happy halloween!

Happy Halloween from our dental family!

a tooth fairy (who held a jar of real teeth the whole night)
a wisdom tooth
and the cutest little dentist ya ever did see!

don't forget to brush your teeth!!!

a wedding in the northern desert

this was the first activity in a LONG time where all 5 of us siblings were together.

although we were missing casey and my brother weston's family, it still felt really special being together.

we laughed so much and it's incredible to sit back and realize we're all adults now (though at times we still act like children, especially around our parents), all married, all have similar mind sets yet different goals, dreams, and situations.

i do love my brothers so very much!
kirk, logan, me, weston, scott

and then we added our sweet parents to the picture and my brother kirk said, "wow, we seem so small when it's just our family now."

how true that is, we used to be a little family of 7 and we're up to 20 with PLENTY of room to grow :)
logan, you look so TALL in this picture?!?

***

but on to the wedding :)

it was beautiful.

my cousin did such a wonderful job planning every little detail even though she was in australia the whole time.

her husband is an australian who is a doctor over there, when she traveled around as a nurse she met him there and they've been dating for a long time since then!

so much of the wedding sat around the theme of traveling, aussie things, and vintage chicness
it was a dazzling day of marriage happiness!

i love any excuse to visit the beautiful red rocks in sedona, arizona surrounded by family i love

and like i posted yesterday, here is a link to her wedding video

a quick visit in provo

i took a little trip down memory lane today in provo. i wonder if provo will forever feel like home because right now, that's always what it feels like when i drive through. i remember driving with my mom on university ave passing the soccer fields when i was moving up to BYU my freshman year and my mom said "it always feels like i'm coming home when we get to come to BYU and provo. i promise you, it'll feel like that for you too." and would you look at that. it sure as heck does, and i love it. i love it so so much. driving on university ave it's almost as if i could literally feel the energy pulsing throughout the city. people walking and biking everywhere, familiar buildings and houses where events and parties are always occurring, all the trees lit with red and yellow leaves, young people laughing as they ride a scooter together (very likely unmarried and thrilled they're that close) ring stores on every other corner. and the list goes on. i love that town. provo will forever feel like my home, and i'm so happy to be able to say that!

dear provo friends: if you haven't stopped to look at the beauty of that city recently you totally should. fall has literally taken over your streets with its leaves strewn everywhere, it's beautiful. stop and realize how lucky you are to be in such a unique, vibrant, beautiful town. i envy you for so many reasons (but do know you should envy lincoln for a myriad of other reasons;)

the iconic (to me) and first official entrance to provo

our beloved provo attic

we walked this street EVERYDAY to campus. i wish i had taken better pictures of these trees

the whole reason i even got to get on campus today: brooooooooooke!

but the city my brother lives, mapleton, is quite gorgeous if i say so myself

ps- loved this article on non-mommy bloggers. i find myself often saying in my mind to just enjoy life and not document and share every little part. and i am so happy when i find that balance for me

pps- here is a sneak trailer to my cousin's beautiful wedding last weekend in arizona, love it?

ppps- also loved this post about the instagram illusion and a fear of missing out on things

day sometime over a week i've been gone from casey: bizzzay

last i blogged it was kind of a relaxation day of sorts.

since then: not so much.

friday we attended my cousin's most beautiful wedding reception in sedona, arizona.

saturday there was a post-wedding bbq in the area and i got to have a photo shoot with my very photogenic brother and SIL.

sunday i went to a young single adult ward my dad is bishop over (hello microphone on maxson the whole time amidst a congregation of purely single adults, when i say every little noise maxson made was heard from every pair of ears there, i kid you not. and boy howdy he was hooting and hollering when we took his cheerios away or picked him up mid crawl towards the place he wanted to go.) but in reality it was just fine. everyone was so nice and it's always fun to run into familiar faces.

monday my SIL whitney did my hair, the two of us went to my niece's school to have lunch with her, i met up with one of my favorite gals from high school, amy, and hung out at 2 different brother's houses for the evening.

tuesday i flew to utah, met up with one of my other absolute favorites from nebraska who moved last spring, jocelyn. i took their family pictures which was one of the funniest shoots i've ever done. i met up with yet another one of my friends who moved from nebraska, emily, took their family pictures and had the best time with them. jocelyn drove me to ikea where i met up with my SIL where we shopped for some quilt backing fabric, (her amazing shop here) and ate a little dinner. we then drove about 40 min back to where they live with kids taking turns crying.

which brings us to today, wednesday. we played with the cousins, britton and abby, took long naps, met up with some of my awesome aspen grove girls, ate dinner, which finally brings us to right now.

are you tired of reading of all my activities? i'm kinda tired writing it all,

but i do have pictures to post of all these fun things.

soon friends, soon.

it doesn't help that i forgot my camera in my friend jocelyn's car who lives like 1 1/2 hours away.

but beyond all of this busyness i'm experiencing, gosh darn it if i didn't miss that husband of mine.

having the whole bed to yourself is only fun for so long and then it's just pure lonesome.

after about a week i'm ready to have casey back in my life physically.

it's good to be away from each other like this though because it reminds you why you married the person you do, it's because you are in love with them so darn much and they become a part of you!

casey, I LOVE YOU!

pictures tomorrow friends!

day 2: R&R

was today really a day of R&R? eh, it wasn't busy, and i did get to sleep in an extra hour due to me giving maxson to my parents once he was awake and happy. we hung out in the morning with my aunt and uncle. we taught my aunt more about pinterest. we admired maxson's great walking abilities and all his cuteness. we talked to casey as he began driving to see his brother. maxson napped for a glorious 2 hours while i R&R's on my computer, curled my hair, and patched up some jeans.

after we were ready for the day we drove down to see papa at work and visited with him awhile, played with cousins at their house (i gave their littles the bright idea of having a whole box to color in, they loved it.) we raced over to a friend's house to visit them (courtney and brandi with her little oliver and their husbands happened to be there some of the time). the babies were cute together and we caught up on life.

we came back to my parent's house to say hello and visit with my very funny eldest brother who flew in from utah. maxson impressed us with his walking and his quiet playing-by-himself skills. we facetimed daddy to see how his drive to indiana was. i made muddy buddies and we watched a new show called blacklist, good times, good times.

we miss you casey! muah!

day 1: longest flight day ever.

(i've left this all in central standard time to make it easier to understand)

4:30 am wake up

5:00 am leave for the airport

6:00 am check in to our flight to learn that we will be making not one but TWO stops on our way to Phoenix, shoot me

6:20 am while going through the security line i had the most awful realization that i didn't have a single disposable diaper with me. i put them all in our checked bags

6:21 am have a momentary freak out

6:30 am buy 2 diapers for $6 #highwayrobbery

6:35 am ask the girl at the flight counter if there's any way i can get to phoenix with less stops, she says, "yes of course! you can fly vegas to phoenix for only $400 more!"

6:36 am admit to myself how cheap i am and stick with my $100 flight to phoenix with 3 legs

7:20 am take off. maxson is a rockstar this flight playing with toys, eating food, drinking water, and entertaining himself.

9:00 am land in denver

9:30 am take off for LAX. sit next to a sweet old vietnamese woman who can't get enough of maxson. he sleeps for 40 min and i try to as well. again, an absolute champ on this flight entertaining all who sat around him

11:45 am land at LAX. let maxson crawl around the disgusting airport carpeted floor for an hour to get wiggles out while i eat a half frozen breakfast burrito i brought with me because there is not a single microwave at any food place to be found

1:15 pm board the last of our 3 flights to phoenix. we sat next to the two sweetest women over on this flight. seriously, they were heaven sent women and helped out so much. i wish i was related to them. he had a harder time on this flight going to sleep but did end up sleeping for half the flight

2:45 pm land in phoenix and collect our baggage

3:15 pm meet my mom at the airport curb greeting her with my applesauce covered pants and shirt, hair completely disheveled and a happy baby.

5:45 pm take the most needed nap ever while maxson eats and plays with granny

6:00 pm family arrives and we play with cousins and siblings all evening

8:00 pm spaghetti dinner with the family while maxson takes another nap

11:30 pm maxson goes down for the night

11:45 pm kimber blogs

12:00 am kimber goes to sleep

a. measuring tapes = GREAT entertainment during flights
b. cousins and balloons
c. cousins and balloons
d. a messy spaghetti dinner

picturas de iFono

a. my view while sitting down on stealthily, maxson forgot i was in the room and played by himself for a real long time
b. but as soon as i got up, BAM! straight he went to begging at my feet
c. cute thing trying to get cheerios out, this is back when he couldn't figure it out. 2 weeks later he makes THE BIGGEST messes with that thing, i don't think he's quite ready for all the power of the self serve cheerio cup that's supposed to limit messes...
d. a sneak peak at halloween!

a.-c. back when we went camping. can't beleive how well maxson slept in the middle of our slowly deflating mattress, he's such a sweetie
d. a little halloween decoration we made. i'd like to re-draw the boo, that part turned out not so cute, ha

a. messy eating
b. one of my DREAMS came true! he fell asleep in his high chair while eating and my heart just melted! it was the cutest and funniest thing ever. his eyelids were half open while he slowly kept shoving food in his mouth until it was all gone, so freaking cute!
c. sent this picture to casey's non married siblings one morning to show our love for them
d. these foam hair hats are the COOLEST things at target this year! the timing of this picture was lightning fast because he whipped it off his head so fast

a. casey's homework: learning about dental tools
b. maxson loves to drink out of my water bottle...and then promptly spit most of it out.
c. cute bebe
d. he constantly is getting into the cupboards and drawers while i'm in (or not in) the kitchen. we finally got around to baby locking the one under the sink that holds all the cleaning stuff so now he has free reign and it's entertaining to me of what he finds entertaining.

a. & b. swinging on a friday night
c. a beautiful nebraskan sky
d. the most beautiful tall grasses on our walking group trail. the seeds at the top are silver feather looking and glimmer in the sunshine

a. - d. the weather has been glorious lately. we pretty much play outside on our beloved jean blanket everyday. sometimes friends come join us, sometimes casey happens to ride up on his bike from school, and sometimes it ends up being just us. i love all 3 scenarios

a. general conference weekend! our neighbors made the cinnamon rolls this year and us the breakfast casserole for conference breakfast
b. maxson slept for about half of all the sessions which helped us be able to pay attention better. when he was awake he did really good at entertaining himself
c. casey made mud pie during conference (oreos and pudding)
d. and we cuddled under my favorite blanket.
conference was SO wonderful this year!!

a. picture with president monson on tv like last time

b. grace and maxson playing like bff's as always
c. after all the sessions we had a potato bar at a friend's house. i also encouraged a baby race while there. it was hilarious. maxson took off and then just stopped and stared at everyone. one baby sat and cried and would not move. one baby just say for a long time staring at everyone and slowly came over on her own timing. and one baby looked really scared, stood up, and ran over to her momma. oh baby races are quite funny

a. maxson hamming it up.
b. & d. casey and i took turns going through the temple last weekend (we go to the winter quarters nebraska one, we're lucky it's only an hour away allowing us to go once a month). so thankful for this beautiful weather. maxson and i sat outside under a shade tree and played in the grass for 2 hours, it was picture perfect.

a. & b. you know it's REALLY time to start the dish washer when there's no normal utensils left, and you eat your cereal with a teaspoon in a mixing bowl in the morning...
d. first night of walking! (you can see his first step video i took on vine)

the men's group casey is in charge of in our church, the elder's quorum, had a shot gun shooting activity last weekend.
although the weekend was sandwhiched by awful test weeks, it was a great stress reliever and casey had loads of fun, i believe with testosterone levels reaching a new weekend high

so that's a little bit of life lately from the phones :)

ps- i would love to schedule a few more photo shoots in the arizona area while i'm there this week! (yay!) my availabiltiy has changed a little but i'll be there wed-tue so shoot me an email or message and we can discuss details!

baby steps

that's right, thursday night maxson took his first BABY STEPS!

they've only been getting longer, stronger, and more confident since then.

so giddy over here!
to reinforce his obsession with iPhones and such, his first steps he took were towards the iPad while we facetimed casey's parents.
and after that towards my old i Pod, and as you can see in this (low quality) video, we are using our phones as motivation.why does he love them so much?

normal day activities (but really only the morning)

i feel like i'm in a blogging rut.

to combat this blogging rut, i want to write more, not just post pretty pictures. read/skim if you wish to hear about a normal day for us

like today:

maxson woke up at 7, that's sleeping in for him lately, ooy. hopefully all this traveling in the next couple weeks will royally mess up his time clock so we can reset it properly. after nursing, maxson terrorized us in bed for awhile while we tried to catch a few more winks. casey got up to take a shower as i guarded maxson from falling off the bed whilst he played with the curtain strings, his favorite activity (luckily they're on casey's side so he mostly crawls all over casey in the mornings to get to them and not me, yayyyyyy). once casey got dressed he took maxson down stairs with him to eat breakfast and such while i got 20 more minutes of sleep, bless that man. and at about 7:57 he brought him into me, we say couple/family prayer together and he bikes off to school quick as a hamster (that was the first quick animal that came to my mind...)

i coaxed myself out of bed (maxson is usually the coaxer as he no crawls to the edge of the stairs and peers down, don't try it kid). a quick out of bed it is to go save my child's life. we change the diaper, but not the pj's. i believe in staying in pj's until after the first nap of the day. downstairs maxson ate waffles and peaches for breakfast. i had good old honey bunches of oats alongside him. i love that he can feed himself all of his own meals these day, talk about helpful. also he doesn't just feed himself, he devours it.

walking group was quite chilly this morning. i wore my fleece lined leggings and a sweatshirt. therefore i bundled maxson up in his fleece footed pj's, a hooded sweatshirt, a blanket, and  a rice bag to really make sure that kid was warm. i think he may have sweated his guts out on that walk, but at least he won't be catching a cold! walking group is small this year, but through we be small, we are mighty. the park was good. the sun was shining, kids were laughing as they chased each other, and maxson was excitedly stuffing all these new rocks in his mouth. we swung on swings, rocked back and forth on those springy horses, went down slides, played peek a boo in playground tunnels and just enjoyed ourselves to our full measure. i don't want the weather to get cold. i'm so much enjoying the warmth of the sun and laying out on the grass in the afternoons and evening with my neighbors and all out babies just relaxing and letting the children explore the grass, leaves, dirt, and bugs. please don't come fast winter, i will not be happy.

on the way home from walking maxson fell asleep. i transferred him to his crib when we got home and he slept about another hour. we ate lunch with daddy.

**all the above was written the actual evening of that day**

now it's the day after and i can literally not remember anything that happened beyond that except i made potato soup and sanded blocks for a MOPS craft while watching granite flats.

moral of the story: if i don't keep a good record of small daily events, i forget them immediately.

picturas de iFono

lately!

1. texas caviar with a couple humble vegetables from our garden (humble being key word: we had to use 6 of our jalepenos to equal the 1-2 required for the recipe and 4 of our peppers required for the 1 in the recipe)
2. byu v texas game with friends. someone in our group of friends loves texas so this was a fun game for us all
3. maxson would not go to sleep at our friends house for the game, ooy
4. watching the game

1. casey came and helped me at scouts one night and the boys LOVED him. he should be their leader, for reals. it taught me a lot watching him interact with them. we taught them croquet, the hand tapping game, and a few other little games.
3. my big baby, wahhhhh
4. walking group

1.-4. apple picking

1. eating, we do this a lot. you are all probably super sick of shots of him in his highchair, sorry guys
2. giving his tooth brush some genuine maxson loving
3. my sweet friend brought us over the most fantastic apple pie.  a whole pie! it felt like a show/movie. it was one of the darndest sweetest things
4. standing!

1. my niece drew a picture. at first she said it was a bear, then it turned into casey. we love it so much
2. my neighbor katie and i threw a baby shower for a girl across the street from us who is from saudi arabia. so fun learning about other cultures. did you know that out of the 4 people who living in my town house building and the 4 who live across the street from us 4 are mormon, 1 saudi arabian, 1 serbian, 1 iranian, and 1 chinese. we joke that you're either mormon or foreign if you live on our street.
3. baby friends (grant and abby)
4. this baby loves to terrorize us in the mornings

1. i tried to be cool and make maxson a fort, he thought the remaining couch sans cushions was way cooler
2. walking to the dental school for lunch. we planned on the wives walking to the school to meet the husbands, but the husbands ended up walking back to us to walk back to school with them, sillies
3. lunch at the dental school
4. ice cream from the dairy store afterwards (it's got nothing on the creamery!)

1. a very unhappy day for the 2 of us
2. walking group got rained out so we made a mess at our friend tasha's house instead
3. looking up at the trees in our front yard, so pretty.
4. peas please

1. our first REAL DATE ALONE we've taken in what seems like years! a girl from dental school, katie watched maxson while we went to the movie theater to watch monsters university. it felt so special to be out just the 2 of us! we were in a time crunch though so we had to scarf down some taco/burritos in the car, ha
2. the gorgeous winter quarters temple at night
3. my cute, chubby, sleeping, sweet, little baby
4. balloon fun

and happy friday!
this weekend is general conference, yay!!!
i challenge ALL of my readers to listen to at least 1 portion of conference, mormon or not.
i promise you that, whatever your faith, you will be uplifted by the messages and inspired to be and do better! here's an awesome little video about it


you can watch conference through this link live.
sessions start at 10 am and 2 pm MDT both saturday and sunday!

hollar back!

i had the most epic google hangout reunion with a few friends from aspen grove this week. seriously such a blast! these were some of my favorite gals and it was such a blast catching up on everyone's lives. 3 of us are raising our first little babies at home. 1 is married and works for an advertising company. One is finishing up a dietetics internship for grad school this semester. and 1 is finishing up her undergrad at BYU. 3 are in Utah, 1 in Cali, 1 in Missouri and myself in Nebraska. we have all different lives but that 1 summer working, living, and playing all together at aspen grove will forever keep us together. talk about a care free summer. never worried about food, bills, money, routines, friends, activities, etc. so many great memories.

this was actually the first time we've ALL been "together" since AG! there's always been one missing in person or through google hangout one way or another so this felt really special. what's odd is that all 6 of us have very loud/big personalities. we're all loud, bossy, outgoing, and mostly extroverts i think, so it's kinda crazy that we all mesh so well, ya know?

speaking of loud, i was really loud and woke up maxson at 11:30 pm though...mmeh

to you 5 ladies, thank you for cooperating .

and to all you AGers of 2009 out there who read my blog, shout out to you too! you know who you are (and i know who you are;)

ps- sorry andy, i know you'll hate that yours is the big face in this picture but that's just the way it is :/ at least you're pretty! speaking of andy, every blue moon she'll write a post on this little blog of hers and i always think they're hysterical

10/12ths of a year

by warmly welcoming the month of october into our year we also say hello 10 month old maxson!

eek!

the phrase babies don't keep is unbelievably true.

i'll be calling him my baby until my next baby even though he's at the verge of his "baby" days.

wahhhhh.

he's a speedy fast crawler.

loves getting into things:

baskets,

cupboards,

drawers,

bags,

etc.

nothing on the ground level is safe.
it's really fun watching him explore though and figure things out

he's a pretty vocal baby.

loud when he's happy.

and loud when he's not so happy.

it just makes us laugh.
my favorite is when he's really enjoying his food, he'll smack his lips together during every bite and in between every bite with a very audible "nom, nom, nom"

he's getting his balance under control so well and it's truly incredible to watch.

one day in september he finally just started balancing hands free!

he'll bounce up and down, catch his balance by wobbling back and forth and eventually fall abruptly or softly kneel down or lunge toward mom/dad.

such a cutie pie.
with that balance has come playing with toys on his knees, makes him seem so grown up i tell ya!

always a great little eater.
he eats 3 meals a day along with nursing.

he eats pretty much whatever we're eating which is convenient.

i think his favorite thing right now is mandarin oranges.

he would probably eat a whole can if i let him.

in 1 month's time he popped 6 teeth through.

what a champ.

with those teeth coming through, he also decided the binki was not for him.

this was hard on everyone :(

i still haven't figured out a way to get him to go back to sleep if/when he wakes up in the middle of the night without nursing.

other than binki problems he's a good sleeper.

2 naps a day, sometimes short sometimes long.

i will probably always ask for my children to sleep in longer in the morning, but maybe i should just go to bed earlier.

he loves standing at the screen door opening to our front yard.

he stands there on his tippy toes, letting his eyes poke out and just watches the world.

his favorite objects include our phones.

he gets sooooo excited when he grabs ahold of one of our phones.

not completely sure why he loves it so much.

he facetimes on it but that's it.

maybe it's a sign we're on our phones too much...

he's become quite opinionated on objects in his possession that he really wants to play with.

not all things that get taken away are a big deal, but sometimes they are and his little mad, frustrated scream is and isn't so funny.

he's a super patient baby in the car, in the stroller, and in shopping carts.
i love getting to take him places with me.

everything still goes straight in his mouth.
he's definitely understanding us more when we ask him to not put things in his mouth though.

he's wearing 12-18 month clothes and some 24 month clothes.


mr maximus, WE LOVE YOU!!!!

ps- i'm still booking the mini sessions for this fall :)