Happy Birthday Daddy!!!

We celebrated my sweethearts birthday just a couple days after Boston's. We gave him a knife he picked out at Cabella's and he got to get some bunnies as well. Ironic much?

I'm so thankful for this wonderful man in my life!! (Mush alert!) I truly can't put into words how thankful I am to get to be with this wonderful man forever. He really is the love of my life and I never knew I could still be so in love after almost 11 years of marriage. I'm so thankful for the great job my in-laws did of raising such a wonderful man! He is an amazing dad and his kids adore him! 

He is so incredibly ambitious and has taught me it's okay to dream big. He really does treat me like a queen. Happy Birthday Sweetheart!!!!!

This^^^^ kind of bunny was easier than wrapping the real thing.

Pres tagged along on Daddy's birthday date. She looks pretty happy about it, huh?

Birthday Selfie!

Happy 4th Birthday Boston

I can hardly believe my little guy is four already!! It seems like we just taught him to put up three fingers (which he had to do by using his other hand to help out. Can you say darling and so much like Grandma Paxman!) He is still my little Bossa-bossa!! He loves to snuggle and be sung to at night. His favorite songs are "Praise to the Man" and "We Thank Thee O God For a Prophet." He still loves lightening McQueen and Mack, but now loves to play with Legos and duplo and is quite good at creating different things. He pretty much likes to do whatever his big brother and sister are doing. He'll play "family" with Averie and "superheroes" with Easton. His favorite game to play is for me to say "ready set go" and for him to actually go when I say "set." He can play that over and over and gets such a kick out of it.

He still occasionally takes a nap and takes it as a personal insult is you don't snuggle him to sleep. He loves to make Preslie laugh and is super cute when he talks to her! He loves to be included in morning devotional and school, although he's going through a "I don't want to pray out loud" stage. When we recite the Articles if Faith, he always says the first and has it memorized perfectly.  

He's the ham of our family and always keeps us laughing. One night when we has the missionaries over there was a lull in the conversation.  He randomly declared "my mom hates bunnies." (I'm not the animal person like all the rest of the family is and was resistant to getting bunnies although I have since given in and we have two bunnies.) It was hilarious and we still laugh about it months later.
I love to hear him bear his testimony during family devotional. He's now able to say it all on his own. It's pretty darn cute when he gets the prophets mixed up and says that he knows President Monsen restored (although it usually sounds like destroyed) the church." I am so thankful to have this little guy as a part of our family and can't wait to see what kind of an amazing young man he will become. 

When I asked Boston who he wanted to have come to his party he said "Aunt Tiffany and her kids." So glad we have family close again to share fun times with!

Home for Christmas

We were blessed to be able to go "home" to Utah for Christmas this year. We had such a wonderful time. The drive was a loooong one, especially on the way back as the excitement of vacation and Christmas was gone. We hit snowy roads and storms both ways though the way home was by far worse. While we had a fantastic holiday, I must say that I think "traveling for the holidays" is overrated and sounds cooler than it really is. I told Landon that if we can help it, we're never traveling a long distance by car in the winter again. 

We spent half of our time in Utah with my in-laws and half with my parents. Unfortunately we all got sick so we did have to miss some of the fun parties and other things we had planned. Talk about not fair!! Certainly not what we expected our vacation to be, but we enjoyed lots of movies and snuggle time. 

It was fun to have Preslie meet aunts and uncles and great aunts and uncles and cousins and great grandparents that had yet to meet her. She was certainly plenty loved on and did really good giving everyone smiles. 

We tried to split our time evenly as best we could between our families. Each set of grandparents got to spend a part of Christmas Eve with them and watch the kids open presents on Christmas morning. They were well loved being the only grandkids!

These happy faces were at the beginning of the drive!

Stayed our first night in Hays, KS after a much late dinner at IHOP. Preslie even got a bath in the hotel room sink.

We were so thankful that Grandpa Watt was still with us and in good spirits and we were able to visit with him.

Castillo 4 Generations

It's a lot easier to do fun projects when there are less grand kids to help. The kids had a great time with Grandpa Paxman.

Our annual candy making with Grandma Paxman. 

Christmas morning right before we saw what Santa brought us.

Such a magical Christmas morning. Watching the fire while it's snowing outside!

My sleeping beauty. Had so much Christmas fun she couldn't even stay awake.

I got to see and visit with some friends from high school. It was so nice to catch up!

My hubby is HOT!!

Crazy Memphis Thanksgiving

My family, crazy as we are, thought it'd be a good idea to combine a house warming party and Thanksgiving.  Well Guess what!? We were right! (Not that I'm surprised! We ARE Paxmans after all.)

My sister and her family decided we made living in TN look soo fun that they just had to try it out too. The Mo-Mo's moved into their house the day before Thanksgiving and that also the day we (the Paxman and Castillo families) got there. Nathan and Jamie, my bro and sis-in-law drove from Texas and were there Thanskgiving morning. Annika and I did all the pies, started on the dressing and thawed the turkey a couple days before we went down to Memphis. It was chaotic, but oh so fun and a Thansgiving to be remembered for years to come. 

All the pies we made at my house and then transported to Memphis and the bread drying for dressing on my bed!

Black Friday!

"Online Journal"

So, I realize it's been FOREVER since I posted a new blog post. But after I looked at my past posts the other day, I realized how much I LOVE going through and reading about my little family and our adventures together. So here I am to take another crack at it. I should just title this blog "my online journal" because that's what I intend it to be. Oh and Hi Mom, since I know you're my only stalwart follower. (But I digress. Not the point . . . )
Since my last post, we have had lots of changes in our lives. The Lord has blessed us with a beautiful baby girl, born in June and He has also sent us to Tennessee via the Army.
Preslie Velma Castillo was born in Clarksville, TN at 3:39 the afternoon of June 22, 2014. She was 7 lbs 10 oz and 19 1/2 in long.

On June 21st, Landon and I went to the temple for stake temple day. I wasn't due until July 1st and pre-arranged, free baby sitting and knowing it would probably be awhile before we got to go back were enough of a reason to go to the temple 9 months preggo. (Poor temple workers probably thought I was gunna pop any moment.) Well, I almost did! We took the kids to lunch after our session and I lost part of my mucos plug in the bathroom (sorry future generations if that's TMI). Landon was a little anxious as to what that meant for when the baby #4 would make her arrival. I assured him that
I could easily be pregnant for another week. Well, that certainly wasn't the case for us! We got home and I started picking the house up and getting the kids ready for bed. I had heard that when your water breaks that it's a gush of water all at once. Mine, on the other hand, was little by little and since I hadn't had my water break with any of my other kids,I did n't know for sure if what was going on was my water breaking. I called my Mom and she said that that was probably what was going on. I decided to call my OB who then told me to head to the hospital. I wasn't too happy because this wasn't how my first natural birth was "supposed to go." I planned on laboring at home and going into the hospital when I was further into the labor. This birth plan was different in that we didn't have any family to take the older kids to and we had only been in our ward for 3 months. Thankfully, our sweet RS President took the kids at 11pm without hesitation.  (Another funny memory is that I had a visiting teaching conference that I was in charge of and was supposed to speak at the day Preslie was born. I told the ladies I was planning it with to go ahead and schedule it that day since I wouldn't be lucky enough to go that early. Hahaha. Preslie had a different plan.)
Our sweet girl took her time and since I didn't want to get any meds, I labored until I had her the next afternoon. The nurses wouldn't even let me get up to use the bathroom because they didn't want the cord to prolapse. It was a long labor and it was just Landon and I there. That was very different than when I had any of the other kids! We watched movies, Landon took naps and called family. Grandma Paxman wasn't happy at all because she was coming into town in just a couple days and was hoping Preslie would wait for her. It was harder delivery than any of the others (duh!! No epidural.), but she was worth it. Preslie has the cutest dimples and biggest smile! Her first couple months were a little rough as she had reflux and maybe some colic. Not to mention that when she was 6 weeks old, Daddy had to go to the field for a month. Thankfully Grandma and Grandpa Castillo came for a couple weeks to save the day!

It was love at first sight for all the kids!
 

The "take home" outfit!!

Grandma Paxman finally got to see Preslie when she was only a couple days old.

Grandmpa Paxman rode out on his motorcycle with Great Unlce Gary.



Aunt Tiffany and Kambyll even surprised us with a visit.



Grandma and Grandpa to the rescue!

Summer 2013-May

Just found this draft that hadn't been published. Look at how little Easton is!!! Crazy how time flies!

With Landon’s scheduled deployment, the kids and I planned an all-summer trip to Utah to visit family and friends.  After his deployment plans changed, (much to the joy of his wife) he was a good enough sport to let us go ahead and enjoy the summer with family. We were so blessed to be able to share Easton’s baptism day with our family while we were in Utah before Landon left to go back to Kentucky. It was such a special day and we felt incredibly lucky to have so much support from our family. Easton was actually baptized in the same font that I was.

 

Easton in the lime light!

Easton got a math facts award at school. The students had to complete 40 addition facts in 2 minutes and Easton got 39 right. Not only did he achieve the highest level, he was chosen out of all the kids in his class to represent them in front of all the other 2nd graders and their families by giving a small speech. I'm not sure which he was more excited about. The math award or the fact that he was his class's representative. In the picture in the center, he's holding his certificate in one hand and the speech he gave in his other. He did a great job and we were so proud of him!