Carson & Marisa

Moab

2011-10-05T20:50:00.000-07:00

We went to Moab (yes drove) to have a big family get-together. My sister came back from several months of military training so we all met in Moab for a couple days. It got up to 90 degrees which was terribly hot for our soft Seattle bodies. The cousins all had a great time playing together and the kids spent tons of time in the sand. We took one of out two little motorcycles, my dad had his 4 wheeler, we took out mountain bikes and did Slick Rock, did some 4 wheeling, went to Arches, played some cards, BBQ'ed some ribs, and had a great time!

Here are the kids playing in the sand. They even took blocks of sandstone and scraped it to make tubs and chairs. It was pretty cool.

We saw some sweet petroglyphs

We did some rock climbing.

Arches was pretty much the last of the S Utah national parks for me to see and it was the first one for Marisa to see despite having been to S Utah several times for other trips.

The kids loved jumping off the rocks into the sand.

Bex wanted to seriously jump from here, but I was finally able to talk him into only jumping from the spot in the pic below.

We had some fun doing some night photography. I don't remember where the kids got them but somebody had the crazy idea of bringing fireworks to the desert! Someone else brought some safe glow sticks.

It was a great trip. We got to see my sister's boyfriend Chris, my cousin Jaron and his girlfriend Angie. Lots of family, lots of sun and lots of driving. The kids were surprisingly good. I hooked up the Wii and a video player to a big monitor. That definitely made the 18 hour drive a lot more enjoyable!

Family Video 2008 to 2010

2011-09-08T09:19:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I've lost a significant amount of my passion for video editing. So it took a while to finish this video and its not as well done as I would like, but I was getting way too much video built up to let it go on much longer. Also, my previous computer had issues handling some of the more complex renders that made it impossible to finish. My new computer screamed through it and made finally finishing this project smooth and problem free!

The video is broken up into four parts since Vimeo has a 500 MB per file limit for free version. It also has a 500 MB per week upload limit so I spread this across three accounts to get it all out at once. The video starts with a weird intro. It is my version of the Carmelo Anthony fans in Utah commercial that came out when the Jazz played the Nuggets. If you've seen it, my intro will make sense. If you haven't you can search for it or see it at the end of the fourth clip.

This will get imported into both Marisa and my Facebook pages so if you want the full quality version go here.

Calderwood Family 2008 - 2010 1 of 4 from Carson Calderwood on Vimeo.

Calderwood Family 2008 - 2010 2 of 4 from Trevor Calderwood on Vimeo.

Calderwood Family 2008 - 2010 3 of 4 from Marisa Calderwood on Vimeo.

Calderwood Family 2010 - 2011 4 of 4 from Trevor Calderwood on Vimeo.

Summer (and a reality check)

2011-08-20T15:48:00.000-07:00

I decided I have to do the "slingshot approach" (which you molecular biology fans might remember from the human genome project) to blogging. That's where the reality check comes in. There have been a lot of things I haven't been fitting in the last couple of years, with Carson's new practice, another baby, demanding church callings, etc., and blogging is something that's so low on the list that I never get to it. Then I realized that on scrapbooker Heidi Swapp's blog she has tons of type/spelling errors. You mean she doesn't proofread it twice before she posts it? She seems to get a TON of things done with 5 kids and her own business, so I thought I would take a page from her book and just DO IT, with no picture editing or perfectionism, so here is a quick summary of our summer:

Aspen can go up the ladder and down the slide on our playset so she's enjoyed that a lot lately
We hiked part of Mt. Si
We picked strawberries
And Trey made us some strawberry sorbet
Aspen let the chickens out and got in the coop (yuck!)
We got a patio table
And Flash the chicken grew up and looks like a falcon

Caeden & Aspen ran through the sprinklers in their clothes

This is the only decent picture I have from the 4th of July, it was a nice day and we had friends over for a BBQ, then partied at the Pace's again and went back to our house for the view of fireworks off our deck
Aspen can get on the table and get into things like strawberry jam

Carson and I ran the Ragnar Relay with some friends

On my first run I forgot to pin the number on my shirt before starting so Carson had to help me do it in the middle of my run
It was hot during MaryKai's run
And she ran it really fast and wore herself out!
Carson handing off the slap bracelet (which was really sweaty and gross, BTW)
These are the kinds of views we had on Whidbey Island
We drove our van for the 6 of us in our half of the team and decorated it with vinyl and our team name/logo (thanks Vicki!)
Carson's team shirt somehow came in WAY too small
I took the kids to the Woodland Park Zoo with the Watkins
as we were getting in the car in the morning, Beckham threw his booster seat and hit Aspen in the head
Here he is posing
Trey turned 10!!! How did he get so old? He celebrated with a waterslide party again and a Pokemon theme
We had a pikachu balloon and also a pinata that I can't find any pictures of
Happy boy
I just love this picture
We went to Mud Mtn. Dam in Enumclaw, here's the "before" picture of Beckham's back
Aspen thinks she's such a big girl
The kids are in there somewhere (but not Aspen, the water was freezing)
Bex fell on his bike and got road rash on his cheek, shoulder, arm & leg. We were on the way to a neighborhood party and once there, he kept asking how he got there and why he was holding a popsicle. I guess even with a helmet you can get a concussion!
Here's the sunburn. I kept chasing him at the park trying to get sunscreen on him and he ran away saying "I don't need it, remember, I don't burn!"
He took swimming lessons and is now taking a second session and loving it
Aspen eating lip gloss
Aunt Hillary came home from school and our frequent Skype sessions worked because after 8 months Aspen was comfortable with her... until she said "no no"
Aspen wanted me to put a whole bunch of hairclips in her hair
Caeden made a guy out of french toast, bacon and blueberries
we went to Seafair and saw the blue angels
It looks like we had a lot of nice days this Summer but I think I just didn't pull out the camera on the cloudy or rainy days because this has been the worse Seattle summer anyone can remember. It seems like all our friends are talking about moving away from this terrible weather, especially after the wettest Spring on record and a very disappointing Summer last year! It's nice now and today might be the first day we've had over 80 degrees. We have tried to do a lot of fun things anyway but we haven't taken any big trips. So that didn't take me too long to post, now if I can just catch up on my scrapbooking?? :)

Summer Officially Started

2011-06-21T23:06:00.000-07:00

Now that seminary is over I've had a ton more time to do STUFF. Here are some pix showing what we've been up to over the past few months. The last few are from the last few days where we've had some awesome weather for the official start of summer!

Bex playing Bball and his parents aren't capable of figuring out which of all his sport shirts is the one he is supposed to be currently wearing.

Caeden went through all our dress up clothes to do his version of Indian Jones. I was impressed.

We got two chicks and the kids have loved them.

Yep Marisa, I posted this one :-)

Yard

2011-05-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

We've spent the past few weeks doing a ton of work in our yard. We really like the Japanese Garden style, especially since there are a lot of climate and plant similarities between Japan and the PNW. We feel like we have finally gotten the skeleton of the yard in place so that we can add things on here and there to complete it over the next couple of years. My mother wanted to see some pictures so here is part of her Mother's Day present...

Starting with the worst first...here is the side of the house behind the playset that we need to build a retaining wall, level and eventually build a shed. You can see the french drain that we just did in the corner which was the low spot and a lot of water sat there.

Moving around counter clock wise from there is the next weakest part of our yard. We made the edge of the grass stick our more with its curves than it did before.

On the other side of the fence we would always get a ton of weeds growing through. We dug a 10 inch trench and put a weed barrier in it that also went up 6 inches onto the fence and was stapled down. Hopefully that will keep the weeds back.

We also put in a trim around the grass to keep it from growing into the flower beds. We moved a couple of the large rocks around, stood some up and laid others down. We put in cobblestone in various locations.

I'm currently working on a drip line to get all the pots on the deck and the hanging baskets.

This is the dry stream bed that is coming out of a future water feature.

The little circle flower bed here is the herb garden. One benefit to PNW weather is that some herbs become perennials as they don't completely die out during the mild winter.

Plans for the future:

get some 1 and 2 man rocks to compliment the 3-4 man rocks
put bark over topsoil
get more plants
build arbor next to concrete patio
build firepit, arbor and bench in corner of yard that has view of mount rainier
paint the concrete bench and bird bath
get a circular table and chairs for concrete patio
get sand for low spots in grass
finish the water feature
build bridge for the cut out (but not removed) section of the pathway
wrap the bottoms of the deck columns and future fire pit with rock veneer
build the retaining wall
level the area by the retaining wall with the concrete walkway
build other french drains in more swampy areas
Learn how to be patient when it comes to yards so that we can have some zen before we finish our Japanese garden

Aspen's birthday

2011-04-22T06:30:00.001-07:00

So, this was really 6 months ago but I never posted it, so just after Aspen turns 1 1/2, here's her first birthday party:

I was super excited to plan a girly party after Spiderman, pirate, sports, Pokemon and Lego parties (just to name a few)! I tried the tissue paper poms for the first time and hung them in our entryway and hung paper lanterns between the kitchen and family room:
and I made a banner with vinyl letters from my Silhouette:
We invited all of our friends who had babies within a couple of months of Aspen's birth (there were 6 of us due around the same time!) and here are 4 of the babies: Finn, Aspen, Eli and Carter

Every time we try to get a picture of the babies, at least one starts to cry (okay, usually Eli):
Here's her lighted cupcake, out of her reach:
She started into it delicately but that didn't last long...
Soon it was upside down
Then the headband had to come off
And of course we end with cupcake all over the table and floor, smashing it in her own face
I had the boys wrap up our old little people toys that had been unused for a while so they could give them to her (in the background) and my mom refinished her baby doll cradle for Aspen and gave her a doll with a handmade blanket
It was the day before Valentine's day so it was super easy to find pink and red candies

I made some cake pops and suckers and found fun little candy scoops at Walmart for all the different types of candy
And I made chocolate cupcakes with scalloped pink cream cheese frosting and little flag picks with pearls on top... okay, maybe a little overboard but it's MY FIRST GIRL and maybe my only girl!!

So this isn't a very cute picture of Aspen but it's the best I had of her wearing the shirt I made her with my Silhouette - I bought a pink tee and cut vinyl to say "birthday girl" and then did a rhinestone crown that you can kind of see at the top.

I liked how it turned out so I made a similar shirt for my niece for her 4th birthday:

I picked papers and embellishments from the "Tickled Pink"collection from My Mind's Eye and added a few of my own things for the banner, decor, scrapbook and thank you cards:

Here is the front view of the scrapbook when it's all folded up, I love the layers!

I did one picture for each month, starting with newborn and one month:

two months:

three months:

four months:

five months (not sure why I picked that picture?):

six months:

seven months (and still bald!):

eight months:

nine months:

So there you have it, Aspen's first birthday, February 13th 2011. Maybe I will post picture of this summer before she turns 2?

Universal Studios

2011-03-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

We heard from a few people that our boys would be too small to enjoy this place so we considered doing a second day at Legoland and skipping it but decided not to in the end and we're very glad we didn't. The boys loved it. Explosions, worlds largest 3D video with a huge gorilla ripping apart a T-rex, monsters, etc. How could they not love it! My two favorite rides were here, Mummy and King Kong.

Its getting too late on my seminary schedule for me to remember much of what happened. I'm going to have Marisa do a post later with all the pix and stories she wanted that I didn't get.

Sea World

2011-03-06T21:48:00.000-08:00

The boys loved Sea World. With two biology majors as parents they inevitably have turned into science nerds. They loved all the sea creatures and so many hands-on exhibits.

They really liked playing with the dolphins. They splashed the dolphins and the dolphins squirted them and splashed them back. Bex and Trey got to pet them a couple times as well.

Of course the Killer Whale Shamu show was great. Even Aspen was loving it. Bex actually cried though that he didn't get wet at all. I remember being disappointed as well and thinking that even though they label so many rows as "splash zone," only the first few rows get wet. We sat on row 8 I think and he was severely disappointed.

San Diego Wild Animal Park

2011-03-06T21:44:00.000-08:00

We let the kids decide between this and the Zoo. They said they go to zoos all the time, but don't get to see the African animals in their "natural habitat" (actual Calderwood child phrase) so they chose the Wild Animal Park.

They enjoyed all the different part to this place. The animals were pretty cool. With the weather being fairly cool a lot of the animals were out. I don't think there was any exhibit that we didn't get a good view of the animals there.

Other Things

2011-03-06T21:39:00.000-08:00

Spending 9 days in SoCal and having the parks close earlier with it not being the summer, we had a lot of time to do other things. Despite filling our days and coming back to the hotel late each night the kids were always too amped up to go to sleep easily. We gave them some alone game quiet time to calm them down a couple nights and that definitely helped.

We got sushi at a fairly nice place in Hollywood. You sure could tell that we were a very unusual sight. I don't think I would have gotten more stares had I walked in naked! I guess its not that often that early 30 somethings have four kids, take them out after dark to Hollywood and go to eat at a nice sushi place. Our kids love sushi and behaved very well so it was awesome!

We couldn't go down Hollywood Ave or whatever it is called because it was all blocked off for the Academy Awards that were a couple days later. The boys thought it was awesome to walk on the "covered" red carpet. Trey went over to a corner and was proud to have stuck his finger under the plastic and actually touched the red carpet.

Needless to say, they loved the hotel pool and hot tub. Trey here really didn't enjoy getting in the pool right after the hot tub though.

We went to Newport Beach and ate some pizza in a shop with a bunch of stoned surfers. The kids enjoyed playing in the sand even though it was kind of cold.

After three mama's boys we finally have a daddy's girl. It was nice to spend so much time with her every day. My left shoulder that was damaged pretty badly when I was hit by the car started to separate slightly again from holding her so much, but it was definitely worth it!

Despite being locked in a stroller most of her waking hours she found some time to practice walking. We haven't been doing much to encourage her, but she enjoyed doing it in the sand.

I asked the boys what their favorite part of the trip was...Legoland?..Nope...Disneyland?...Nope....the Curtises! We stayed over Saturday night with them and most of Sunday. It was great to see our friends that we had gotten so close to. Bex and Trey started to feud again over who gets Emree!

We unfortunately didn't take a picture until after Brackon left for his business trip.

We also got to hang out with our friends the Benders. Trevor had a surprise party for Sally that night and we tried so hard not to create any problems but Sally was so nice she kept wanting to take care of us :-) We finally got her to her party and had a great time hanging out with them and seeing their kids. Our kids loved to hang out all together without parents.

Legoland

2011-03-06T21:21:00.000-08:00

Legoland was the main attraction the boys wanted to go on the trip for. On the flight down we were asked if two of us would be willing to skip the layover in LA and do a direct flight and get $600 in flight vouchers! That was a no brainer so I took Caeden, got there early, picked up the rental car then picked up everyone else at the airport. They got to do a flight from LA to San Diego on a small commuter plane and enjoyed getting off the plane and walking down stairs to the runway rather than doing it the normal way. It took a long time to convince Caeden on our flight that we weren't flying to a country where everything was made of Legos. Lego Land was just a park where things were made of legos. He kept asking, "Are those building made of legos,?" "Is that football stadium made of legos?"

It really was crazy to see so many large things made entirely of Legos.

The boys got to put together some legos and pound them in to a huge Herofactory board. They were happy to say they did a part of it.

Near the end of the day the rain started to fall so we headed to all the indoor things that we had been saving for the end for that reason. Caeden and Aspen played in the Duplos rooms. See how Caeden has already picked up some OCD tendencies from his parents? I'm not sure if that is good or bad...

You can tell Aspen has three older brothers. She should take a lego, throw it and make flying noises as she did. You can see her two Duplos flying into the pit here.

The boys loved the big room where they got to build lego cars and race them on the raceways. As could be expected, Trey spent the entire time building and designing. Bex spent the entire time racing people and telling them he had the fastest car ever made.

The Lego city replications were amazing.

Legoland was awesome!

Disneyland

2011-03-06T21:10:00.000-08:00

We spent three days in Disneyland with our SoCal passes. It was just about right too. Luckily the kids didn't want to go on any of the lame rides like Dumbo or Princess Fantasy Faire. With the rides pretty short and after figuring out the fast pass machines we were able to do our favorite rides several times. The best ride of the trip was either California Screamin or Space Mountain depending on which kid you ask and which day.

Trey got picked to do the Jedi Training.

Want a crazy story? Beckham has the bladder of an ant and half way through our submarine ride he started freaking out about having to go pee. We knew it would be either a wet pair of pants....or a bottle full of pee. Luckily we had a water bottle. Yep, he filled the water bottle. While everyone else was looking at this, I was making a visual barrier so he could sneak in a potty break on the submarine.

Here he is feeling much better.

We got a little rock band in while visiting Tomorrowland.

We like the feel of Disneyland, how clean it was and the magic of the park. The kids really enjoyed it!

Despite being rained on the end of our first day in Legoland and a couple times on our last day at Disneyland/CA Adventures, we did get sun burned a couple of days. The first thing Trey said when he got off the plane in California was, "My eyes hurt!"

CA Adventures

2011-03-06T20:57:00.000-08:00

We spent one day and the end of our last day in California Adventures. There was an elecTRONica show after dark and we didn't make it to the Hollywood Hotel ride on our first day so we came back for both of those. The elecTRONica show was awesome for our family because it was a big outdoor techno light show! All four of the kids were dancing and having fun even though it was raining. Here is a video of Bex dancing in the middle of a big group of people. Some guy that was a great hip-hop dancer had just finished. Bex said he could do it even better and without any hesitation ran out into the circle and started to put on a show for everyone. It was awesome! Sorry the quality isn't better, but I only had my phone video at the moment.

We went to a Disney Dancers show and they asked the audience to come out and join them. Again, Bex and Caeden both went out and were dancing up a storm!

They had a big Tron arcade and the boys loved that too. We had gone for a guy's night out the four of us a few weeks ago to see the movie so they were pretty excited by all of this.

We enjoyed the rest of the park. The boys liked the Hollywood Hotel and California Screamin' rides. Caeden was tall enough to do some roller coasters and wasn't scared at all. The lines were pretty short so we got to do our favorites several times. For the rides Caeden couldn't do, we split up a few times at the different parks with one of us taking the younger two and the other with the older.

SoCal Trip

2011-03-06T16:42:00.000-08:00

Warning, this is long as it is more a journal and detailed report for my parents than anything else. We took a nine day trip to California to see friends and visit the parks. The boys have been asking for about three years. We said that they had to wait until the business was doing well enough to leave for 9 days and pay for the trip. Over that time they asked most every night in their family prayers for "Dad's business to do well enough for us to go to Legoland." The funny thing is that we told them a few months ago that we were going, but the repetition had become so ingrained that they continued to say that in their prayers after they knew we were going :-)

I'm going to break our trip up into several posts: CA Adventures, Disneyland, Legoland, San Diego Wild Animal Park, Sea World, Universal Studios and The Rest.

The trip was better than Marisa and I expected. We thought it would be us fighting with the kids and taking them from place to place. There was definitely some of that, but it was a lot more enjoyable than we thought.

WHY AM I ALWAYS SO FAR BEHIND???

2011-01-20T10:36:00.001-08:00

Seriously. Time is FLYING. Four kids and Carson teaching Seminary (not to mention running his own business), and me with ADD and a big house and no house cleaner means we are constantly struggling to keep our head above water in so many ways. One thing I'm trying to do this year is break tasks into smaller, manageable pieces, so everything else doesn't get out of control while I focus on one big project. Like this morning, Trey & Becks would NOT cooperate and barely got out of the shower in time to go to school so I could only run 1.5 miles and do just the seated row and sit-ups before getting in the shower in time to get Caeden to preschool. But I realized that's probably better than doing a full-blown workout and making myself tired for the rest of the day, I should just do little bits while I can, slow and steady wins the race, right?

So I'm going to try to do the same thing with blogging. Hopefully before I pick up Caeden from preschool I can just do a short post about his birthday:

So I felt like I short-changed all 3 boys on their birthday parties last year because I was pregnant, and I want to make their birthdays really special this year. My friend Shaunie showed me the cutest monster cupcakes on this blog and luckily Caeden liked them too, so I pulled out some scrapbook paper by one of my favorite companies, October Afternoon, and made some invitations:

Then we ordered monster activities and party favors at Oriental Trading Company and put them in plain boxes so the kids could decorate them with the monster stickers:
This was 2 days before the party... I am not one to have all my ducks in a row but this is proof that I'm trying!
We had over 5 friends and I had considered inviting more but I'm glad I didn't because it was a little chaotic
Trey drew a monster rock band picture and copied it off himself for an activity... he LOVES to help plan parties
Of course we decorated the house and got a green balloon because that's Caeden's favorite color

And here are the cupcakes waiting to be decorated... I tried to make them look "furry" like the girl on the blog did, and I even bought Wilton frosting tip 233 but on the morning of the party I couldn't find my pastry bag coupler ANYWHERE :(

In the middle of the party the kids noticed that the chickens had laid an egg and Caeden wanted to show off how good he is at his chore of gathering eggs (look at that proud/mischievous face)
We made monster body parts out of colored melting chips on wax paper ahead of time and the kids used them to make their cupcakes into monsters... I learned a couple of things: first, you can mix the chips to alter the color but it has to be done at the beginning so they melt at the same rate, and you can NOT add food coloring of any type. Also, mixing the pink and light blue chips does not make a nice purple. But, for example, I thought the green was too dark so I melted together some green, white and yellow chips and it worked fine to make a lighter green.

Afterwards I made some thank you cards with the same paper, let Caeden stamp "thanks" on them and write his name on the inside.

I feel like a good mom.

Thanksgiving and stuff

2010-12-14T21:08:00.001-08:00

Carson pointed out that I totally stink at blogging this year. Unfortunately, I also stink at taking pictures, and that plus four kids (read: my insane life) means I have neither the time nor the incentive to blog. But he's been working super hard and getting up early to teach Seminary, and tonight came home from work at 7:30 so exhausted that he went straight to bed after putting the kids to bed. And I had to upload some pictures to Costco anyway so I thought I would upload a few (dozen) to our blog so he can stop feeling any pressure to update it.

Caeden is in Mrs. Cloud's preschool (we love her!) and here they are at the pumpkin patch (Caeden is in the green hoodie, in case you couldn't tell which spastic child is mine)

With Halloween on a Sunday this year and an informal trunk-or-treat on Saturday night I neglected to get any pictures of the kids in their costumes this year! Sorry Cerola! But they love their Halloween shirts almost as much as their costumes:

and of course the candy is the important part anyway

I put up some Halloween decor courtesy of my Silhouette:

we also got a black light and these webs that are supposed to glow but they didn't really

and I took most of our fall decorations up to the office so I had to buy some new ones... I won't lie, I was super excited about that!

We had awesome weather at the beginning of November and the chickens were loving it

and Aspen was loving her swing

and the yard looked amazing and things started to bloom again... until it snowed and all those new green things looked like wilted spinach hanging from sticks

Trey and Becks actually still like to dress alike- this day they did it by accident and thought it was so cool they wanted me to take a picture. Their classrooms are right next door to each other at school, even though they are 4 grades apart!

We drove to Utah for Thanksgiving and after snowstorms on the way there and on the way back (and a very long drive with little kids) I think it's safe to say that we won't be driving in the winter again... it wasn't too dangerous if we took it slow, but it's the SLOW part that was killing us! But it was really fun to be there with Carson's family. We took a family picture on the morning of Thanksgiving, and the setting was beautiful but it was so bright that none of the kids would look at the camera! This is the best we got (note to self: if you wear a white jacket, BUTTON IT UP if you don't want to look ginormous)

Carson's sister Kristin's boyfriend Chris Cumerford's family came (got that?) Thanks guys, for our only good picture of Thanksgiving

unless you count this one, which, sorry Rees, but I think is cancelled out by the following pictures of your son

Cody & Lisa have the perfect eating area for Thanksgiving dinner, can you believe they can fit three full-sized tables between their kitchen and their family room?

and thanks Lisa for hosting!!

Jessica, you and Korina almost make up for Jaron

and this could have been a nice picture of Chris' dad without a glare (or something) from Cody

but there really is no excuse for this one... I hate the phrase LOL but I canNOT help but laugh out loud when I look at it!

So the day after Thanksgiving we headed up to Salt Lake to catch the lights at temple square and we were lucky that the Ericsons could come with us AND that we ran into our old friends the Bennetts! BUT unlucky that our camera battery died and this is the only picture we got!

and now we're into Christmas already. Aspen wasn't so sure about the Santa with a real beard at our ward Christmas party but Beckham and Caeden loved it... Beckham even sat on Santa's lap and said he wanted a race car set (?) even though he says he doesn't believe... and Trey played along nicely, he is {kind of} growing up!

Hopefully it won't take me 2 months until I post again? If it does, then Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Blog as Journal

2010-10-28T10:33:00.000-07:00

I know a few others get part of their motivation for blog posting in their desire to keep something of a family journal. Getting it on your blog is only half of the process. Getting it in a more permanent form where you have permanent access to it would be the second half. I have found the best option is to print it as a PDF file. An easy way to do that is to use the following free program http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/. Once installed you treat it like a virtual printer. Instead of printing your blog on paper through your Canon printer, you tell the web browser to print your blog via the "PDFCreator" printer that will show up in your printer list after it is installed. Since there obviously isn't a printer, you won't get anything printing out from anywhere, but what it will do is send the printing information to the program and turn it into a PDF. Try it out and make your blog posts permanent.

Fam Pix

2010-10-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

We took some family pix at one of our favorite Maple Valley places, Lake Wilderness. Special thanks to Marcie for letting us boss her around and tell her where and how to take our pictures, she did great! Thanks! I messed up a few camera settings that left the pix a little less than perfect, but considering we had to work around four kids, they turned out fairly well.

Aspen's Room

2010-10-14T20:53:00.000-07:00

We haven't quite finished Aspen's room, but we've been putting my mom off for a long time in showing her some pictures. So, here they are. Just a few more things to do then it will be done. Hopefully, before her first birthday!

End of Summer

2010-10-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

I didn't take my video camera to the boys' soccer game so I made a couple animated GIF images of the rapid fire still shots I took of their goals. Bex's shot gets clipped a little on the right side so click on the image to go to the full version.

School started and Bex started his first day of kindergarten. He obviously doesn't have the same fear of public displays of affection as does his older brother.

I can't believe trey is old enough to be in fourth grade!

Here are some unpolished pix of Aspen. No time to post process :-(

Caeden looks so grown up in this pic that I couldn't resist posting it.

We never posted a picture of our patio furniture outside so here it is.

Never a good sign when you come outside and find your child naked on the top of the fence. I'm glad he's comfortable with his manhood, but please learn some discretion!

Caeden showing off his newly found head stand skills.

We finally started doing some updates to our home last week in preparation for my bday party. I wanted to hang these horizontally, but they were presents for Marisa so she got to choose vertical.

The big surprise for my bday was our friends the Hesses and Curtises got together and bought me a couple hens and made a chicken coop. I mentioned a few months ago that it would be kind of cool to have a couple. They made a mental note and totally shocked us with these! Becareful what you say around your friends. It was great timing because we were considering getting a pet for the boys and now we have these. They love them too.

We are very sad that our close friends the Curtises are moving so we named the hens after them. It is a little weird referring to Brackon as a female, but we are getting used to it ;-)

Baby Aspen

2010-08-22T20:29:00.000-07:00

Here are some pix of Aspen and some comparisons of her siblings within a week or two of her age today

Aspen today after church

Aspen recently

Caeden... We used to think that Caeden was a good mix between Bex and Trey, but he is starting to be more unique. Aspen and Trey are the most alike probably.

Bex....

Trey....

Speaking of look-a-likes, I was reading the story "Hop on Pop" to the boys at bedtime recently and thought that Jim looked like Caeden a lot. I asked Bex who I was reading the story to with Caeden who he thought Jim looked like and he immediately said Caeden so I knew it wasn't just me. Then I asked Trey and he started laughing and said, "Caeden." It was unanimous.

We also think he looks a little like his Gpa Pond, maybe serendipity had us name his middle name Pond. Just make the chin a little skinnier, add some cheek bones from Marisa and you have Caeden.

Just for comparison, here are the closest pictures we have of Marisa and I to Aspen's age.

Summer

2010-08-22T18:46:00.000-07:00

Summer has been way too busy for me to post yet, so I shirked my home teaching today ;-) and did "my journal" today instead. I know it isn't as enjoyable to read a post like this as a nicely formatted and thought out one, but I followed the KISS methodology on this post. Here is a quick list of the things I remember doing off the top of my head...

Snoqualmie fair - I had a booth at the fair yesterday for the second time. I don't like being a politician though, shaking hands and smiling all day :(

Wild Waves-We've been promising the kids to go here for a couple years. Two years ago we went to an indoor waterpark, last year we went to one in Boise so this year we finally went to Wild Waves.

LAP5 - one of my summer highlights, C89.5 (techo station) did another listener appreciation party.

Friends camp out - went camping with some friends and let the boys run around the forest and play in the beautiful river

Seattle, trips around area - tried to get out and do as much as possible this summer so that we could savor the nice weather, although this summer was very atypical, normally it is 75 degrees most days, this year didn't have quite as many, some much hotter and some colder

Water skiing and dinner with friends - got some good water skiing in at Lake Sammamish

Toby Keith concert at outdoor pavillion

Raspberry/Strawberry picking We made lots of jam and some seedless sorbet

Summer camp - I planned my last summer camp with the Varsity Scouts as I just got called to be a seminary teacher. I took Bex with me on part of the camp this year.

Lots of late nights with close friends playing games and talking - this has been great to fill our social desires, but hard when we stay up wayyyy to late and have to get up early for church the next day

LDS night mariners - always a summer favorite of the boys, they love chanting I-chi-ro and partaking in the whole experience.

Fourth of July - had some friends over at our house to view the valley fireworks and do a show in the front yard. Ended up going to three different BBQ's with the holiday falling on a Sunday this year.

Food culture trips with kids - we've been taking the kids around to various restaurants to taste different cultures. The boys really enjoy this. So far we have: Italian, Mexican, Greek, Japanese, Thai, Chinese, Argentine, and Swedish. Trey's favorite is Italian, Bex's favorite is Chinese, Caeden's favorite is Japanese Sushi.

Drove to Utah - did our first trip with four kids in the car. The minivan made this much nicer than previous trips as all the kids could be separated.

Canoeing on Phantom Lake - This is the lake by Marisa's parent's house.

Swim at Lake Wilderness - we had many trips to this lake by our house to swim in the warm water and play on the nice beach.

Fire in back yard - we built a fire and roasted marshmallows in the fire pit on our patio.

Bellevue Botanical Gardens - took a trip to the gardens as a family. We usually go here to see the amazing Christmas lights, but have never been in the summer.

Now for the pix from the above activities with descriptive text below each pic....

Eating Chinese food

LDS night at the Mariners

Seedless Raspberry sorbet

Dinner with the Hartmans

Toby Keith with my hot cowgirl wife

Sweet white trash beard for the TK concert

Aspen at church

Concert on the grass at Seattle Center

Seattle Center

The Rave

Go Periscope our favorite local band - Take It Personal (Live at LAP 5) from Go Periscope on Vimeo.

Wild Waves

Aspen in the sink

Get-together with several friends at our house

Father's Day

Fourth of July activities

Bex -
Fourth of July activities

Fireworks across the valley from our house

Caeden's hair before he decided to cut his own hair

Caeden's own hair cut

Post "touch up" from mom

They boys have done a good job of helping with their baby sister. She tends to make scared noises whenever Bex or Caeden picks her up because she knows something painful this way comes....

Billions of raspberries

Playing in the yard with the hose and sprinklers

We had three different bird nests in our yard this year

We ate dinner on our patio several times to spend more time outside and an effort to try and slow summer down so it and our kids young lives wouldn't go by so fast.

Trey turned 9 years old

Trey had a combined party with Hillary

They kids spending time with their favorite sister. They pulled out the entire box of baby toys here.

Playing at the pond by the Ponds house.

Caeden helping feed his sister

Trey got some art supplies for his birthday and now records Bob Ross to watch and do his own paintings. The kids also have started some piano lessons.

We have way too much crack around our house with our genetic lack of booty!

They boys playing on a water slide at Trey's bday party.

Aspen loves to stand up straight on my hand. If she is crying and I do it she will stop and start smiling. Trey was the only other kid that would do that.

Skiing on Lake Sammamish

Playing frisbee at the park. We keep a frisbee in the car and play whenever we have a chance.

Aspen just got her first two teeth. We lucked out and got a shot of her showing them off to us.

Unfortunately we haven't taken as many pictures as we would like. Aspen has been such a great baby. She sleeps through the night always, wakes up and makes happy baby noises in her crib until we come get her. After three crazy boys it has been very nice to have an angelic little daughter!

Aspen's birth story

2010-07-14T19:58:00.000-07:00

Recently I read my sister-in-law's unplanned natural birth and my friend Jodee's sort-of-planned natural birth and I realized I never posted Aspen's birth from my perspective. You can skip this if you're male or it grosses you out or you really don't care. But for you childbearing women who like all the gory details (like me), here you go! (This is what I wrote in my journal)

This morning I called the birth center to see if they had room for an elective induction. They “invited” us in soon after 8am and I quickly showered and then did my makeup in the car so I felt attractive and capable. I made sure to wear my favorite earrings with turquoise, wood and shell beads because I knew I would be taking everything else off. We took Trey to the Watkins, Caeden to the Miners and Beckham all the way up to my parents' house because he was too sick to go to a friend's house. When we were almost there he threw up in the car. He was really not happy about us ditching him but my mom said within a couple of hours he was off the couch and doing much better.

When we got to the Birth Center we didn't have to go through triage (I really love that) and got started on my IV antibiotics for group B strep at 11am. The nurse, Sharon, was late 40s or so and just perfect. She was friendly and calming but also informative and down-to-earth. Carson and I watched a good movie while we were waiting for the antibiotic and then at 1pm they started me on some pitocin. My contractions weren't too painful and very irregular – I wasn't really “kicking in” to labor. They increased the pitocin and then at 3pm (4 hours after I started the antibiotics) Dr. Kovacs came in and broke my water. She had hurt her back earlier in the week and wasn't very friendly – not mean, just not really happy to be there. Even after my water was broken the contractions didn't hit me hard for about a half an hour.

Then at 3:30 I started to get a real taste for what labor without anesthetic was like. My mom was there and gave me some tips on letting your body go limp to relax and that helped a lot. I tried to visualize being in Cancun and swimming/floating in the warm ocean at sunset and that worked for a while but then the contractions became so intense that I couldn't really focus on something so external. The nurse helped me concentrate on my breathing and on melting into the bed and talked me through each contraction. That really was very helpful and I could close my eyes and focus on her voice and what she was telling me to do. A little before 4pm I was starting to panic a little in my head at the worst of each contraction, thinking 'why am I trying to do this without an epidural?' and 'I don't know how much more of this I can take' and so I asked if she could check my progress. When the doctor broke my water she said I was 5cm, 70% effaced and -2cm. I was thinking if I hadn't progressed much and it was going to take a few hours I would ask for an epidural. But I was at 8cm and further effaced, so I told myself I could do it and went on.

The contractions were so close together and strongest at the beginning, because of the pitocin. I had to focus so hard on relaxing during the contraction, and in between I could talk a little but the pain never totally let up. I tried laying on one side and then the other, but it was harder to relax my pelvis and legs while I was on my side so I just went back to sitting straight with the bed at an incline and that was the best. I was surprised that I didn't want to get up and try the tub or the birthing ball, but first of all I was hoping that I would be ready to push soon, and also there wasn't time between contractions to move that much, and honestly I didn't even want to do anything but lay very still and focus on breathing and relaxing. That was surprising to me. I thought I would want to listen to music and suck on some candy to take my mind off it, but I didn't realize that instead of distractions, I would want to focus. Carson put his hand on my leg and was talking a little and it made me feel comforted and I told him he could talk if he didn't expect me to answer!

I started to feel close to pushing and the nurse checked and said I still had a little “lip” of cervix against the baby's head on one side. She had me lay on my side and I didn't know if it was because she didn't want me to push because the doctor wasn't there yet. I was a little surprised about the feeling you always hear about, the “urge to push.” It seemed more like I just really wanted to get it over with. When it came time to really push, I had to make myself do it and it took a huge amount of effort. But back to laying on my side… I started to lose my focus because I was a little confused. I had to really focus on relaxing in order to prevent myself from being frustrated or making whimpering sounds, and it was easier when I was laying flat, so I rolled back over. The nurse reached up and pushed the “lip” of cervix past the baby’s head and I pushed a little bit. It hurt like crazy to have her touch my cervix but I kind of didn’t care because I just wanted the baby to descend so it could be over. The doctor came in and I pushed some during the next contraction but just relaxed during the one after that. The sort-of feeling of wanting to push went up and down. Then they put my legs up and told me to push for real. The feeling of the baby’s head pushing out my pelvis was so overwhelming. It was the same feeling I remembered having when I delivered Trey (by the time he came out the epidural was all but gone).

At this point I really felt like I was going to cry but it’s like I had to concentrate so much on pushing and not freaking out that I didn’t have time or room in my head to cry. That’s the crazy thing about the whole experience, it’s like it was all in my head, because I was mostly able to keep my cool and so the people around me had no idea what it was like on the inside. Anyway, I started to feel more confused and frustrated because the doctor wasn’t talking me through it the way the nurse had, and I shook my head no that I didn’t want the mirror because I couldn’t keep my eyes open and focus at the same time, so I didn’t know if I was making progress or not. Carson started to tell me “okay, we can see the head, you’re almost there! The head’s coming out, now it’s all the way out.” That helped a lot, and also the nurse reminded me to curl my head toward my knees and so I was pushing more effectively. No one was counting for me while I pushed and I was surprised to hear myself saying “6, 7, 8, 9, 10!” under my breath. As the head was coming out the doctor started telling me exactly when to push and then to stop, then push and stop again. My first thought was “What? Why would I want to stop? I just want to get this baby OUT!” but then I remembered that I didn’t want to tear like I had so badly before, so I listened and tried to do exactly what she was saying. Carson said she was pushing on my perineum around the baby’s head, trying to ease it out slowly. She might not have been very friendly or informative but I think she did a really good job.

After Carson told me the head was out I thought I would feel a relief from the pressure but if anything it was even worse, like I was about to explode. They told me to push again and the rest of the baby tumbled out and then I did feel a huge relief from pressure, which was almost immediately replaced by an intense feeling of being on fire on the inside. They laid Aspen on my chest and I looked down at her chubby body and swollen cheeks and said “We did it!” and thought ‘who is this baby? She doesn’t look like one of mine!’ They took her to the bassinet and the doctor kept working on me, pressing on my uterus and my perineum, which both really hurt! I started to feel shaky and had a hard time holding still and not wincing away from the doctor. I felt like all my support was gone because no one was talking to me and Carson and my mom were paying attention to the baby and I didn’t understand how it could possibly still hurt so much. I started to feel the pressure again and until the doctor told me to push, I had totally forgotten that I still had to pass the placenta. During my two painless deliveries the doctors just eased out the placenta without much effort on my part, but ironically for my two painful deliveries the doctors didn't seem to care how I was doing and had me push it out. By the way the doctor was kneading my stomach I think she had forgotten I didn't have an epidural. I started to get a little mad at her for hurting me so much but I didn't say anything, but I did ask for a local anesthetic for the sutures. I didn't have a natural labor because I love pain or hate medicine, I just wanted to know what it was like, and now I knew, and I wanted that percocet ASAP! I shook uncontrollably for a while, which I had always been told was from the epidural, but it's obviously just from the trauma of giving birth and the post-adrenaline rush. I didn't want to hold Aspen because I was still in so much pain and shaking so badly I would have dropped her. I didn't like that I couldn't enjoy my baby right away. I was worried that the hospital staff would think I was an uncaring mother and I wanted to say "I promise I'll bond with my baby as soon as I can sit still and think straight!" The nurse said I did a "good job" but now that I've heard that over 90% of unmedicated women scream through their deliveries I feel like I deserved a little more praise or some flowers or something (Carson). The good thing was that it was short, she was born at 4:45pm so I was only in serious pain for an hour and 15 minutes. It really was something else, though.

I think the reason women say it's hard to remember the pain of childbirth is because you have no reference for it. It's so different and more extreme than anything else you've ever felt in your life that it goes in the "other" category. It's just so amazing to me that that's how all babies were born before the past 100 years or so, and that's how maybe most of the babies are born in the world today. I have to admit that that's part of the reason I did it, to feel a connection with all the women who have gone before me. It seems like a little bit more of a miracle that women are made to conceive another person, carry and nourish it for 9 months, and then expel if from our bodies in such a painful and messy process! And also such a miracle that these days we can have pain-free deliveries in relatively clean environments with mostly healthy babies. If I have another baby I think I'll choose to have an epidural, because I would really be kicking myself in the middle of the delivery if I don't! But I'm glad I did it once, I really don't regret it at all.

If you've gotten to this point, thanks for reading all the gory details and I'd love to hear your thoughts on any or all of it!

I {heart} the Pacific Northwest

2010-06-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

Conversation with a five-year-old

Beckham: Mom, the sun is shining!
Me: Yeah, it's not really sunny, it's just kind of bright outside because the clouds are high and thin. It's overcast.
Beckham: Well Mom, that's just... normal.

Marisa's projects

2010-06-16T13:41:00.000-07:00

Since I haven't been using my photography blog I thought I would convert it to a general blog for my projects and scrapbook pages. I decided to post those things separately so those of you who are interested can subscribe to it and everyone else won't be annoyed by my crafty endeavors interspersed with our family pictures and stories. And partly I'm doing it to have a record of my projects and a reason to take pictures of them!

http://forever-inamoment.blogspot.com/

Utah Trip

2010-06-07T22:35:00.000-07:00

We drove to Utah for a 10 day trip and just got back on Sunday. It was a lot of fun to see family and friends. Taking more time was nice in that we could spend more time with friends, but it still went amazingly fast. It was nice to leave the rainy season of Seattle and get some sun in Utah.

Everybody loved to see Aspen. She is growing up so fast. That, combined with us passing our 11th anniversary make us feel like we are getting too old too fast.

Dutch Oven cooking in the back yard

Cody replacing and old silver filling with porcelain

tour of SLC with my favorite sister

We saw many cousins, and our kids saw their cousins and even had a sleep over.

we went up the canyon for some cold weather fun that didn't last long

We went to BYU campus to see some friends and the boys loved hanging out on campus where mom and dad met

Combine the following picture of Caeden on BYU campus and the fact that he loves to wear his UofU t-shirt and I think we might have one kid that won't follow his parents to BYU :-( Yep, that his him doing his business up in the bushes by the HFAC.

We saw some great friends - it was great but sad that we don't live closer so that we can hang out more.

We were sad to leave, but the boys loved the drive home in the minivan.

Aspen's Blessing

2010-06-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

My parents came to town for Aspen's blessing. It was fun to take them around and have them come to the house with other family for the blessing. I unfortunately didn't get any great shots of her in her dress.

We went to the peninsula and saw a lot of things on the way there...

We also went skiing. Trey is unusually aggressive on the ski hill. Bex resists learning anything other than how to get down the hill faster. He doesn't care to learn how to stop, just faster, faster, faster...

Busy with four kids

2010-06-07T22:13:00.000-07:00

I usually like to take the time to edit each photo before posting it. I haven't been posting because I haven't had the time to do that. I guess rather than not posting at all I should just post what I have. Four kids is awesome, but it has been super busy. Here is sweet Aspen with her big eyes.

Trey had his pinewood derby and earned his Wolf rank advancement. He was very happy.

We had our father-and-son's camp out. This was my first time taking all three boys. It was only about a half hour away from home too.

We had a mouse in our house. We tried to get rid of it with out killing it, but in the end we had to use a trap.

We also had some birds build a nest in our flowers by the front door. They laid some eggs, but sadly a cat killed the mom and ate all the eggs. One of the many reasons why I hate cats!

We had at least three Easter Egg hunts this year with church, city and home events.

Other random pictures that captured what we have been up to...

Update

2010-05-06T22:13:00.000-07:00

Things have been so busy at work (good thing) and having too much fun (trip to Utah, sushi party with the Chapmans, Brian Regan at the Paramount, baby blessing with parents in town, skiing with my dad/Trey/Bex) that I haven't had time to post anything. Here is a video that Trey and his friend made a few weeks ago. They took tons of pictures with their Legos to make a movie. I finally got around to putting the stills into motion picture format and adding one of his favorite songs..

Amazing Deal

2010-04-16T22:12:00.000-07:00

There are about a million things I think about posting but never do. Sometimes political opinions, sometimes deals that I find, my favorite things I see on the web, stuff I've been making, thoughts on parenting... and on and on. But THIS I cannot in good conscience pass over. If you have never looked at restaurant.com definitely do it now. They have a standing deal of $10 for a $25 gift certificate to certain restaurants in your area (just type in your zip code to find out which). But right now a $25 gift certificate costs only THREE DOLLARS!!! So you could go and eat $50 worth of food and only spend $6 plus tip. Just use the promo code FEAST before April 22nd. I bought 10 $50 gift certificates and I'm tempted to buy more.

C89.5 Listener Appreciation Party #4

2010-03-30T10:36:00.000-07:00

We took a break from all the bottle feeding, diaper changing, business taxes, marketing designs, etc. and went to a concert. It was great to get out and be just a couple again. A local station was putting on a concert where two of my favorite on-the-rise techno artists were headliners, Kim Sozzi and Go Periscope (local group). We had some crazy babysitting drama in the middle of it, but thank goodness for texting when the music is too loud to hear anything.

To see what you missed watch the following videos...you can See Marisa and her white sun glasses on her head sometimes, but she's too short to see often ;-) She is actually in the freeze frame for the video in the lower left corner. I have a green shirt and my white Aeropostale hat on and am frequently looking down at my phone to text.

Sadly, the two main couples we would go with either just had a baby or are too pregnant to go. Next year!

1 Month

2010-03-17T22:57:00.001-07:00

It's been so fun to have little baby Aspen at our house! The boys are still super excited and want to be with her all the time. She seems to be getting so big already and makes some cute noises in addition to the loud feisty screaming we've been hearing since the moment of her birth! Fortunately we don't hear the screaming much anymore though, she sleeps about 7 hours straight at night and has been mostly peaceful and more alert during her daytime awake hours. Here is a picture of her 'thoughtful' look:

Decked out in green for St. Patrick's Day (thanks for the headband, Noelle!)
Almost smiling (and getting chubby!)
Caeden kisses her about 100 times a day
After church on Sunday and very sleepy!
Hopefully I'll take more pictures before she gets too big, the days just seem to fly by and I'm not even close to catching up on all the things I got behind on while I was pregnant...

More Aspen Pix

2010-03-01T07:43:00.000-08:00

Baby Aspen is two weeks old now. She has been sleeping fairly well, but has been sick with congestion the last few days. Trying to keep a newborn germ free with three boys coming home from school/preschool/playgroup every day seems to be an impossible chore...despite wearing masks (see below), hand sanitizing until skin cracks and limiting holding time so much that the boys are crying. The boys had conjunctivitis over a week ago and we did an extra job of keeping Aspen clean during that time. They cleared up completely and almost a week later Aspen got it out of no where :-( She's handling the sickness pretty well and is getting over both pretty well. I'm sure she'll be happy to eat and not run out of breath anymore.

I got about four different cheap macro lens attachments of one kind or another and finally was able to test them out on Aspen. Two of them are so extreme that I can't do more than take a picture of a single fingernail, and only half of it. The other one is so extreme that I can only take a small portion of the fingernail, like a hang nail (see other pictures down lower). One works really well and I was able to take the following.

Marisa took a few pictures as well in between feedings. She is doing much better and is excited to start taking Aspen out and about next week when they are both feeling better.

Here are my ultra macro shots of Aspen's right thumb.

Baby Aspen on her only trip out to see friends and future boyfriend Eli.

We worried about Caeden and how he would react to a new baby in the family. He has done really well and loves his new sister. Here is a picture that I love. He was trying soooo hard to help us out when we were taking some pictures. He wanted to pull the sheet over to hold it as a light diffuser. He just stood there and was glad to help out although he had a funny face in this picture, it seemed to capture a little bit of his life so well.
Here he made some mess on the glass and got out the windex to clean it up himself. He couldn't find the rag so he used his shirt and gave us a nice shot of his "window cleaner crack."

Home

2010-02-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

We brought baby Aspen home on Sunday. Marisa doesn't like to stay in the hospital (unless there is a problem) and be checked by her doctor, her doctor's assistant, the baby's doctor, the baby's doctor's assistant, the nurse, etc. so she gets out as soon as she can. She came home on Sunday and was able to relax in her own comfortable bed and have me, my mom and her mom all help her out! The baby is doing well and is very feisty.

Aspen Roxy Calderwood

2010-02-13T21:31:00.000-08:00

Baby Aspen not enjoying her new world while mom is not enjoying her passing of the placenta.

She was born today at 4:45pm and weighed 8 pounds 6 ounces making her our largest by a pound (Trey 5.5, Bex 7.5, Caeden 6.5). She was 20 inches long. Having kids on both ends of the color and size spectrum, we are very interested to see what Aspen will look like. Here are some comparison shots with her brothers...

Caeden

Bex

Trey

Earlier today at 39 weeks
Few weeks ago
Delivery of Caeden
Delivery of Bex
Delivery of Trey

Baby Aspen

Baby Caeden

Baby Bex

Baby Trey

Caeden's birthday and other stuff

2010-01-21T16:16:00.000-08:00

I guess before we have the baby I should post some of our other pix or I'll never get to it!

Caeden's third birthday was last Saturday the 9th. I was on partial bed rest so my mom came down to help with the party. We wanted to keep it really simple so we just invited the 3 kids he has playgroup with, Max, Sofie and Ashley. I love how easy parties can be for little kids. We did a treasure hunt with clues hidden around the house and the final treasure was in the bathroom sink, Caeden thought that was SO funny and keeps talking about it. I contributed by reading pirate stories:
We colored pirate pictures:
Here are all the kids pretending to be pirates... except for the girls, they weren't so into it.
Trey got a strange rash on his whole upper body that turned into hives. The doctor didn't know exactly what it was, so we just gave him allergy medicine and it went away.
And Caeden fell and got the biggest goose egg we've ever seen on any of our kids, and they hit their heads a lot! It filled up with blood within a couple of minutes and it stuck out so far from his forehead! Obviously it didn't hurt for long!
Hopefully soon we'll have pictures of baby Aspen to post! I'm trying to enjoy what might be the last few days of my last pregnancy, feeling the baby move and all that, but mostly I'm too miserable to enjoy it much! I've learned what it's really like to be an insomniac and I haven't eaten a real meal in a couple of weeks because my stomach is so squished I just feel gross all the time. I have restless leg syndrome and "pins and needles" in my lower legs and veins popping out on my upper legs... all new things for me. With that, frequent contractions, heartburn, headaches and congestion, when I wake up in the middle of the night I just can't get back to sleep. Plus I've been kind of anxious about the baby being premature, but it looks like the medicine and partial bed rest has worked well enough and I'm 36 weeks tomorrow and physically ready to go so my doctor said not to worry about it, I can have the baby anytime. Hopefully my body cooperates, I'd love to have the baby this weekend or next!

New Car & Cancun

2010-01-18T14:04:00.000-08:00

Yep, we joined the minivan group last week. We were going to wait until after the baby was born and deal with splitting up the family in two cars since Marisa goes to church early each week anyway, we don't often all need to be in one car. The last few months at the office have been so good we were able to go ahead and get the car now. We kept the Passat for me to drive to work and we're keeping the Jeep for scouts and hauling things that are dirty (to help keep the van clean).

We love the minivan's comfort and convenience. It feels like we're driving around a bedroom with so much room. The kids are so excited as well and by keeping them spread out, there is soooooo much less fighting and problems on drives. We tested it out on a drive to Tacoma on Saturday to see the Monster Truck Rally with the Chapmans.

While making our Best of '09 post we remembered that we didn't post all of our Cancun pix. We had the pictures on two different compact flash cards and didn't get around to uploading the others for a while. Here is the rest of the original post....

We rented a car and drove to Chitzen Itza. We drove from there down to Playa Carmen and used the GPS to take a short cut that wasn't shown on any of the printed maps. Needless to say, the people weren't used to seeing a gringo drive down their roads through the jungle. It was a pretty cool drive to see the heart of the country side, and nice to save some time!

This is a cenote at Chitzen Itza.

They were starting some new digging around the base of the pyramid that more closely dates the BOM times. That will be exciting to see what they find.

Marisa waiting on the dock for the ferry to take us back to Cancun after spending the evening in Isla Mujeres. Our FAVORITE place in all of the Mexican Riviera.

Eating at an Argentine steak house on Isla Mujeres.

North Shore beaches on Isla Mujeres. The area was so beautiful and peaceful. Because it is off the mainland a ways, the North Shore is at the right angle to have the sunset into the water, something you don't get in Cancun. There weren't very many people around, the water was bath tub warm, almost no waves, white sand...can you say HEAVEN! Holy cow, we want to go back there bad!

When we first go to Isla Mujeres we talked down a local guide to take us around the whole day for $15 doing sight seeing, snorkeling, etc. He took us to a place that had a shark you can hold. It was a nurse shark I think, bottom feeder, not white boy eater thank goodness!

Snorkeling around a sunken ship in some shallow water.

Eating at a little place on the road back from Tulum. Just a house that sold tacos on the side of the road. The looks I would get for speaking Spanish was always funny. They didn't expect that from a tall, white, USA guy.

Our lunch on Isla Mujeres.

Snorkeling in Yal-Ku. It is where one of the few above ground rivers (fresh water) meets the ocean and tons of sea life comes there to feed. My brother went there a few years ago on his honeymoon, but it sounds like they have made the place much nicer so go back if you've been before, it was pretty cool.

Chillin' at the hotel in Cancun.

Waterfront at our hotel in Cancun. My prescription sunglasses fell out of my velcro pocket in about 20 feet of water. It was so clear, and the sand so white that they stuck out and we were able to find them! Well, Marisa found them first and dove down and got them.

Can't wait to go again!

Favorite Pix of '09

2010-01-13T23:40:00.001-08:00

Yep, there are a lot. These are our favorites from 2009. Some for the moment and some for the picture itself. You don't have to look at all of these, this is for us and my mom. I know she will look at each one ;-)

Count Down

2010-01-11T23:13:00.000-08:00

With Marisa's Dr. visit last Tuesday showing that she is already dilated to a 3 we knew we couldn't put off the maternity photos we have been wanting to take. We didn't have the greatest light and it was windy so we had to make the best of it. Her belly is bigger with our girl now at 34 weeks than she was at delivery with all of the other three!

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Christmas

2009-12-27T15:14:00.001-08:00

We bought a real Christmas tree about 4 weeks ago and have definitely enjoyed the fresh smell... although it still is sometimes tempting to buy a pre-lit, perfectly shaped tree and just leave the ornaments on and store it ready-to-go in the garage! I gave the kids dinosaur pajamas on Christmas Eve. We have never done this on Christmas before, but the kids LOVE to match and they did need new pajamas.
Caeden looks old in a weird way in this picture but it's cute that they're hugging and they're so happy.
Beckham with his chipmunk smile:
I love staying home for Christmas. I feel badly that we can't be with both sets of grandparents at the same time, but it's SO much easier to just have Christmas morning at our house, with no traveling, no coordination, last-minute wrapping and our own beds to sleep in. Here are the kids waiting to go into the family room (please excuse the huge pregnant woman with the video camera):
The kids were so excited they were running and jumping everywhere... I feel like the word "active" only begins to describe my boys.
I love how Trey looks perfectly happy and you can see the day beginning to dawn in the background:
Becks in mid-air
Caeden holding up his pajama pants as he runs to show me his monkey book, another Goodwill stocking stuffer:
Someone from Carson's work got the kids these M&M candy canes and they all pretended to use them as real canes saying "I'm an old man! I'm an old man!"
The nerf gun tag set was a big hit:
Here's Christmas morning from the parents' point of view:
In the afternoon we went up to my parents' house for dinner.
I was worried that the kids would be disappointed with Christmas this year since we didn't have a lot of money to spend on it, but they were just as happy as ever, and with the presents from the extended family I think they got everything they truly wanted. We had a lot of fun and were able to do all the activities we wanted to as a family, despite my pregnancy-induced tiredness and Carson's busiest month at work. It's awesome to have kids. They make Christmas special and they have such an endless supply of energy and hope.

New Christmas Tradition

2009-12-24T23:36:00.000-08:00

Attending the Belleuve Botanical Gardens is turning into a yearly Christmas tradition for us. It is free and beautiful. They put Christmas lights on the various plants in their gardens and make new plants from lights as well. I'm just learning some night photography techniques, so seeing these in person is amazing!

Pond and water fountain

River

Monkey in a tree

Grapes

November

2009-12-14T20:54:00.000-08:00

I have been trying for weeks to post this but have been having issues with blogger. Carson's brother Cody and his family came to visit us for Thanksgiving. They drove from Utah on Wednesday and then drove back Sunday! We're so grateful that they were willing to make the long trip with their 3 cute kids so we could see them. Our kids were beyond excited to spend the weekend with their cousins. On Saturday night we exchanged Christmas presents:And had some friends over that we all knew in Baltimore, including my cousin Kevin's family:
There were 14 kids total between the 5 families and 3 more on the way!
Saturday morning we went to Pike's Place Market in the morning and had lunch at the park outside
Trey seems to be getting so big
Cody and the kids ran around and tried to catch pigeons
Tucker (and everyone else!) was pretty cold
Thursday we all cooked in the morning and made a fantastic Thanksgiving feast:
Complete with my favorite french bread bacon cranberry apple stuffing
And an apple pie with streusel topping
Carson played football this year for the Maple Valley Rec league with some other LDS guys from the area and they named themselves the "Saints." They did really well and went to the championship game but lost to their arch rivals, the Curtis Lang team (ironically, the company who built our house). I think adult flag football is about the most dangerous sport you can play, because they are so aggressive that they play almost like tackle football, but without any helmets or pads. Two of our friends have had to have surgery because of it and now in this last game, a guy on the team broke his jaw, had surgery and is going to have some major short-term complications. Carson is talking about not playing next year and although I hate to see him give up his favorite activity, it does make me rest a little easier. We would be in big trouble if he injured his right hand, arm, or eyes.
About a month ago I was in the kitchen when I saw Beckham heading outside carrying his skateboard and wearing his jacket with a skateboard on the back, his favorite quiksilver dragon shirt and a hat backwards. He actually bought that skateboard with his own money at Target last year, when he was only 3. This kid thinks he can do anything and is just naturally cool. He doesn't really know how to ride the skateboard but he tries to do tricks. Check out these action shots:

I don't know what he's doing here but he definitely thinks he's cool:

You can see the skateboard on the back of his jacket. We bought this jacket at Gymboree a few years ago and it is one of my favorite pieces of kids clothing ever. Usually I think the stuff at Gymboree for little boys is too cheesy and overpriced, but every once in a while they have something awesome.
Of course I was SO excited to find out we're having a baby girl, but the bummer is that with Carson starting his business this year I have NO cash to buy all the cute things I've been drooling over for years! So I've been trying to find creative ways around it. First of all, I've been hitting up the local Goodwill on a regular basis. Usually the shirts are $1 and the pants are $2. If I go every week or two, I can get a couple of good things every time I go, and often with names like Gap and Babystyle! Secondly, we cashed in some credit card rewards for $400 worth of Gap/Old Navy gift cards. Unfortunately, I used the bulk of it to buy late back-to-school clothes for my boys since I wasn't able to get them anything at the beginning of the school year, but I was still able to find some cute baby girl things... here are 3 pairs of tiny shoes, all from Old Navy, the charcoal moccasins courtesy of my sister Hillary!
The jackets were all 50% off so I got these 3 for next winter. The brown sherpa one might not look very girly but I'm sure with a pair of embroidered jeans and a pink beanie she won't be mistaken for a boy! And it looks very warm and comfortable.
Two pairs of embroidered jeans for next fall and a jean skirt... now all I need is a pair of striped tights! I already made hairclips to go with the jeans, a pink felt butterfly and a purple felt flower. I plan to post some of my creations in the near future!
These 3 outfits don't look super special but I was excited to get some good separates in my favorite colors that were on a great sale and will go with anything.
And last, the boys all did the summer reading program at the library this year and earned an art set. Trey doesn't like to sit still long enough to read much so it was really a challenge for him to get in 1000 minutes but he barely made it! They always feel like it's a special day when we pull out the art sets and I think they love them so much more because they earned them.

Family TV

2009-11-19T14:07:00.000-08:00

Wanna watch some cool tv tonight? This show looks like it will premier tonight and will be interesting to see how they develop it.

Fall Fun

2009-11-08T21:07:00.000-08:00

The second week in October we went to Maris Farms in Buckley with the Hartmans. It was much more than just a pumpkin patch and after 5 hours we had to drag the kids away.They had duck races in troughs with water pumps, the kids seriously could have done this for 2 hours but we had to let other kids have a turn.

There was a barn full of dried corn with ducks hidden down in the bottom of it. It was kind of like a sandbox and they LOVED it!
Beckham tried out the little excavator... you can see how dusty it was from the haze in this picture, the kids started with dark rinse jeans and came out with 80s-looking whitewashed ones.
They buried Trey in the corn...
And gathered up the ducks until they were sure they had every single one and lined them up on the hay bales:
We had our first experience in a corn maze, which would have been a lot more fun if Caeden hadn't flopped to the ground after 20 minutes saying "I'm going to die!" refusing to get up. We lost Jamie, her kids and Trey so Beckham, Caeden and I wandered around for an hour trying to get to the next checkpoint until they came back and found us! I had to carry Caeden that whole time and with the way my hips get when I'm pregnant I could hardly walk the next day.
Here's an aerial view of the corn maze - I guess they map it out with a GPS and then plant the corn in this pattern. It was amazing!
Caeden and Beckham riding the mini tractors:
Caeden is doing a playgroup once a week with Sofia Boulton, Ashley Miner and Max Millard. They are so stinking cute together and surprisingly good at imaginative play. We cut out and frosted cookies for Halloween and it was less messy than you might think.
Beckham got in on the frosting action and I couldn't help posting this picture of him because I was shocked at how grown up he looks!
Here are some of the finished cookies:

For Beckham's preschool we visited another pumpkin patch, here's Beckham on the tractor with his friends Sam and Cole:

And we also had a little preschool Halloween party where they all got to dress up, play games, and sing us songs with motions they had learned:
Our ward "Harvest Party" was on Halloween which was actually really nice, right between soccer and trick-or-treating. All the kids paraded across the stage and I don't know how but Beckham and Caeden went across at least 3 times. The last time Caeden really started to ham it up and jump around. He was Bumblebee from Transformers, Beckham was a pirate and Trey was a bat (in his Batman costume inside out).
This was the best group picture we got... sorry Mickey & Cerola, but thanks Melain for a fantastic backdrop!

Beckham's Soccer Season

2009-11-08T19:32:00.000-08:00

Becks played soccer on the 3/4 team again this year and had a great time with a few of his friends. He really gets into the game and is pretty aggressive, but he is never mean to the other players and even gave up possession of the ball once to help someone from another team who had tripped and fallen. He likes to play goalie and says "No one's going to get a ball past me!" He would throw himself on the ground to stop the ball even though he really didn't need to. All of our kids are so dramatic, just in different ways.
Beckham and Sam haven't figured out yet that they're on the same team - they are both good with the ball and if either one of them is playing forward they seem to have the ball 90% of the time, but when they were both playing forward at the same time they were pretty competitive with each other... looks like next year we'll have to work a little harder on passing!
Trey didn't want to play soccer this year so Becks got to enjoy all the glory and was lucky to have Carson's dad see his first game and my mom see his last. It was so much easier to just have one practice during the week and one game on Saturday, especially since a few of them overlapped with Carson's flag football games. Beckham is a fun kid and loves to play sports and be the center of attention!

Baby Aspen

2009-10-25T22:34:00.001-07:00

We posted it on Facebook and have been talking about it with everyone, but haven't put it here on the blog yet...we are having a baby girl! At least that is what they tell us. After 3 boys it is hard to believe. First off, we can't imagine what having a girl will be like. Secondly, after three ultrasounds that were all boys, it is hard to feel confident without such a defining characteristic.

Those of you that have girls, how do these compare to your ultrasound? Is this supposed to be obvious?

Since day one, we planned on naming Trey, Aspen if he were a girl. We've kicked around a few others including my favorite Brighton, and Marisa's favorite Paisley. We would like to give our girl a middle name, but are not set on that yet. One we have always liked is Roxcy or Roxy, but not sure if that will stick. It comes from two sources. Roxcy is Eliza R Snow's middle name and she is one of our favorite people from LDS history. Second, Roxy has always been a part of Marisa's email name since we got married.

Motivation

2009-10-07T13:07:00.000-07:00

If you know our boys well, you know they are very active. We try not to be a "hovering parent" if you know the book Love and Logic very well, and that probably contributes to their activeness to a small extent. Nevertheless, we try to contain it and have tried a TON of different methods to accomplish that goal. For the past few months we have had a list of 7 daily goals for each boy, specific to their individual improvement needs. We go over this every night when we do family prayer and scripture study. A few weeks ago we had an epiphany! Which ever boy gets the most checks gets to do a victory dance. OH MY WORD, that has been a great motivator. Competition among boys can be a great tool in cases like this or a terrible thing when you think of all the fights it starts between them. I came up with the idea thinking about something my high school cross country coach told me. He said, "If you want to push the boys to run harder you tell them that the first 5 in GET to run again. If you want to push the girls you tell them that the last five HAVE to run again." I put that theory to practice with our boys and the Victory Dance and come to the conclusion again that it is true.

Along those same lines we offer our boys $0.25 per a chore or set of chores that they do. For example, if they make their bed, get dressed and brush their teeth before Mom has to tell them to or they won't have enough time before they have to leave in the morning, then they get that chore checked off and receive their twenty-five cents. I know some people out there are completely against giving their kids money for doing chores. Our theory is that it works well as a motivator and they are learning well, at an early age how to handle their own money. We don't buy them any toys other than what we do for birthday or Christmas unless they earn it themselves with this chore money. BYU recently published an article on this topic in case you are interested Good Habits Start with . . . Money? .

We recently decided to change the Victory Dance rules. It really isn't always fair because sometimes the 7 goals are much harder to achieve for one boy than they are with the other. My new idea that we will start tonight is that whomever gets at least four of the seven done gets to do the Victory Dance. I probably put an inordinate amount of brainstorming, reading and effort into figuring out how to motivate and discipline our kids due to their level of activeness (if that is even a word?), but believe me...if you have boys, the Victory Dance will work wonders!

My only fear is that we're cursed to only have boys. We'll find out on the 15th!

Catchup (Not Ketchup)

2009-09-30T21:02:00.001-07:00

I've got a lot to catch up on so here are some quick photos and little summaries of what we have been up to the last few weeks of summer...

Trey got baptized! My parents flew in and Marisa's family came down. It was a great event, the spirit was definitely present. What a great thing it was to see our oldest child not only choose to get baptized for himself, but to be very excited about it. We are very proud of you Trey!

I like the above picture because Bex is sporting a GQ pose for some reason and Caeden looks like he has a GINORMOUS head. He actually does have a large head, but not that big.

We celebrated Marisa's birthday a little with all the family there while watching BYU beat Tulane.

This is a picture from the deck off of our master bedroom. That tree is now officially our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The boys have been on a kick lately to dress like each other when they go to church. They were very excited to be triplets this Sunday.

Trey's first day of school. He's now in third grade. He loves his new Volcom shirt.

Marisa's Surprise Party!

It turned out great. She was very surprised. I did not like all the secretive planning though. I told her she never has to worry about me stepping out on her because I can't stand living the double life like that, always worrying about doing anything that might give my secret away. A ton of people showed up and it was a great event. I had a trivia game and a picture game. The videos to both are below...

Here is the video clip I sent out with the invitation
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Here is the video clip that answered the trivia questions
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Marisa Surprise 30th Trivia Video from Carson Calderwood on Vimeo.

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Here is the video clip that answered the age of the photos. I didn't include the video montage that followed.
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Picture Answers from Carson Calderwood on Vimeo.