The Rest of the Story... er, Week..

The rest of the week we just kind of went around to different places and shopped and whatnot. Brad and Thomas were still kinda sick so we didn't go out and do much.Monday, we went shopping and stopped off and fed the ducks at Salem Pond and then it started snowing so we went home and Aiden played in the snow for a little bit. Well, he sat there and ate snow while I took pictures and Thomas threw a snowball at him.

Then that night we went to Red Robin with my mom, Brenna, Brad and Emron. I so love Red Robin! And then we walked around the mall and Aiden went Jeepin'. Tuesday we went up to Temple Square and spent the day there. We went around and saw all the stuff in the Visitor's Center, Brad saw the movie in the Legacy Theater while Thomas and I ate and went through the Church History Museum. Then we met up and went to the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building and saw the huge valley, we went into the Old Tabernacle and into the Assembly Hall and then it was off to Dennie's for dinner.

Wednesday we went up to Tooele to see Nathan's band concert and then back to Dennie's house afterwards. I got sick on the drive home and we had to pull over so I could throw up. That was about all the happenings of that day. Hooray.

Thursday I went up to Tracy's so I could have a nice, relaxing day while she watched Aiden and I could take a nap and try to kick the nasty cold I had while Thomas and Brad drove around and just hung out for the day. That night, we met up at my mom's house and spent the night there.

Friday, I went up to Provo with my sister Brenna, and my dad while Thomas and Brad went to Orem to go Christmas shopping. I met up with my mom afterwards and then we went up to Salt Lake to Dennie's for a family dinner before everyone left. That was the worst drive ever. A normally 45 minute drive took us a good hour and 45 minutes in the worst traffic ever. We got there right as everyone was getting ready to eat. We exchanged gifts and then it was time for everyone to go their separate ways.

Saturday, we woke up insanely early to make our flight and after a couple flights, lots of tears on my part, a gigantic layover in Houston and a long drive home, it was time to relax and just relish in the feel of being home!

Weekend Activities

This weekend Thomas and I went to the Manti with my family and were able to spend all day Saturday there. It was a long day, but it was fantastic to be there with most of my family and with some of our good friends.
It started out pretty crazy. We woke up to Brad throwing up. He had been sick all night long. Well, he was sick all day long, except he was okay long enough to go down to Manti with us and spend the afternoon there and then on the way back he started getting sick again. We are so glad he was able to go with us.

Also, as we are getting ready, we received a phone call from Tracy telling us that they are on the back way to Santaquin from Tooele, and they have a flat tire. So that means that Tracy was going to ride down with us in the van while Danny stayed behind with the kids, buy a new tire to replace the flat one, and then meet us down in Manti later.

We started out the day going to the Manti Temple and then afterwards all of us ate at Manti House, a restaurant/bed and breakfast there in Manti. (Wow, can I say Manti a few more times? Manti, Manti, Manti)

After that we went home and I'm pretty sure all of us slept on the way home. It was a long, exhausting, eventful day.

The next day, I went to church with my parents and then skidaddled out of there early because we were going up to Salt Lake to see the LDS First Presidency Christmas Devotional which was fabulous. The music was wonderful and gave you goosebumps. The talks given by President Thomas S. Monson, Henry B. Eyring and Dieter F. Uchdorf were amazing. It was just all around a great night. We were able to go with Tracy and Danny, Brad, Emron, and then Thomas and I while my mom walked around Temple Square and played with Aiden in the little kids activity area, which before that night, I had no idea existed.

I'm pretty sure that was the Best. Weekend. Ever. Except for Brad's vomiting and Aiden's absolute hatred of his carseat.

Brad, Body Worlds, Buffet, BYU, Boulders and Ballet

Wednesday we picked up Brad from the airport and then headed out and spent way too much money at Deseret Book and the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City. We killed time until it was time to go see Body Worlds. That's an exhibition of real human bodies that have been skinned and preserved by plastation. Not 100% sure what that is, but from what I understand, the gist is they take cadavers and pump it with plastic to make them last and then you can do whatever you want with them and when it sets, it stays like that. These are a couple pictures from the exhibition we saw.

It was pretty cool. They had different areas where it would show a bunch of livers and the effects different things had on it, or a bunch of hearts that had like one from someone who had a heart attack and a healthy one, etc. Every part of the body was represented and had a bunch of each one to show the effects that smoking, drinking, cancer, obesity, whatever had on them. It's was pretty interesting. There was one part though that I absolutely didn't like. There was a section kind of curtained off that had a bunch of babies. Like an embryo at 2 weeks pregnant, 7 weeks, 12 weeks, etc. all the way up to 38 weeks. It was interesting to see the stages of development, but knowing that all the displays were from real people, it was heartbreaking to see so many unborn babies, or babies that were born prematurely and died shortly thereafter. After that we went back to Dennie's house and hung out there for the night. The boys were going to go to the Miami Heat @ Utah Jazz game, but Brad had been up for like 50 hours straight, so they opted to stay home and watch it on TV so Brad could sleep.

Thursday we went down to Provo to spend time with my parents while the tires on the van were changed. We ate at an old time favorite buffet restaurant, Chuck-a-Rama (Thomas hates that name). And afterwards we went to the Provo Towne Centre Mall and drove around BYU for a while and then went down to my parents house in Santaquin.

Friday we went up to the mountain behind my mom's house. I almost got us stuck in the snow, Thomas fell down on the ice, and all around we froze a little bit.

Aiden's little nose especially froze a little bit. I set the color accent on the camera to red to see if you could pick up his little red nose, and you absolutely can.

Thomas, Aiden and I on the bridge over the little creek near Trumbolt Part on the way up the mountain.

And like little kids, we threw big rocks towards the creek trying to break the ice on top.

The view from the top of the mountain. Beautiful! Even when the valley is all smoggy.

After that we went to my mom's house so we could get cleaned up and ready to go up to Tooele to see Tracy's girls at their dance recital.

They performed the Nutcracker and it was wonderful. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures because I was tending to a little boy.

After that, it was back to Santaquin to get sleep and ready for Saturday.

The Weekend of the Sick.

Friday we went to Tracy's house in the afternoon. I chopped off all (well, over half) my hair so now it is right below my shoulders. I donated ten inches to Locks of Love and then had it cut from there. It's nice. Takes some getting used to, but it's nice. I like it.
That evening Tracy and I saw Twilight because apparently Stephenie Meyer, the author of Twilight, is Mormon and so it's all the rage in Utah and my sister was sucked into that as well. So she treated me to a movie, which I stood in the back with Aiden for over half of it while Aiden crawled around.
Meanwhile, Thomas, Danny (Tracy's husband) and my brother, John, saw the new James Bond movie.
Afterwards we met up and went to Applebee's for dinner.
On the way home the vomiting bug started. Aiden threw up and I didn't realize it at the time. I felt that the buckle was wet, but figured he had just spit up because that's a much more likely thing than him actually vomiting and didn't think much of it because he had a LOT to eat at dinner. Then we get home and about twenty minutes later, he throws up again. It was like that most of the night and everytime we laid him flat, he would throw up, so I fell asleep in a chair holding him upright and finally at about 2.00 a.m. I went up and asked Tracy and Danny what I should do for him. They took over from there for the next few hours while Thomas and I were able to get some sleep, and at 4.00 a.m. they woke me because he needed to eat again and he had a pretty high fever, but at least the vomiting was over and done with.
In the morning, he is still pretty lethargic, but without the vomiting, and he had a fever for most of the day. I, on the other hand, had the vomiting bug and was in and out of the bathroom all day long between taking as many naps as possible.
Sunday morning we were well enough to go to church with Danny and Tracy for the full three hours, all of which Aiden slept through and I fought falling asleep. We felt much better and had our appetite back.
Monday morning, Tracy was going to take me to go shopping for my birthday, which makes no sense to me because her birthday is December 20, and mine is February 3. Seems we should have been shopping for her, but she insisted. We were ready to go, and Thomas starts to throw up. He threw up nothing but mushrooms from his dinner the night before, and we thought it was just the mushrooms were bad, but he kept throwing up. So Tracy and I left with David and Aiden to leave Thomas by himself so he could relax and get some sleep.
By Monday night, it was all behind us as far as vomiting went with our family. Three of Tracy's kids caught it Monday night and Tracy herself had it minus the vomiting. We had some lingering fevers and we didn't really have our appetites back for a while, but at least the worst part was over and done with quickly.

Thanksgiving Travels and Unravels.

Our flight out here was the Best. Flight. Ever.
We woke up at the way too early hour of 1.45 a.m. so that we would be able to get to the airport by 4.00 a.m., two hours before our flight took off, so as to avoid narrowly missing our flight like we have done more times than I'd like to admit.
We get to the airport at 4.00 and sit around and wait because apparently the ticketing counters don't open until 4.30. As we are checking in, the little kiosk informs us that our flight is overbooked and would be consider taking another flight with compensation? We say no and proceed to go to our gate. When we get there, the attendant at the counter informs us that he will give a $200 voucher to someone who will take another flight. We pass because we didn't want to miss Thanksgiving with my family. Then he bumps it up to $250, and we see what we can do.
He tells us that we can get a flight that leaves in 40 minutes and will get us there in Utah at 10:44. I'm thinking he's talking about PM not AM and freak out a little when he informs me that it is actually AM because that would get us there an hour and 16 minutes earlier than if we stuck with our original flight.
So we take it and that's a cool $500 worth of vouchers in our pocket for a later trip. Hoorah!! Then we go to our next gate and they give us seats in the emergency row. Seeing as how we have a baby with us and people under 15 aren't allowed to sit there, we get bumped up to first class to our flight to Atlanta. I must admit, I am a gigantic fan of first class.
Then from Atlanta to Salt Lake City we were on a huge plane that had two seats on the left, an aisle, three seats in the middle, an aisle and then two seats on the right. We had two of the three seats in the middle, and there was not another person to sit with us so we had room for Aiden to crawl around and be crazy which was fantastic because from Atlanta to Salt Lake City is a four hour flight. It's also nice not being cramped next to a perfect stranger when you are trying to nurse a child that refuses to have a blanket over his head. There were also a lot of other babies on that flight so we weren't the only annoying ones that had a baby and also seated right behind us were four missionaries coming home from their missions and they kept Aiden entertained part of the time.
When we got in, Dennie picked us up and we went to his house to drop off our stuff, and then off to Tracy's to have Thanksgiving Dinner, which was fantastic. Everyone was there, including my brother, John, who came up from New Mexico for the weekend.
Then when it was all said and done, we went back to Dennie's for a much-deserved night's rest. At that point, we had been up for almost 24 hours and I was absolutely feeling it.

P.S. Happy Birthday (yesterday), Jacob!!

All Packed Up and Ready to Go!

Okay, so not really. I just got our luggage out and immediately Aiden was in it, crawling around. So not to miss an opportunity procrastinating the ever dreaded packing, I started taking pictures.

I have most everything out and ready to go as far as non-clothing items go, and as far as clothing items go, they are all in a giant, dirty laundry pile in front of the washer waiting to be washed and then packed so we have nice, clean clothes for when we go out.
I have, however, put up our Christmas tree with the help of Aiden! I normally am not one to put it up this early (only because my mom wouldn't let me put it up before Thanksgiving Dinner, and I held to that "tradition" after I moved out) but I figured since we would be gone Thanksgiving, I'd put it up before. Anyways, it gives me an excuse next year to put it up before, saying that's just what I did this year. I can conveniently forget that us being out of town was the reason for doing so.

Aiden is Ten Months Old!

There's not a lot of new stuff on the Aiden front. He has a few new quirks that are adorable. When you pick him up, he will pat you on the back, and he loves to give Zelda hugs. They will be wrestling and being crazy and then Aiden will stop and give her a giant hug. He is so sweet!

His food palette has absolutely broadened and he eats most everything right off of my plate, which I must say, is fantastic. So much easier than trying to feed myself while feeding him pureed vegetables from a jar. He has also moved from playing in the dog water (mainly because it is always up and hiding from him) to the dog food. He has his first taste of it the other day, and now everytime we are in the kitchen, that is the first thing he checks. If there isn't any food in it, he will sit there and play in the empty bowl while smacking his lips. He's a gross boy.

We are very excited to go out to Utah to visit and cannot wait for the next week to go by. I have taken to counting down the hours because it's easy to figure out how far away you are from Noon exactly on Thanksgiving day, which is when we are supposed to land in Utah. I'm a little bit excited to see my family and show off my little boy.

Also, I am going to try to send out Christmas letters this year, so I may be asking for some addresses. I'm not sure which ones I have and which ones I don't.

Two Weeks to Turkey Day!!

I always know time is getting nearer to a Utah trip when I walk around the house and mentally check things that I will need to pack, and I am so happy to say that time has begun. I am absolutely excited that it's only two weeks away!
On one hand the time seems to have gone by so slowly, but on the other it's gone really fast. Like this past week, when I think of nights that I put Aiden to bed by myself because Thomas is working, it seems forever, but then when I think of the last blog I posted, it went by fast. I'm hoping the next two weeks go by fast and then the following two go by slowly.
But enough of my rambling on. There's no news on my end of the spectrum, Aiden is still into everything and he thinks he's pretty funny most of the time. He just goes around laughing. Not sure at what, but he thinks something is funny. Thomas is a hunting fool. He has gone out twice this week, but I'm sorry to say with no results. Both times it was close though. Saturday morning he went out with his cousin and there was a big buck right behind them scraping the ground and whatnot but it never came near enough to shoot, and Thursday morning, he was sitting in his little blind (a camoflauge hide out that he made), and he saw two doe about six feet away from him. Well, he couldn't shoot them because it's not doe season until next week so he shifted a little so he could get a better shot if a buck came around, which was likely because it's mating season right now, and when he shifted, his foot caught the back pack at his feet, and he heard a giant snort and off the buck ran. Apparently it was right behind him close enough that he could have reached out and touched it and if he had sat still for a few more minutes at the most, it would have come around to where he could have gotten it. He came home all forlorn and resolved to go out and put up the tree stand we bought. It's encouraging though and I look forward to having some deer meat in my freezer.
That's all I have for now. Maybe something real will happen in my life and I can post a blog that is just about my adventure.
But don't wait up for that one.

Just pictures of Aiden.

These are just pictures. I don't have any stories to go along with them, but they are cute. Maybe this with make amends for the posts sans pictures.

Helping Momma cook. Kind of.

Helping Momma with the laundry.

If only he knew how to fold...

Talking on the phone to no one. Just listening to the dial tone.

Yelling at himself in the mirror.

He makes funny faces.

"Talking" to Aunt Brenna on Facebook.

Licking Momma's popcicle. When I first offered it to him, he dug his teeth into it and took a big bite, but then scrunched up his face and shook his head and from then on out, he would just lick it with the very tip of his tongue.

"Whoa! Did you see that?!" Aiden watching Baby Einstein, learning about world animals.

He really, really loves Cheerios.

Aiden stuffing his face while wearing his Jack-o-Lantern bib that his Nana made for him.

Countdown to Utah!

We are three weeks away from our Holiday Season trek out to Utah to visit my (Kim's) family! We are utterly excited and can hardly believe it is so close because the anticipation of this trip has been eating at us seemingly forever. Normally we would have bought the tickets a week or two ago, but as soon as we received our Economic Stimulus check in the mail, we bought the tickets which was a long 14-15 weeks ago.

We are very excited to see my family and to show off Aiden and all his new tricks. Speaking of which, he has a new trick. He claps! If you say "Yaay!" he will stop whatever he is doing and start clapping. He does it every time even if he is crawling or crying, unless, of course, you are recording it to capture precious memories and then you get this:

By the way, that was a pillow in my lap. Not my stomach.
We also found a new way to entertain him or rather let him entertain himself. We have a giant garden tub in our master bath, and on the walls are two giant mirrors. Aiden has found out that he can see himself from every angle when looking in those mirrors, and he would go up to the side of the tub and just talk away. Well, one day when Thomas and I were getting ready to go someplace, Thomas put him in the tub and he just kept going from side to side looking at himself in the mirror. It's nice for when I am getting ready because he can entertain himself while I put on make-up and what have you.

And he also found a new way to entertain himself, which drives me crazy. He loves to get into the Zelda's water bowl. Every time we are in the kitchen, he inevitably makes a beeline straight towards the water, and if I'm not quick enough, he will slowly put his hand in it until it is submerged and then start splashing, ultimately soaking the floor all around him and all of his clothes. There's no doubt in my mind he is all boy.

Now that there are no more pressing Primary things for a while, I am finally able to get a hold onto my house. Thomas is working, working, working and it stinks because he is still on night shift, so we have opposite schedules.

Zelda is going crazy because it is cool enough that I leave the AC off and just open the windows which shows her all the outside mutts and squirrels that she could be chasing and having fun with. She frequently sits at the window whining because there are dogs to play with outside and poor, sheltered Zelda is stuck inside. We would let her out, but there is a little frog pond about 100 feet from our house that she likes to wade in so she comes out looking like pond scum and then we have to give her a shower which is a work out in itself, so she is just tortured, sitting at the windows wishing for a life she can't have.

Also, Thomas and I are dabbling a little bit in a side business so we can make some extra moolah. The company offers various contracts and products ranging from make-up to satellite TV to vitamins, so if you're cell phone contract is about up or whatnot, let us know and we might be able to help you out.

And that's that.

A Few Days Late and Some Pictures Short...

So, our ward's Trunk or Treat was on Friday and I (amazingly) remembered everything that I needed to bring as far as decorations, costumes and the sort go, but of course forgot the camera! So right now I am at the mercy of my dear friend, Jennifer, and one of our Primary teachers, Sister Jones, to see the pictures from the Trunk or Treat and Aiden and I in our costumes.
I was dressed up as a pirate and Aiden was my monkey. I was going to have him be a parrot but all the reasonably priced parrot costumes were either boring, boring, boring or looked like a molting bird. So I went with monkey.
It went really well. Up until this year it had been a strictly primary kids activity, but Jennifer and I decided that was ridiculous and our ward needed some more activities together because our two activities a year don't cut it. We have an after-church Christmas dinner and the past few years we had a Sugar Cane Grinding Breakfast at our old Bishop's house. He was just released a few weeks ago so I don't know if we will even have that this year. So with all that said and done, we tried the best we could to have it be a ward activity. There were about 75 people who showed up. We started out eating and then went to the "Carnival Games". We had a bunch of booths because I got a little excited and kept finding fun Halloween games and decided we could do a little of all, but the thing is, we had more booths than Youth in the ward, so not all of them were manned. After all that, the kids went out into the parking lots and went Trunk or Treating.
We had a few fiascos, but nothing of import. Jennifer thought she left the face paints in her bag at work, so while kids were waiting for face painting, she's driving across town to the office she works, only to find the bag was not there, but in the church the entire time. I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off (would have been an awesome costume, don't ya think? :p) trying to get the booths set up. Thanks be to the our wonderful 2nd counselor in the Bishopric because he entertained Aiden most of the night. Yaay!! But other than that, it went really well. I had fun, but I cannot tell you how exhausted I was at the end of the night.
I think we had a good foundation for years to come, and hopefully next year we will have more people come.

Nine Month Check Up

Aiden has his 9 month well-child visit today. He is growing wonderfully. The doctor found nothing of concern. Hooray!! Good news all around.
He is now 21 lbs, 8 oz, which puts him just about in the 80th percentile for weight, and he is 29 1/3 inches tall, which is about the 90th percentile.
When Thomas and I heard this, we were kind of taken aback because from the time he was born, he had been 97th percentile and above, but then we said, "Now wait here a second, he's still way above average." We were just being a little silly that our kid wasn't tipping the scales anymore.
That's about it here. I'm still going crazy trying to get things done for the Trunk or Treat, which will soon pass.
That is all.

Fish Face, Visitors and Trunk or Treat

Aiden has recently learned how to make a fish face. It was a slow process. It started as sucking and then smacking when he'd lose suction, always after he ate. After a few days of perfecting the sucking without losing suction, he has been able to make it into a full fledged fish face, and he loves to do it.
This morning he was crawling around and for about ten minutes straight while he was crawling he was just doing it over and over every few seconds. I tried to do it back to him but my cheeks quickly tired after a couple minutes.
He is becoming so much fun! He loves to play and wrestle and today he discovered a new favorite game. All day long he had been sticking his tongue out as far as it would go, so while I was holding him, I was mocking him and he tried to grab my tongue, but it was too slippery and he could never hold onto it, so he would try again, and again, and again. He thought it was hilarious, especially when I tried to grab his tongue. He finds games in the weirdest of things and I absolutely love it.
As for Thomas and I, we have been crazy with guests lately. This past weekend his brother, Josh and his family were here visiting. The weekend before Thomas' Uncle John and his girlfriend Natacha were here and the two weekends before that my mom was here. Our guest bed has been put to good use as of late. I am so glad that we were able to visit with these people. It has been a while since they have seen Aiden, and in John and Natacha's case, it was the first time meeting him. I love that Aiden is now at the point where he can interact and I can show him off to people. :)
Other than that, I have been mainly working on getting things prepared for our church's Trunk or Treat. I have been making signs and flannel pumpkins and my better-be-award-winning costume all week long. I'm very excited and hope that there will be a fair amount of people who show up so that my efforts won't be all for naught. Time will tell.

Nine months and counting...

Aiden is now nine months old and he is ready to go out and take on the world. He is feeling much better from his stint with the ear infection. He is finally eating normally which means no more runny puddle poop! Hooray! He is still taking the Amoxicillin but actually gets kind of excited when I take it out of the fridge and shake it. He has always been good with taking medicine, but the 10+ times a day with the syringe in his mouth between the Tyelnol and Motrin just pushed him over the edge. Now with the twice a day, he is doing much better and doesn't think the spoon full of food is an abominable medicine.

As far as new things, he is starting to wave to people when they greet or leave him, which is adorable. And he is starting to interact so much more. He will honk your nose and laugh and laugh and laugh, and one of his favorite teasers is to get Momma's hair and tickle her face with it and he loves picking noses. If you cradle him in your arms, almost always his little fingers are up at your mouth and nose playing around and if he gets a finger stuck up your nostril, he'll just let it hang out there until you take it out. I don't get it, it's just one of his things. He's a crazy kid.

He is also starting to understand that when we tell him that we're gonna get him, fun will shortly ensue. He tucks his head down and brings his hands up to his face in anticipation of the tickling that is to come. It's fun.

He is also playing favorites and loves to be held, for short periods of time. He will crawl all around the room, and then out of no where try to get up on the couch into Momma's lap and he will just hang out for a few minutes and fuss if I try to put him back down, and when he gets his fill of cuddling time, he will fuss if I don't put him down. I love how sweet he is.

He loves to receive kisses. If you kiss him once and pull away, he will push his head into your mouth letting you know that one wasn't enough and when he thinks you've kissed him enough, he'll pull away and go about his business.

We were going to have a Doctor's well-visit tomorrow, but since he is freshly on antibiotics, they pushed it back to Friday, so we'll find out then what percentile etc. he is in.

P.S. Check back soon because there will be pictures to go with the commentary.

Poor, Sick Baby.

My poor, little boy has been sick the past few days. It started Wednesday morning at 4:30 am with a fever of 102.2 that persisted for the next couple of days. He was his usual self, fun and happy and didn't really have any other symptoms other than a fever so I called up the Doctor to see if and when I should take him in and he said that if it lasted until Friday to bring him in.
So this morning his fever was not as vigorous but I was worried the same because he had an ear infection about six months ago and I had no indication except for a little ear rubbing.
He was checked out by the Doctor and turns out he has a pretty bad ear infection in his left ear. I have to give him Amoxicillin twice a day and put ear drops in 3 times a day. I feel terrible and I know Aiden does because he had a terrible night's sleep last night.
Stinks because his Uncle John and his girlfriend are coming today to visit for the weekend and they might not get his peak performance, all because of a crummy ear infection.
And to top it all off, he is not eating anything from a jar because that involves feeding him with a spoon, and any sort of apparatus that comes towards his mouth, he is adamantly against. He will purse his lips and shake his head side to side. I think he's tired of all the medicine I've been giving him between the Motrin, Tylenol to keep his fever down the past couple of days, and now the Amoxicillin. So he's pretty much living off of breastmilk, Cheerios and whatever else I can cut up into chunks so he can feed himself.

Grandma's Visit

My dear mother just left to go back home after a nice, long 11 day visit. It was wonderful having her here, and this morning I was deeply missing her when I had to get up with Aiden at the early-morning hour of 6:45. She spoiled me terribly while she was here because she was sleeping in the nursery and would get up with Aiden at 6:45-7:15 every morning, get him dressed, feed him breakfast, change his diaper and play with him all the while I was sleeping because I never heard him cry over the baby monitor. Every morning I told her to get me up but she would proceed to do it all herself again the next morning. It's like she liked spending the time with him or something. :)

While she was here, we accomplished a lot of stuff that needed to be sewn. We made a thank-you blanket for our Ward's Primary piano player who will not be able to play for us any more due to arthritis. I'd like to say we hemmed Thomas' uniform and whatnot, but she did most of it. She did make me feel better though because she told me she hems all of my brother-in-law's pants because when he asked my sister to do it, it sat there for a few months until he asked my mom to do it. Nothing gets done in my family until it's been put off for long enough and my mom says, "Alright, it's been long enough. Let's get this finished." And then it takes twenty minutes to do it.

And we also made a T-shirt for Aiden, proudly displaying the fact that his Daddy is a Police Officer. I laugh everytime I even think about it.

We tried to go out to the Gulf, again, but alas, this was not the visit for her to see the Gulf, apparently. We got all packed up and on our way, and we're about halfway there and realize that Thomas and I both forgot our cell phones and seeing as how there's really nothing but back roads between here and the Gulf but Perry, Florida in between, we stopped off at Perry to buy some canning supplies and headed back home. I really have no idea how we both forgot our phones, but we did. Maybe next time will be the time we actually make it out there. Everytime my mom comes, we tell her we're going to go to the Gulf and go to this delicious restaurant that catches all it's food for the day in the morning, so the seafood is nice and fresh, but we have yet to make it out there.

We went shopping quite a bit to buy stuff to can. We canned 3 pts of tomatoes, 2 pts of pears, 9 pts of peaches, 4 pts of oranges, and 9 pts of bread and butter pickles. I feel much more confident in the canning area and am so grateful to have had her here to get my feet wet again and remind me of the whole canning process. Now I have a canning bug and am constantly thinking of things that I could can. I think my next venture will be fruit cocktail. Wish me luck.

Aiden ate a lot of new foods and now has an adorable Buddha belly, thanks to Grandma. Which was nice for me because since I am very much the first time mommy and scared of the unknown I wasn't trying a lot of new things but my mom blazed right through that because she's gone down this road a time or two between five kids and ten grandkids. He ate his share of bread, broccoli, bits of chicken salad sandwiches, beef stew, corn, sweet peas, fresh green beans, mushrooms, fresh peaches, strawberries, french fries (without the gag reflex this time, thank goodness) to name a few.

He also mastered the chum bag we bought for him. My sister-in-law, Michelle, had told me about it a while ago, and finally while at the store I remembered it, and I wish I had bought it when she first told me about it. It's amazing. But also with all this new stuff in the feeding department, he has figured out that he can feed Zelda. He has put his chum bag over the side for Zelda to lick a few times already, and then proceed to suck on it himself. I'm sorry to say that I didn't catch him in time a few times to stop him, and that is gross.

Mostly while my mom was here, we just hung out and let Aiden play with Grandma, which he took to immediately. We went down to the garden a couple times to pick beans and radishes, and walked around the property where he encountered his first turtle!

He also learned the wonders of "This Little Piggy" and "Patty-Cake" and "High-five, side-five, low-five, cut the pickle" from Grandma. I have tried to do this since she left, but he just doesn't think it's as funny coming from Momma and it was Grandma.

Dropping her off at the airport was heart-wrenching. I'm not good with saying goodbye to my family, but it the blow was softened because in a hopefully-short six and a half weeks we will be going out to Utah to visit.

Happy Birthday, Thomas!!

So today is Thomas' birthday. He has turned the ripe old age of 25 and we are ecstatic because our car insurance has gone down quite a bit. Hooray!

We didn't really do anything special on his birthday because he had to work. Bleh. But he did get quite a few presents and a fancy birthday dinner the next day complete with Rib-eye steaks, fried zucchini, mac and cheese and a salad.


He received the aforementioned-in-another-blog Miami Dolphins jacket and a book on CD from me.
He got a couple ties from Aiden and Zelda.

He got a computer desk from my mom. (We needed a computer desk because the one we had was gigantic and my mom happened to be here and said she would buy that for Thomas' birthday.)

And from himself he bought a BUNCH of hunting stuff. He's wanted to start hunting for a while now, but since Aiden has been here, he's felt that he really needs to learn so he could teach Aiden how to hunt. So he bought himself a big fancy bow, a case to carry it in, some camoflage clothing, deer attractant something or another and a deer camera (you set it up on a tree, set some feed in front of it, and if anything comes by, it has a motion-sensor on it and it will take a picture of whatever is there. We have caught rats, squirrels, Thomas, his mom and a butterfly on the camera). He came home from work and pulls out the camo and says, "Wanna see how redneck I am now?" and then proceeds to try it on and kept going on and on about how he vowed to never buy this stuff, and how he coudn't tell me how many times he made fun of people wearing camo. My take on it? As long as he doesn't wear it to Wal-Mart, he's not a redneck. If he uses it to kill a deer or two a year, I am perfectly fine with it.

So here's to one year older and wiser, too: Happy Birthday, to you!

New Coats!

Do you remember the scene from "Christmas Story" where the main character and the younger brother are outside walking in the snow, and the younger brother is so bundled up in this giant, poofy red jacket that his arms are sticking straight out and he can't hardly move and falls over in the snow and can't get back up because all the layers of snow gear he is wearing makes him completely incapable of doing so?

Well, that's Aiden in his new jacket. We bought him a winter coat from eBay for when we go out to Utah, and by the weight sizing, it is exactly the right one for him, if nothing else, a little bit small. We received it today and I proceeded to put it on him and it is huge. It's a little bit too long, but mostly it is just a big poofy jacket. Too much for such a little person to handle, I think.

Ya live and learn. At least it was from eBay which means it wasn't expensive, and at least it's too big instead of too small and he will be able to wear it at a later date.

But on a brighter note. Thomas got a new Miami Dolphins coat, too, and his fits him perfectly and it looks awesome.

Looks like Zelda and I are left out on the new jacket trend.

I'm so glad people don't treat you the way they do babies.

Sometimes I just sit and wonder what it would be like if everyone treated you like they do a baby.

For instance, could you imagine someone coming up to you and just picking you up and carrying you around, and you have no say in the matter?

And then to top it off, lift up your shirt and blow on your stomach or pretend to chew on your toes trying to get a couple laughs?

Or if you start to grunt, someone say, "Uh oh, someone's pooping." And then proceed to look down the back of your pants to see if you did or not.

Or even to calm you down or put you to sleep would pat your bottom until the desired effect was achieved.

But then again, if someone did this, you could always spit up on them and tell them you were just fitting into the role.

Just some thoughts I have....



(I spend a lot of my day talking to a dog and a baby that really have no idea what I'm saying.)

It's Great to be Eight (months)!

It is absolutely incredible how much Aiden has grown in just the past couple weeks. About three weeks ago, it was weird to see him move into a sitting position from laying on the ground and now he has taken over everything in the house. Well, everything three feet off the ground and below. He has tried many new foods. French fries, Jolly Ranchers (thanks to Daddy) and lemons, which he actually liked, to name a few. But mostly his getting-around abilities have multiplied greatly. And there is another tooth, which brings the total to a whopping seven.
He is now able to pull himself up on just about any surface, and can climb up onto low-lying objects which makes the running-after factor greatly increase. And earlier this week, he started to cruise along the couch. I was sitting on it, and he half army-crawled, half really crawled over to me, pulled himself up, and was trying to climb onto the couch (not quite enough coordinated for that feat, yet) and then I moved to the other end, and up until the other day, he would have fallen down, crawled over to me and then pulled himself up, but he is a new man, moving on up in the world. He is above all that nonsense, he just cruises right along the couch over to me now.


This does, however, make the bumps go up. He is testing out most everything and sometimes he is just not able to handle them. So he falls down a lot and bumps his head a lot, but then he sees something else in this new perspective on the floor and goes right after it and forgets all about his woes.
He is definitely into the interacting mode and loves especially to play with Zelda, which I am so grateful she is a patient dog. He will climb all over her and chew on her ears and give her giant slobbery kisses on the top of her head, and she will sit there and take it as long as she can get a kiss in every once and a while. Which I'm not upset about because the best do's come from Zelda licking his hair. Just sometimes she gets a little excited and forgets she is a 60+ lb dog and not a little puppy, so I have to intervene and calm everyone down so it can start anew.

He is much more vocal and has started to make sounds that sound like actual words. When he gets really excited, he will lift up his arms into the air and it sounds like he is saying "YAY!!" Only at super-sonic levels. And when he gets upset he will say momma over and over and over again. Sometimes I like to think he is actually calling out to me. This always proves fruitful when he does this because nine times out of ten, he will start blowing giant spit bubbles and he gets a kick out of that.
One thing, however, I am not so excited about in this growing up process is he is now a biter. He hasn't really bitten anyone other than Thomas and I, to my knowledge, but to us he does it plenty. He does it in spurts. He won't bite almost all day long, and then out of no where, he will bite you ten times in just as many minutes. Most of the time is when he is tired and/or hungry, but then others it is completely out of the blue.

But most of all, I especially love how much of a ham he is. He will mind his own business all day long but the second I bring out the camera, he is crawling all over me and posing with giant smiles. I don't know what he thinks it is, but he loves to get his picture taken. He also loves to perform for others. If he can get the attention of anyone in the room, he will go on and on showing all his tricks. All his super screams, tell all kinds of jokes (he will babble on for a while and pause, and then start laughing like he just told a joke), flailing his arms about which is completely exhausting just to watch, blowing spit bubbles, and the sort.

He's just too cute.