Highlights of 2010

I know it has been almost a full year since I posted anything, So I am just going to sum our year up in highlights. Hopefully I will do better in 2011.

Our year included.....

* buying our first home together.

we have a picture of our house before we had work done 2 posts ago.

* In May Nick Graduated with his Bachelors Degree and now has a full time Archaeologist position.(He will be starting a masters degree online sometime soon.) We also had a small family vacation in Salt lake a few days before graduation this included going to Hoogle Zoo, the childrens meuseum at the gateway, seeing how to train your dragon in 3d, and riding TRAX. We wanted to go to temple square, but Nick had meetings for work and was too tired at night to go.

1 month before birth. This is the only Belly pic I could find.

With the Graduate

at the zoo

* In June Bryton Leroy Pay was born. We were able to spend lots of time with family during this time.

this picture was actually taken on the 4th of July

* In August we were able to get together with all of my family except Alex of course(alex is serving in the Dallas TX Spanish speaking mission). My brother Trevor recieved his Eagle and we spent time with my sister April and her family before they left for a year in China. And Bryton was blessed all in the same week.

Trevor looking sharp as an Eagle Scout


these are my sisters. All of us had a baby within a year of each other. the oldest was born in Nov. the youngest was born in July

My side of the family. We are only missing Alex, Zac and Bobby

Bryton in his blessing outfit

*In September Jayden turned 4. This year has been big for Jayden he started pre-school and loves making lots of friends. He is also very bossy and always wants to get his way.

* In October we had Halloween. Jayden was Woody(he loves toy story), Aaryn was a dragon, and Bryton was a cute cow. We got lots of Candy and Jayden really loved going door to door.

This is the best pic we got

*In November we had Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping. For Thanksgiving we had lunch with Nicks family and dinner with my family. We love spending time with family and are grateful that we only live 2 hrs away. I went Black Friday shopping with my mom and Bryton. I was able to get all of the deals I wanted and Bryton was a real trooper.

Nicks parents with all of their grandkids

December was a very busy month.

* First we had Aaryns 3rd birthday which was the first time he has ever showed interest in unwrapping presents. Then we recieved a diagnoses of Autism for Aaryn. He has developed slowly when it comes to speech and social skills. We have seen some improvement since he started pre school in January. He still doesn't talk at all, but hopefully he will be talking this time next year.

* Then of course we had a wonderful Christmas! Nick and I really wanted to spend Christmas at home for the first time. We thought it was a great year to start new traditions. We still wanted to be around family though so we invited Nicks family to come and have Christmas with us. We had so much fun and loved hosting family in our home.

Aaryns santa present

* We also had tons of work done on our home including a roof, windows, insulation, electric heaters, siding, and lots more. We hope to repaint the inside of the house this coming summer.

* And last but not least Nick and I celebrated our 6 yr anniversary on the 31st. We were able to go to Ely to be with family and friends for our anniversary and we had a great time! I can't believe how fast these past 6 years have flown by. I am so grateful to have an amazing husband who has worked so hard so that I can be home with our children. I love him more everyday and I'm glad that we get to raise our family together.

2010 was really a great year for us. We finally settled down and plan on raising our children in Caliente. We love this small town and feel it is the perfect fit for our family. We hope 2011 will be just as good to us as 2010 was.

Valentines Day

This year Nick and I had a really great Valentines Day. We ended up giving each other presents on Friday during Nick's lunch break. I gave my wonderful husband a collection of The BEATLES in mono. Every time we would go to Costco he would ask for them, but I refused to pay over $200 for something we didn't need. So with Valentines Day I got on Ebay and bought them for about half of the price. He was so excited and already has all 12 cds on his ipod. Nick ended up buying me a great set of earrings, a matching necklace and some Scentsy scents. I wore my new jewelry for the first time to church on Sunday. I actually got a comment from a friend about it telling my husband that he should give her husband some tips. It made me feel really good since my husband is hardly ever the romantic type and I normally pick out my own presents. We didn't really do much, but we enjoyed our time together.

A new house and more!

On the 30th of January we moved into our new house. We were very lucky to get to move in because our closing date was pushed back a week. We have felt very blessed and anxious for everything to work out these past few months. We still have boxes to unpack and lots of painting in our future! We are LOVING our first home though and I LOVE our new kitchen!

Come visit us!

We have also added a new puppy to our family. We adopted a male puppy and named him Toby. I am finding that I am not really a pet person. I don't like them jumping on me, licking etc. However, Nick and Jayden are both dog people and love our 2 dogs. It is kind of funny how our family personalities are. It seems Aaryn and I are very much a like. And Jayden is so much like Nick it is scary. I really wonder how our next child is going to be like. Which brings me to my next topic.

On Tuesday the 2nd of Feb. we had our ultrasound at 18 weeks and found out that we are having yet another BOY! I have really been having a hard time being excited for this little guy. I just had my hopes set so high for a girl. I was so ready for pink, and bows, and of course cute little church dresses. I have really been trying to come up with a name and nursery ideas, but I just haven't found anything I am happy with. I was so excited to decorate my first real nursery in our first home together and now I am finding myself stalled. I am also very nervous to have 3 little boys running around.

On Monday we officially started potty training Aaryn. Hopefully he will be able to get the hang of it quickly like Jayden did. So far he knows how to make himself go he just needs to figure out that it isn't ok to go in his underwear. We will see how the week goes, but I foresee lots of laundry in my future.

A much needed update....

I have put off posting anything and now it seems to late so I will just update the important things. We spent Thanksgiving and Christmas in Ely. It has been nice to spend both holidays with mine and Nicks parents. We are glad that we live only 2 hours away so we get to see them often. We have had a crazy few weeks it seems. On the 18th of Dec. we left Caliente for Ely and left our children with Nicks parents. We then drove with my parents to Rexburg, ID to see my sister Chelsea and her husband Zac graduate from BYU ID together. It is amazing that they were able to finish together and on time after their first son Gavin was born! We are so proud of them and hope that Zac will be able to find an accounting job soon. We were also able to be there when they blessed Gavin the following Sunday. After arriving in Ely that night I decided to stay in Ely for the week and spend time with my family. Nick went home for work and drove up to Ely again Mon. night. I was hoping Nick would take time off, but he ended up just working from the Ely office. We had a great Christmas and the boys got some great gifts. We ended up with a wagon, an Elmo's restaurant, a Rocket from Disney's little Einsteins, and tons of books, clothes, and other toys! Jayden loved Christmas and Aaryn only loved the wagon.
For the past few months we have been trying to buy our first home. It has been a long process, since we didn't have a down payment we applied for assistance from a program called RNDC. We are grateful that we qualified to get a 20% down payment + closing costs from them. We were also able to change our loan from an FHA loan to a conventional loan which will lower our monthly payment. Our lender told us that we could be closed on the house as early as Jan 15th or as late as Jan. 29th.
We are also expecting our 3rd child sometime in late June. My due date is July 6th, but since we will be having another c-section we will be having the baby early. My pregnancy has been more difficult for me. I used to feel nauseated all of the time and now it is just part of the time. I am seeing a doctor in Vegas and it is nice to get out of town once a month. We feel so blessed for everything to be working out for us this year. We are grateful to have a good job with insurance and to have wonderful family's that love and support us. We are looking forward to a new year and a lot of welcome changes. We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a very merry new year!

Jaydens 3rd Birthday!

Sorry this posting is so late. Jayden had a wonderful birthday party in September! He loved all of the attention. He received a lot of fun toys, games, and even a bike. He has not quite figured out the bike and it is starting to get cold so we will be holding off on the bike lessons until spring. I made my first kids birthday cake and it at least looked like a train. Thanks to everyone who came to help celebrate with us!

Jayden and his cake!

Train cake

Jayden opening presents... He said "oh Cool!" after every gift!

Jayden getting more then his fair share of candy from the Pinata

Chinese and a Wedding too!

When my sister April came home from her mission to Hong Kong. Jayden was only a few months old. She had bought him a present of Chinese clothing. She said she bought the smallest size she could find. On the label it has a 2 so we stored it away for awhile. Recently we wanted to see if it fit yet. So here are the pictures. Yay to finally being able to use it!

On Saturday we had a lot going on. First of all it was Jayden's 3rd birthday, but we didn't get to do anything for it since we were so busy. I will be doing a birthday post after we have his party this weekend. The main thing we had going on was that one of our friends here in Caliente got married. She had asked me month's ago if I would do her flowers for her. I agreed and didn't really worry about it that much. I started to get a little stressed with the work load a few days before the wedding. On Friday I started making flowers and I didn't get done with everything until right before the wedding on Saturday. The last few hours were a little hectic. Despite that I think the flowers turned out great.

corsage

Bridesmaids bouquet


Maid of honor bouquet


Brides bouquet

Apple Picking

On Friday the 11th of September our ward had a mom and tots activity and we went to the Bradshaw apple orchard. The kids had a lot of fun! It was hard to keep my kids from eating all of the apples while we were picking them! Jayden LOVES apples since we have so many now he eats about 3 a day. Sometimes I will just find him eating an apple since he thinks he is big enough to take it out of the fridge himself. Alisha and Ethan (Ethan is the little boy I babysit) also came with us to pick apples. We love doing fun things with all of our friends!

After that we went home and had lunch. Alisha had to go back to work so Ethan played with us the rest of the day. I decided to be brave and ventured to the pool with all 3 kids. Jayden and Aaryn had life jackets and Ethan was in a baby float. It was Aaryn's first time in a life jacket and he seemed to really enjoy it. The boys all had so much fun! When we came home all 3 children were sleeping within half an hour. I guess I wore them out!