

He was eating a Ritz or something 

At first I thought we may try a more elaborate design and make handprint flowers. I'm glad we just stuck with the easy handprints-all-over-the-apron because even this was kind of difficult with Aiden. You can see that he'd wiggle his fingers sometimes, and I'm kind of a perfectionist so I would have been bummed out if the handprint flowers weren't perfect.  Maybe another year ;)  At the top they say, "Grandma's Helping Hands (heart) Aiden" and "Mother's Day 2013" at the bottom.

I learned from this project that less is more with the paint.  Some of the handprints just look like blobs because we used too much paint!

At one point Aiden touched his face between colors :)

I am so grateful for each of our beautiful Moms and that we live near them (at least for now ;))  Tanis is one of the most patient, gentle people I know and I don't know if I've ever heard her complain.  I'm trying to learn from her.  I may be a little wimpy, especially if I'm not feeling very good.  Plus she raised the most incredible son, but I may be a little biased ;)  Thank you Tanis!

And my mom (I wrote some of this in her card) taught me so much by example.  I knew I wanted to be a stay-at-home because of her and, sure enough, I LOVE every second of it (for the most part!).  She taught us honesty and repentance, almost to a fault - she apologizes for every. little. thing. Sometimes it drives my sisters and I nuts! Really though, we need to be more like her!  And she taught me service and looking out for others.  I remember a few different times growing up when she'd pull over on 123 in dear Vienna to offer women a ride home who were lugging groceries in the rain or heat.  There was also this sweet little widow, Effie, that lived just outside our neighborhood on Lawyer's, that my mom befriended and would stop by every once in a while just to say "hi".  What an example she's been to each of us!

I have been trying to make a habit of praying for an opportunity to serve someone every day.  And today I had one of those opportunities, just like my mom.  I was pulling out of Fry's with a few groceries and noticed this little old lady walking along with all of her groceries. She had stopped under the shade of a tree for a minute (it's close to 100 today).  I have to be honest, at first I just drove right by (I'm a little embarrassed to admit that), but then I realized "this is my opportunity!" so I turned around and offered her a ride.  Sure enough, she just lives across the street (a busy street!) in our same complex and we live 2 buildings apart!  She doesn't have a car (turns out she never learned how to drive), so I told her to come by anytime she needs a ride.  I am so grateful I turned around.  We will be stopping by her place soon to get to know her better :)  Aiden and I made a new friend!

Just in closing, I feel so incredibly blessed to be Aiden's mommy and hope that I can teach him the way each of our moms has taught us. He is the absolute joy of our lives!

One final picture - Trent made a BBQ Chicken pizza for us on Mother's Day!  He makes the best pizza!

A Butterfly Wonderland

Oh man, I got these pictures all loaded here like a week ago, but I finally just got around to finishing this post.  

Anyway, last weekend we made it over to the Desert Botanical Garden to check out the Butterfly Pavilion with Aiden (we did this 2 years ago when I was newly pregnant with Aiden - HERE).  We were excited b/c our library has Culture Passes and we were able to get the one for 2 free admissions to the gardens (normally it would cost us $18 each!)  We only had to pay the $3.50 to get into the Butterfly Pavilion :)

Definitely the majority of the butterflies in there were Zebra Longwings.

The guide to figuring out each of the butterflies.

This one was my favorite - the Queen butterfly.

Just so pretty :)

A Julia butterfly.

We thought Aiden would really enjoy seeing the butterflies flittering around, but he didn't seem too into it :/  Trent mentioned it was too bad this wasn't a dog pavilion b/c Aiden would've eaten it right up!

A Pipevine Swallowtail.

This is probably my favorite picture I got of the butterflies.  A beautiful White Peacock!

How many Zebra Longwings can you spot??  Crazy, huh?!

Another Julia.

Trent loved this red plant.

A Buckeye (on the left) and a Julia.

That's it for the Butterfly Pavilion.  We walked through the gardens some afterward.

Love the little purple wildflowers.

I thought these looked like octupuses..haha.

Normally Aiden wants to run all over the place, so we decided not to bring the stroller, but this day he only wanted to be held :/  I think it had something to do with the heat.

A nice man took several pictures for us.  Here are just a few :)

The next ones are funny b/c Trent and I seem to be doing the same thing in them without realizing it..haha.

Again...

and again!

Loved seeing some of the blossoming cacti.

I thought this final plant looked like a stalk of asparagus..ha. Apparently it's called a Centurian b/c it only blossoms once in a 100 year timeframe.

We stopped for a few minutes in the shade before heading back out to our car.  Aiden was pooped!

If any of you have a butterfly exhibit around, I'd definitely recommend you go check it out.  It's so fun to try to capture them on camera :)