Sunshine in Oregon

We have been experiencing some beautiful weather the last couple of days which has been wonderful with such an active little guy! I think this picture is such a good one to describe his ever growing personality. He has moments of complete insanity in his playfulness...he will literally walk in circles laughing at times! He has really started enjoying his independence. He prefers walking rather than being held and usually will only eat if he can feed it to himself.

He has also started playing more independently then he used to. There are times where I will be folding laundry in the living room and I will turn around and he will be sitting alone in the hallway looking through a book or playing with a toy.

Recently, Aiden has been on a roll learning and maintaining new habits. He will click his tounge anytime you ask if he wants food or milk, give kisses and wave goodbye when you leave, clap anytime anyone around is clapping, laugh this amazingly cute fake laugh when others around him are laughing, and has finally started standing up without the assistance of an item to pull up on. He is growing SO fast!!!

And to share the best news...I have finally quit my job to be a stay at home mom. For those that knew, I was supposed to go part time when Aiden was 1 but my employer could not offer my position part time. I have continued to work full time despite the hardship on our family, but we are finally at a place where it is reasonable for me to be home. We are very excited for this change (and just a little worried). I have about 6 more weeks of work...let the countdown begin!!!!

Parks and Haircuts

YAY!! Aiden has finally made it to the park!! He really thought it was the coolest ever. He really enjoyed digging through the sand and finding the smallest little sticks to hand to mom and dad. But above all, he loved the SLIDE. He could go down that thing a million times and still be ready to go again LOL! Of course, he is not quite ready to go down by himself, so we assisted which made for some tired parents. There are more pictures and a video that are on the other computer...I will attempt to get to those soon.

After looking at all his fun park pictures, I realized just how out of control his hair is!!! I have been attached as I really expected to have bald babies, but after cleaning food out of his hair on a regular basis, I knew something needed to be done. Sad as it is, I even "phoned a friend" for support!! =-) So, we did it...we took a one inch clipper to his lovely locks and they are gone! I had trouble for the first couple days, wondering if I was going to regret it, but I am SO happy we did it! He looks so cute and so much like a little boy! And we can even spike it into a little mohawk HAHA

You tell me...what looks better...

OR

I will post again soon...everything is going well, everyone is feeling well, and we are looking forward to an exciting and fun summer!!!

No fun here

Aiden has officially been sick...and apparently he wasn't going to be nice about it. On Monday afternoon, Aiden started vomiting. It was quite a bit in a short time, so we decided to take him to the doctors just in case. They ran some blood tests and gave us directions then sent us home. He was able to keep down fluids for the rest of the evening (very little amount) and at 10pm that night, the doctor called and instructed us to wake him up and take him to the ER...he was concerned that Aiden might have appedicites. After about 5 hours in the ER, we came home. Everything appeared normal. Nathan and I both were home with him on Tuesday and he seemed fine. Kept food and fluids down throughout the day. Wednesday comes along, and we are back to square one. Through the day Wednesday and Thursday, we battled through vomit and diarehea. By Friday, Aiden had got past that and is now just dealing with a cough (that he has now given to me!).

We do feel SO furtunate that we got through a year with no sicknesses, but it sure would have been nice if the first wasn't so scary! Otherwise, we are all doing well and have been enjoying some nice weather...FINALLY! =-) We even were able to take Aiden to the park a couple of times. This kid LOVES the slide! I swear we could spend hours just going down the slide! LOL

I will update again soon with park pictures =-)

GRRRR!!!

Nathan and I are both guilty with this one. Whenever we are playing with Aiden, feeding him, entering a room he is in, pretty much always we will growl at him. Not in a mean way but more of a playful "grrrrr" with the face of course lol! It always has provoked a smile in him...until he realized he can do it back! Now, if you come in the room, he will growl at you with the face or just the word. It has really made Nathan and I laugh but I will admit that it scares me a bit. As long as it stays playful I guess. I have yet to be able to get it on video or picture. I will work on that.

With the weather getting a little nicer, we have been able to play outside a lot more. Aiden loves being outside and seeing people walking their dogs. For his b-day, he got a little car that we can push him around in (above) and he thinks it is the coolest!!! The weather this weekend is supposed to be nice and warm, so I want to take Aiden to the park...his first park trip!!!!

Yesterday, we were out to dinner a little bit later in the evening then Aiden would have liked. By the end of dinner, he was getting a little fussy and antsy, so I told him we were going to go home and play with his new firetruck car. It sings this VERY cheesy song that will instantly get stuck in your head, so I sang it, "I see a firetruck, a big red shiny firetruck"...immediately after, Aiden rocked back and forth (that's his dancing) and sang "I see a firetruck"!!!! I usually think I just heard him weird, but Nathan heard the exact thing!!!!! We both laughed uncontrollably and I, of course, cried. =-) It's amazing at how quick he is growing!!!

Toddler...scary!

It is so weird to me to consider myself the mother of a toddler. The word is much more intimidating than the actual actions of which makes him a toddler. It is actually really cool that Aiden is walking and has this very expressive personality. It makes me very proud when I see how much he has grown in the last year and that is in no way intimidating...just exciting!!

Anyways, I just love this picture of Aiden. He makes me laugh when he does stuff like this. What is more funny, is that he was sitting on the floor with the remote pointed at the TV and nothing worked (or at least the TV didn't turn off), so he decided to stand up and try again. Still no results, so he walks the remote over to me to see if that worked. I turned the TV off and he just lit up!! He knew exactly what the remote did and was so satisfied that he figured out how to get the job done. LOL

We took Aiden to his 1 year appointment on Tuesday this week. He is now 30 inches long and 19.6 lbs. When he was born, he was 20 inches and 7.9 lbs. The doctor is very happy with his progress and always has wonderful things to say about Aiden's attitude and how we are with him. I have to admit, it is hard when we go to the doctors because Aiden always gets upset and is not generally a crier, so it definately affects me (guess I shouldn't speak for Nathan). Plus, I always have to be the bad guy when he gets his shots and have to hold him down.

Our baby is now a toddler...it's bittersweet for sure, but we sure do love him!!

Happy 1st Birthday Aiden!

That's right...today is Aiden's first birthday!!!!! He was such a little trooper. He was so patient with everyone, especially mommy and daddy. We had a party at a pizza parlor up the street from our house and had a good turn out of close family and friends. I don't consider myself to be a complete weirdo about germs (I agree with the thought of a little dirt never hurt) but I could not handle Aiden touching the floor at the pizza parlor! He has been walking everywhere but when he falls, he will just start crawling. So we allowed minimal walking and a lot of passing around from person to person. =-) Aiden had lots of fun playing with the cake for sure!!!! I actually felt like we were at our wedding...so many people to visit with and a lot to do hahaha We were so happy that we had so many wonderful people with us to share Aiden's big day.

























Aiden looked SO handsome and even wore shoes all day!!! Today was the first day he walked with shoes on and did very well. We also had an AMAZING cake made from a fire captain's wife. You may not be able to tell from the picture, but the cake had incredible detail and was all edible! We were happy that Aiden was able to get such a cool personalized cake...hopefully we don't have to meet too high of expectations =-) Because the cake was so cool, we ended up having a small, simple (and free!) cake for Aiden.



It was a great day! Aiden has brought so much joy to us this year, we are just so excited for all the continued memories we will make as a family!

Impressed

Yes, I am impressed with myself =-) Finally figured out how to post videos!!! WOOHOO! hehe

So, here are some recent video's of Aiden. One is of him getting on and off his horse on his own and one of him walking.