To Aidan on your 1st birthday

Dear Aidan,

You don't realize it but today is a pretty big moment in your life.  Today you turn a whole year old!  You don't realize how much you've changed in the last year and how much you've become such an integral part of our little family.  You're napping right now which automatically wins you points because unlike your sister it's not in a baby swing or in my arms which has allowed me to get a few things done every once in a while.  Not that I mind holding you much when you let me.  But right now you're not too into being held.  You're what I refer to as "my little crazy man."  You're into everything.

If you can climb it, bang it, throw it, or get into it... you're in!  You have taught me more then anything that there are some major differences between raising boys and girls.  Mainly stamina!  You're into cars, balls, and anything that makes loud somewhat obnoxious noises.  We haven't found much you won't eat still and if I'd find a way for you to get on top of the refrigerator I don't think you'd hesitate to try it out.  We're trying hard to teach you right now to give kisses and not bite.  You're letting up on the head butting thing except to Mr. Kitty.  But that's OK he kind of deserves it.  You're sort of walking.  You consistently take 6-8 steps at a time and then fall down but it's not your only mode of getting around.  You still crawl at lightning speed and thank goodness we figured out a way to get a gate on the stairs!

When I look back to a year ago it's kind of hard to believe you were inside this gigantic belly that just for you I'm posting on the Internet.  I was so unbelievably ready for you to come on and get out of there.  I remember going to the hospital thinking the 2nd time would be a breeze, I'd get the epidural early, and we'd be on our way.  The epidural never really worked, I worried constantly about how fast your heartrate was, and kept the nurses on their toes with my dropping blood pressure.  But when my Dr. held you up at 6:15 p.m. on this day a year ago tears came into my eyes.  You gotta know your Mommy isn't a big crier.  You were finally here.  All the worrying about you, all the discomfort, was washed away.  There you were!  All 9 pounds, 22 inches of you and I was speechless.

So I know I'm not always going to be the perfect Mommy to you.  I know your sister drives you batty sometimes.  I know your Daddy will make mistakes.  But we all love you and we kind of suspect you love us too.  We're so blessed to have you in our lives and we'll always be your biggest fans no matter where your life goes from here.  But for now you're our little monkey and we wish you a very Happy 1st Birthday!

3 Piggy Opera

All the Kindergarten classes at Kate's school performed their music program last night.  It was really cute and some of those kids were so brave with their solos.  Kate had no interest in singing a solo or having any speaking parts and frankly looked a little bored.  I think she was actually nervous.  But I enjoyed it.  Of course I was at the back wrangling a crazy child who as one lady put it "just wanted to sing along" and thought it was really funny to bite my shoulder which is majorly bruised now.  We can't take him anywhere!  He's a maniac.  But he's my maniac.  Sorry for the horrible quality pictures.  We couldn't sit closer for fear of inciting a riot with all the noise coming out of the little body in my arms.

Boooring...

A little amused

Nope bored again and playing with her shoe

In the car and much happier

Nature Center

We're fortunate to have a pretty nice nature center in our town that when it's nice we enjoy walking around.  The other day we headed over and I spent some time playing around with my camera and took a ridiculous amount of pictures of all things naturey (not a word?) and a few of the family.

Back off girly!

Kate posing

Aidan sort of posing

Kate and Daniel

I do exist

Flowers

More flowers

Leaf bud- I love the macro feature

Easter time

Daniel's family celebrated Easter with us this year and while the weather cooperated one of my children who is about to turn 1 wasn't so interested in posing for some springy pictures in his Easter outfit.  The other one liked to be a little cheesy at times but I think I got a few good ones of her.

Little cutie with his Grammy the night before Easter 

What I was missing

I suppose I have to give my husband credit for this pretty shot from Germany.  He keeps discussing if only he had been there later in April he could have been "trapped" in Europe on the company's dime due to all the cancelled flights from the volcano ash.  Bummer.

Shredded Cheese... The new sedative

Spring Break anyone?

So I know it's not March anymore.  I know it's barely April.  But in an attempt to get back on track with my blogging I'm going back and highlighting a few of our high points over the last month- starting with my little Spring Break trip.  I won't go into great detail except to say it was nice to get away, the kids had fun, Aidan learned the car seat wasn't always his friend, I wish it had been a little warmer down by the water, and Daniel made me glad I wasn't in Germany because they would have made me eat pigeon.  Eeeh.

Kate & Aidan enjoy riding my poor Dad like a horse the night before we left

Aidan and my Dad on a balcony at the beach house

Always ready to pose for a picture

Not so eager to pose for a picture but was eager to get at the camera

Posing inside a touristy shark's mouth outside one of the stores

Thanks Dad for cutting out my butt

Did I mention she likes to pose?

Enjoying his 1st beach trip and new sand toys

Recreating a similar picture I have with Kate from 2 years ago

Mom & Dad- Can you tell she probably wasn't amused by something he was doing in that moment?

Getting dirty

He loved driving with my Dad on the beach

Group shot-not so great

He's a cutie

So is this one

They play so well together until he realizes she's stolen his toys

Who Knew

Who knew we were operating a safe haven/boarding house for all the kitties of the neighborhood?  The little guy who frequently sleeps on our front porch wasn't even involved this time or the Sammy look alike that picks on him occasionally.  I dropped Kate off from school and looked out the back window to discover this little cat pow wow.  I've never seen any of them before but 1 of them could have been a different Sammy twin and the other Mr. Kitty's.  Eventually they all sat down and sunned in our back yard.  Maybe it's more like we're operating a kitty day spa.  It was weird.  Then our cats started freaking out at the front door and I started smelling cat pee.  I opened it to watch yet another cat run away that I've never seen before who had apparently sprayed our front door.  So I figured as I explained to Kate one of the kitties is a girl and the other cats want to be her "boyfriend."  So then I guess we're kind of running more of a cheap motel.

"Over my dead body."

Beach or Bust

Well since Saturday I have spent all my free Internet time searching the great www for a place to rent for Spring Break.  Apparently I am going to be a bad Mom and take my Kindergartner out of school for the week before Spring Break and head down to the Texas coast with my parents while my husband lives it up in Germany.  Have I mentioned that he will be touring castles and gets 100.00 for just himself for dinner?  Did I also mention his boss might have told him on more then 1 occasion that prostitution was legal there but that he couldn't expense it.  Really?  REALLY? (insert disapproving tone and face when saying the "Really")  Anyway....

So my parents have graciously provided a sponsorship for a beach vacation for me and my kids and my husband's work is sponsoring a European one complete with glowing hooker endorsements for him.  Everyone wins!  I actually am excited to be going.  I got the OK from Kate's teacher, got Aidan some cute swimwear last night at trusty Target and if I can survive a 1 day car trip to Port Aransas, TX from central Oklahoma then I'm set.  I'm going to get to relive my youth and travel in the backseat with not 1 but both of my children.  So I guess if my children start hitting me and burping a lot then they'll be an equal trade for my little brother.  With stops we're predicting it to take about 12 hours.  As in half a day.  Are we insane?  I'm very interested to see how well we're all going to fit and which one of the 5 of us cries first.

I learned a lot during my searching.  For one, there are almost no properties left for the week of March 15-19 when apparently everyone except the state of Kansas is on Spring Break and apparently also wants to be at the beach.  Somehow we managed to score a pretty nice little house not too far from the beach.  I personally think it was just because it wasn't really well advertised on 5 different sites like a lot of the other houses.  But someone else's loss is another one's gain right?  I also learned google maps shuts down and gets very irritated when you put a space in between 2 words that shouldn't have one.  It refuses to show you anything that might possibly be what you're talking about.  I also remembered how much I want to live in a tourist town.

When we went to Hawaii and few years ago I remember thinking how lucky the girl who rented us our car was.  I mean sure she's stuck all day renting out cars to tourists but she lives in Hawaii!  She gets to stay there and so many people have to go back home.  That IS her home.  I can just imagine whenever someone returns a car because they have to go back to their boring lives in Kansas she's thinking, "Ahh. Poor midwesterners.  Poor babies have to go home.  But not me!  Ha Ha Ha Ha."  That's how I'd be anyway.

So yee-haw!  Texas here I come!

Thoughts on a Thursday morning

Kate is home from school today.  They have 2 days off for Parent Teacher Conferences.  She's happily lounging around doing nothing, Aidan is already napping, and I'm going to blog about whatever pops into my head!

Kate is apparently a "delight to have in class."  Her teacher said she's very cooperative, works really well with others and is a good friend.  She's learning to read up a storm, doing well with math, but still is thrown for a loop on her birthday and phone number.  It's so funny how last year it wasn't a big deal with the birthday but now that they've thrown in the year she was born she's forgetting the rest of it.  She sometimes remembers our phone # but I don't really blame her.  That's why you have a cell phone to store all those numbers right? :-)

Recommended Movie of the week: "Up".  Super cute, great family film.  Even if you don't have kids to watch with you, I highly recommend it.  We've taken to renting $1.00 movies from the redboxes all over town.  We may be behind the times in some areas, but at least we have the redbox.  My favorite feature is that you can peruse the movies online, find one you like, search for a nearby box that has it in, and reserve it.  You walk up, swipe your credit card, and it vends your movie like a bag of chips.  Genius!  No more waiting out in the cold, trying to decide what you want.  I wish I was the guy that had come up with that one!

Speaking of cold.  Brrrr!  I'm more then over this cold spell.  I'm tired of chances of snow, snow, wind chills, Winter storm watches and warnings, blizzards, and ice.  Bring on the heat index and sun.  I wanna go to the pool and the park.  I want to wear shorts and flip flops and plan vacations to the beach that won't happen.  Well I guess I could do that now.

Pretty cool looking tree in the from yard but not to thrilled about the fact that it's stayed like that all week.

Speaking of vacations that won't happen... My husband sent me a lovely text message yesterday that said, "Going to Germany and Italy in March for work."  My response: "I don't think so."  I quickly followed up with "Oh wait... How nice."   The "How nice" is is a reference to one of my favorite jokes.  But seriously how unfair is this?  He's going to be out visiting castles and spending $100.00 for just himself on dinner while I'm here in stupid, cold, Kansas.  Grrrrr.   He'll be gone at least 6 days and maybe longer.  The Germany part is for sure and the Italy part is TBD today I think.  I suppose if I had an extra 2 grand, Kate wasn't in school, Aidan was older,  plus some more moolah to expedite some quickie passport renewals I could live it up shopping for cuckoo clocks too.

Who wants to go here?

I discovered the other day that an old credit card I haven't used in more then 2 years with no balance has all these rewards points on it that you can exchange for all kinds of merchandise for free.  Apparently I have enough to get me a lightweight vacuum among other things.  No more crushed up puffs and cracker crumbs because I'm too lazy to drag out the big boy.

I've been working on an invitation for my niece Ava's 1st birthday coming up next month.  Here's a little owl I worked on yesterday to go on the invite.