Kade, Jen, Paxten & Bristal Leavitt

Friday, June 29, 2012

Here, there and everywhere!

We have been crazy busy since summer is in full swing. We finally finished putting in the rest of our sprinkler system (it was a HUGE job) and got the grass all planted. It's coming up quickly and we can't wait to put it to good use! We also built a humongous sand box for Paxten. He is in hog heaven! I haven't gotten any pictures of that yet, but I'm sure I will soon.

Paxten started pre-school. He is enrolled just for summer now to see how he does. So far, the hates being dropped off, but once I leave, he seems to really enjoy it.

Burke has started taking cello lessons and Paxten has to be just like "boo boo". Sindy has this tiny little violin and he loves playing it.

Paxten LOVES helping me water all the flowers. He has his own watering can and would stay outside all day if I let him.

We have made a couple trips up to the spray park. The first time was really cold, but the second time was way nicer.

We can't go the spray park without a ride on the "horsies".

Bristal is just growing like crazy. She just turned 9 months old yesterday. She is pulling herself up onto everything. It won't be long before she is walking everywhere.

She is also a bottomless pit. She eats practially everything we give her. She pulled this big chunk of watermellon off the table and started eating it the other day. She LOVES it! She is still sleeping through the night and loves her big brother. She loves playing with him and also picking on him.

Here's the two of them at the spray park. We can't wait for the rest of summer. We have some fun things coming up in the next month!

Monday, May 14, 2012

Paxten turned the big 3 on Saturday. It seems like it was just yesterday that he surprised us by coming into this world just over 5 weeks early. He is such a fun boy to have in our house and always keeps us on our toes! This is the first year that I have been not working for his birthday so we had such a fun day. He woke up to balloons ALL over in his bedroom and hanging from his doorway.

Then he got a Mickey Mouse pancake with chocolate chips and a candle for breakfast.

Then we went to baby animal day with his cousins Zak, Burke and Paige. He loved petting all the baby animals and seeing all the different stations they had set up.

We even went on a wagon ride.

Baby pig

Calf

Baby chick

Then it was on to the party! I was really wanting to make him a cake this year and since Toy Story seems to be his favorite thing as of late, that's what we went with. It took me about 5 hours, but I got it done. I made my own fondant and the cake had pudding in the middle. It turned out pretty good I think! We had a BBQ with Grandma Warren, Grandma and Grandpa Leavitt, Sindy's family and Amanda's family.

Then it was on to the presents. He loaded up his tractor and hauled them all outside from in the house.

He got a new Buzz Lightyear and Woody to go with his cake. He also got a new Cars bike (I didn't even get a picture of it!) and a few other things. He of course got spoiled rotten by all his relatives!

By the end of the day he was finally tuckered out at oh....10:00. But hey, it was his birthday, so we let him stay up and play with all of his new toys. Thanks to everyone that made his birthday a special day! We had so much fun!

Saturday, April 21, 2012

Tractors, Eggs and Fun!

I've been falling behind in my blogging! However, we have been doing a few fun things in between helping care for Grandpa Jones.

Paxten seriously cracks me up! This kid loves to help me clean. So I let him spray and wipe down some things but on this day he needed safety glasses. And the poor kid looks homeless. I promise I DO actually do his hair every once in awhile!

Paxten could hardly wait to get his tractor out. He's been begging all winter. He's a little better at driving this year, but always has it in high gear. I guess that makes it easier for him to run over my flowers and shrubs :)

Little miss couldn't miss out on playing on the tractor either!

I'm so happy that both of my kids actually LIKE each other. At least for now, they do. It may change when they hit their teens, but right now, I'm going to love every minute of it.

Can I just say I am the luckies mommy ever!? Bristal is seriously the best baby ever. This is how she is most of the time. Just so happy and easy going. She is sleeping through the night really well. She got her first tooth when she was about six and a half months old. At her 6 month check up she weighed 17.4 lbs which is up 3 lbs from her last visit! I guess the baby food is helping her pack on the pounds! :) Her height was only in the 2th percentile, but hopefully she will have a growth spurt soon.

She loves being outside too!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Little Miss is 5 Months Old!

Bristal is 5 months old today! I just can't believe how fast it has flown by! She is still just such an amazing baby. She is so mild mannered, very rarely cries and is doing something new about every day. She started to roll from her tummy to her back when she was two and a half months and then from her back to her belly when she was three months. Now she just rolls all over the living room. She has also started to sit up really well. I can sit on on the floor and she will stay for several minutes without tipping over. While we were on vacation Aunt Sindy started her on baby food and she loves it. I think she gained a few pounds since! She is off and on sleeping through the night. She will sleep through the night for a couple weeks and then a couple weeks she will be up once. She loves when Paxten plays with her, and I think he likes having a playmate most of the time. I just can't believe how fast both of them are growing up! I got some pictures done of Bristal, so enjoy.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Our Cruise!!! Part 4!

Ok, first, scroll down to Part 1 so you can look at these in order!

Here's us at the 2nd formal night.

Our last day we stopped in St. Thomas. We went to St. John, a neighboring island and went to Trunk Bay. We did this last year, and it is an awesome beach!

This is a beach we passed on the way to Trunk Bay.

Here's pretty Trunk Bay Beach. The snorkeling was pretty good this year and the water was so clear! It was such a fun day and we got plenty of sun!

Last night on our balcony...see I told you we got plenty of sun!

Our flight didnt leave San Juan until 4:30 so we did a rainforest tour. Puerto Rico is way prettier than I thought it was once you get out of San Juan! I thought these flowers were so pretty and they were just growing on a column.

Us in the rainforest...Me feeling a little icky after getting car sick!

It's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but that is a waterfall behind us coming down some rocks. It was so pretty. We had such an amazing trip!!! A BIG HUGE GIGANTIC THANK YOU TO MY MOM FOR TAKING CARE OF MY KIDS!!! It was so nice to get away and spend time with just the two of us. Also A BIG HUGE THANK YOU TO KADES PARENTS!!! Best trip ever!

Our Cruise!!! Part 3!

Our 4th stop was Grenada. This island was very pretty but was full of people asking for money. EVERYWHERE we went there was someone bugging us for money. We went on an island tour and stopped at this waterfall. I can't remember the name of it, but there was guys jumping off the top. They would watch to see who took pictures and after they jumped they went and asked for money from those who took pictures...$20 is what they were asking for!

We stopped at a "national park" and had to pay to get in to see crater lake. It was pretty, but not a whole lot there. After that we drove through some rainforest and headed to a beach.

We went on a snorkel trip out to an underwater sculpture park. An artist has made a ton of different sculptures and put them in the ocean to create a man made reef. It was really neat!

This is one of the sculptures of about 20 people holding hands in a big circle. The artist actually made all of the people from molding them out of an actual human so they are all different shapes and sizes.

I really wish this picture was better, but my ears wouldn't pop for me to dive down to take it, but here is Kade sitting on a bench, it was probably about 25 feet deep.

After Grendada we had a sea day. We spent the day doing some activities and sitting in the sun. They served a brunch that morning and it was unbelievable! Every kind of food you could imagine.

I thought this ice sculpture was really neat! We got to take a tour of the kitchen galley and it's pretty unbelievable. It has 2 floors of escalators going up and down, and the kitchen is MASSIVE!

This guy was doing ice sculptures out by the pool. He made this swan in just over 10 minutes. It was amazing. That night was our 2nd formal night. The food was really good on this ship. Kade even had frog legs one night! I tried a bite and they were actually really good.

Our Cruise!!! Part 2!

This is all of us outside on our balconies leaving St. Kitts. Even Mark, all the way at the end...kind of a fun pic!

We LOVE our balcony! Pretty sunsets every night!

Our 3rd stop was Dominica. We were so excited to go back to this island after visiting my sister there a couple years ago. It was fun to be able to show everyone around to the places we really enjoyed last time. I met up with one of Sindy's friends and gave her a bag full of goodies from Sindy and she actually ended up spending the rest of the day with us and being our tour guide.

This was by far one of the highlights of our trip. Mr. Nice has a fruit stand on the side of the road, only accepting tips. He was HILARIOUS! I think we could have all sat and listened to him all day. He had all sorts of different fruits to try and the kids just loved him. They actually stopped on our way back through for one more picture with him.

Kade and I at Emerald Pool

After Emerald Pool we went to Jaco Waterfall. It was pretty too!

After that we went to sulpher springs where this local was accepting money for pictures with his snake. EWWW did he stink!!! So we generously nicknamed him Mr. Stinky to go along with Mr. Nice.

After that we went to Trafalgar Falls. We had been there before we this time we swam there. I didn't take our camera down there because there was a lot of rocks you had to crawl over, but it was so much fun! The water was so clear you could see all the fish swimming around you.

On our way back to the ship we drove through a botanical garden and there were these trees with what they call cannon ball fruit. They said that if they fall off you don't want to be any where near them because when they break open they stink to high heaven! They kind of look like cannon balls too!

There was also this school bus that had been smashed by a huge tree during a hurracaine I think they said in the 80's. It was the only school bus on the island at the time, but luckily no kids were inside.