Cows are scary

Josh was reading to Aiden a book with animal noises. He looks happy here but...Whenever Josh would make the cow noise, (very similar to a real cow, not the "mooo" most parents do, Aiden would get real sad eyes, pop out his lower lip and start to cry. Us being the great parents that we are, tried it multiple times, with varying factors in between but the result remained. Aiden is very frightened of cow noises. I wish I had a picture of the sad face but I was too surprised to make it a Kodak moment.

Grandchildren Nativity

I orchestrated a Nativity pictures with all the Grandkids in my family. I did this once before when Bella was a baby. This time I made half the costumes and trained the goats.

The Goats could not stop eating the costumes.

From above

Name Change

NO we are not changing Aiden's name again. Although I have contemplated it. Finding out his name was the most popular baby boys name for 2007. What the crap. I hate being trendy. I had never heard of it when I read it from the name list.
Back to the reason I wrote this post. I noticed at the top of this blog it says "Josh & Em". Then looking at almost all the posts in the last year, I am thinking we should call it, "Our world revolves around Aiden".

Again I love the pics....

Where are you?

What? Nobody's blogging? I just went to every single one of our friends blogs and NO updates! Where are you all? Then I realized it had been over a week for me so here I am.

First, I had a wonderful Birthday (The 21st). Josh surprised me and took Aiden and I to St. George for the weekend. I love hotels! (well nice hotels) The beds are super comfy and somebody cleans up after you. Fun fun.

199 to go! I have started working out with a personal trainer. Coleson is his name. Making me hurt is his game. I got a deal if I paid for the entire year up front. SO 199 to go...

I love posts with pictures so....
Aiden and his best friend loungin' in the sac

Baby Jesus

Here is another picture we received from the Live Nativity. Ohhhhhh...


Speaking of baby Jesus. My nephew, Parker, when closing his prayers, says "baby Jesus Amen". If you think about it "in the name of Jesus" said quickly does sound a bit like "baby Jesus" Ohhhhh....

Free to Good Home

Wife and Baby - Free to good home.
Cooks and cleans, won't do dishes. Wants somebody to spend evenings with. Occasional diaper changes a must. Don't respond if you are currently or plan to be enrolled in school.

AL2223W Monitor and G4 Mac Mini

A while ago I found a thread after this review of an AL2223W discussing the problems encountered using it with the DVI connection on a Mac Mini. No on else had solved the problem so I decided to down clock the monitors refresh rate, but had to use SwitchResX to do it because the slower refresh rates were grayed out. It worked. (I don't recommend using SwitchResX to create custom monitor profiles unless you know what you are doing, which is why I didn't post this info sooner, though it does do some other interesting stuff). So on to the fix. [I am not liable for any damage to anything that comes from following these steps].

• Download this file.
• Open Terminal and change to your root directory
• type
  
• cd /
  
• sudo unzip /path/to/AL2223W_Custom_Refresh_Rate.zip
• reboot
• Open Preferences panel and select displays (I do this over VNC/remote desktop with the monitor connected by DVI and is currently dark)
• Select the new 58Hz refresh rate.

You're monitor should be working now using the DVI link. If you have any questions post a comment here and I'll do what I can to help out.

Christmas Parties Galore

This last Saturday we had 3 Christmas parties to attend. What a bust day!

Our first party was the Anne Hanks Family Christmas Party. Aiden got lots of yummy treats.

And some money

The next Party was in Copperton. It was the Ray Family Party. Aiden was very happy to sit on Santa's lap.

At our final party for our ward, Aiden got to sit on Santa's lap again.

"Santa, Did you do something different with your hair"

More candy, that I don't get to eat. Yippee!

That face says it all....

Zoo Lights

We went to Zoo lights. It was pretty neat and there was bunches of light exhibits. Not many animals to see though. Aiden was most excited about the mugs we got our hot chocolate in. They had blinky lights in them. He stared at that all night. Extremely cold. I thought I was going to freeze my britches off.

Rachael, Parker and Isabella joined Aiden and I for some freezing fun at the zoo.


The kids had to be bundled up tight.


Aiden was thinkin "What the heck are ya doin' to me mom."


Mommy and Aiden


It was finally over. Aiden in the car with rosy cheeks and a runny nose.

Baby Jesus

Tonight Baby Aiden made his theatrical debut as Baby Jesus in the Live Nativity. He did very well at first. Then we had a fussy period where Daddy had to pick him up and bounce him. Then he got really tired. The pictures are from the end when he was tired. We are so proud of him and super happy that we got to participate in this.

PS: That there chicken above me...It pooped on me! Right at the start and I didn't know. Josh had to keep from laughing the entire time as he stared at me and my poopy chicken.

Aiden's 5 month birthday

To celebrate Em made up some baby cereal and we made a little home movie for Gmas and Gpas.



After eating he got a major case of the hick ups :)

The Story of Thanksgiving

Starring: Parker and Isabella
Special Appearance by Aiden
Narrated by Josh



For family night Josh taught the kids about Thanksgiving and had them put on a skit. It was bunches of fun.

Special edit by Josh: This movie is fiction, any resemblance to actual historical events is pure luck.

Sleepy Boy.

Aren't they so stinkin' cute when they are sleeping!
Yes, Aiden is in there somewhere.

I love my swing.

BTW

Note: The Virginia Post has been updated with pictures. Scroll down...

This, That, and The Other...

So many missed posts, So little time!

Aiden trying to sleep his first night unswaddled30 minutes later

Most recently Baby Aiden was finally blessed by Josh on November 4th.

I don't want to go to church!Mommy and her boy
Cute little man
Our First Night Away
Josh and I spent our first overnight away from Aiden. Thank you so much Grandma Cindy!
Parker and Aiden had so much fun together.
Stein Erickson Lodge is very frufru.. Matching robes and slippers.

HALLOWEEN!
Josh was Shrek, I was Fiona, and Baby Aiden was the offspring of Donkey and the Dragon
We had a fun party a Grandma Jackie's

Aiden's First Halloween!What an attractive family
The Dogs. Joce was an angel, Zeke a king, and Toby a spider


P.Y.O.P
We LOVE picking our own pumpkins. Not sure why. Maybe it's the the thistles in our fingers (which BTW are still there). The thrill of possibly tripping and falling. But it has become a fun family tradition.

Josh cutting a Pumpkin
Aiden and Mommy like this one
Our Cute little Pumpkin


"We're Flying First Class Up in The Sky...."

On our trip back to Salt Lake from Maryland, For Good! We Flew First Class!

Aiden's 1st time in First ClassJoce's 2nd time in first class! Lucky Dog

Aiden Talking

I recorded a few minutes of Aiden talking to me today and then chopped out the dead space. Click here to listen

PS: Did I mention TOLLS:(

Eight Million Dollars Later...

East Coast Blues

One exciting thing about moving to the East Coast was the ability to see so many great things only a short distance away. Distance is the key word there. Everyplace we try to go takes so blasted long to get there that I want to pull my hair out. Traffic sucks ROYALLY out here! We are on our way to New Hampshire and it has taken 4 hours longer than expected. (Virginia was 2 hours longer, Philadelphia an extra hour, get my drift) Aiden has now been to Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire (just this trip)! We'll add pictures when we get home. AHHH TRAFFIC. Yowzer!

Virginia

This last weekend Grandma Cindy came to visit. We loaded her up and headed to Virginia. We went to Williamsburg, Jamestown Settlement, and Yorktown. Aiden did really well and loved having his Grandma hold him all the time. He also loved her tickles. You should have heard him laugh.
Overall, not very impressed with Virginia. Everything cost money to see and it wasn't reasonable. If you wanted to walk through historic Williamsburg it was a minimum of $37, in order to go into the buildings and see reenactments.

The Fam in front of Governor's Mansion, WilliamsburgJosh and Em in the Gallos, WIlliamsburg

Jamestown Settlement was $14, again just to see what it would have been like. Almost all of the buildings, ships, and so on (in all 3 places) were replicas. It was a bit disappointing to pay all that money and know everything there was reconstructed. So we paid a bunch of money to see what it might have been like.
BUT... We had fun with Grandma!

Daddy tanning the hide with baby Aiden, Jamestown Settlement

Real first roll over...

and second, and third, and fourth!!! He has been practicing for the last 3 days and has really started holding his head up very well last night. The third had a hard landing so Aiden was grumpy for #4 (below). Click the play button to see the video

Philadelphia

This Saturday we decided to explore Philadelphia. Shortly after arrival we realized that this city might require another visit to see it all.
Aiden was great! Maybe he is starting to get used to all this traveling. He got to officially break in his new sling.
Mommy loves this new sling and is going to invest in several more (you can use it til they're toddlers and still have free hands) www.lucky-baby.com (based in Utah).

From the moment we woke up Daddy was singing the Rocky theme song. Here they are. The Rocky steps.

Independence Hall


and of course Aiden's first visit to a Hard Rock Cafe! Mommy's favorite!
More pictures of Philadelphia check out 2007 album on the Em & Josh photo link

First roll over?

We haven't decided that it is the official first roll over, more likely just a fluke. Anyway, Aiden decided to have his first roll over end in disaster.




I've also added a few more pics from this photo shoot to our 2007 album (see pictures link on right hand of page)