Happy Birthday Caiden!

Our big six year old had 3 requests this year:
1) Dinner at Del Taco
2) Bowling
3) Do the above with family and his "Best Bud Brent"

Since his special day was on a Sunday this year we went Saturday night and had lots of fun!





On Sunday, he wanted to go to his Grandpa and Grandma's house and eat his favorite meal which is steak, green beans, and salad, and open presents.





Happy Birthday buddy! It's hard to believe it's already been 6 years since you joined our family, and we are so glad you did! Here is our 6 favorite things about you:

* You always do what you are supposed to and set such a good example for everyone around you!
* You are so thoughtful! You come home from school with tons of letters/pictures that say "I love you mom!" every single day!
You also very rarely pick something out of the treat box for yourself, it's usually a piece of candy or toy for your sisters, or
a notebook or pencil for your Dad and I.
* You give me tons of hugs and kisses, all the time, and always tell me how pretty I am or how cute I look!
* We love your personality! You are outgoing and love to talk to people. One of our favorite stories is when you were about 3
1/2 we went for a walk at the duck pond and there was a man doing some work on the grass and as you rode your bike next
to him you said, "Hey, nice day today, huh?" The guy just looked at you like you were crazy. Then you said, "Huh, see ya
later."
* You are a great big brother and love your sisters so much!
* You are always honest!
W E L O V E Y O U!!!!!

Cousins

My Aunt, Uncle, Cousin Lani, and her daughters came up this weekend to play in the snow. The kids had so much fun playing together. They had a slumber party and stayed up way too late and woke up way too early, but it's been a long time since they have hung out so it was worth it.



Since they came the day before Caiden's Birthday they brought him (and the girls) presents! They were so excited!


Ed, Deanna, Lani, Myia, and Sage, thanks for coming and for the cute gifts! We had fun spending time with you!

"Star of the Week"

For Caiden's Kindergarten class each kid gets to be "Star of the Week" when it's their birthday. His teacher has a cute board that she puts all their pictures on, they get to be the special helper, and they set aside family time for the whole family to come in and talk to the class. We came in and taught them how to make "Sock Bunnies" and brought them popsicles. Both were a huge hit with all the kids.



It was a tiny bit hectic trying to teach 28 5-6 year olds how to make these so I didn't get pictures at the school, but we made these for FHE a few days before we went in the classroom to try them out and this is how they turned out. Not bad for 5 and 2 years old huh?!?

Annual Boys Night Out

Caiden, Rich, Derek, and my Dad went to the Phoenix Suns game and saw them WHOOP the Jazz! Caiden says the highlight of the game was when they dropped sub sandwiches from Subway down in little parachutes to the crowd, the halftime show of 2 men and a woman using a Russian board doing gymnastics on it, and of course the Suns Gorilla when he slam dunks the ball and does tricks.

WOW, we thought this was long gone...

but it has been located!! Bad for them but great for us!! When we were first married we hung out with a group of other couples and had a blast together. Our ward was putting on a talent show so for some reason they ended up doing this dance for it.

Now without further adieu, OUTTA SYNC- Featuring: RyGuy-Ryan, Richie-Rich, CoDog-Cody, and Statman-Lance...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0MhWVL1Pbc

The wardrobe was provided by FINALS, and yes they are all wearing black leather pants. The wives were the groupies holding the signs on the right side cheering.

Spring Break

For Spring Break we went to not so Sunny Saint George, Utah. We were so excited to get away from the snow and cold weather that we couldn't wait to get there. As we were about an hour away we got into a horrible snow storm. I guess it just decided to follow us there! UGH! Thankfully it was only cold the first 2 days and then warmed up and was nice the rest of the time. When we first arrived we checked out the house we were staying in and then went to dinner at The Pizza Factory, one of our favorites!



Sunday we went to church and then came back and BBQ'd steaks, with salad and baked potatoes. Afterwards we planned on going to the sand dunes to let the kids run around but it was soo windy and cold that we drove up to the Tuacahan Amphitheater. We had always wanted to go there but never did. It was actually really cool.







Afterwards, we went back to the house and Rich made us some amazing scones. The pictures don't due them justice, they were goood!!




The rest of the trip was spent exactly how a vacation should be: shopping, watching movies, shopping, playing pool, shopping, and laying out by the pool!











Thanks again Mom and Dad for another fun trip! We love you!!

Funnies

I love the 2-3 year old stage. Kids always say the funnest things at this age and these are some that I want to remember. (Just a warning -- these are probably not that funny to anyone else but our family)

I was asking the girls what their full names were and this is what they said:

Kelsi: "Kelsi Myself Cardiff" - It's Kelsi Michelle.
Kortlin: "Kortlin Mom Cardiff" and when I told her that was wrong she said "Kortlin Richard Cardiff" - It's Kortlin Linsey.

They LOVE apples but refuse to eat them with the peel on, so when I cut the slices they ask me to "Take the tags off".

They call their fluoride pills "pillows."

Kelsi has some cupcake pj's she got for Christmas and she calls them her "jammie cakes" or "jammie pupcakes" and hates getting dressed every morning because she has to take them off.


I'm not sure how to spell this one but every time they say something with numbers they add "v's" into it like, "I want two-va-vem, or four-va-vem."

They look forward to their big brother getting home from school all day and are so excited when he is home to play with them!



Caiden is ALWAYS making sure his junk is still there (if you know what I mean, it's his worry stone) so Rich and I are always telling him "Caiden, stop playing with yourself!" Then finally one day we had this convo:

Us: "Why do you always do that?"
Him: "Cuz my 'self' itches."
Us: "Your what?"
Him: "My 'self'."
It took us a little bit to figure out what he was talking about and then it came to us.

Snowboarding

Caiden is very determined. When he gets something in his mind that he wants to do he won't give up. For the last month or so he decided he wanted to snowboard and wasn't going to let it go. We decided we could use it to our advantage and told him if he didn't cry at school he could go. He didn't cry for 2 1/2 whole weeks and the opportunity came up so we let him go. He LOVED it! Caiden, Rich, Derek, Chad, and Cayden, went. It was pretty cold and snowing really hard the whole time but they all had a good time anyways.

The Caiden's