Cross Country Road Trip - First Few Days

Jake has to go to several places across the country for his work, so we decided to make it a "work-cation" and have Tean and me come along with him. So last Friday evening, we went headed out on our trip. That night we made it to Laramie and stayed with Jake's aunt.

The next morning we got up fairly early to drive to Kansas City to stay with Jake's sister, Julie. There was so much snow driving across Nebraska and down into Missouri.

One side of the road had about 4 inches or so of ice and snow on it for a lot of the way, so it took us longer than it should have. But we made it safely to his sister's house in Kansas City, and there wasn't snow there.

On Sunday evening, we decided to go to Liberty Jail.

It had been a while since we had both been there. There was a strong spirit there and I was glad that we got to go. On our way back from Liberty Jail, we saw an awesome house.

It looked like a castle!

We also went to the Visitors Center and looked at the outside of the RLDS Temple. The reason why Jake has a girly scarf on is that his niece forgot a coat, so Jake shared his coat and his sister threw her scarf on Jake. So no, Jake usually doesn't have on girly scarfs.

On Monday we drove to Cincinnati, because Jake had some stuff to do with a dealer there. One a drive we saw this huge cross

and

we drove by where the super bowl was the day before. Too bad we didn't go through a day earlier! Or maybe it is good that we waited until Monday so we didn't have to fight the traffic. Today Tean and I just hung out in the hotel, went swimming, had a nap, got free dinner at the hotel and went swimming again with Jake. Unfortunately we have all gotten sick. Tean and me with a cough, Jake with a sore throat and a little fever. The next couple of days takes us to Lancaster, PA, Philadelphia, PA, and New York. After that who knows!

Tean's 3rd Birthday

Tean's birthday was on Thursday, but since Jake had work meetings all day, we decided to celebrate it today. So we didn't tell Tean it was his birthday yesterday, but acted like it was today. The past couple of weeks he has been talking about getting cake and ice cream on his birthday and every day he would say that it was his birthday and he got cake. So we decided that we shouldn't tell him that it was his birthday until we could have cake. He was so excited to get his race car cake. He chose to have tortillas for his special birthday dinner. He was so excited to open his presents. We told him that he had to wait until grandma and grandpa and Mezi got to our house before he could open his presents. Before Mezi and Grandma were even up the stairs, he started tearing open his presents. I made him super hero capes and he got some other presents that he really liked. He loved his new Nike knock off shoes that light up. He was happy that he finally got to eat his race car cake and ice cream. All in all, he loved his birthday.

We are so happy that we have Tean as part of our family. He is so funny and talks so much. He loves drawing, playing with cars and trains, playing with his ABC's, and storytime. He knows his ABC's and can recognize his letters and can tell you what a lot of words start with. He loves to sing, read stories about Jesus, and loves to play outside. We love him so much and he is such a joy to have in our family.

Race Car Cake

A few weeks ago, we asked Tean what cake he wanted for his birthday. He said, "I don't know." So Jake asked him if he wanted a race car cake, and he was excited and said that he did, so ever since then that is what he wanted every time we asked him. So, I had to make a race car cake. While visiting my mom, she showed me a really neat cupcake pan to use for the cars. I was nervous and not looking forward to decorating the car cupcakes for a couple of weeks, and finally his birthday came, so I had to figure it out. All the cupcakes didn't come out of the pan, but I was able to salvage 6 of them and it was perfect for the cake. I spent about 4 hours decorating the cake and it turned out awesome! I love it! I dyed pasta wheels for the wheels black, used red hots for the brake lights, chocolate candy coated sunflower seeds for the head lights, juicy fruit gum for the windows, licorice for the windshield wipers, gum for the license plates, teddy grahams for the drivers, and ruedas for spare tires. I also found candy rocks to decorate around the track. And since it took me forever to decorate, the cake deserves its own post.

Game Blanket

When we were little, we both remember being pulled around on a blanket. We decided to show Tean how much fun it was. He loved it! Now he calls the blanket that we pull him around his game blanket.

Kitchen and Living Room Curtains

I had made curtains for one of my kitchen windows a little bit ago and I've been wanting to make curtains for my other kitchen window and my living room window, so I finally got brave and did it. I've also been looking for reasons to use my new sewing machine that I got for Christmas. I love it!

I used the same burlap and ribbon that I used on my other curtains.

I think they turned out really well. I love them!

Christmas 2011

Christmas morning, Tean still wasn't up at 9:00, so we had to go wake him up. After getting over being grumpy, he was excited to see what Santa brought him. A few days before we had taken him to the dollar store with us to get stocking stuffers for him, not thinking that he would remember what he got. Well, he was so sad when he got home that he couldn't play with his toys. We told him that he had to wait for Santa to bring them to him and every day he kept asking if Santa would bring them. So when we started going up the stairs to see what Santa brought, Tean listed all of the things that we had bought for him at the dollar store and said he wanted to play with them.

It was so much fun this year because Tean understood it a lot more and was so excited about it.

He loved his presents. It was so fun seeing the excitement in his face. After going to church, we went up and spent the rest of Christmas day with Jake's parents and drove around and saw the Christmas lights around town.

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we went up to Jake's brother's Josh's house like we have for the past few years. On our way up there we stopped at the Blackfoot Community pool and went swimming. Jake and I went of the really high dive that was probably about 15 or 20 feet! Tean loved being in the pool as long as he was hanging onto someone. We had a great dinner with Josh's family. We ate things that Mary and Joseph would have eaten when Jesus was born. It was really good!! Then we did the traditional acting out of the Nativity scene. Jake was the donkey, so Tean wanted to be the donkey too. We sang Christmas songs and opened one present, of course, Tean got pajamas and then we went home, to go to bed and wait for Santa. Tean fell asleep on the way home, from having so much fun with his cousins. It was great to celebrate Christmas with family and to remember the true meaning of Christmas.n (Pictures to come when I get them off Jake's phone. I took some on my phone, but they turned out horrible.)

Playing in the Snow

This past week it snowed quite a bit so Tean was excited to build a snowman.

We got all bundled up, but when we got out there we realized that the snow wasn't very good snowman building snow, but

Tean still had a fun time playing with his truck in the snow.

Tean even ran after me with snowballs.

He liked learning how to make snow angels too. Tean's excited for it to snow again so he can go out and play in the snow some more!

Making Gingerbread (graham cracker) Houses

This year we made gingerbread (graham cracker) houses again. Tean and N (our foster daughter) loved it. I think they liked eating the candy the best! Tean loved helping daddy put up the graham cracker parts and put candy on. Now after every meal he thinks he needs to take a piece off! We had a fun time!

Playing in the Leaves With Grandpa

Tean had a fun time helping Grandpa rake up the leaves while we were visiting in November.

As you can see, Tean was a lot of help too!