Another year gone by...

As I grow older the years seem to rush by quicker and quicker.  How can it possibly be 2012 already??? Wasn't it just 2008 and Asher was just a tiny baby?  Ok, Asher was never a tiny baby (born weighing 9lbs 3oz), but you get my point right?  Now we have Connor, who actually was a tiny baby (weighing 6lbs 12oz), born in 2011 and just a real joy to have around.  Since its already 2012 and I hardly did any blogging in 2011 I thought I'd do a month by month recap...that is if I can remember what happened and what we did...I did just say I was growing older!

January 2011
Happy 2011!  Asher, James and I spent the new year in Southern California with my dad and Kimmie.  It was a quiet evening but lots of fun.  I had planned on going back to school for spring semester but after much consideration James and I decided that it would be better for me not to go because we were pretty certain we would be moving once James found a job.  On the 6th we found out that we were having another baby boy.  Sometime around the 5th of January (I'm thinking it was more like the 10th but I'm not sure) we went to Arizona to visit with my mom and Rocky in Kingman and then to Lake Havasu to celebrate my niece Cailin's 10th birthday.  What a great birthday party she had!  At the end of the month we headed back to Southern California because James was on the books for the union and a job came available.  After being down there for a week and looking for a new place to live the job ended up not working out so we headed back to Southern Utah.  It was nice being out of the colder weather for a week though.

February 2011

The first week of February James got a job operating a crane in Minersville.  He had to work 7 days a week and with the drive, about 12 hours a day but the money was awesome!  On the 9th James turned 43, for his birthday we celebrated with his parents and had prime rib at home, with some yummy cupcakes for dessert.  During February I started working on my website for my cakes and cupcakes.  I was doing a lot of baking and taking pictures and probably gaining a lot of weight since I was eating them all!  By the end of the month I had the website up and running, Cake It to the Limit was AWESOME! (now its not up so don't go check it out!)  I also attempted to start potty training Asher this month, he wasn't all that interested.

March 2011
Potty training is still going on.  Asher is getting better at it, thankfully.  Gas prices were at $3.47 a gallon and it seemed like every other day it went up another 5 cents a gallon.  James and I celebrated our 7 year wedding anniversary on the 20th.  James bought me a Cake Cricut, which was so exciting for me.  James really wanted something for his motorcycle so he told me to get him saddlebags for his bike, he LOVED them!  At the end of March Bailey came to visit us for his Spring break.  We spent one of the days at Zion National Park with my dad and Kimmie.  The weather was great while we were there!  The last day of the month we took the boys (Asher, Bailey and Kade) to the new aquatic center which has an indoor swimming pool and kid play area.  Asher loved it.  James' job in Minersville came to an end around the time Bailey came to visit.  Back to looking for another job!

April 2011

On April 2nd our granddaughter Jade turned 2.  We celebrated by going to St George and having a BBQ at the park.  Her birthday officially marked a year since I started making and decorating cakes. (her first birthday was my first one!)  I had such issues with her cake, but luckily she didn't seem to care since the cake had a big Dora doll sitting on top of it!  The first week of April I had two cake (cupcake) orders from my website.  The same weekend I had a 8 year old boys birthday cake to make, it was Super Mario Bros themed and it turned out great!  I also had a 100 cupcakes to make for a baby shower, both events were in St George and of course the weather was awful (snow/rain/hail).  It all turned out really great though, and being 8 months pregnant I can't believe my feet weren't killing me by the time I was done.  By the end of April I was ready to be done with my pregnancy.  I wasn't due until the 27th of May but I was really ready to be done.  I decided to start walking every afternoon until Connor decided to make an appearance.  I guess I must've walked to hard one Friday afternoon because the Saturday before Easter I started to go into labor.  I just didn't realize it until later that day.  We took Asher to two Easter egg hunts that morning and I wasn't feeling well at all.  Afterwards I came home and took a nap, by about 4 I was getting worried and had James take me to the hospital.  They monitored me for a few hours and then decided to give me a few shots to stop the labor.  It was awful, I was shaky and ended up sick.  Sometime in April James started working for a company called Cleary.  They build those big metal barn looking buildings some people have in back of their houses.

May 2011

Mother's Day came and went and I sent out tons of cake pops to lots of wonderful mothers out there.  My c-section was scheduled for the 23rd and I was anxiously waiting for that day.  I was kinda depressed because it was the end of Spring semester for all those students at SUU and I was wishing I was there.  Crazy how we thought we would end up moving and how we ended up staying.  Bailey turned 13 on the 14th.  How insane is it to have a teenager and a new baby in the same month!  Lucky for me my c-section was switched from the 23rd to the 19th, I found this out on the 17th! On the 18th we had this freak snow storm roll through Cedar City.  Very early (4:30) I woke up on the 19th and got ready for the arrival of Connor.  I was at the hospital by 5:15 and in surgery by 7:00am.  Connor was born at 7:20am.  What an amazing day, we were so blessed to have this healthy little guy join our family.  On the 21st Connor and I were headed home from the hospital.  For Memorial day we stayed home with our beautiful new born baby.

June 2011

June was a pretty quiet month for us.  On the 20th Asher turned 3.  We celebrated his birthday with a visit to the park across the street from James' parents house.  We BBQ'd some hamburgers and hotdogs and had a Cars birthday cake.  It was so windy that the party wasn't actually much fun.  But the food and the company were great!  At the end of the month James got offered a really great job down in California.  He was going to be making an insane amount of money and we were really excited to finally get such a great opportunity after 3 years of crappy on and off again jobs.  But of course it turned out to be too-good-to-be-true and back up to Southern Utah we went.  Luckily for James he was able to go back to work for Cleary.  OH! And the last weekend of June (I think) we went over to Panguitch for their annual Hot Air Balloon Festival.  That was a lot of fun.  Sometime during June we also celebrated Sabelle's graduation from high school.  I can't remember the exact date, I blame it on post-pregnancy brain! :)  We also found out this month that Jared and his girlfriend Kimmy are expecting a baby in 2012, our second grandchild.

July 2011

Came home from Southern California just in time to celebrate the 4th of July.  We watched tons of fireworks from our front yard, we pretty much have a 360 degree view and there were fireworks on almost every angle.  Asher, unfortunately, decided that he was done with potty training and went back to needing a diaper (well pull-ups).  He had gotten a really bad cold in June and after that potty training went out the window.  The middle of July Bailey came back for his summer visit.  His visit proved to be pretty exciting, on the 20th he took a huge fall off of a scooter and ended up in the ER, luckily it wasn't anything serious, just tons of scratches and bruises, but it scared me enough to rush him to the hospital.  James was still working for Cleary and constantly out of town.  He was beginning to really dislike this job and constantly looking for something new.  The last week of July my mom, my sister and my niece came to visit us.  It was tons of fun having them here, we didn't do a whole lot but it was great having family here.

August 2011

What an exciting month for us!  Bailey decided that he wanted to move back to Utah instead of living with his dad in Indiana.  I was so excited.  We registered him for school and on the 17th he started going to Canyon View Middle School.  During the summer I found a new addiction to a game called Angry Birds.  I loved it so much I made cookies in the shape of the birds and pigs, Asher loved playing it too.  We even got my mom hooked on it when she was here visiting.  I started reading on my Nook again and found a book called "Skinny Bitches."  I made a post about this earlier in the year, you can read about it here.  The end of the month Bailey went over the Panguitch to hang out with Papa Rick (my dad) for the ATV Rally.  He had a great time Jeeping, fishing and just hanging out.

September 2011

On the 3rd Sabelle turned 18 and on the 10th Sabelle and Chad were married.  It was a lovely wedding held at a church in St George.  I made the wedding cake and stressed about it for several days before, wondering if I would get it done with a newborn who was so demanding.  Lucky for me James wasn't working that week and was able to really help me get it done by watching Connor and also by helping me roll fondant when Connor was sleeping.  I could not have gotten it down without his help!  September was a busy month for gardening too.  James' parents were bringing me buckets of tomatoes every other day it seemed like.  I made salsa, marinara sauce, tomato soup...all of which were YUMMY!  The middle of September my dad and Kim came up for a visit.  Kimmie took some wonderful family pictures for us.  Connor started eating rice cereal this month but I don't think he tummy liked it very much so I stopped feeding it to him for a few more weeks.  On the 27th James left to go work in North Dakota.  You can see a blog about that here.

October 2011

The first week of October brought our first snow of the fall/winter season.  That was really upsetting to me because I had started running in September and now couldn't do it anymore due to the weather.  Well I could do it on my treadmill but I have a strong dislike for running on my treadmill.  Finally, after 3 months of not being potty trained, Asher was back to using the potty again.  I was so darn excited.  The whole month James was up in North Dakota.  Halloween was pretty low-key for us.  Asher dressed up as the pumpkin he was suppose to be last year but got sick and never got to wear.  Connor was a cute little chicken (same costume Asher used his first halloween) and Bailey was a scary guy from a movie.  Bailey took Asher trick or treating for about 20 minutes before Asher was done.  My mom also came back to visit us around the 19th of October, she stayed for a week and it was awesome having her around to help out.

November 2011

Ahhh...my favorite month, and its not because its my birthday month, although that does help.  Its my favorite month because its my favorite season and my favorite holiday.  Jadeth turned 24 on the 8th.  James came home from North Dakota on the 16th, just in time to celebrate my 36th birthday on the 18th.  Thanksgiving was pretty mellow for us compared to normal.  None of my family came up like they usually do.  In fact, it was just the 5 of us and then James' parents.  James tried grilling a turkey this year and it was really tasty.  I decided to post on Facebook 3 things I was grateful for every day durning the month of November.  I'll have to make a separate post on this blog of all of those so I remember them years from now.  Went to see the 4th Twilight movie (Breaking Dawn part 1) on the 19th.  Connor also turned 6 months old on the 19th.  On the 29th James flew back up to North Dakota and then turned right around and drove back home because of a job interview a couple of days later with the City of Santa Clara, which turned out to be a bad idea.  Connor got his first tooth on the 14th and he really started rolling around on the floor this month.  He could go clear across the living room floor in just 3.4 seconds! LOL

December 2011

The first day of December brought a huge snow storm to Cedar City.  It was crazy because it was so windy during it that the backyard got around 8" of snow and the front got about 2".  Connor got his second tooth around the 9th.  Our Christmas tree, that we bought from Home Depot right after Thanksgiving was pretty much dead by the 10th.  Gas prices finally dropped below $3 a gallon and continued to drop the entire month.  Christmas was fun.  Christmas Eve we had dinner with our friends the Wellers, like we have for 3 Christmases now.  James and I woke the kids up around 7:30 to see what Santa had brought.  Bailey got a TV and a remote control helicopter.  Asher got a motorized Jeep (that he still hasn't gotten into) and also a remote control helicopter.  Connor got some books and a fun walking toy.  I decided to change things up a little this Christmas and hid a present for James, Bailey and Asher and then sent the on a scavenger hunt throughout the house to find them.  I really enjoyed it :)  For Christmas I got these really awesome cupcake shoes...so cute!  Christmas evening we had a house full.  All the kids and their significant others, James' parents and my dad came for dinner.  We of course had prime rib again this year because last year it was so tasty.  We played Apples 2 Apples and a fun game Josten taught us a year or so ago that we call the wolf game after dinner.  Every one left around 9:30.  It was a great day.  New Years Eve was quiet.  The Wellers, Josten and James' parents came over for dinner and a little bowling on the Wii, James' parents stayed until midnight and then we all went to bed.  Bailey had a friend, Eric, over and they had a bon fire in the backyard...great way to get rid of all those boxes from Christmas and the dead Christmas tree that apparently went up in flames really quickly.  Jared turned 21 on the 29th and Josten turned 22 on the 31st.  Jared and Kimmy got engaged on Christmas morning and Jadeth and his girlfriend Mandy got engaged New Years Eve.  And the biggest news of December...around the middle of the month James had a job interview with Halliburton and found out at the end of the month that he was hired and would be starting his new job in Rock Springs, WY on January 6th (which is after this post).

Looks like 2012 is going to be an exciting year for us!