Look kids, a deer!

Lets catch up shall we? Right before Halloween we went to the huge Pumpkin Patch out in Yucaipa. For Halloween Cade was a pirate, Tess a caterpillar. We went trunk or treating over in Rancho Cucamonga and on Halloween night we stayed home and carved pumpkins. From Halloween up until now it's all kind of a blur... We combined our families for thanksgiving, making it the best of both worlds and the day after that we were among the loonies to go black friday shopping. To get into the true spirit of Christmas we recently watched National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. "Where do you think you're going to put a tree that big?" (I forgot how stinkin' funny that movie is!) And there you have it.
Pumpkins


Sunflower Tessa


Cade and the Goat


Cade at petting zoo


Justin and I


Cade with the missionaries


Tessa

Tessa-Bells

She's just so stinkin CUTE!

It's been a while, yes, I know

So here's what's new with the Alfrey Fam....



My Brother Conrad just got home from his mission in Russia. He's a cutie huh?


My Sister Stacy, her husband Kent and their daughter Andi came down to visit. We took them to the Farmer's Market here in Redlands.


We took them out to Red Robin (thanks Katie, now I'm addicted) which happens to be Caiden's favorite Restaurant because it's full of "boons" and "pies" (balloons and French Fries).


Grandma Jacobs (Justin's grandma) came down to visit Jesse for his Birthday!


I put together a baby shower for my dear friend Katie, who decided to go into labor three weeks early on the day OF her shower, so it got cancelled. These are the invitations I made.


This is a picture of Caiden channelling Draco Malfoy from the 6th Harry Potter movie which, by the way, was so stinkin awesome!!!


Tessa turned 4 months old today!!


Does every mom think her daughter is the cutest baby in the world or is it just me?


She's just sooooo cute!


THE END!

Malibu Baby!

Every year we have a family reunion at Carpinteria State Beach for a week. This year the camp was full so we went to Leo Carrillo in Malibu. It was so much fun because almost everyone was there! My sister Stacy who lives in Idaho and my brother Conrad on his mission in Russia were the only ones we were missing.


It was great for Justin to have some time off from work... he's been working super hard.


Thank Heavens I remembered Cade's dump truck! It was a "must" at the Beach!


Everyone who knows my dad, knows that he has magical powers when it comes to babies. Here he is burping Tessa!


Here is Cade with his cousin Ashley... and his other cousin, Ashley! (It's a very popular name in our family)


When my cousin Spencer was little, the big boy cousins always took good care of him and made sure to play with him. It's so neat to see him doing that with Cade now that he's the little guy in town.


My Malibu Baby Girl looked more like an Alaskan Baby Girl! (You know me, I am always afraid my babies are too cold!)


One picnic table and a pothole and you too can have a son that looks like this! He's tough though.


Caiden sure loves driving in a car. He wishes that Malibu was farther away just so that we could all sit in the car longer... Come on Cade! Tell us how you really feel! (I hate traveling too!) It was only 2 hours, but I felt the same as Caiden looks in this picture.

Come on, don't be a Sissy!

So... I just had a baby, and I feel fat, how about you? I was thinking that it would be fun to see how many of you are up for a little challenge...

It's time for me to get into shape...meaning a different shape than I am already in... less round to be exact! So I have decided to get my booty in gear for the 2010Camp Pendleton Mud Run! This is the World Famous Mud Run! The Mud Run is a challenging 10K run with hills, tire obstacles, river crossings, two 5-foot walls with mud on both sides, tunnel crawl, slippery hill climb, and the final 30-foot mud pit. Along the course there will be 6 water points with personnel staged at each. Doesn't that sound awesome? If you want more info go to www.camppendletonraces.com.

So who's in? I know that most of you are pregnant, or like me just had a baby. But you have no excuse because it's over a year away! I think it would be so fun if we could all run this together! If you live in another state, you are more than welcome to come and stay with me and we can all drive down together! I know my Fisher girls will be down, probably Katie too! Wendy will do it I'm sure. Jenny will say yes and it would be great to get Shelby out here... the Murphy twins will be due for a visit anyway (Michelle this is right up your alley!)... Ashley is probably already on line registering...Summer? Charis? Stacy? What do you guys think??? (Brandy, you are mega far away, but it would be greatness if you came too!!) And anyone else can come too, even those of you I dont know who are way into blog surfing!

(by the way, the pic is from a fabulous night of mud football when I was up at School)

Sleep...Who needs it! Not me!

I'm too sleepy to write anything really deep... sorry. Not only have I been up with the baby every night, but Caiden got really sick, threw up 5 times, and I have been helping Leo save the Unicorn (Little Einsteins) ever since. My poor Bubbas! (The song of the Unicorn is Caiden's favorite episode... at this point I'm not sure if DVR is a blessing or a curse). Maybe I can talk Cade into rescuing the instrument fairies (also little Einsteins) after this episode, just to switch things up!

P.S. "There is no charge for awesomeness!" (Name that quote!)

Our Easter....

Tessa's Easter


Caiden's Easter!


Justin's Easter!




MY EASTER!!

Introducing....

Miss Tessa Isabel Alfrey!

E. T. Sullivan once wrote these beautiful words:

“When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home and of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.”

These words discribe how I feel about my little Tessabel. She's absolutely perfect! We had a girl's night on her birthday and became good buddies. She and I already have a great deal in common. She's a binge eater that loves to sleep... need I say more? One of my favorite things about her is that she is such a lady! Everytime we get her to burp, it's so quiet and petite that I often ask Justin: "Does that even count?"

PS: Congrats to Jessica for her whitty guess! Tessa was born April 2nd, year of our Lord 2009 (that's how Justin announces the date sometimes:)

Wanna Bet???

Alright Ladies and Gents! Will you play a little game with me? I was wondering if any of you had any predictions as to when I am going to pop! Right now it feels like it's never going to happen! April 9th (my actual due date) feels so far away! So here's what you need to do: See if you can guess the day that little Miss Tessa Isabel will be born into the world! Whoever gets the closets to the actual date, without going over it (yes, some of the rules originated from the Price is Right), will win a prize! I will send the winner their favorite candy bar! (I thought about Rascal Flatts tickets, a free car, or a life size cardboard cutout of me with my huge belly as seen above in this post...but a candy bar sounds way better to a pregnant chick...) So, before you guess, here are the facts: Caiden was due the on the 12 of January, he came on the 4th. This baby is due on the 9th of April, but the doctor said that the way she measured, it could be more accurate to make her due on the 5th of April. One last rule is that you can't guess a date if someone else has already claimed it! Good Luck! (spouses may participate too!) If I were going to place my guess, it would look something like this:

Christy's Guess:
Reason:
Favorite Candy Bar:

Good Luck!!

Hiyah!!

So my mom has always played this "hiyah!" game with us since we were kids. If she was going to attack with a pillow, she would say "hiyah" before it hit us. Well, she taught Cade the phrase and he has gone to town with it. He will go grab a towel that I am going to grab and before he releases it to me there's a "Hiyah!" in there. If we have a pillow fight, many "Hiyah's" are said. Well, the other day, Caiden was in the corner of his room and I heard him saying "Hiyah" with a little more emotion and feeling. When I took a peek at what he was Karate chopping, I noticed he was bearing down and that his face was red... (yes, you are reading this correctly) apparently saying "Hiyah" helps Caden go pooh as well!

Now if you have noticed, I like having theme songs to match my blog. Unfortunately, the Diarrhea song is not offered on the playlist.com website. So as you read this, you can just hum to yourself "when you're walking down the hall and you hear something fall, DIARRHEA! DIARRHEA! When you're sliding into first and you feel a big burst DIARRHEA, DIARRHEA!" (sorry, that's the only song about #2 that I know of). So you'll have to settle for Brad Paisley's "I'm still a guy."

(gross! Who puts stuff like this on their blog??)

The Great

My Grandpa Hodge is a Great Grandpa Hodge almost 3 times now. He sent me an email telling me that such a title was much to long and confusing, so we should just call him "The Great." At first I thought he was joking, but he came down to California for a visit and tried to convince Caiden that "Great" was really his name.

I took this picture of them when they were walking through Ford Park on their way to the duck pond. I love it. My Grandpa together with my Son, separated by two generations.

It's a party in your mouth...seriously!

For those who have known me a while, you know why I get especially excited this time of year. As soon as Valentines day is cleared off the shelves of supermarkets around the US, they make way for the real Holiday that's approaching...Easter. With Easter, no one commercializes the giving of gifts. Oh, no, Easter is all about the Candy (yeah baby)! The greatest of all Easter candies being... Brach's Chicks and Rabbits. They are the upper class representation of Circus Peanuts. I guess the best way to describe them... sponge-like cotton candy. Although they come in three colors, the flavors are the same. However, I do for some reason prefer the blue ones, for me the texture is the best out of the three colors. My BFF Jenny prefers the yellows. My Hubbie eats them all equally.


Seriously Brachs should cut me a check for all the chicks and rabbits converts I have gained throughout the years. This picture is from when I was at BYU-I. I am at Harmony House #104 with my roomie Liz Lee (now Dixion). We binged on a bag of Chicks and Rabbits after she either 1. just finished a 4 plus hour phone conversation, 2. talked a friend out of committing suicide at some cabin somewhere in Utah or 3. just threw a her shoe at the window causing it to shatter. Liz is one of my dearest friends. Ricks Roomies are the best!

Marshmallows for Breakfast!

Do you ever have one of those days.... where your house is a mess, your child a pill and you feel like people should be carrying you around on a fluffy pillow because you feel too pregnant to function? You know, those days where you have to call your neighbor to come help you push your car to the nearest gas station... it's one of those days...

So, while my cute work-aholic hubby takes off to an extra Saturday training (yippee!) I get to stay home with Monster Cade who has decided that he's going to have a bad day today too. What's a alcohol free mom to do? After Caiden had cried for 20 minutes non-stop, I decided it was time to have marshmallows for breakfast! Don't worry, I made it healthy...I threw some craisins in there too, and some watered down pomegranate mango 100% juice with anti-oxidentes or whatever... see, healthy. Just watch how Caiden's frown turns upside down...







So what do YOU do on days like this???

Splish Splash I was takin' a Bath!

Since Justin took 2 dates to his senior prom, I guess Caiden feels like it's ok to take a bath with 2 girls! These are our twin neighbors, the Kinsers, Morgan and Madylin. Caiden calls them the "Doe's"... don't really know why. You will notice that this is a top of the line storage bin serving as Cade's bath tub. You have to fork over another 85 dollars a month to have a bath tub in our apartment complex. So we improvise :)

Birthiversary

Cade's Birthday was on the 4th of January! His favorite part about Birthdays is spitting on the Birthday cake (aka blowing out the candles). He didn't even want to eat the cake, he wanted to re-do the candle part mostly...


So, we let him!




On the 7th of January, we had our three year anniversary! I made Hawaiian Haystacks, Justin's fav and made (ok, bought) molten chocolate wonderfulness cake from Chili's. (Just add some raspberries on top of that and it's a party in your mouth!!)

Next up, the Honeymoon. I guess you are really suppost to call it an anniversary trip... but that makes me sound like a blue hair (an old person) so we called it a honeymoon again. Justin got us a great deal on a villa at the La Quinta resort and spa over in Palm Springs. It was really really nice, and so needed. We haven't really celebrated our anniversary by going to a fancy resort. A buddy of Justin's got us this fancy Villa for only 89 bucks a night! AND they paid for our dinner at their fancy steak house! It was so much fun.








We even had our own private hot tub! No, we didn't use it, my doctor says it will cook the baby....but we had our own! Neat huh?


They had really neat flowers all over the grounds.