Christmas

This year Christmas was...well different. As always, we had so much fun spending time with both families. We were sorry we had to miss the Cook Christmas, but it was going to be way too much traveling. We were glad to have Allison and Anthony home and glad we got to see Mark and Pat Christmas Eve. We had good food and lots of great beer. We got to see a big chunk of my family at my grandma's Christmas Day which of course lead to a few drinks and euchre games (and for the record Aunt Sandy and I beat Uncle Gene and Erica, who are always running their mouths about how unbeatable they are :)). But with all the fun we had, we were also sad. We were missing someone and it was hard to not have him there with us. Andy did put lights on the tree out back that grandpa used to call Aiden's tree and now it is Aiden and grandpa's tree.

Another reason Christmas was so different this year was because Aiden is starting to understand the whole Sants thing.  He was so excited about Santa coming, he didn't want to go to sleep.  It was after 10 before he fell asleep and he was up at 6 am Christmas morning.  I got him to go back to sleep until 7 (luckily since it was after 1 when the rest of us went to bed). Then he was awake.  I asked him if he wanted to go see if Santa came and he was all excited, yelling yeah, yeah, and he ran upstairs.  When he saw all the presents, he stood in awe for a minute. Then he said "those Aiden's presents?" and I said yes they are.  Santa brought you lots of presents.  You must have been a really good boy. And he got all excited.  I told him he had to go wake up grandma (who I believe was awake already from all the excitement screams) and then they went down and woke up Aunt Allison and Uncle Anthony. It was so much fun watching him be so excited. He got just as excited at my parents that night when he saw all the presents. He kept saying open presents, open presents. To be a kid again...

Here are a few pictures from Christmas...

Merry Christmas

I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.  I'm sure we will have lots of new pics to put up after the Holidays and probably some fun stories too.

Naughty or nice...what do you think?

Leaves

I fell a little behind on blogging again.  I know everyone is really surprised about that. So lets go back a few weeks, before the snow came. Our leaves always seem to take forever to fall.  It seems half the trees in our neighborhood are bare by the end of October but ours never fall until at least mid-November. Once they all fell, we decided we needed to go rake them up. Last year, we gated off the front porch and left Aiden and Porter to play up there while we did it.  This year, we left Porter in the house and Aiden wanted to rake too. Once we got a big pile together, we told Aiden to jump in it.  He was unsure at first but then we showed him how and he loved it.  When we started to bag them again, he was mad because he wanted to keep playing. To be a kid again...

Sleep again

Since the time change, Aiden has been going to bed at his normal bedtime of 8:30 but he has been waking up between 5 and 6 every morning. You could tell he was always still tired, but it didn't matter, he still got up. I know it was because that was the time he always gets up (old time). We went to Grandma Marple's house Friday night and of course he fell alseep on the way there because it was dark and he was exhausted from not enough sleep all week. It took him awhile to wake up once we got there, but once he did, he wanted to play. So he didn't go to be until around 10 that night and he only slept until 6:15. The poor kid had dark circles under his eyes that morning. I left around 8:30 to do some shopping with Erica and Onie, and Andy sends me this picture around 1.

And apparently he didn't wake back up until around 5. He went to bed around 9 SAturday night and slept until about 8. Finally, he slept in a bit. And all of that sleep must have reset him for the new time because he has gone to bed at normal time all week and has slept until after our alarm goes off. This makes us all so much happier in the morning, except maybe Porter who rather enjoyed being fed early.

Frankenmuth

This past weekend, Aiden and I met my parents in Frankenmuth.  Andy had to work but I think he would have stayed home anyway even if he didn't have to work.  Bronners is just not a fun place for him...shopping + tons of people=crabby Andy. We left the house at 7:30 am on Saturday and were back by 3. It was a fun day though.  We got to do some shopping at Bronners before it got too packed. Aiden was amazed by all the Christmas stuff.  He really didn't get excited about any one thing, but his eyes were huge as we strolled him around. Grandpa took him through most of the store so my mom and I could shop. I have to say Aiden was very well behaved.  I was a little concerned about taking a 2 year old there but he didn't try to touch anything. Then we got to Zehnders a little after 11 and didn't have to wait to get seated. I love getting to Frankemuth early and beating the crowds.  It's so much more enjoyable. It was a very yummy lunch as usual and we ate too much as usual. Aiden loved the buttered noodles, but who doesn't? Dad and I went to a couple stores on Main Street while mom and Aiden went downstairs at Zehnders.  After dad and I got the couple of things we wanted, we met back up with mom and Aiden and went to see the horses that pull the carriages. Aiden loves all animals and was very excited to see these BIG horses up close. He even got to pet one which he thought was pretty cool. We thought about taking him for a ride but after the Uncle John's incident with the wagon ride and screaming, we thought it was way too expensive in case he didn't like it. Maybe next time. Aiden was asleep before I made it back to Birch Run to get back on the highway, and he slept the whole way home.

Halloween

I was starting to think that Aiden really hated Halloween until he figured out the whole trick or treating thing. He didn't want to touch the pumpkins when we were carving them. He thought the pumpkin guts were gross. Porter on the other hand enjoyed them very much :) He wouldn't let us put him in a costume. We got him a Mickey Mouse costume and every time we tried to put him on it, he screamed. My co-worker brought me in her son's Buzz Lightyear costume from last year and he did the same thing when we attempted to put it on. My office did trick or treating on Friday and I figured the best we would be able to do was his Halloween shirt. Surprisingly when Andy and Aiden showed up at my office, he had on a costume but not either of the 2 we had for him. His daycare provider had a clown costume that fit him and she got him into it. I swear she is the toddler whisperer :) She can get those kids to do anything. He was a little shy at first but then he figured out if went from desk to desk people would give him candy. It didn't take him long to un-attach himself from my leg and take off running around the office. When we got home, he had to check out what he got piece by piece and ask us what each piece was. He now knows M&M's and loves them.

Saturday,we had a few friends over. Erica came and she wanted to carve a pumpkin so her and Aiden did that.  We had some food, a little to drink, played Rock Band and just had fun. We caught up with old friends and made some new ones! All in all a fun day!


Aiden even had a couple friends to play with.  Laura brought her boys Colson and Ryan. It was fun watching Aiden with a baby and how he would have no problem sharing with Ryan but when it came to another 2 year old, neither wanted to share, they just wanted what the other one had. Right before they left Aiden and Colson both sat nice together and had some peaches.


Then yesterday we weren't sure if we were going to be able to get him in a costume to go trick or treating. Our friends Larry and Lisa called and wanted to know if we wanted to walk around with them and their daughters.So at about 5:30 I made the first attempt.  I had hidden his costumes in the changing table so he couldn't see them. I changed his diaper, put a sweatshirt over his shirt and Attempt #1: grabbed the Buzz costume and put one foot in.  He realized what I was trying to do and threw a fit.  He was kicking and screaming so I took it off. I let him go back in the living room and I grabbed Mickey. Attempt # 2...I laid him on the couch and was able to get both feet and 1 arm in the costume before he was kicking and screaming so hard that I just let him go. Then I rocked him and he had his blanket. Attempt # 3 I covered him with his blanket and gut the clown costume on both of his feet. He knew I was doing something and he moved his blanket. He saw the costume and again screaming. This time we gave him M&M's to help distract him and it worked.  I was able to get both arms in (there was still screaming) and then asked him if he wanted to go wait for Cambree and Hadley outside.  That made him happy.  The screaming stopped. Why it was so difficult, I don't know.We went for about a half hour and then came home and passed out candy.




It was a very fun weekend and I think Aiden had a lot of fun trick or treating even with the hard time we had getting him dressed up. He loves playing with his pumpkin and the candy. I think everyone slept good last night after the busy weekend.  I know Porter did.

Busy Weekend

I started this post last week and then forgot about it...it's a little late but better late than not at all.

It's Monday again...already....how is that possible???? The weekends never seem to last long enough, especially if we have stuff going on. Aiden and I went to Ubly to stay with my parents and see my brother who came up there as well. We had not been up there since mid-August so we were overdue. I left work early on Friday so we could beat traffic, have daylight to drive in and make it in time to get all you can eat fish at the Verona Bar...yummm. Of course Aiden would wake up with a cold on Friday morning but he stayed in a pretty good mood all weekend even with being sick. He didn't even try to fight nap time or night night time all weekend which was nice. We went for dinner Friday and then just stayed at mom and dads the rest of the time. Saturday Aiden got a haircut, which he still doesn't like getting, we went to Bad Axe, met some family friends for lunch and did the grocery shopping. When we got back, Aiden took his nap and then we attempted to take him trick or treating to a few places but he screamed when we tried to put the costume on him. I'm not really sure why he doesn't like the costume, but he's 2 so who knows. Sunday, we went to great grandmas for breakfast and to visit and we headed for home when Aiden was ready for his afternoon nap. Above are some pictures from the weekend.