Behind

Sorry I am way behind on Blogging. It always seems like I finally get caught up and then all of the sudden I am behind again.

On Thursday the 22nd my dear sweet Grandpa Riding passed away. He would have been 82 next month and him and my Grandma just celebrated their 57th wedding anniversiary in December. They have 8 kids, 50 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren. Back in November he fell and broke his leg and his health has pretty much been downhill since then. He was in the hospital and then in a care center and then after he begged and begged for them to let him go home, my family finally brought him home in hopes that being home would help him to get better because he hated being in the care center. It was hard to watch him get worse and worse knowing that there was nothing we could do to make him get better and I was pretty much just waiting for the call from my dad. I knew it was coming but when it happened I still couldn't believe it. It is times like these that I am so thankful for the gospel and for forever families. I am filled with mixed emotions but I know he's in a better place and I know that he is with his parents who both passed away when he was a kid. He lived a good life, was loved by many and has left behind a great legacy. I will miss him a lot and I can't wait until the day when I can see him again!

He was in the navy so they had a little ceremony

giving the flag to my grandma


my immediate family behind the casket

our family

The last picture we took with Grandpa Riding

Last weekend we went up to Heber with the youth in our ward to play in the snow. It was a lot of fun we went to a place that has a lot of slopes to sled down and some of us ended up playing a game of whiffle ball.

Nena and daddy
Nena was wearing a snow suit but she didn't like it at all because it was too small and she couldn't move so we put some jeans on her but she kept sitting in the snow so her bottom was soaking wet and very cold so we had to change her clothes.

Nena loved the snow, she kept picking it up and eating it! It was a fun trip!!

Last week Nena climbed out of her crib all by herself and got on top of her changing table that is right next to her crib and opened her bedroom door. We have been talking about getting her a toddler bed but we were planning on doing that in a few months when we move but because she can now climb out of her crib all by herself, we decided that we should probably not wait on the toddler bed and get one now because we don't want her to fall out of her crib. This is her new bed, she loves it!!

She has been sleeping in it for almost a week now and she has done so good! I was so worried that she would never go to sleep and that it would be so much work to get her to go to sleep but it has not been hard at all. She pretty much lets me know when she is ready for bed by taking me into her room and laying down on her bed and pointing to where we keep her pacifier so I give her her pacifier and put her to bed and she goes to sleep. My baby is growing up way too fast it's a good thing we're going to have another one soon!!

IT'S A...........

GIRL!!!

The baby was moving around all over the place but would not really open it's legs at all. The doctor said he couldn't really see any sign that the baby is a boy so it is probably a girl and so he said he would just write down girl ? and that we'd look again next time to make sure. So we are probably going to be having another little girl!! I am so excited to have two girls close in age and whenever I see pictures of Nena as a little baby I get so excited that we are having another little girl so she can wear all of Nena's cute clothes again because Nena definately didn't get to wear any of them long enough!!!

Random Updates

The day after Christmas we went up to Snowflake to visit my grandparents and the rest of my mom's family. It was a lot of fun but it was so cold I could only be outside for a little bit at a time. Once we let Nena go outside the first time, she just wanted to be outside the whole time and whenever I would bring her in the house she would just sit by the backdoor and cry because she wanted to go outside. While we were there though, Nena got to sit on her first live horse.

On New Year's Eve, Clar's brother and his wife came over and they have a little baby boy so we got our swing out so he could sleep in it. Nena loved playing with it so we kept it out for a little while until she started trying to climb in it and then we decided we'd better put it away so she didn't ruin it. While it was out though, she loved to put her dolls in it and swing them. If she walked by and the swing was empty, she would run to her room and grab her dolls and put them in. It was so cute.

We got new carpet about a month ago and when we did, we (or maybe more I) decided to get rid of our huge, ugly bedframe. It was so big and our bedroom is so small and it took up 3/4ths of the room and I have hated it ever since we got it 2 1/2 years ago when we got married. It was free though so it was okay but I just got so sick of it. Anyways, so we just put our boxspring and mattress on the floor until we got something else but we might just end up leaving it on the floor because Nena loves it, it is so fun for her because she can just get up so easily and now she loves to play on our bed. She will run in and jump on it and lay down and pull the covers up. This picture is so cute, she brought her doll in and was laying down with it.

We went to the temple to look at Christmas lights and Nena was all bundled up so cute! She loved looking around at everything there was to see.

Clar and Nena at the temple lights.

Christmas

We had an early Christmas Eve dinner and program at my parent's house. It was fun, the nativity was pretty funny though because 3 out of the 5 cast members were 2 and under so they were just wandering around.

Eating dinner

The nativity. Nena, her cousin Annie and my sister Melissa were shepards, My cousin Katelyn was an angel and my sister Angela was Mary. I don't think we had a Joseph. Annie didn't really want to be up with the others, I think she's wandering around somewhere.



Baby Jesus was a stuffed bear, Nena loved it!

Nena and Angela

On the real Christmas Eve we were with Clar's family but I didn't take any pictures because Nena was too busy running around the house and didn't want to be part of the nativity. It was a lot of fun though, we got some great presents from our secret pals. Clar got a cool hand drawn picture of Nena, I got a cut little crytal candle holder and Nena got a cute little doll that makes noises when you push her belly button.

Nena's doll.

Our Christmas was great, it is so much more fun when you have a kid old enough to open their own presents and to get excited about them!! With her toys that she got, Nena would open a present just enough to see what is was and then just squeal and touch it until we finally got her to open the rest of it. As soon as it was opened, she would start playing with it and wasn't even interested in opening anything else until we finally had to put it aside and convince her to open another one.

Opening her stocking. She got a little recorder and at first she didn't know what to do but now she has learned that when you blow in it, it makes noise.

Opening her rocking horse. She just opened the head and then sat there laughing and petting its head for a little while before we finally got her to open the whole thing. She loves it and has learned to rock on it. When you squeeze it's ears it sings and makes noise so she will squeeze the ears as hard as she can to make it sing.

This present was fun because it wasn't a toy. It was just a jacket and a shirt and when she opened it, she threw the clothes out and was looking in the wrapping paper for her toy! Sorry Nena, no toy!!
This present was a little rooster flashlight. You squeeze it's tail and the mouth opens up with the light in it and it says cockadoodle doo. Nena loves the noise it makes.

This was a wagon with some legos in it. She just started to push it around the house and she loves doing that. We are still trying to get her to use the handle and pull it and she's slowly getting the hang of it.

Riding on her rocking horse with her doll

Modeling her fairy outfit from her aunt Arlissa

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Well, it finally really feels like Christmas because we finally put up our tree and decorations!! All of December I have known that Christmas is coming up and it has gotten colder and it kind of felt like Christmas but it didn't really because whenever we were home there were no decorations, tree and nothing that reminded me of Christmas. On Saturday we finally got out our few decorations that we have and went to Home Depot to get a Christmas tree and set them all up and now it finally really feels like Christmas!! I am so excited and cannot believe that Christmas is right around the corner!!

Nena "helping" put ornaments on the tree

I turned on some Christmas music and Nena was dancing and dancing to it but in this picture you can't tell she's dancing at all.


Clar putting the star up

Nena admiring the newly decorated tree

The finished product!! It looks really good in real life. In the picture you can't even see the lights. They are so fun, they are the kind that blinks on and off and does patterns!! I love real Christmas trees because they make the whole house smell so good all the time. The thing I don't like is that they are so messy and there are always needles everywhere. The smell makes the mess all worth it though!!! We weren't sure how Nena was going to be with the tree and at first she kept taking the ornaments off and so we put a little hand vaccuum in front of the tree because she is kind of afraid of vaccuums and so far that has done a pretty good job at keeping her from getting too close to the tree.

News

Well Nena needs to do some more practicing, because she's going to be a big sister!! That's right, we have another one on the way! I am 11 weeks along and am due on June 27th!! This new baby will be born just a couple of weeks before Nena's 2nd birthday! We are so excited to become parents again and Nena is so excited to have a little brother or sister!! We have taught her to say baby and we have also taught her to point to my belly when we ask where the baby is but most of the time when we ask her she just pulls up her shirt and points to her own belly button. It's cute!

The First Ultrasound

Catching Up...

Sorry it has been so long since I have last posted. Things have been crazy and we have been super busy and I have gotten behind on so many things. I will try to do better at posting more often.
First off, for Halloween we went to our ward's trunk or treat. It was fun but Nena just wanted to run around the parking lot. As soon as I put her down, she just took off and it was so hard to keep up with her so we had to borrow a stroller to put her in so we weren't chasing her all over the place.

All ready to go to the party. Nena was Snow White

Nena and Daddy

In the stroller

She got a balloon so we tied it around her wrist so it wouldn't blow away. She loved it and kept playing with it.

Cute cousins

Nena and Annie with another little girl in our ward the same age as them.

Playing

Friday was Clar's birthday and so Nena and I went to visit him at work. One of his brothers also works at the University of Phoenix with Clar and so his wife and kids went with us to eat lunch at a park by their work. We ate and hung out for a little bit, it was fun. Clar was done with work and so we drove to Laveen to look at some houses because we are looking to buy a house (one of the reasons I have been slacking on this blog) and it will most likely be in Laveen because it's close to Clar's work. On our way home we stopped by Miamigo's to eat dinner and then stopped by Clar's parents' house to visit and pick up a gift and by the time we got home, we had about a half an hour to hang out and relax before it was time to go play in our softball game at 8:30 that night. It was a fun game and we won!! My sisters brought some cupcakes for Clar's birthday so afterwards we sang happy birthday and ate them. We also took a team picture with the teammates who were there plus our kids and babysitters.

Our softball team "Riding Home Inspections"

The team is 99% family so it's a lot of fun. It is Clar and I, Kami and Michael, my parents, my sister and brother, my cousin and her husband, my aunt and uncle and another couple.

Nena playing ring around the rosies with her cousin Renae

The muscle men

Nena with her cousin William

For Clar's birthday I got him tickets to the Cardinal's football game because it was a Monday night game so on Monday night we dropped Nena off at my parent's house for my sister's birthday celebration and drove out to the game. It was a great game they were so close to loosing but ended up winning 29 to 24!!

At the game

We got home so late that on the way home Nena just crashed