Familia Cedeño

Ever since he could pull himself up, he has been getting into anything he can. All of these photos were taken in the moment he was getting into stuff, except for the last two, we actually put him on the chair for those. He is SO close to walking all of the time. I can't believe we are about two weeks away from his birthday!! Citizens of Rexburg you have been warned!! He is on the move!

This Thanksgiving was spent in Salt Lake City Utah with family. Roberto's mom lives just 10 minutes or so away from my parents new location in West Valley. So we were able to be with both sides of the family.                                           Can you tell who was the center of attention?

This was the whole point of that holiday. He didn't mind wearing that outfit one bit. I think he secretly wants to be a lion. It was fun.

The numbers in the title of this post represent my and my husband's age. Now take a look at us. Would you have thought that we had such an age gap? That we are even as old as we are? I met Roberto when I was 10 going on 11 and he was 16 or 17, I'm not totally sure. We met through church. We were in the same district in NYC(smaller than a stake) and our families had become great friends. As an 11 year old girl, I looked up to him (literally and figuratively). He was funny, he was nice, gosh just the fact that he talked to me left me in awe. Even though we had this age difference, I found myself becoming such great friends with him and he didn't seem to mind being my friend which was just SO COOL to me.  Did I ever think that this same guy would fall in love with me? No, I didn't. As a little girl, I guess now I admit- I had a little crush on him; loving the fact that he would dance with me at the ward parties and acknowledge me in public. I loved the attention.

A little over a week ago I was invited to go to a glamor workshop with a friend who is a beauty consultant with Mary Kay. At 5:30 p.m. I went over to her place and waited while she got ready to go. She was actually waiting for a customer to show up so she could get some eye shadow to her right before we left for our meeting. As I watched her roll out her Mary Kay travel bags full of cosmetics and help her customer, I thought, "Wow, that could never be me." She helped the customer and a little while later we were on our way to this workshop. I entered the building named "The Pink Studio". I laughed a little to myself and in we went. The place was full of women, dressed up, looking very happy to be there. I took my seat and the class began. I had been to a Mary Kay function before, just not one as elaborate as this one. We did skin care, foundation and makeup all in one sitting. To be honest with you, makeup wasn't a part of my everyday regimen. In fact, I showed

When Roberto and I were first married, we considered something that most married couples (especially in our LDS culture) don't really have to think about. We were considering to either keep the last name that Roberto had or to change that last name to another family name. Why, you may ask? I'll tell you why (hence this post). Roberto's parents had him out of wedlock. (GASP) His dad was actually engaged to another woman when this whole affair happened (pretty scandalous, huh?) Roberto's mom was single. Anyway, Roberto was raised by his mother, since she didn't want any more drama with having to bring into the light what had happened between her and his father, especially since he was engaged to someone else. So, in Ecuador, Roberto was known as Roberto Ayuso (which is his mother's maiden name). (FYI: Roberto's dad did know about him and was somewhat involved in his life. Roberto has memories of seeing his dad when he was 3 or 4. Eventually, his dad's fa

I feel impressed to share my thoughts on my personal relationship with God. It is so easy today to turn to other sources for help or advice. We might get caught up in what other people have to say about whatever it is that we are trying to get over or overcome. I was reminded today that the ultimate advice and comfort we can receive is from our Father in heaven. When I pray, I feel so close to Him, as if He is in the room with me. It is so comforting to be able to know that I am His daughter and that He is there listening. That no matter what I am feeling or dealing with, that He can understand and that I can say whatever is on my mind and He will love me and give me what I need. I am so grateful that I know that I am a child of God. That I have an eternal purpose and destiny. It can be so easy to get caught up in life's experiences and feel overwhelmed or scared. But if I remember to go to my Heavenly Father and let Him know what I am feeling, then His spirit comforts me and I am

This past week was amazing. Roberto and I, along with Samuel, volunteered in the Get Connected program at BYU-Idaho. It was an experience to remember. Here's how it all started. So Roberto is the one who is in school(BYU-I) now, which is why we were able to participate in Get Connected. Last semester he asked me if I would be interested in doing it with him, since he was married, the only way he could participate was if I was his partner. So I think, yeah that would be so fun, why not? The semester passes on and we are assigned during the semester to be recruitment reps. I start thinking-is this what we signed up for? to walk around and tell other married students about get connected? what about the whole orientation thing? The semester ended and the 7 week break came. We get another e-mail talking about get connected spirit conference which would start September 6th. Then I think-oh so that's the orientation part, the fun part. And THEN I start thinking about Sa

Our baby boy Samuel is growing and learning so many things. It is hard to believe that in 4 days he will be 8 months old. He can now crawl, but most of the time it turns into an army crawl once he gets tired. The sounds that he can make are ma, da, ba, pa, or ta. He is also trying to climb up things like our legs or chairs, or whatever he can get on. He is still very cuddly with me and I love it. Now he even crawls to me and starts making the ma sound to let me know he wants me to pick him up. Sometimes he will wrap his little arms around my neck and I love it. It is amazing how much love you can feel from these little ones. Being a mom ROCKS!

As a little girl, my mother would cut my hair short. It was a bob that went to my shoulders (I have fine hair). As I grew older, I longed for long tresses. My hair grows at a very slow rate. So I would be very cautious every time I went to get it cut. By the time I was a senior in high school, I had the long hair that I always wanted. Since then, about 5 years now, I would get it cut every 6 months and take off about 2 inches every time. It felt awesome. One day this past week, as I was combing my hair after a shower, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought- "I'm ready for something different." So..... I chopped it off. In total it was 8 inches cut off. It was long enough to be donated. I was very happy about that. Someone else in the world will be wearing my hair. The new length feels great. So much lighter and more bounce to it. I'll have fun growing it out again. :)

We are back from our trip to Salt Lake City, Utah. It was wonderful. My parents just bought a house last month and we were able to stay with them there. We enjoyed several BBQ's in the backyard, swam at a lake, went rollerskating, ate out, went to a show and had a great time visiting with the family. Lucky for us, both of our immediate families live in the salt lake area, so we were able to see all of the family. Here are some, well many, pictures of the grand adventure. P.S. Samuel LOVES the water.

This past weekend we did the unthinkable. We went camping with our 6 month old son. And you know what? IT WAS GREAT!! I'll admit it, I was a little skeptical about the idea even though it was just for one night, but I am so glad that we spent the night, it was worth it. (Ok, so we own air mattresses and we brought one with us) I had such a great time with Roberto and the rest of our ward. We were lucky enough to enjoy the Bishop's mom's property. They had tons of space and we even were allowed to go use the bathroom inside of their house, so it was pretty much the nicest camping experience I've ever had. I thought of bringing the pack and play for Samuel to sleep in, but it wouldn't have fit inside the medium size tent we brought with us. We just ended up putting him between us and he slept just fine. There were no screams of bloody murder so I was very grateful. At this place they had a bunch of old playground toys and it was so fun to see it all. They also had thi

On July 4th we woke up bright and early and walked to Porter Park. This has been our third summer together in this town and it was the first time that we witnessed the annual 4th of July parade in Rexburg. It was pretty fun. We met some of our friends there and even tossed a volleyball around before we left. After the parade, we went home and got some food together to take over to our neighbor's place. We had a BBQ! It was so delicious! I think this day is the day I eat the most meat I ever do the entire year. That evening we went to Nature Park to see the so called Fireworks. We waited an hour and saw nothing spectacular because (I found out later from another source) that they started 2 hours late. HA. Too bad. We still had fun with some little fireworks that our friends brought along. It was SO FUNNY because we kept trying to light the sparklers but the wind kept blowing out the matches almost every time we tried. I couldn't stop laughing every single time another match went

Who are you? This is a question that can be answered in various ways. Should my identity be defined with one single role? I don't think so. This is something that has been on my mind and that I feel is very important. I don't want to live my life solely focused on one single role that I lose sight of other aspects of my life that will bring me fulfillment. I know that this will be very difficult, especially as life goes on and more responsibilities will be given to me. Many of you might have heard some women say "I'm just a mom." I really dislike this statement. Nobody is JUST a mom or just one single anything period. If you think about it, we take on many different roles and have several things that we enjoy to do and that occupy our time and effort. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE being a mother, but that is not all that I am and I will not drown myself in this role and forget about everything else. As important as raising my children is to me, I want to make su

The hills are alive with the sound of MUSIC ! Ok, so maybe I don't know about the hills, but my living room is pretty much always alive with music. I just can't seem to get enough. It is a RARE occasion the day that I go without listening to music. Occasionally, if the song gets me on a high, I dance like crazy while singing the song at the top of my lungs. Its just THAT wonderful. I really can't imagine my life without music, which leads me into the next somewhat negative part of my post. I go on YouTube here and there, but I wouldn't call myself a youtuber. Anyway, I was on there a couple days back and I see an ad for a brand spanking new music video from an artist. So I click on it and watch it. And then about maybe a minute into it I think to myself- WHY?! So I stop the video and close the browser. Yes I know that there is still good music/media out there, thank the heavens. But there is so much GARBAGE out there today and it is

The title of my post, is the exact day that I noticed a little space forming in Samuel's gums. I saw it and at first thought it was something else caught in his mouth. When I looked again, I could see that this is where his first tooth would be popping out of. If you were to look into his mouth today, you could actually see a tiny bit of white starting to show. Wow! My baby is getting TEETH?! After months of seeing him slobber and chomp on everything, we're finally seeing the culprit. Well there you go. Luckily for us, he's been sleeping just fine. :D He is a little more irritable but hello that is expected. We'll see if it gets worse. We love our BIG BOY.

Lately I have been going to the Madison public library to check out books and movies. Well I went there yesterday to return some things and there was a booth that said Summer Reading on it. I see a bunch of kids in line waiting to sign up and then I notice that there is a line for adults to sign up as well. So I go up to the booth and ask the lady "What's this for?" She said "summer reading". I said "What's that?" She said "Oh you can read books and get prizes. Are you over 18?" HA. Of course she would say that. I say "Yeah". So I stand there for a couple of seconds and I think about it. I think- Why not? I've been getting into reading lately and it could be fun. So I signed up. The lady gives me a free bookmark, a lae and a little booklet that explains the whole thing. I also get a shot at winning a CD of some kind. I think to myself-yay for free stuff. It turns out that for every 10 pages you read it equals 1 "de