a very white first christmas

Happy Happy Holidays everyone! After an agonizing week of sinus and ear infections, and a mean old doctor telling us that we could not take Kaden on an airplane with his ear infection, we got the *all clear* from our REAL pediatrician to go ahead and let Kaden experience his very first white christmas! These are just a *few* highlights from the trip!

Everything and everyone was so wonderful, and if ever there was a doubt in our minds about making the move to Denver, we pushed them aside after this trip. I won't write too much, since after sorting through 30 videos and 800 pictures, I have pretty much spent my entire work day putting together this post. I realized that I don't know how to turn the *soundtrack* to the blog on off, so if you want to hear one of the videos, just go to the bottom right of the blog and push the *stop* button on the jukebox.

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and had a chance to relax, celebrate, eat great food and be with the ones that you love. Cheers to a spectacular 2010!!!!


watching the airplanes take off!


playing on the disgustingly dirty floor at LAX


It's mindblowing how beautiful a shiny payphone may look to an almost one year old!




seeing snow for the first time!


watching the snow fall at the denver airport



what the heck is THIS stuff?


paying close attention to mamaw's authentic version of Frosty the Snowman, not mommy's butchered version...


meeting all of mamaw's santas!








*SNOW*
















uncle bri showin him how it's done


sledding with mommy








*my favorite picture out of all 800 photos*




sledding with daddy







Playing the piano, but wanting something a lil more his speed....








rockin daddy's old piano...now this is more like it!















Christmas day






Christmas day with the Sextons ~Kaden had so much fun meeting his cousins Jack and Caleb.






















fun with uncle brian.












We had a little bday celebration in honor of Kaden's first bday approaching...we made him a huge cupcake and was hoping for a lot of messiness and debauchery. Not so much.

oooooh fire! pretty.


awww man...why did you blow out my candle?


so I'm supposed to stick my hands in it like this?

eeeeeewwww.


mamaw gave him a little taste of the frosting, and he straight out gagged. Then he was over it.



caught trying to sneak a beer.


cozy.




This is only a *small* section of the enormous fort mamaw and papaw bought kaden for his birthday present! It's so big we couldn't take the whole thing with us! He absolutely LOVED it!




daddy teaching kaden how to play pool.






Meeting his new friend Lyla. Kaden thinks she's so pretty, Lyla is not too sure about him.



Kaden was also absolutely smitten with Lyla's daddy, which could explain poor Lyla's standoffishness. Kaden threw himself in Tom's lap within a moment of meeting him and could not tear himself away from him the entire night.



Christine playing peekaboo with Kaden.


playing with suzanne


the stairs were a huge hit...
both coming up,


...and sliding down





Mamaw's amazing Christmas village...every little detail and every precious figurine placed with so much love! I like to think that late at night, when everyone is asleep, all the people come to life and sing and get their groove on.











playing with mamaw




rootin for the Broncos




eating puffs with uncle bri and suzanne




snuggly matching jammies Aunt Gloria made for Mamaw and Kaden!




I'll always be a party animal....



I so wish we took a video of this but the Flip was all filled up at this point! We were delayed a few hours at the Denver airport on the way back to LA, and Kaden was overjoyed to practice his walking skillz while holding onto the stroller! He walked in circles with that stroller for about an hour and thought it was the greatest thing in the whole world!