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Thanks to our wonderful, wonderful photographer, Cherie Gailey.  

Life During Mom's Trip

This is a prime example of why I hate being away from Aiden.  He got into Breanna's mascara and I missed it.  He was clean and clear by the time I got home. 

Man, I missed my Monkey. 

Business Trip

Today I went on my first overnighter business trip since I gave birth to Aiden.  I have been able to sneak out of every other conference, but, alas, I had to go this time.  

I can't stand being away from Monkey.  It is miserable.  But I think it is really good for both of us... probably more for me than for Aiden.  I have this desire to be with Monkey every single minute of every single day.  So, here we are.

The nice thing about this trip is that the hotel is KILLER!  It is beautiful (see below...) staying at the Embassy Suites.  I am in a business suite with a living room, kitchen, and all the comfy bed one person could hope for.  

But... I am bored.  And lonely.  Mostly bored.  But pretty lonely.

Let's Give this a try...

So, there are many reasons why I am going to give this a try.  Money, time with my son, schedule, and many many more reasons.  But I am going to do Aiden's preschool in-home this year.

And, therefore, we transformed the third bedroom in our house to a multi-purpose room.  My trusty ol' treadmill is there, a spare bed is there, but it will also be our new little fun preschool room.  We will add shelves and other fun things, but I can't wait to get started.

I found a wonderful company that offers programs that are very specific to the child's needs.  For example, for most 3-year old kids, they work on capital letters.  I was able to specify that Aiden already knows upper and lower case letters, numbers to twenty... etc.  The package came this week and ... it is awesome!!!

Day 1 went great.  It was a trial run day to see time, ability and tasks that we will need.  Technically, our schedule will start May 1st, but I will be on a business trip that day, so we did that day's schedule today.

What did we do today?
We made a "Spring, Spring Tamborine", did a flower toss to celebrate spring, talked about baby animals and sorted toys by color.

We had fun and spent a lot of time together making it so fun!!!  Everyone cross your fingers...

Dinos

We go to the Dinosaur Park a lot.  Aiden loves it and it is close.  He is getting easier to take places like this because he is independent and loves to just get out and run. 

Well, he ran and ran, and biffed it.  He has skinned knees!  I was so proud.  He is usually so cautious about everything.  He actually was pretty brave about it.  He was the lucky recipient of bilateral Mickey Mouse Bandaids. 

Wedding of the Century.

My beautiful and lovely niece, Shiree, married her sweetheart, who is also so wonderful.  Kelly, welcome to our huge family.  We already adore you and the way to take care of our beautiful Shiree. 

I didn't get a lot of pictures of the happy couple because the pictures that they had taken by the professionals were... well, amazing.  Check this blog for more information and pictures will soon be up... I will be stealing them from my sister's blog as I can...

The day before the wedding, we spent the day decorating and getting ready.  We dipped about a billion strawberries with my sisters.  Man, we are fun family.

Shiree asked if I could have Aiden in a tuxedo for the day... Well, YEAH!!  The day was beautiful.  I dropped off Aiden to his favorite cousins and then headed for the temple.  I was able to be part of one of the most wonderful ceremonies I have ever been through.  Then, we waited for the bride and groom!!

It was the most springy spring day you have ever known.  It was windy for a moment, then sunny, then sprinkled gently.  Perfect day.

Finally at long last, the happy couple came out and we pictured away.

My favorite picture of the day.  Total candid shot, but a sweet toddler and the happy couple behind.

That night, we helped with the reception, which was so magical, and sent the new Volkert couple on their way.

Congratulations, Kelly and Shiree.

Yard Work

I hate yardwork.  With a passion.

But when you have this happy mug working along side, it makes it bearable...