Family Walk.

Being out in the woods just feels like home. I love being surrounded by tall trees. I can breathe better, I walk a little lighter, and my mood is considerably brighter. Being out in the woods with my favorite boys makes it all the better. I could live in this moment for the rest of my life and be completely, utterly, blissfully happy. Family walks on the Greenway are among my top 5 favorite moments.

Caiden gets a car.

For Christmas my parents got Caiden a car. Yup, he's loved [spoiled]. And he loves it. Since we were in Connecticut for Christmas he got the surprise of a lifetime when we got back to Georgia. He got in and instantly knew just exactly what to do. He's still working on steering, he runs into curbs and garbage cans a lot. I'm working on the whole patient teacher thing. I realized teaching him to drive in 14 years may just have to be Miles' job. I'm just not sure I'm cut out for it. He loves his present, it's easily his favorite. Thank you Granin and Poppy!

My Birthday/New Years.

My birthday started out, as any great birthday, with a belgian waffle breakfast and presents. What can I say, my boys love to spoil me :) Then we got ready and met my sister and her kids at the YMCA to go swimming. I was dying to feel weightless and buoyant. Caiden loves to swim, and he loves swimming with Matthew even more. That night we held our annual London New Years Heidorn Ball Drop. Our ball wasn't quite as elaborate and awesome as last years, but we wrote out our wishes for the 2014 on the balloon, filled it with glow sticks, and dropped it on down at "midnight" We like to celebrate with Caiden, so we drop the ball at 7pm. I got New Years kisses from my two boys, and can't believe next year I'll get kisses from three!

Caiden goes snowboarding.

I'm seriously in awe of this child. Here's how I expected snowboarding to go down...
1. he would hate having his feet strapped in, thus freaking out.
2. he would see snow and get so distracted with eating it that he wouldn't want to snowboard.
3. he would go down once, fall, and not want to go again.
4. he would get bored quickly.
5. we would have wasted the money on his rental.

I was both pleasantly surprised and a little bit shocked at what actually happened...
1. he was, at first, a bit freaked out that his feet were strapped in, but he got over that quickly.
2. he did eat a lot of snow but it didn't distract him from how much fun he was having snowboarding, it only added to it.
3. this kid hardly fell, it was amazing. I think he fell a total of maybe 3 times, one of them pretty hard. But when I went to pick him up all I ever heard was "again, again" with a big smile on his face.
4. he did not get bored, but by the end of 3 hours he was exhausted and just wanted to lay down. He was asleep 5 minutes into our drive home.
5. absolutely, without a doubt, not a waste of money.

Christmas.

Christmas Highlight Real from Chelsey Heidorn on Vimeo.
Our Connecticut Christmas celebrations started on Christmas Eve at my sister, Jen's house. We had a huge family sleepover, all 13 of us. On Christmas Eve night we dedicated the evening to sharing our favorite childhood Christmas memories. Jen shared with us her favorite memory was acting out the nativity, and she had the grand babies + Scott do it. They looked so cute in their little costumes, I had to share some pictures. The magic of Christmas was magnified by the soft sprinkle of snow that night. Caiden woke up bright and early Christmas morning and enjoyed some episodes of Curious George in bed with me while we waited for everyone else to get up. The rest of the morning is a blur of torn wrapping paper, the biggest smiles, and the warmest feeling of love. I've said it before, but seriously this little guy is my Christmas spirit. I wanted nothing more than to see his face opening his gifts. And I got to magnify that x4 with the sweet faces of our nieces and nephews. It was perfect. We had a big breakfast, took naps, and then went to my parents house to open even more gifts. We were all a bit spoiled this year. But underneath all the gift giving and receiving my heart is turned to the real reason for this holiday. I'm so grateful for the Christmas season to feel the love of my Savior and to celebrate His birth, His life, and to feel of the peace only He can offer.

Gender Reveal.

I had all these grand ideas in my head of how this gender reveal party was going to go down. Maybe it's the holidays, or the traveling, or the actual pregnancy, but I was just too worn out to bring them all to fruition. So while there were no boards with old wives tail gender predictions, or bows/bowties for each member of their family to wear to show their guess, and there was no big decor, I can honestly say it was perfect in every way.  At our ultrasound we had the tech write down the gender. Then we brought that envelope to a store where we picked out two outfits and had the cashier ring up and wrap the outfit that would work for our baby's gender. The night of the reveal we had a dinner complete with my biggest cravings: cheeseburgers, feta and spinach omelets, and chips and salsa. We each grabbed a ribbon my mom brought over to show our gender guesses. I desperately wanted another boy, but was almost positive it was going to be a girl. Almost every member of my family thought it was going to be a girl. Miles thought it was going to be a girl. Caiden switched his answer between "just a baby" and a "baby tiger" frequently. We were all very pleasantly surprised to open up a little boy outfit. I couldn't be happier! I can't wait to hold this little guy in my arms, watch my son become a big brother, and see how much love my heart can hold.

Atlanta.

We've moved 12 times in the last 5.5 years that we've been married. During that time we've lived in five different states and nine different homes. We've also been on more vacations than I can count and have visited five different countries, we are truly blessed. But because of the constant moving and traveling I've developed a bit of an itch. If we stay in one place for a while I start to crave a new adventure; it's what seems natural. The longest we've lived in a single place was the year and a half we lived in Connecticut post-grad. We were very happy there. We saw ourselves living there for a long time, but I also felt the itch to get out and go somewhere new. And although I grew up there my entire life and was surrounded by my family and friends, it just didn't feel like our home. We pretty seamlessly transitioned to life in Atlanta from Connecticut. We love the weather, we love our area, we love all the walking trails and parks. We've made good friends, love our ward, and Miles loves his job. We truly feel like we are in the right place, like we are home.