Happy Birthday to the Baby!

Kessler had a birthday and it is so CRAZY that he is 4, a couple times thought it was his second birthday. Where has the time gone?

He was so excited the morning of his birthday, it was Saturday and so everyone was home and they were all so excited to see what his presents were.

 Excited brothers

 We love transformers at this house!

 We took him Friday to choose a cake for his birthday, that had all the cool boy cakes available, Spiderman, Transformers, Iron man, Mickey Mouse, Sponge bob, you name it they had it, and he chose....Angry Birds.They did such a cute job, I didn't want a big sheet cake so we changed it up and did a little 7" cake and put all the fun things on it for him.

 A few pictures before church.

 Lots of fun things going on in the next little bit, General Conference, Easter, CANDY, Spring Break (hopefully somewhere warm we will go for a few days anyway) Cooper's Baptism, My birthday!!

Ben has been in crazy yard, garden mode again. I can't complain I do love the fact he likes to work outside and we can "try" and keep up on our yard. LOTS to do still but we made a major dent today and are getting ready to start some of our seeds for the garden, a few changes this year......Ben made some planter boxes and I dedicated one that is called the Salsa box, tomatoes, jalapenos,  cilantro, onions, peppers....we will see how it turns out.

He also splurged with some tax money this year and bought a roto-tiller. It is very nice to not have to rent one or borrow one. We bought the display model, our usual M.O. and got it for a great price let's hope it lasts us for a while.

Blah to blogging

I have had ZERO desire to blog and especially on these BEAUTIFUL days we have had. Life is good around these parts. I went on an amazing girls weekend to Idaho Falls, it was better than I thought it would be.
There are way too many highlights to mention, although I am considering buying the DVD that comes from the weekend so I won't ever forget the wonderful feeling I had while I was there.
The theme was "See the Good" and there were many spin offs of that and I really enjoyed it.

We have had family in town all the way from Canada, and have taken ZERO pictures what is wrong with me.
I am going to have to go all crazy and take a lot of pics in one day to make up for all that I have lacked.

Kessler's birthday is Saturday, the baby is 4....so crazy, as much as I hate the saying time flies, it sure does.

Maybe I will have more to say tomorrow.....probably not.....

ps, the Relief Society dinner we were in charge of was awesome!! yeah for surrounding yourself with amazing people.

March update

I unfortunately don't have a lot of photos to download. I have had my camera up on the shelf and haven't used it much even though we have had some adventures.
First was Coopers Birthday his REAL birthday. We treated him to a hockey game, at one point he said "I didn't ask for this, I just wanted a Darth Maul mask and light saber." Had I only known?
We took a quick trip on Delta down to PHX and stayed at a Marriott, my first choice in hotels always, but they are usually to pricey and so we end up somewhere else. But the price was right.
We ended up buying me and Alivia nose bleed seats for the Hockey game, Alivia did not want to go in true girl fashion she said "Mom why can't we go get our nails done or something?" That's my girl!!
Ben and Cooper had AMAZING seats, 4th row on the Canucks attack side, you should have seen Ben's face and how much it lite up when he saw where they were sitting. I didn't bring my camera, but we got lots of cell phone pics and video that I will upload later.

We came home Wednesday had cake for Coopers birthday.  Thursday morning, Ben and I dropped the kids off at school and dropped Kessler off at Grandma's we flew to LA to see the Conan O'Brien show. It was more waiting than anything! we showed up at 1:30 like they said, checked in and then they said be back at 3:00.....great you can't really go anywhere in LA in an hour and half and do anything fun, so we just hung out. 3:00 rolled around and they lined us up and had us walk over to the Warner Brothers Studios, that was probably the coolest part is seeing the studios. Then they had a wait in a roller coaster line gated area for another 45 minutes and then walked us over to his studio and waited another 30 minutes for the show to start. All said and done it was a fun experience but will most likely never do it again. Sorry Coco! after the show we jetted for the LAX airport and flew to Las Vegas for the night, the hotels were cheaper 27$ to be exact and the flights were easier.

 I have decided I don't like flying stand by with Ben, I could sit in the airport for hours. I don't want to but I could, he gets stressed and grouchy! The one thing about me, is I cannot be late I get so stressed out and grouchy! we were trying to get to the airport to catch a 7pm flight to Vegas, if we missed it we would have to wait for the 9pm. We were going through security with 15 minutes until the flight left. LUCKILY we cruised through security and our gate was the first one. They barely let us on. SO CRAZY!!

 Poor Cooper, he doesn't totally understand his birthday, I even wrote it down for him with a diagram trying to explain it. Well we gave him a hat that said today is my real Birthday. So everyone kept wishing him a happy birthday and asking him if he was two. The final straw the Pilot on the airplane saw him walk in and saw it was his birthday and invited him into the flight deck. Cooper came back and sat down in a huff, I said what's wrong. He said I AM NOT TWO!! I cracked up. Poor kid!

 We got a piano, the piano I learned on as a kid. My sister has been the keeper of this and hasn't necessarily taken very good care of it. So we begged to have it moved to our house. I have been brushing up on some of the hymns and my mom recently found most of the books I learned on even the dates I passed the songs off. Like February 6, 1986!! Crazy!

 A after church ritual Spaghetti and Kessler always gets stripped down, you can see why.

Things coming up for the Whidden's
We have to speak in church........crap!
Kindergarten Donut Date
Andrea's girls weekend in Idaho Falls, with the Time out for women! SO excited!
Kesslers Birthday! 4 years old!!
My new calling Relief Society Enrichment leader, helping put on the Relief Society birthday party!

6/52

For some reason I feel like I need to change some things up, there is a few things in my life I would like to switch up. I love to rearrange furniture in my house and I feel like I need some things rearranged in my head and heart.

For one I have been trying to get pregnant for some time, I don't talk about it much because if I do I might start to cry, not because I am sad, but more because I am confused. I did make a semi-permanent decision that we are not going to go down that road anymore. I have been trying to rearrange my thoughts in my head and heart when see beautiful babies and look at my little family and wished there were more little ones around.

We all know that I am not the skinniest girl in town, but again something I don't talk about much. But it is something that is always on my mind and something I always want to change. I finally got some things figured out with my pcos and thyroid and feel good about the decisions that were made from me and my doctor.

Ben and I were talking the other day and he went to lunch with his boss, and his boss is trying to shed a few pounds. He was using an app on his Ipad to keep track of his calories. Ben said I am so glad I don't have to do it because I know I wouldn't. It made me giggle, because I know he wouldn't either. I think it might have been a breakthrough for Ben to see the other side of that struggle for people who worry about stuff like that.

I know I need to rearrange some thoughts with this struggle in my life and just do a little better everyday.

The last one I want to confess is my anxiety over things. I sometimes am so afraid of the bad things that can happen I almost won't do them. Well some I won't. I refuse to go to the canyon in the spring time and be anywhere near a river. I get so crazy in thought of what could happen. Also I don't really have any desire to go to the National parks where there might be cliffs or ledges. This recently happen with Kessler and his tonsillectomy. I actually postponed it once and then he got sick the second time and they wouldn't do it, and that just fed into my craziness. The third surgery scheduled we went through with it. What I learned though is that I need to have more faith in my Heavenly Father and faith in other people.

Everything turned out great for this little guy. He had a hard time keeping up his oxygen levels right after but they said they expected that especially with the size of his tonsils that would be coming out. The other funny thing is, his voice is so much higher. The pitch is quite different. Ben and I crack up laughing every time he says something to the both of us.

We had a Happy V-Day around here, the kids got a few small things from the ones who love them most. 

This above picture of Ben and I cracks me up, I think we were watching the Republican debate, hence our exited looks. I wanted to post this for Valentines. True Love right there! :)

5/52

 Ben on the many of his "status-ing" calls in preparation for his interview in California. This is the week.

 My slight obsession with the GOP race.

 What Kessler does when I am not paying attention to him.

 Alivia's school had a wax museum this is the dress rehearsal (the night before).

 That wig was so un-manageable.

 Here she is at the school, she was taking her part very serious. She had to come up with a few poses. She could not speak and had to stand still for quite a while.

 This is her cousin, she was Florence Nightingale.

 Cooper had his 100th day of school celebration and wanted to dress up  like an old man. We weren't very creative only his dad's shirt and tie, with some fake glasses.

Below this kid was AWESOME, i don't know if you can tell but his parents shaved his head and put some powder in his hair. I loved his glasses and the whole bit. He was so great.

Such nice weather here. Spring like!

4/52

 The sickness around here is pretty much gone except for me, stupid head cold.
Kessler following in his brothers example, Pirate Kess for the day.

The best part was his snow boots, that you can't see.

We are going to try and surprise Cooper for his birthday this year. Most of you know he was born on February 29 and so he gets a real birthday this year. We have a few things in mind, it will only be a day trip so we are thinking San Diego for the day maybe a trip to their zoo, or we also thought maybe about Disneyland just for him? Ben liked the idea of flying with him to Phoenix on the 28th go to the Coyotes and Canucks game. What a sacrifice on Ben's part:) I need some other ideas?  ( I think me and Cooper should go to Disneyland for the day!)