Kaleb's 1st Birthday

Still trying to catch up on some blogging. Kaleb turned 1 on Nov. 5th. We had a 1st All-star birthday party for him in CA at Heritage Park. Jarom did an awesome job on the invitation! Unfortunately it rained twice during the party, so our decorations ended up drooping. I had the church reserved as a back up plan, but it didn't rain till an hour before the party started, and was too last minute to make the switch. What can you do? Luckily everyone was patient with the rain and still stuck around for games. The kids played pin the football on the goal, throw the baseball through the hole, and later chased Jarom around as he made some big bubbles. I made a carrot cake for Kaleb sweetened with applesauce and raisons. I'm still trying to wait until later before I corrupt him with sugar.
Make a wish!I couldn't get the slide show to work, so I'm sorry for another long post of pictures.

My mom made Kaleb a 1st year birthday shirt. On the front it said "Kaleb the Allstar", and had the picture of him in the star from the invitation. The small kiddos got to play on the blanket with a bunch of air filled sport balls. Game Time!

Party guests... The Monroes.The Wests. Me and Stacia. Marina, Amanda, and baby Wyatt. The Riggs. The Fritter Family. Rebecca & Jonas
We want to thank all of you for coming and helping out with Kaleb's birthday party! We miss you all!!! Thank you also for the gifts, Kaleb loved them all!What's in here?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KALEB! We love you so much little boy!!!

California Happenings

Okay, at last I'm posting about our CA trip. We packed as much fun as we could into the 3 weeks we visited, and ended up taking lots of pictures... Kaleb enjoyed looking out the window of the plane as we took off. Here's our little family at the Los Angeles temple before Tirza's wedding. Congratulations to the newly weds Tirza & James. They were married October 25th at the Los Angeles Temple. It was a wonderful sealing! Tirza made such a beautiful bride.You guys are a gorgeous couple!! We wish you the best as you start your new life together. We really enjoyed seeing a lot of our family again. It's nice to have a wedding in the family so everyone can gather for a little reunion. Here's Jarom and almost all his siblings. Eliza is serving her mission in Germany right now. It was so good to see Grandma & Grandpa Dickinson again. Kaleb loved seeing all his cousins. Here he is with little Adria and Summer.

He also had a great time spending some quality time with his Grandma Watts. She helped babysit him several times while we were there. Mom, thank you again so much for watching him for us, and for all your help!! We miss you!! One day Krystal and I took Kaleb and his cousin AJ to the park. They had a great time swinging on the swings. This is actually Kaleb's first time swinging solo. AJ is such a cutie. We tried getting some pictures of them together. We had a hard time getting them to sit still.

Of course no California visit would be complete without a little beach action. So later that day we went with the Watts family to have a little fun in the sand. Kaleb made sure he got to try out what sand tastes like. We barried his legs in the sand and he thought it was the funniest thing. My camera battery died so we didn't get any pics of it. We also want to congratulate our friends Bill and Marina for the birth of their little son Wyatt. Bill is Jarom's boss from his work, and he and his family are super cool and fun to hang out with! Wyatt is such a cute little boy, we were so happy to finally see him!! We miss game nights with you guys.

Oh Yes, there's more to this post...

Jarom and I decided one night to take a romantic stroll on the Seal beach pier. We stopped and ate dinner at Ruby's where they make the BEST hamburgers ever!! I'm not kidding!! Jarom always orders better than me when it comes to hamburgers. He ordered this super huge bbq burger loaded with the most amazing bacon I've ever tasted, and onion rings, the whole works. Super good!!! It totally made my cheeseburger seem very boring and plain. Anyways we later tried burning off all the calories we consumed by taking a walk on the beach, then snuggled together with a blanket while listening to the waves roll in. Definately one of my favorite dates. Thanks again to Mom Watts for watching Kaleb for us, you're the best! Kaleb and I went to visit my step sister Jenn one day by the Los Alamitos marina. We took a little walk after and looked at all the boats.

For Halloween we went to the Bellflower ward trunk or treat. We were running late so we didn't have time to change into our complete costumes. Originally Jarom was going to be a magician, me a magicians assistant, and Kaleb was the rabit that gets pulled from the hat.Unfortunately Kaleb wasn't very happy about having something big on his head so he didn't wear the ears very long. This is the best picture I could get of him with the whole outfit.
My mom made this costume for Kaleb. She did an awesome job, it turned out super cute!! Thank you again mom, we love you!!Here I am at a girls night out with the sisters from the bellflower ward. These women are all so amazing and fun to hang out with!! I'm glad we had a chance to get together again. Thank you Shauna and Hillary for arranging it.