Aiden's Crafts

Here is a video of Aiden showing off his stocking he made in preschool and singing his version of "Jingle Bells". I don't know quite what the song turned into-but I think it's cute :) Not biased or anything :)

Overwhelmed

I feel like I have totally neglected my blog these past few weeks...
I have been feeling pretty overwhelmed these past few weeks with all the traveling we have been doing, and all the things that pile up when you are away. I take a look at my house and can't believe it looks the way it does. I have been trying to put up Christmas decorations since the beginning of the month, and still not done. The outside lights have me so confused, and trying to put them up myself without Micah being home to help with the boys has proved a near impossible task. Of course we won't be having any lights on the roof this year, but I'm still trying to make our house look festive. And the fact that we are hosting a resident interview party this week hasn't helped my anxiety at all. I really love to entertain, and actually can't wait for the party, but I just have so much to do...I'm really hoping Micah can be more available this week-but we'll see. Well, I just wanted to update quick while I had a quiet moment. I'm off to put Aiden down for a nap, pray that Devin stays asleep for another few hours, and I can finally try and finish figuring out my outside lights!

Devin's Feeding

Devin is now 4 months old and just had a check up. He was 16 lbs 14 oz and 26 inches. He still is in the 90%tile for both his height and his weight. Doctor says he is looking great and has great motor development for his age. He is starting to get the "tripod" sit better, and even balances well when sitting on my lap. That's not expected for another 2 months! He has definitely found his feet and loves to grab them whenever he can. He discovered that if he pushes up on his arms when he's on his tummy he can see a lot more! This has made putting him to bed a little more difficult as he sleeps on his tummy-and just wants to look around :) He's been pretty good at night, usually going about 8 hours. The only thing is he goes to bed fairly early (8:30ish) and sometimes is up around 4ish. So I don't always get a straight night's sleep, but occasionally he surprises me. Now that he is 4 months we get to start cereal and in the next few weeks we can start veggies and fruits. Of course we had to record this milestone, so here are a few pictures of his first cereal feeding we did tonight :) And yes, that is all drool over his shirt -all his bibs I brought were already soaked (we're visiting my parents)...I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some teeth in the next month or so.

Yummy yummy in the tummy!

what a ham!

He actually did really well! A lot better than Aiden did.. He pretty much ate it all.

Look at those cheeks! :) I can't get over how big he is...holy cow! Where does the time go...

Thanksgiving

My mom has started a new tradition in celebrating the holiday the weekend before the holiday. That way we won't be so pressed for time to spend time with other various families. So, here are some pictures from our early Thanksgiving at Mom's house. Aiden was actually not feeling well, and running quite a fever...so here I am trying to comfort him and help him feel better. Below, you wouldn't be able to tell-he's got that silly grin down pat :)

Mom, Hilary, me, Aiden, Lauren and her dog Spanky. Aren't those cupcakes so cute? (Devin was sleeping during the whole dinner-and then I fell asleep :) I don't know if anyone else got some pictures with him and his turkey bib or not? Foward them on to me if you did! Thanks :)

What mom can resist giving her child a cupcake when he's feeling bad?

The Wed. before Thanksgiving Aiden's preschool class put on "Feast Day" during school. Parents helped bring some side dishes, and all families were welcome to come. We were lucky enough to have both Grammy and Kiki come out to celebrate Feast Day with us-I know that Aiden was thrilled to have them there! Here they are getting ready to sing their meal prayer.

All the kids made placemats. I got to see Aiden's turkey coloring before it was cut out-and I have to say both his teacher and I were pretty impressed how he was trying to stay in the lines! Anyway, I think it's cute and I know he's proud of it!

Kiki and Grammy at Feast Day-and Devin is out!

We were so fortunate that Micah was surprised and got the day off. He had been on call the day before and was going to be on call on Thanksgiving...so the Doctors he was working with told him to leave Wed. morning after he got off call. We were so thankful for that, and that meant he could come to Feast Day too! We didn't waste one minute of that day!

Just some of the setup for the dinner

Ok, so if you read one of my previous posts...I vented a little about guys who are unfaithful. Like I said, we celebrated Thanksgiving early, and Lauren wanted Greg's presence to be known at dinner, so she brought down his picture and he sat there with us during dinner. I then took this picture of her and Gigi. On Thanksgiving Day, Lauren spent the day with Greg's parents at their house (even though he was still on base in SC) That night she found out that he has been cheating on her, and had been for the past year...and has been living with this girl. Long story short, she of course is devastated and immediately ended the 6 year relationship. I took this photo into paint and did a little artwork of my own. I know it's a little childish...but it's such a good picture of Lauren and Gigi, and it's marred by that aweful guy. I will eventually crop him totally out, but then you won't be able to tell that it's Thanksgiving. Oh well.

Disclaimer: I have total and utmost respect for our military and all the sacrafices they make for our country and freedom. I apologize profusely if what I have done to this picture offends anyone, but please note that it was purely personal and truly wished that he wasn't in uniform.

Snow

A few weeks ago, my parents got the first bit of snow of the season. Well, they literally got dumped on-and then when you go just 10 min out of the area, there was no snow! Crazy weather. But anyway, I was in town to clean out my totaled car (I'll get to that in another post) and buy a new one, and left Aiden to play in the snow with Auntie 'Niener'. I didn't have time to buy him proper snow attire before this, so he is in a ghetto fabulous outfit consisting of: socks for mittens, tube socks over his shoes and pants and then plastic bags duck taped to his legs. And he has one of our really old hats on (it's a little girl's hat) under his hood. It was hilarious, but a little sad :) So the next day I was sure to go and buy him some appropriate snow clothes for next time. Here they are building their snowman.

it was pretty fluffy snow, so they couldn't really roll in into balls

so cute :)

With all the running around I was having to do, I didn't get a picture of the finished product until a few days later...and this was what was left. It's kinda sad looking...but I'm sure they did their best :)

Then it snowed here over this past weekend, and it was the perfect snowman building snow, so Micah took Aiden out and our neighbor Cole joined them in building our first ever snowman at this house!

Micah got carried away making the body balls, and I kept telling him they were too big. I ended up having to help him get the middle one up, and he leaned over it to help stabalize it on the bottom one...and well you can see what happened next...so we had to do that one over again. And again he made it to big even after my warnings, and we had to chip some away before attempting again.

Go Bears!

Touchdown!

Well, I wasn't about to leave my Bears things outside to get taken away, so I changed Mr. Snowman up a little, and this is what he looks like now :)
Although he is still looking great even though most of the snow is melted, his face has become non existant. We ended up using spray food coloring because the rocks we had wouldn't stay...now it's melted away a little and he just has a nose-but it's still cool to have a snowman out front!

Just when you thought it was over...

So, I thought that since I was done reading the Twilight series I would be able to get some work done around the house...then my good friend Laura brought it to my attention that Stephanie Meyers was working on a 5th book, retelling the first one only from Edward's perspective. However when she sent her rough drafts to someone for opinions, they in turn posted them online. She has since decided that she would not be able to finish the book because it is now tainted with bad feelings. To stop her fans from looking for the unfinished draft illegally she decided to post it on her website, and be done with it. It's a fascinating read and I'm frustrated that she will not be finishing it. I seriously hope she was able to take legal action against the person who violated her rights in that way.
But anyway, like I said, you can read what she had started on her website. So that's what I've been doing again these past few days, reading while I have had the chance. Maybe now I can have my life back :) Not that I'm disappointed, because again...one can always fantasize :)
And Lauren....your Edward is out there! ;)

update

I just wanted to update that I finally finished Breaking Dawn! I am sad that I'm done reading, and my Twilight obsession will now start to fade, but grateful that I can finally give my full attention to everything thing else now. I have much to post about to cover these past few weeks...including totaling my car, Devin's first Thanksgiving, more babies (not mine!) parties and more. It's been a crazy busy past few weeks, and with the holidays now in full swing, it doesn't seem like anything is going to slow down. I know I'm probably preaching to the choir right now as this is a busy time for everyone too. I just hope that we all can sit back and enjoy what this season is all about, enjoy the time spent with our loved ones, and have safe travels as we venture to our various celebrations.

Right now my attention is getting my house back in order and decorated for the holidays. Our goal is to get the decorations up and boxes back in the attic so we can park our cars in the garage as the weather gets nasty :(
I'll end this post with a shot out to those men in our lives who are loving and faithful. There are too many guys in this world who are careless with their actions and affections, and end up hurting those we love. Those guys are not men, and do not belong in the same category. Those guys give our men a bad name, as many just throw the lot all together in a generalization. There are men out there who are good hearted, faithful, and eager to love a woman unconditionally. I pray every day that those are matched up with someone who will truly appreciate them and love them faithfully in return. To those scumbags out there, I hope that someday you will get what you truly deserve. And that you will leave the people you have hurt and broken alone, giving them the space to pick up the pieces and move on to bigger and Better things. You've done enough damage...do not stick around. If there is any hope for you to become a fraction of a man, then you will leave those hurt alone, allowing them to get over you-because they WILL get over you.
That's all.

Twilight

I'm not going to lie...I've become newly 'obsessed' with Twilight in these past few weeks! I will say that we have been doing a ton of traveling-and there seems to be no end in sight at the moment. A lot has happened since we got back from Florida, which I promise to blog about soon. But right now my time home has been cleaning, taking care of sick kids, :( cooking for various Thanksgiving celebrations, and reading the Twilight series! I'm about a third of the way through Breaking Dawn...so it will be a few more days before I can catch up on my posting (finding the time to read isn't always easy with 2 kiddos and a house full of chores) haha! But being the dork that I am, I did get to see the movie on opening night with my sisters and Daryl. Micah was there in body, but not it mind as he fell asleep due to some long call nights catching up to him. Hopefully we can go see it again soon where he can enjoy it with me, and see what I've been so obsessed over for the past few weeks. And yes...I bought the soundtrack...hehe. Call me what you will, but I need a little enjoyment right now, and romantic vampire fairytales seem to be doing the trick!
To all of you out there not in on the action...I highly recommend the books! The movie is actually quite good I thought. There was a lot that they tried to keep true to the book, a lot they had to leave out (that's to be expected) and a few things they decided to add-some I thought were unnecessary...but all in all it was great, and I hope to see it again if given the opportunity.
Happy reading to you, and I'll be posting again soon!