Crafting!

So our boys love to color, create, and craft. DAILY they are making me love notes, card, books, pictures, and creations from all sorts of crafting supplies and toys. I just wanted to share a few pictures of some of the creative things they've done.

Love these kids!

 Us at the swimming pool (you can see the T for the lap lanes! by Xan)

 Camden Loves Jesus

You are the Cutler Star Love to Mommy!

Happy Birthday Camden!!

So this week was a fun filled week of Birthday and family time. With the President's Day holiday monday we had a great time just enjoying everyone together as a family. Bike riding, games, swimming at the rec, and more! Xan quoted it was the best day ever!

Then on Wednesday we had Camden's 6th Birthday! Also filled with game playing, bike riding, going out to eat at Chick Fil-A, playing in multiple indoor play places, mommy reading to Camden's class his two current favorite stories (Click Clack Moo, Cows That Type, & Giggle Giggle Quack), and then having a party with close friends and family for ice cream and cake.

Camden informed us about a month prior that he wanted a Pirate Ship birthday cake. But just last week being the sweetheart he is, he told me he didn't want that anymore because he was afraid it would be too much work for me being so big and pregnant. He stated that he just wanted a "normal" cake. So sweet! I already had a pirate cake idea in the works and his sweetness made me want to make him one even more! It took hours, and my joints, feet, back, and hands were swollen and achy but it was so worth it. Xan also stated that this was the best day ever!

 

Then on Saturday after picking up Camden from a swimming birthday party for his friend Liam, we rushed to Front Runner Provo station and barely made it on time. We took the train all the way to SLC and the boys loved it! We then took Trax (barely making it on again), two stops to the Clarks Planterium. The boys loved the exhibits here to and it was fun to teach them more about our Solar System, Galaxy, and just science in general. Then we took Trax and the Train home, and had an overall great day! Camden had asked to ride on the train for his b-day, so we told him we could do that instead of a friend party, which he agreed too completely.

And it's only about 1.5 to 2.5 til this baby comes! yay!!!

 That's ONE small step for Man!

Almost 37 weeks!

Nearly there! Whose bump is biggest?!

Virtual nerf war held on instagram with cutlercrew

RootsTech had an evening event we were able to attend where Studio C performed just a bit and did Q&A and David Archuleta performed. Good Valentines day date :-D! (slightly disappointed it was Q&A heavy, but, nonetheless fun)

[Almost] Weekly Update

Valentines Dance at Freedom Prep
This past Friday Freedom Prep held a dance and Camden was just too excited that we couldn't tell him no. It happened to be the same night we had already bought tickets for Stomp on. We were really looking for to Stomp and still made it to the show for date night, but we had to cut the dance experience short and go straight to the show. It was a formal, Disney themed dance, complete with a visit and a lip sync from Elsa and Anna. Camden is a let it all loose go crazy on the dance floor sort of guy and doesn't care to have an audience necessarily (so long as we're in the vicinity). It was a feat that Alene was even able to make it at all (see next mini-story)

Early visit to Utah Community Hospital
Fortunately Alene had pre-registered with UCH because Wednesday Alene was feeling incredibly uncomfortable and even (in hind-sight) achey and high-temperatured. It was enough that she called her nurse who advised going in to be observed for a bit - her contractions, which are quite often anyway as braxton hicks contractions were more frequent, tied to any movement whatsoever and more painful than usual. So we got the kids down and had Chantel (our neighbor) come over so we could go in just the two of us. Everything was fine, no UTI (which seemed fairly likely), just a virus causing a cold and fever. That was good to hear because Alene was worried she'd have to deal with that kind of terrible discomfort for a whole nother month. Now she's recovered and still feeling very uncomfortable, but also very much better than when she was sick.

Humidifier
With Alene being sick and the dry weather around, she's had the humidifier on most nights and felt bad taking it from Xan a bit early (he was sick before her), so we looked into humidifiers. Amazon is great for shopping - to a point. But, for pretty much any product there's typically some bad reviews that you want to make sure are indicative of what you may experience. Anyway, with humidifiers and the troubles people were reporting online we were almost ready to give up. Alene found whole house humidifier options. With me also experiencing really bad dry knuckles and with how much better Alene and Xan do with the humidifier I said sure, let's do it. The unit itself was only ~$140, but getting it installed was going to be somewhere around $300-500, so I figured I try my hand at it. It's a complicated beast. I spent a long time planning and wrapping my head around what needed to be done. Our setup isn't like the ideal setup. Our return duct work is not exposed anywhere inside the house, it is only under the house and comes up underneath the furnace. The bypass duct, the unit itself, and the humidifier control (with its sensor) need to attach to the return duct work. This made things tricky, but I feel like I got it worked out all right. I got all the hardware in place (including the new copper line from the water heater) yesterday, but I have yet to hook up the electric lines. That I feel like I've figured out in my head, but still feels like a gamble to me since I don't have good electrical experience - crossing my fingers!

Camden helping lead music (sign language - Love One Another)
Alene has been teaching the primary kids Love One Another. Camden, today, wanted to come up front with Alene to help show the kids the sign language that goes along with the song - he did a great job!

My little Sweeties

So just a quick little note about how sweet our boys are.

Last night we were discussing what we would do for our plans for Camden's birthday. He had told us he wanted a Pirate Ship birthday cake which I am happy to make him. He reminded us of this, then said he wanted a cake with the whole family on it, including Tony and the baby. Then he changed his mind back to the Pirate Ship. But then, he stated with all the love in his eyes, "Mommy, I just want a normal cake. I don't want you to have to work too hard with the baby." He is such a sweet boy!!!

Xan is a sweet heart too. Each day he continues to make me special creations out of duplos, trios, paper, whatever, and wants me to have them.

I am a spoiled mommy!

Whose bump is the biggest?! 1 month to go!