little guy, not so little anymore

My little man is no longer a baby, he turned 1. Can't believe a year has already gone by? We started the day by waking him up and dragging him along with us so he could cheer us on as we played on a church softball team. Then we got things ready for the party and I kept trying to put him down for a nap before his party at 3, but he would have none of that! We had friends and family meet us at a park to celebrate his birthday -and it was so gorgeous and warm, perfect weather to go to a park. Here's Tripp with the funny little cake I made him:

He's trying to pull an Andrea here, and burn himself on the candle, but Randy was too quick for that.
He was getting super anxious during the song to touch the cake.
We finally let him at it and this is how he ate his cake. Such a wierdo! I'm putting a video of him eating at the bottom of this post. Is anyone flexible enough to eat like this?
Now he started to get messy, but check out his clothes -not a piece of cake or frosting to be seen!

Here's little Aidan trying to help him eat his cake. Tripp had a few friends at the park to play with.

All the presents he got to open. At the moment he is more interested in opening the card that is attached to the present rather than getting to the toy inside.

And he started to play with his toys before he opened the rest. Thanks Nichole!

More presents

This is what happened literally 30 seconds after I put him in the car after the party. Look how dirty he is! Totally zonked after playing hard all day with no nap.

This was after his nap and bath, playing with a wagon Bri and Jenny got him. He totally loves it!

He looks so concerned in this pic.

And here's the video of my silly little man. It's been a crazy, wild, sometimes-hard, fun year with this little guy in my house but totally worth every moment. We love you Tripp and hope you had a wonderful birthday!

Sleeptalkers?

So I've been known to talk in my sleep occasionally. I've sat up straight and cussed out Tera, I've tried to sell AOL to Zayna (that was when I was a telemarketer, bah!), and spoken several nonsense ramblings to Randy. But I had a first a few weeks ago. I had a dream that I was standing over the tub picking up Tripp's toys and my attacker came running down the hall and turned to go into the bathroom and right as he entered...............yup, blood-curdling scream. I not only woke myself up but Randy as well with him dazed and confused wondering what all the screaming was about. Not fun to explain at 3 in the morning why I woke up my husband.

Funny thing is, Randy likes to talk in his sleep too. When we were first married, He used to sing Russian songs in his sleep. And he speaks so clearly, I can't tell he's asleep! I recently found out that this is a trait we have obviously passed to our son. I have seen him smile in his sleep, laugh out loud, and I heard him babbling the other night -only to go into the room to find he is out cold. So I guess I just have a crazy sleeptalking family. What about yours, any sleeptalkers in your homes?

oh what rotten kids you are

Tripp and I got to fly together to Idaho on Saturday.That was quite the adventure. I couldn't believe they made me take his shoes off to go through the security clearance area. Seriously, they're baby shoes, what could possibly be concealed in them?

I thought Tripp looked so grown up sitting with his seat belt on. He never gets his binki so he was just living it up on the airplane. And I thought, "no one will sit next to me cuz I have a rotten baby." WRONG! A very large gentleman decided to sit in the aisle seat, putting me in the middle. Not only did he take up his seat, but half of mine as well. There's nothing better than someone else's elbow sticking in my ribs for an hour and a half!

When we got to Idaho, we went to a BBQ at one of Zayna's friends' houses. Tripp was being goofy.

We took the kids for a bike ride on Sunday. Tripp cried the whole way so we had to cut the ride short. Asher was a good kid though.

These are all the rotten kids ready to make a 5 hour road trip. Boy, wasn't that exciting. Zelda was the only good kid. Tripp, Asher, Zayna, and I were all freaking out and going crazy in the car. Well, that's all we've done so far. There will be more updates soon.

Check this out baby Reyn!

He's almost ready to take off on his own. And he's got quite a few bumps and bruises from his first few steps. Tripp is getting more and more adventurous each day. He is starting to let go of things and walk away for a short distance until he decides to do a seater on the floor.

We love the sun ......and ice cream!

We've been having some gorgeous sunny days lately, so Tripp and I have been able to get out of the house and explore. Tripp really liked the flowers in front of our apartment. Not once could I get him to look at me for a pic though. And my little sweetheart picked a flower for his mom. And yes, I put a little purple flower behind his ear. It's kind of hard to see in this pic though. It was nice yesterday as well, so we put Tripp in the stroller and walked to church. It was pretty fun!





Anyone who knows Randy, knows he's totally obsessed with ice cream -a trait he obviously passed to his son. Whenever we have bowls of ice cream, somehow Tripp knows we have ice cream. He will flip and freak out until we share our ice cream with him. So here's a funny video of my little man.

Bummer!

So our 3 1/2 year old computer crashed about a week ago. I lost every video clip I have ever made of Tripp and all of our pics from October to April. Randy actually had to reboot the system with a disc and that deleted all of our files. Totally bummed out! Now I feel like I have to make a bunch of movies to make up for what was lost. I was planning on making a "first-year of your life" movie for Tripp, but now I have to compromise.

Now is the time of year that I despise -due to having to search for a job for Randy. Not many positions have opened so far. 3 in fact- Spokane, Moses Lake, and Saipan (Island off of Japan, by Guam). So we have been toying with the idea of living on an island in paradise. We wouldn't be able to take anything with us. A roundtrip plane ticket to Saipan is $2,000. So we wouldn't even be able to come home for 2 years (it's a 2 yr. contract). It's actually US territory and people speak English and use US dollars. So we'll just have to wait and see if Randy gets a "phone-call interview" or if something a bit more local will open up for us. We keep praying for him to get a position, cuz neither of us want to go the substitute teaching route again. Hopefully my next post will have some pics.

Easter Madness

We were crazy busy on Saturday -but we had loads of fun. To start, at 9 am, Tripp had a hunt at the HS football field. There was tons of candy and tons of people. Here's Tripp with the easter basket I made for him:He didn't really know what to think of this candy all over the ground. He kept picking up pieces of turf instead.Randy showed him how to pick up the candy and drop it in his basket . (with a little shaking, he finally dropped the candy) Look at this horde! There were also McDonalds toys on the ground. Tripp got a Kung Fu Panda and a weird American Idol figure that plays music -he loves to dance to it!


We even got to see the Easter bunny.

Tripp eating a large tootsie roll.

Tripp's second egg hunt was at a ward member's home. She filled 1,100 eggs for this hunt! There was candy, toys, money, and slips of paper for bigger prizes inside the eggs.
Some of our ward members.
I thought this was a perfect place to take a pic of Tripp's haul. He got lots of candy, $2, and some bubbles. Not bad for his first Easter hunt.

That night we had a ward party. The theme was Sock hop. There were hula hoops, root beer floats, lots of bubble gum, poodle skirts, and good ole 50's music.

Tripp and I trying to hula hoop.

We had a lot of fun. I won a piece of candy for blowing a large bubble and for dancing through a "soul train." We also had to guess the price of several items in the 50's, which was pretty tough.

Randy and I also participated in an adult flashlight egg hunt on Friday night, but I'm going to let him write about it.

It was total Awesomeness! I've never seen so many crazy-for-eggs adults! There were about 450-500 adults lined up around a baseball field and we hear "Ready, Set, Go!" Well, we all thought it was a joke for the first 2 seconds because people were yelling "go" all night. So we all start running and all of a sudden, a girl stops right in front of me. She was a gonner! I ran her right over and then boom! Again. Tasha knocked her over and trampled her next. The girl yelled some explicits but man it was funny. So we had this plan of me runnning as fast as I could to gather the eggs on the diamond and Tasha getting the eggs in the field. Well, as I was leap-frogging eggs on the diamond, all of a sudden I feel something big and round ram right into my buttcheeks, which sent me sprawling forward. I turned around and it was another girl that fell over when her head went into my bottom! Too much fun I tell you. There were 2000 eggs on the field and they were all gone in about 33-37 seconds. To end it off, at the very end, nobody could find the person they came with including Tasha and I. You could hear all kinds of people yelling names like "Steven" and "Marco" and "Brittney," and because I couldn't find Tasha, I did the same thing by yelling "Washa," and she screams back, "I'm over here!" Needless to say, we were right beside each other...don't know how that happened. Good times and good fun! We collected 35 eggs, a couple bags of Doritos, and won a $5 gift card to Starbucks.