Aaron's Birthday Extravaganza!

Today we celebrated Aaron's 25th birthday! Above is the homemade birthday sign I made for him. I wish you could see it better, because it's pretty sweet. My favorite letter is "H" with the hula-dancing hula-hoopers. The first half of the day was pretty much just like every other Sunday. We went to church and wrestled Lincoln for three long hours. Then we came home, ate lunch, put Lincoln down for a nap, and then we got a small nap, and Aaron got a slightly longer nap (because I got up with Linc). Then our hometeachers came over.

After that we decided to go outside and have a nice walk together as a family. Lincoln was feeling a little cooped up and was making his feeling known vocally by screaming/shrieking a the top of his lungs. Needless to say we were all happy to get out.

It was kind of chilly out, so Aaron let me wear his leather jacket. It was his birthday present from Kelly. We had a nice walk, Lincoln let out some energy, and then we headed back to the house.

For Aaron's birthday dinner he picked to have chicken enchiladas with spanish rice. I would have loved to whip up this meal for him, but unfortunately I have been sick the last few days, and we were having dinner guests, so we decided it would be best if Aaron made the food. Aaron says, "Thanks Mom for the spanish rice recipe, everyone really liked it!" I did make the brownies (don't worry I washed my hands lots of times in the process).

We invited Kelly over for dinner (of course), and also our very good friends Danny, Suzy, and Nathan Park. Dinner was great. Especially considering this was a first for making the enchiladas and the spanish rice. Since there were a lot of us we moved our kitchen table out into the living room so there would be more space, and so we could use the couch for seating. Lincoln enjoyed his dinner and having lots of company, but that didn't stop him from throwing rice on the floor when he was finished. (We're still working on that one.)

Next we had Fracine Cowie Brownies (a lady from the ward Aaron grew up in, it's our favorite brownie recipe because it's not overly sweet) and ice cream for dessert. Amazingly, there were no brownies left of Lincoln's tray for him to throw on the floor. Aaron did a great job of blowing out the bonfire. He got all 25 in one breath! Way to go. We're thinking we might have to switch to the numbered candles next year to avoid the fire hazard. :)

After dessert came THE PRESENTS!!!!! Kelly had already given Aaron a leather jacket. I gave Aaron a shopping trip to Best Buy to pick out something of his heart's desire. I would have actually bought him a gift, but the guy is a pain in the neck to buy for, and he doesn't give many ideas. But I love him anyway. My parents gave Aaron some money yesterday when they came down, and Aaron's parents are waiting to give him his present from them for when they are here for Thanksgiving. So the best present of the night was from Danny and Suzy. They gave Aaron a new pair of prescription glasses to help bring out his true self. We all tried them on. And if I do say so myself...WE LOOK GOOD!

Aaron says he had an excellent birthday and he really enjoyed spending it with me! And the rest of our family and friends, of course. He also enjoyed getting all the phone calls from everyone. He feels loved.

Happy Birthday Kelly!

Aaron, Lincoln, and Kelly

Today is Aaron's identical twin brother Kelly's birthday. Doesn't that make it Aaron's birthday as well, you ask? No. It does not. Kelly and Aaron were born a half hour (I think) apart, Kelly on November 22nd, and Aaron on November 23rd. So they each have their own birthday.

Since Aaron's birthday is on a Sunday, my mom and Kerry and Tanner, came down to Provo today to celebrate Aaron's birthday by taking us all out to dinner! Aaron picked Chinese, and that was just fine by me. It was delicious. Thanks Mom and Kerry!

Aaron, Kelly, Tanner, Lincoln, Kerry, Mom at the restaurant

Uncle Kelly giving Lincoln a straw full of root beer, which he loves!

Lincoln thoroughly enjoying his chopsticks

This is the candy bar poster Aaron, Lincoln, and I made for Kelly for his birthday. We thought it turned out pretty good. In case you can't read it, it says,

"Kelly, Sorry we "Kat" give you a bigger present. Our bank got "cremed". But if you'll drive your "car" we'll take you to the "Symphony"! Happy 25th Birthday heart: Aaron, Krystal, Lincoln"

We gave him tickets for him and a date to accompany Aaron and I on December 14th to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert. So hopefully he likes it.

Stay tuned for tomorrow and all of Aaron's birthday adventures.

Sweetheart Tag

I got tagged by Lindsay, so here it goes:

1. What is his full name? Aaron Michael Swan

2. How old is he? He'll be 25 on Sunday

3. Do you have any nicknames for him? What are they? I have two nicknames for Aaron that I use pretty regularly #1 Aarnon, I call him this because Aaron has a twin brother named Kelly and when they were little every one would say Aaron and Kelly, but if you say it really fast it sounds like Aaron 'n Kelly, well Kelly I guess (any family members feel free to correct me) thought Aaron's name was Aarnon and called him that because that's what he always heard. Anyways, regardless of all the exact details, I thought it was cute, so I call him Aarnon sometimes. #2 I've always hated the pet name Babe, it's fine for other people, but to me it just sounds so possessive, like you are an object instead of a person, anyways, so that one was out right away, and I always felt weird saying honey and sweetheart, and I can only say Dear when I'm being sarcastic, so coming up with a good pet name for Aaron was kind of hard, but eventually I just started calling him Love (I think it's because I had a roommate from England and she always called everyone Love and I thought it just sounded so quaint with her British accent) and that feels comfortable so that's what I call him.

4. What color are his eyes? Hazelish, greenish, brownish, blueish (oh wait, isn't that what hazel is?)

5. What color is his hair? dark brown, and he has curls that I love when he lets his hair get just a little bit long.

6. How tall is he? 6 feet even

7. What is his favorite color? I'm gonna say navy blue, because that's the color of the majority of his T-shirts. But then again, most of his T-shirts are BYU shirts, so that could be it.

8. What is his favorite food? I think chicken enchiladas, and taco pie...but we have this running joke that Aaron is a bottomless pit...he'll eat anything.

9. What are/is his favorite past time(s)? homework, studying for really hard tests, living in the Clyde Building....oh wait, that's just how he passes most of his time ;) Aaron likes to be outside, hiking, camping, etc. He also really likes to problem solve and build things. And of course his family...where would he be without us?

10. What is his favorite sport? Aaron isn't really a sports guy. He likes them well enough, but I wouldn't say that he cares for one more than the other. Maybe like, Frisbee, or biking would be the ones he's more inclined to participate in.

11. What does he want to be when he grows up? Grow up...Aaron? Naw! j/k He's going to school to be an Electrical Engineer. He most likely wants to work with digital communications, and if you want more info than that you'll have to ask him, because it all goes way over my head!

12. What does he do that surprises you? It actually really surprised me at first, how willing he is to help with all the "dirty work" involved with having a baby. But if I say Aaron I changed the last 5 poopy diapers it's your turn, he steps right up and does it without complaining. And that's just the beginning of the "dirty work".

13. What's your favorite feature about him? I always tell him the first thing I noticed about him were his broad shoulders. I don't know...but I like 'em!

14. What's your favorite quality about him? He's kind to everyone. I don't think I've ever heard him gossip, or say a mean thing about another person. He really helps me to be better about that too.

15. What do you admire most about him? He is a very hard worker and honest to a tee.

16. What's a hidden talent that he has? He's a good cook. He gives fabulous shoulder massages. He puts up with me (no really, it takes talent!)

17. Where did you meet? In the parking lot of Crown Apartments in Provo. I am good friends with Aaron's cousin Whitney, and I was trying to set her up with my step-brother, and she thought she'd set me up with Aaron while we were at it. I had invited Whitney to little get-together one Sunday evening, so she could meet my bro, and she brought Aaron along. We met in the parking lot so I could show them the house the get-together was at.

18. When, where, and what did you do for your first date? Date-schmate. Aaron didn't even ask me out on our first date, he just took me! We were meeting as a group of friends and going to Comedy Sports in Provo. It was a pay-for-yourself kind of a thing, but Aaron stepped right up and paid for me, so then of course I felt obligated to be "his" date for the evening. I guess it worked out.

19. When and where was your first kiss? Aaron took me to BYU's homecoming dance. So it must have been like Octoberish. After the dance we went back to my place and watched Phantom of the Opera. After the movie Aaron kissed me on the couch. (ok, so he kissed my lips! But we were sitting on the couch.)

20. What first caught your eye or attracted you to him? Well, I already mentioned that his shoulders caught me eye right off, plus he was good looking too, but I was waiting for a missionary at the time, so I didn't think much more about it. We became really good friends, and I think what I became attracted to was just the way he treated people, including me, with so much kindness and consideration. He never had to put anyone down to build himself up. Plus, he was just as goofy as I was.

21. Who said 'I love you' first? Well, he told me that he wouldn't kiss me until he could tell me that he loved me. So, I thought we had awhile before I had to worry about either of those things. Then he kissed me. I kind of panicked, until we agreed that the kiss meant something, but not everything. And honestly, I really don't remember when he said I love you for real the first time.

22. How long did you date before you were married? We met at the end of August, "dated" on and offish until October, then I think we decided to date for real, for good. Engaged in February, married in May. So ya, you do the math.

23. How long have you been married? Two and a half years. Wow!

24. Does he have any nicknames for you? What are they? He calls me Love too. Uh...sometimes when we are playing around he calls me Wifey or Wife. But other than that no. Oh, I guess he does call me Sweetheart.

25. What are your favorite things to do as a couple? Cuddle, it's so nice to have a permanent cuddle buddy, I take advantage as often as possible. We used to go swing dancing a lot before we had Lincoln, now it's a little harder to get out and do. Go for walks. Daydream about our future (ok, this is more something that I love to do, but Aaron is a good sport about listening and participating most of the time). We just like to be together.

Not to Be Outdone

So Monday Aaron came home and told me a very sad story that went something like this:

"*Sigh* I was in my quadrotar lab today and the TA (teacher's assistant) had a whole bag of fresh, home-made chocolate-chip cookies that his wife had made for him. And I thought, man those look good."

NOTE TO AARON: This is my version of the story, if you'd like to tell a different one, please feel free.

So today I decided that it just wouldn't do to let some TA's wife out do me :) Ok, actually I'd been wanted to make cookies for awhile now, I just hadn't gotten around to it. So Lincoln and I spent the morning in the kitchen baking cookies. We used crushed up Andies Mints though, instead of chocolate chips, because I had them and needed to use them.

Lincoln, I think, really enjoyed watching/"helping" me make the cookies. Probably because I kept letting him sample our work as it progressed. But I pulled up a chair for him to stand on next to me, so that he could see what I was doing, and he stayed on it for the entire process.

After Lincoln got up from his nap we packed up the stroller (we decided to walk to campus because it was such a beautiful day outside) and put the cookies in a bag, complete with gushy love letter and headed off to surprise Aaron at work.

Stew Lemmon Day

Aaron and Lincoln enjoying their stew and lemonade while watching the DVD

Today marks six years since my dad died of Leukemia. That seems like such a long time. It's hard to believe I was a junior in high school then, and now I'm married with one and a half kids. It kind of seems like my dad missed the biggest parts of my life, and I missed him at each of those events as well.

The year after he died our family friends, the Ropelatoes, started an awesome tradition that Aaron and I uphold still. Every year on November 13th we eat stew for dinner and lemon pie for dessert. Well, except last year Aaron and I decided we didn't really like lemon pie, so this year we did lemonade instead. We also watch a DVD I made for my mom for Christmas about 6 years ago. It has all the video clips I could find of my dad in our family home videos, and I put them all together to music, and also interviewed some friends and relatives and had them tell their favorite memories of my dad. All this is in the DVD we watch every year. Today is also a day for thinking about and sharing memories of my dad. I thought I would put a few on here.

The first memory that came to me today was kind of a random one. It was when I was in Jr. High, right after he hurt his back but before his surgery. My mom was at the gym, and I needed a ride to school early because I had an intramural basketball game. I remember going in to his room and asking for a ride, and so he got up and started to get dressed, but his back hurt so bad that he couldn't pull up his pants. The pain was so bad that tears came to his eyes. And I remember thinking how strange it was to see my big strong dad cry. I'd never seen it before then.

I remember at family parties, my dad wasn't the most fond of social events really, but he was always sociable in his own way. He'd come out and sit in the same chair at table and he'd stay there almost the whole night and let people come talk to him. While they were talking to him, he always told the same few jokes, and the same stories over and over. Everyone always laughed and thought he was funny, but my brothers and I probably heard them a million times. One of his favorite jokes "It's like I said to the one-eyed girl with the wooden leg...Keep and eye out for me, will ya Peg?" Most of his jokes were one liners like that. And a lot of them were not appropriate to repeat on the blog (swear words typically).

Every year at Christmas time my dad would take me shopping. This was a huge deal because normally my dad's shopping motto went "Get in, get what you need, and get out." But when he took me we spent a whole day together, looking at all the things I wanted to look at. The purpose for the trip was always to buy me a new Christmas dress. We always went to Nordstroms and my dad spared no expense. Not only did I get a dress, but shoes, tights, a dress coat to match, a hat if I wanted, gloves if I wanted, jewelry, the works. We shopped for my mom too, and my dad spared no expense on her either. I remember a lot of years we bought her duck purses. I'm sure that the purses have a brand name, but the logo on them was a duck, and so I always called them duck purses. They were leather and had all the accessories to go with. Why my mom needed more than one I don't know, but she got one every year for a few years in a row. And we always went to lunch afterwords at the restaurant of my choosing. Looking back it seemed that my dresses were too fancy to wear anywhere, even church, but I did anyways. It was great to spend that time with just me and my dad.

My dad always had some project going, and usually he started these projects while my mom was out of the house. I remember one year she took us trick-or-treating, and when we came back my dad had knocked out a wall and decided to turn one of the upstairs bedrooms into an office/library. Another time, my mom took me to a softball tournament down in St. George and when we came back my dad had purchased a huge new big screen TV. This was after he'd been diagnosed with cancer, and the contract on the TV said if Dad died before he paid for the TV (I think he had set it up to make payments on it) then he didn't have to pay for it. As it turned out, we got that TV almost for free. There were other projects too, and when my dad was really in to something he'd go buy a whole bunch of book about it and then start his project. One such project was our 95 gallon salt water fish tank. We had about 800 books on salt water fish. He got the tank all set up the way he liked, with the filter he wanted and the lighting and on and on, and then he thought it would be cool to bring back some real ocean corral from Hawaii and have in the tank. So he did, and it was a big ordeal getting the coral in a cooler and carrying on on the airplane (which would never fly today) and got the coral home and put it in the tank. Well, come to find out, living in the coral was a spear shrimp. It killed all the fish within a month. That was pretty much the end of the fish tank after that. Other on-going projects included landscaping the back yard, pruning the trees in the front yard, the cabana (aka the hut for the sauna and hot tub in our back yard), the boys' pinewood derby cars, and on and on.

Here is a video, actually it's a video of a video, so sorry about the quality. But I think this video shows a pretty decent sketch of my dad's personality (at least the fun part of it). Ok, maybe I should explain a tiny bit more before you all think my dad is a pyscho. My mom and dad had a dinner group with 5 other couples, and once a month this group gets together and each month one of the couples is in change of planning the activity. Well, the month this video was taken, the couple in charge decided to do a "dinner and a movie" theme, and each of the couples had to bring a home-made commercial to play and whoever had the best commercial got a prize or something. This is what my parents came up with. Pretty clever if I do say so myself. I think they won too.

So, those are a few of my memories this year. If you have any memories of my dad you'd like to share, please feel free to comment, I would love to hear them, good or bad! :)

Picture Tag!

I got tagged by Dawn, so here are the rules:

1. Go to your pictures.
2. Upload the 4th picture from the 4th folder
3. Post, and explain what the picture is of
4. Tag your friends

This is a really old picture. It was taken in December 2005. Aaron and I were dating, but not engaged yet. Aaron's birthday is Nov. 23rd and I had planned to take him out to the Mayan in Sandy for his birthday, but on his birthday was the only day all of my family could get together to take family pictures. We were meeting at Target in Riverdale. So, I thought I'd take Aaron with me, and then on the way home we'd stop at the Mayan for his birthday dinner. Well, things kept happening and we waited at Target for our pictures for over 3 hours, and by the time we finally finished both Aaron and I were starving and didn't want to wait to drive all the way to Sandy to eat, so we ate somewhere else, but I promised him I would take him out for his birthday at another time.

So a few weeks later, I got this "brilliant" idea that I would dress up really nice, pick up Aaron without telling him anything, blind fold him, drive to Sandy and surprise him for dinner. I got all dolled up, then gave Aaron a call and asked casually if he wanted to go and do something with me that night. He said he was hanging out with his twin brother Kelly and could Kelly come along. Right then I should have just explained the plan, but I didn't want to ruin my "well thought out" surprise, so I had Aaron put Kelly on the phone, and told him he could come but he had to blind fold Aaron and bring him to my house, and Kelly had to bring his camera. Well Aaron had no idea what was going on, and I was a little upset because my surprise wasn't going as planned but I was trying to act like nothing was bothering me, and Aaron was worried about what I was angry about and complaining because he didn't want to be blind-folded all the way to Sandy, and the whole thing was kind of just a big ordeal. But once we finally talked everything over and I explained to him what I had been trying to do and why I was upset, then he was ok, and the three of us went and had a really fun dinner at the Mayan and had a lot of cool pictures since Kelly was there to document the event. I put in a couple more pictures of the night.

And now I tag: Sierra and Tami K.

The Moment We've All Been Waiting For...

That's what little boys are made of... and a little boy is exactly what we are having! Yay! Lincoln is going to have a little brother. They will have so much fun together, at least I hope they will. The nurse also said that all the bones and organs look fantastic, and that we are right on track for a March 24th due date. Currently Shark Bait weighs one pound. We did get some pictures from the appointment, but we don't have a scanner and I couldn't get any good pictures of the pictures with our camera, so I have to wait until Aaron gets home and he can work his electronic magic and then we'll post them.

If you are like me as soon as you know the baby is healthy and that he's a boy, you move right along to the naming part. The following is a list of the current (Aaron approved) possibles. We have decided not to decide on anything official until this little guy is born, but we'll probably be narrowing it down out of these:

Tucker

Levi

Owen

Oliver

Asher

Ryder

Duck Pond

This afternoon Lincoln desperately needed to get out of the house. It was a little cool out, but we decided to take a stroll down to the south duck pond on campus. We took bread to throw at them. These are just about the most well-fed ducks in the whole world, I'm sure they eat better than most of the students. ;) But Lincoln really enjoyed throwing the bread into the pond at them. He even nailed a few in the head. Don't worry, I'm sure it wasn't hard enough to hurt. Aaron or I had to stay by Lincoln every second or

else he would have taken it upon himself to have a little dip in the nasty duck water. After all our bread was gone we took him to the other side of the park and let him run around in the leaves. His favorite activity was pushing the stroller. It was fun to spend the day together as a family.

"Oh Rise and Shout, the Cougars are Out"

Today was gorgeous weather, perfect for a football game. And it's a good thing too, because we just so happened to have tickets to the last BYU home football game of the season. We bought them for my step-dad Kerry for his birthday back in June and have been anxiously anticipating this day ever since. Above is Papa Kerry, Gramma Tam, Lincoln, and me. Aaron and Tanner were also there with us, but Aaron was taking the picture and Tanner is at the age where he doesn't want to be captured on film anywhere near his family. :)

I was a little worried about how Lincoln would do at the game, especially because he missed his nap to go, but he LOVED it. There were so many things for him to look at. He really liked the marching band the best of all (a son after my own heart!) and would start dancing every time they played a song. Lucky for Lincoln BYU clobbered San Diego State, and so the band got to play the fight song quite a few times.

Here are my boys, watching all the action in the sold out stadium. Lots of blue.

And Lincoln and Mommy! We had so much fun going to the game and hanging out with my family. Afterwards we met up with my step-brother Bryan and his wife Emily and their baby girl Penelope. Mom and Kerry treated us all to lunch/dinner at the Brick Oven. YUM!! I love that place.

The Story of Grandpa Swan's Birthday Card

By Lincoln Swan







*PLEASE NOTE: Washable markers wash off of everything except little boys.

Zac's Visit

As I mentioned before we watched our nephew Zac for a couple of days while Sydni and Jake went to Las Vegas. We had a lot of fun with the boys. Saturday was a nice day so we got to take them outside a lot.

They both loved playing with the cars in the play area in back of our apartment complex. Debbie and I also took them to the park that's close to our house, and they had a lot of fun there too.

When we were inside they really enjoyed playing with Lincoln's toys and the leftover bits and pieces of the Halloween costumes.

Taking care of two energetic little toddlers is a lot of work! I'm glad Debbie was staying with us and so willing to help out with them. They loved being able to spend time with their grandma too! Debbie and I took turns changing diapers, cooking meals, cleaning dishes, picking up toys, and playing with the boys. Aaron helped out a lot too when he was home. It's amazing how much energy little kids have. But they kept us laughing the whole time with the things they would come up with.

One of my favorite (maybe not at the time, but now) things they did...when Debbie or I were in the kitchen and wanted to keep the boys out we would stack the banana chairs in the doorway as a barricade. Well, this particular night, I was in the kitchen cooking dinner, and Debbie was playing with the boys in the living room. Ryan called from the back room and needed something, so Debbie went to see him. Lincoln and Zac decided it would be a fun game to take all the toys in the living room and throw them over the barricade into the kitchen...so that's just what they did! There were so many toys in the kitchen.

Other things I loved...their random "need to hug" modes where they would go around giving everyone hugs. Usually Zac started these, he's such a sweetheart, and then Lincoln would see what he was doing, and not wanting to be outdone would copy Zac. One other funny thing, one morning Aaron went into to get Zac out of bed and when Aaron picked Zac up, Zac gave Aaron a huge (and unexpected) kiss on the neck. It was really cute. Zac really attached himself to Aaron, if Aaron was home, that's who he wanted.

There were some victories worth mentioning as well. We took both boys to church and survived all three hours. Not a small feat, mind you. We also successfully got Lincoln and Zac to sleep in the same room two of the nights together. Sleeping arrangements were a little tricky all week because there were 4 adults and 2 kids most of the nights and two of the nights there were 6 adults and two kids. Our apartment only has three bedrooms. But luckily we got that steal of a deal on the second crib awhile ago, so we put the two cribs in the same room, hung a blanket between them, put Lincoln to sleep first (he's the harder of the two to get to sleep) and then put Zac to sleep. And it worked! We should have done that every night.

Even if it was a little crazy at times, we enjoyed having everyone stay with us, and we are very grateful that we have the ability to give our family members a place to stay when they need it. We are looking forward to doing it again over Thanksgiving Break! But I think we'll have everyone bring their own towels and bed linens this time ;)