Excuses, excuses, excuses...

Long time no see everyone...

My only excuse for not blogging lately is that my monitor doesn't work. I have to wait until Nick gets home from work, which isn't the most convenient.

So looking back over the past couple months we have done some fun things. Brandon and Liz came down to Arizona at the beginning of November. Liz was supporting a friend who was walking in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure.

She is so creative and made this really cute sign!

We have to take everyone to this cute ice cream shop that I love! It is called the Sugar Bowl. My parents introduced it to us. It isn't anything fancy, but I love ice cream. So come to Arizona and we'll go have some ice cream!

Even though he didn't get any ice cream he still had a GREAT time!

For Thanksgiving we headed to Utah and spent the weekend with Nick's family. We had a very yummy feast! It was lots of fun spending time with Carolyn and Tenielle while baking and cooking.

Harry took care of Aaron while we made our Thanksgiving feast. He made him his first fort out of a cardboard box -- he loved it!

Peek-a-boo!

Aaron was testing out the duribility of drawer... just making sure it's sturdy.

This kid loves to chew on everything. He puts everything in his mouth. Who knows what he has eaten?

He also loved to "play" the piano.

DJ Aaron

Our last evening in Utah we ran down to Temple Square to try and get a family picture. We had to hurry because we had to take Nick to the airport. We were literally there for fifteen minutes. It was freezing!

Harry and Carolyn snuggling up close.

Our big happy family!

Aaron did amazing. He kept his hat and gloves on and even let us cover him in blankets.

He even gave us this huge grin! So stinkin' cute!!!

One month down, two more to go...

Halloween Weekend

Well, we are doing great here is sunny Arizona. We just had a record high today of 96°. That is why it is okay for Aaron to occasionally crawl around in his diaper (see below). Nick has been working for a couple of months now as an attorney, but as you can see from the last post, he was just sworn in this past Thursday. He works a lot, but is enjoying what he is doing. Aaron and I are enjoying our time together at home. We have his nine-month check up on Friday so I will update you on all his stats then. He is currently eating anything I hand him. He crawls about a million miles a minute and is also cruising along the furniture. He can wave bye bye (see video), give kisses and dance. He also knows exactly what to do to melt my heart.

Last Wednesday Nick had a couple softball games that Aaron and I enjoyed watching. Well, this particular night it was somewhere around 40°. It was freezing! Especially when we are used to temperatures consistently in the 70s and 80s. Poor Nick had to play in basketball shorts and a t-shirt because we figured when we moved to Arizona we wouldn't need our winter clothes. Hopefully this weekend we can get a few things out of storage. Aaron, on the other hand, was bundled up in blankets.

For our ward party, we dressed Aaron up as a bat, Nick was a vampire, and I was a witch. Because Aaron takes after his parents, his hood with bat ears wouln't fit his head. He still looked very cute!



On the afternoon of Halloween we went to Nick's work party at the zoo. We had a fun time. They had a stingray exhibit that Ben and Nick enjoyed. I didn't really care to touch the stingrays. I just watched and took pictures.

Aaron was a trooper. He only had a short nap before we left. He held in there while we had lunch and walked around the zoo.

Near the cheetah exhibit there was a radar gun. So Nick had some fun running past it. It reminded me of The Office, when Michael and Dwight compete to see who runs faster. Michael claims he ran 31 mph, when the radar really just registered a passing car. It makes me laugh just thinking about it.

Nick just posing for the camera.


Aaron thought the flamingos were interesting. He was very sweet to let me take his picture.

We were beat by the end. We knew we still had a long day ahead of us. We had to find a garage to fix our car (it wouldn't start) and get ready for Halloween!


Later that evening we sat outside and handed out candy. I guess they do that here because the weather's so nice. Tons of people were outside handing out candy and having block parties. Scott came down and hung out with us. I tried to hand out all our candy as fast as possible because we wanted to watch the World Series and go to Cafe Rio. It was so worth it! I love that place.

Nick was really good at guessing all the costumes. He was very sweet to compliment them as well.

I carved the pumpkin on the left and Nick did the one on the right for his company pumpkin carving contest. Nick also made lots of gravestones for our ward party. They turned out great, so we displayed them around the yard with some candles in front of them. He is very creative. It looked very spooky.
Just for fun, here is a picture of Aaron from this morning. Just laughing!


Aaron gets a little video camera shy. He just stops whatever he is doing when I turn on the camera. At the very beginning he waves bye bye and the rest of it he just fake laughs.

A Great Day!

Aaron and I headed up to the court house today to see Nick sworn in as an attorney. We are so proud of him and his accomplishments. He worked so hard through law school, then studied diligently for the bar exam and now continues to work very long hours at his new job. What a great guy! We are so lucky to have him in our family!

Say Cheese!

This is what Aaron did when I said, "Say Cheese!"

He loved the balloons I got for Nick passing the bar.

Scott and Andrea got Aaron this cute Halloween top. I love it.

Aaron is getting bigger, so we got him a new car seat. I think he likes it. It is really comfortable.

I was trying to get him to smile in this next picture, but he just wanted to stick out his little tongue.

He liked crawling in the box and hiding. Who knew all I needed to do is buy boxes for him to play with.

7 Month Old Update

Grandma and Grandpa Bender sent Aaron these cute P.J.'s. They glow in the dark -- which puzzeled me a little at 6 A.M. They are so cute!

We had to lower the mattress in Aaron's crib a few weeks ago because we were afraid he would start standing up after his naps. These next two pictures are so cute! The first one he is tired and it was still dark in his room. The second one he is more awake because I had been talking and singing to him.

Aaron began crawling at the end of August. He now crawls everywhere! He is so fast -- he really keeps me on my toes.

Aaron has also started standing next to furniture and walking along it. However, he has not mastered the art of getting down. He just falls on his bottom. Thank heavens for padding! In this picture you can see a little bruise on his thigh.

Nick put Aaron in the laundry basket. He didn't care to stay in there very long. He would rather crawl around and explore.

Because Aaron is crawling and getting into everything we bought a baby corral for him. It does help, but he is only really content when we sit in it with him -- defeating the purpose. But, it is nice that he can't get into anything he shouldn't.

Such BIG beautiful eyes!

"Please, please, please..."

"Help, I can't get out!"

Aaron just showing off his skills. I love those chunky thighs!

Aaron's First Baseball Game

Two weeks ago we went to an Arizona Diamondbacks game. We had really good seats, but Aaron wasn't too excited about sitting still. So, we sat in some seats a little farther back and enjoyed the game. The stadium is air conditioned, making the evening very comfortable. It felt like it was 20 degrees cooler.

For some reason Aaron looks disgusted in this next picture.

Daddy and son spending some time together.

A sweet member of the staff heard me say that it was Aaron's first game, so she handed me this cute little button that said, "My First Game." He liked to suck on it.

As we were leaving the game, we couldn't get to our car because fireworks were being set off on the top level of the car garage. So, we hung around and waited for them. While we were waiting Nick and Aaron visited with an officer on horseback Aaron really liked the horse.

I was a little nervous because I wasn't sure how Aaron would react to the fireworks, but he didn't seem to mind. He didn't quite know what to think about the finale, but no crying.