Brothers

Everyone seems to ask me all the time how Aiden is having a brother now. So I figured I would show you :) He is the best big brother-always helping when he can. He lets me know when Devin is going to cry-and to help him. He loves to try and make him laugh, and he has been doing a great job sharing and showing Devin what to do with his toys. I had them on the couch and it was just so cute.

Devin's been babbling a lot more lately and making these funny faces

Eating of the fist is a common occurrence-I call him my little cannibal

Here Aiden is showing Devin the Christmas mobile he made at school

Now he's tickling his feet

And just being plain goofy. I love to watch the two of them playing and can't wait for Devin to be a little bigger and capable of interacting more. I know Aiden will just love it, and has a best friend for life. I have the best boys...well most of them time ;)

Here is a little video of Aiden sharing. Devin was sitting on my lap and Aiden was having a snack and wanted Devin to have a bite. It was so cute, and I didn't want to disturb Devin's position on me, fearing he wouldn't be reacting the same if I moved him to get a better angle for the video. So I apologize for the constant back and forth...

Santa

Over the past few weeks we have gone to a few Christmas parties and seen Santa. Since we have done this I opted not to stand in the forever long lines at the mall to get another picture with Santa...so here is what we've got! The first one was back at my dad's Sportsmen Club, where my parents, sisters, and Sandy all came. We even saw our cousins and Aunt Carol briefly-poor Kara was sick and couldn't make it.

Kiki and Devin

Me, Devin, Lauren, and Hilary

I told Aiden to make sure he told Santa what he wanted for Christmas-and all he would say was "I want presents!" Easy to please :)

Look at all those goodies!
(Shannon, Chloe, Dillon, Devin, and Aiden)

The next time we saw Santa was at a local retirement home near our house where they hosted a "Breakfast with Santa". Hilary and Lauren were in town and joined the boys and I there. It was cute, and Micah was even able to make it!

Hilary and Devin

Same thing-he just wanted presents ;)

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! ;)