Santa

Just had to post these super cute pictures from our Santa visit. I was expecting, rather hoping for some giant tears and screetching, but Aiden was mostly just annoyed.

Merry What?

I am openly a Christmas hater. This year I tried so hard to make it a good one (only after trying to convince Josh to go someplace tropical and warm did not work). I tried for Aiden's sake. Everything I tried to get us in the Holiday spirit just turned out badly.
Yesterday morning, I awoke before Aiden which never happens, except it was the beginning of the holiday. I lay in bed for an hour or so just feeling like I was going to vomit. The sickness continued throughout the day. This isn't the "I caught something" sickness. This is the "I hate Christmas" sickness. Then due to my procrastination and not so pleasing life lately, we had to go to the mall on Christmas eve to get the picture taken with Santa. Luckily I went before hand and Aiden only had to wait in line 30 minutes of the 2 1/2 hours I waited :)
Onto Christmas Eve dinner at the Aune's. I had to corral Josh out of there to his disappointment at 10:30pm. Only to come home and find out that Santa had not put together Aidens gift. Lazy Elfs. 2 more hours of unpleasant holiday necessities. Quite literally a hundred screws...
Parker came down and woke us up at 9 am. We had to wake up Monkey, who showed NO interest in his gifts or unwrapping presents. He still has many, as I write, sitting wrapped under our tree.
And here we are all still in our jammies from last night at 8pm.
How's that for Holiday Cheer?
Well for those of you who do enjoy Christmas. Merry Christmas, I hope all your wishes came true.

Christmas Eve

This is very late, but Josh just sent me over these pictures and they were too cute not to post about. This is Christmas Eve at the Aune's.


This is the nativity scene. Aiden was an angel. What an actor. He should win an "Oscar" just for attempting that role.

I think in this picture the angel might actually be flying or ascending to Heaven.



The Aune's have this tradition, where they put these almods in the rice cream. If you find one in your serving you get a chocolate treat. 4 years running baby! (Every year since 2004 excluding 2005 when I wasn't there)I ROCK! Of course you give it to the kids so they get all excited. What the crap! Nobody coddled me growing up!



I just love the look on Aiden's face. Like he knows something good is about to happen :)



And something good did happen. He got a tool set from Farfar. Now maybe mom and dad can stop worrying about Aiden losing his eyes from running around the house with our tools.



And a very frightening picture of me :) The things we do to make our kids laugh...


I also found the picture we were going to send out for our Holiday card. It's damn funny so I am still going to send it out. If I don't have your address and you want one email me at em@omner.org. If you got our Halloween card or last years Christmas card and you haven't moved I probably still have your address. Did I mention our card is LYAO funny?

Aiden

A few people have commented to me about how close Aiden and I are. The type of closeness that we know what the other is feeling. With all my struggles lately (boohoo, I know), I have had trouble sleeping, Josh told me I should take something (something like Tylenol PM, none of that hard stuff. Unless you got some, then maybe I'll take it;) I probably shouldn't write that. There is probably some narcotics cop out there scanning blogs for druggies and with my luck I'd get busted. Listen officer, I am only kidding. If you don't believe me, it just my sense of humor read more blog posts, you'll see.
Back to the story... I told Josh I didn't want to take anything because I am worried I won't wake up if Aiden needs me. He said that I was so in tune to Aiden that it wouldn't be a problem. I really loved hearing that from him. It is so true. There are nights when I will suddenly wake up and just sit there for a minute wondering why I awoke so abruptly only a minute later to hear Aiden start crying. Some mornings I wake up, (if you know me I don't wake up, I would probably sleep a month straight if somebody or something didn't wake me up. Before child I once slept until 5pm) anyways, Some mornings I just wake up a lay there, mostly upset that I'm awake and then I hear rustling on the monitor and then a happy "mommy?" I am unsure about this one, whether I woke up because I sensed he was about to wake up or whether he can sense I'm awake so then he wakes up. Either way I try not to think about him when I am awake in the middle of the night because I don't want to chance him waking up.
It's funny to think back to Aiden's and my first few months together. I didn't feel much for the kid. I didn't feel an incredible bond with him. When I spoke to people about how I didn't feel close to him they would tell me I shouldn't have any more. I wondered how we were going to make it. Most babies come out and their mothers are immediately drawn towards them and I didn't feel it. I was worried I had made the biggest mistake, that I was going to be a terrible mother.
So hear I am tonight, again unable to sleep and so grateful for this overwhelming bond I share with my son. He can tell when things are not right with me. This last week he has been giving me extra snuggles and hugs. I even dare say he has yelled at me less this past week ;) He knows when I am sad even though I try so hard to hide it from him. He knows so much about what I am feeling. And I him.
Tonight Josh and I were talking about how much we like him. REALLY like him. We don't like being away from him, we can't even imagine going on a vacation without him. He is awesome. So much fun. I am not a kid person, I used to despise other peoples kids but I am crazy about my little boy. I think part of the reason we are scared to have another child, is we are afraid it will pale in comparison to this amazing being we created. Plus like I said, we really like just hanging out with Aiden, and if another little one comes along, it will take away from that.
He is just so cool. I never thought I would love anything this much. I lack in so many areas in life but being a mother to him is my proudest accomplishment. He is my best decision.

(here is where I add the beautiful picture of the two of us, but I can't get it to work so use your imagination.)

Service

So I have been feeling really sorry for myself lately. I heard that the best way to help yourself feel better was to serve. So I decided to make cookies for the neighbors today. The only problem with that is, when your in a slump and the cookies come out... Needless to say none of my neighbors got cookies.

Good Intentions

Yesterday Josh surprised me with a trip to San Diego for my birthday. My birthday is actually next weekend but being that close to Christmas, this was a better option.
He was here on business about a month ago and ate at this really nice fancy restaraunt. As he sat there and ate, "I knew this was the place I was bringing you for your birthday." It is really very sweet. He knows I am always on a quest for the perfect steak.
However, we brought the monkey with us to San Diego. For me it wouldn't be a birthday celebration without him, so I'm glad we did. BUT, fancy schmancy restaraunt and monkeys do not mix. Plus this is not Utah where everybody has kids or at least is always around them so they get it. We actually had people that were about to be seated next to us ask to sit somewhere else and this was while Aiden was still be good.
I kept praying for people to get drunk and get really loud so they couldn't hear my boy, who was exhausted after a flight and only an hour nap. We finally just boxed up our gazillion dollar meal and came back to the hotel to eat it.
(SIDE NOTE: Example of my bad parenting form previous post. Aiden jusstarted crying from our king size hotel room bed. I went over there to cuddle him back to sleep. While I am cuddling him I am thinking, "go back to sleep. I need to finish my blog post." Instead of enjoying the cuddle time. What is wrong with me?)
Well it was a beautiful restaraunt and I love my husband for thinking of it for me. We will have to go back when Aiden is older.
Today will be a better day. It is sunny and warm and we will go someplace for fitting for Aiden, maybe go to the zoo or the wild animal park so he can meet some of his monkey relatives;)

Feelings of Inadequacy

Lately I have been spending way more time than I should reading others blog. I extended my blog reading circle and branched out to places I've never been before. Which also leads to these feelings. A) I should be doing something more productive and B)Where do these super women come from.
There are perfect women out there. This post is not meant to insult them, the opposite I envy them. I want to be them. They have the perfect lives. They are beautiful, thin, with beautiful children. They have a perfect marriage. Really LOVE their husbands. Their kids are taken care of, smart & cute & happy. They spend quality time with their kids. WHAT? They cook dinner, clean, have fun vacations. They do extracurricular activites, canning baking, scrapbooking... Plus they have time to blog. They have the perfect lives. Not in the June Cleaver sort of way either. The down to earth, realistic, funny sort of way.

I CANNOT figure it out. Do they not sleep? I am missing something. I long for this kind of life, but as it sit, my hair is not in a ponytail, maybe, just maybe once a month. I am not thin. I think about exercising and then the thoughts exhaust me and make me nervous so I have to eat sweets just to calm down. My marriage, is well, a work in progress. I don't spend enough time teaching Aiden. He still calles everybody "mama" except of course the doggies. The other day I said something about his head and he touched it. What? Who taught him that? feelings of guilt so I taught him "nose". So now he knows 2 things. Dinner, maybe if nothing else came up that day. Cleaning, hah. I have a boy who follows me around and messes up what I clean up. I have 3 dogs that do their share. My house always smells like DOG. And you run the risk of tripping on something and breaking your neck at ALL times. Fun vacations, we have that down, but we're using Aiden's college fund to finance them. I blog but to the detriment of all of the above. How do these women do it? I again don't mean to offend them. I want to be YOU. Give me tips.

Yikes

I don't know where to begin. Not with this story. I have no problem with that. I don't know where to begin with my day to day life.
It all started on Friday afternoon. I had my 2 nephews and niece, the one's you don't hear about often, for a birthday fun day at Boondocks. Here it is Tuesday night and they have just left. It was only going to be one night. Things happened and then their mom came into town and we ended up having them that long. It was better than imagined but it was rough. Just when I was thinking maybe we could start talking, just talking, about having another child. NOPE. Josh better not even look at me. I am done with kids. Yowzer!
The last 5 days have been chaotic to say the least. 4 extra people in my tiny house. Dealing with a whole lot of family stuff that pulled me right out of my little fabulous life. So I sit here and think, where do I begin. Cleaning, Laundry, pile of papers that has been put aside, scrapbooking, wrapping Christmas gifts, decorating, actually paying some attention to Aiden, maybe getting him out of his jammies. It is much too overwhelming. Thank goodness tomorrow is Wednesday. I don't know if I've mentioned it but Wednesday is usually my "Do Nothing Day." No cleaning, no errands, we don't even leave the house. Just roam around in our jammies all day. Good thing Aiden still has his on from yesterday. I think everybody should have a do nothing day. Everyother day in our little lives is too jam packed.
So in conclusion, No more kids for us, and you can find us in our jammies doing nothing in a pig sty of a house tomorrow.

Christmas Tag

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags
Wrapping Paper. Used to be super fancy, this year with Aiden not so hot, but I am thinking of hand making gift cards. We'll see if I get around to it.

2. Real tree or Artificial?
I REALLY like the smell of a real tree. Most years we have done both. We get a tree from the "Festival of Trees" every year and then the want in me goes out and gets a real one. I don't know if we will this year. I sure hope so (hint hint, Josh).

3. When do you put up the tree?
When the Festival crew delivers it. The fresh one is usually close to Christmas when I can't stand not having it, any longer.

4. When do you take the tree down?
Around New years or when it becomes a major fire hazard (uh, maybe Valentines day.)

5. Do you like eggnog?
Not at all. Who wants to drink eggs, and what the heck is nog?

6. Favorite gift received as a child?
Train set Santa got me. My parents continually said NO, but way to go Santa. He always came through.

7. Hardest person to buy for?
Josh. The turd bucket has everything.

8. Easiest person to buy for?
Aiden.

9. Do you have a nativity scene?
Who knows. I can't remember and I am a stinker and haven't gone to the storage unit to get the decorations.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Mail. This year may be a little behind due to the lack of snow. I want snow in my Christmas family picture!

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
I don't know, lets think, could it have been the "Quicken" Josh gave me our first Christmas. OR the Dragonfly necklace he gave me 2 Christmas' ago. Ohhh. You think, a dragon fly necklace, thats sweet. Yeah if it wasn't the EXACT same one he gave me the year before. He is getting better though.

12. Favorite Christmas Movie?
ELF. Going to probably watch it at least a dozen times this year. LMAO.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
In the Summer. I like to be done before Thanksgiving so I can fully enjoy the holidays. This year 90% was done by then.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Absolutely. Who hasn't? Anybody want "Quicken" or a Dragonfly necklace?

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas?
Everything.

16. Lights on the tree?
Are there people out there who don't have lights on their tree? Mine suck this year. Hot pink and only on the stump. Weird.

17. Favorite Christmas song?
"Where are you Christmas?" by Faith Hill. From the Grinch soundtrack. Close second are all songs from the Forgotten Carols.

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home?
The constant fight. I would give anything to be a a tropical beach somewhere for Christmas. Josh however actually likes to be around family. I think I have lost this year.

19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeers?
Sleepy, Bashful, Dopey, Sneezy, Happy, Doc, and my personal favorite, Grumpy.

20. Angel on the tree top or a star?
Star.

21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning?
Christmas Eve, one gift which is always pajamas. Then Christmas morning.

22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
The bell ringers in front of Wal-mart. I am all for giving but I go to Wal-mart almost daily and I don't have that much change. And maybe just maybe I gave on the way in so quit giving me that stink eye. Oh and the traffic.

23. Favorite ornament theme or color?
My new mom ornament I got from Halmark last year.

24. Favorite for Christmas dinner?
Crab Fondue

25. What do you want for Christmas this year?
New furniture and possibly a new house to go along with it.

I'm not taking anyone. I'm not in the mood. How do you like that holiday spirit?

FINALLY!

I finally have my real estate license! It is finally over! Hours of studying that turned into months. Stressing about a test. Spending a kazillion dollars. Who knew it would be so pricey? Should have just gotten a job at Micky D's.
So if you or anybody you know is in the market to sell or buy a house, I'll give ya a smokin good deal. As long as my assistant (little man, Aiden) participates.
Or if anybody wants to buy the house we just remodeled...

Now I can move on to more important things, like scrapbooking and blogging. Maybe I'll throw in some laundry for good measure.

Black Friday

What a success! Call Josh the king of Black Friday. I don't know why I question every year whether or not I am going to continue in this wacky tradition. It's not that I need the bargains. I have 90% of my Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving. It's that I enjoy this chaotic event. Some of my greatest holiday memories are of the loons out before sunrise on Black Friday.

So up at 4:30am, we were. Pull the poor baby out of bed. Oh what a bad mother am I? And off to Sears it was. People actually offered to let Josh butt in line because he had a baby. As the doors opened people were running crazily and I just stopped and laughed. We got amazing deals. As I waited in the ever so long, never moving electronic line, Josh found a little man in appliances near a register and he got me the TV I wanted before I had gone a foot and before they sold out. He also got some other amazing deals. Then it was off to Target. Again, Josh was the super hero. We split up and as I walked past the empty shelf where the pink Dyson vacuum I wanted used to be, I got very sad. Of course I didn't need it, but it was top on my list. I walked head hung to the front of the store and called Josh to see where he was. He had my vacuum and was already checked out. How does he do it?
Then to Shopko, the lines to check out, horrendous. I don't need anything that badly. Kmart next, nothing good left. Last stop, Smith's Market Place. I was impressed. They still had free donuts, which made the baby happy. I found a lot of things I wanted. Half off all socks, can't go wrong there. Then we took the baby and his daddy home for a nap.
Rach and I went out for some shoes. While at the shoe store, I won a DVD player in a drawing. Yipee! Walgreens, Walmart, and Costco. What a fabulous day!
I shall never doubt my Black Friday plans again.

Look-alike Meter

MyHeritage: Look-alike Meter - Vintage photographs - Genelogy

I sat anxiously at this website waiting for the results. You would have thought I was waiting for my lotto numbers to be called. Pick me Pick me. Crazy. Only by 3% ;( but at least he looks more like me. hehe

Happy BIrthday Josh.

My favorite picture of my favorite people (thanks Jamie)

So I have seen this on many blogs and I kind of thought it was dorky. Feel free to curse me. But my husband is out of town and so I must join in the trend.

Happy Birthday to a Wonderful Husband and a Fabulous Dad.

Oh and by the way, it's Josh's birthday today too. Happy Birthday Josh ;)

Last Years Birthday - Gosh honey, it only been a year and look how you've aged.

Even they fall asleep while reading the scriptures.

2006 Must have been a mystery birthday because I have no pictures.

2005
I am awesome. Surprise party at Boondocks. They said he was the oldest birthday boy they had had a party for. Ohhhhhhh.

2004
Oh Yeah! I took Josh to Disney Land for his birthday.
Celebrating at his house before his birthday,
did I mention he celebrated his birthday in Disney Land

And all the birthdays before that don't matter because I wasn't around. Nice how I make your birthday about me huh...? Well I couldn't make this birthday post all lovey dovey and sweet cuz that just ain't me ;)

Happy Birthday. We miss you and Love you! And we are getting a cake to eat and celebrate in your absence.

It's the Power to Win

Tonight while Josh and I were reading scriptures via video chat. (Josh is in Austin)
We read this one. It is one that I really needed to come across today.
Helaman 12:3
"And thus we see that except the Lord doth chasten his people with many afflictions, yea, except he doth visit them with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence, they will not remember him."

I have never been literally starving, but It is true. I forget the Lord when things are going well and it is through trials that I beg for his help. I wish it wasn't this way.

Count your blessings in this time of Thanksgiving. I know there are some of you out there who have it harder than I can even imagine. But we are truly blesses. Search hard and find even one small thing that you are thankful for. Remember the Lord gave you that.

Do you blog in your head throughout the day?

Maybe I'm crazy. OK I am but I wonder if I'm the only person who does this. Something funny, new, awful, etc. will happen during the day and I will go through the writings of a blog post in my head. They are usually very witty but hardly ever get written.
Take last night for example. My thoughts...
It is 9pm and I am barely getting a shower. I was still wearing the pajamas I slept in. Granted I usually only sleep in my G's (TMI) but got really cold and put some on. So I awoke, crawled out of bed, not changing and went about my ever so crazy day (yes I went out in public several times), when I arrived home around 9pm I HAD to shower. I write this because I know I am not alone. I just want others to know, they are not alone. "YOU are not alone!"
Don't feel like an inadequate mother or wife. It happens. For those of you saying, "ooh gross. It doesn't happen to me." Just wait until you have children.
Now my son is around here somewhere. Running around the house naked. Oh, you didn't think I got to shower alone, did you? This to very rarely happens unless it's during nap time and nap time is too valuable. Some people have children who behave while they shower. Mine, not a chance. Can't take my eyes off him for a minute. I of course am now to lazy to dress him and he sure loves the after shower run around nude time (while mommy gets dressed).

That is what went through my head last night.

And tonight while wrapping Christmas presents. Yes I am obsessively organized. I thought..
Wow previous years my gifts have been wrapped beautifully. Gorgeous paper, beautiful hand tied bows (the good ribbon), crafty little tags. So beautiful you don't want to open them. This year, your lucky if the wrapping paper isn't torn. It's definitely is crumpled because Aiden cannot stop dancing on it every time I pull out a new piece to wrap something on. He is grabby at the tape and once the present is wrapped, he likes to stand on it to make sure its not fragile. Why don't I wait until he is asleep, you ask? Because bed time like nap time is precious. It is mommy time, to blog, scrapbook, watch inappropriate shows (inappropriate for a one year old.) Oh and did I mention, I am writing the names right on the paper with a sharpie. No tags this year:)

And these are the blog posts that go through my head throughout the day. And many more that never get written, but I can assure you they were fabulous as I was thinking them up....

It was only a matter of time...

My wonderful son had been really trying the last month. I am struggling about as much as I was when we first had him, maybe a little less because my fabulous family helps out now.
Last weekend he had too much fun climbing the ladder to the fort. If you recall this was the fort I found him on when I had gone into the storage room to get decorations and came out to find him all alone up there.

He climbed up the ladder on the swing set and went down the slide about a million times. Isn't he too yound to be doing this?


Then Yesterday he figured out how to climb up on the chairs to get to the table. Our chairs are taller and he's a little guy.
Which leads us to today. I was on the phone with my grandma and he was playing the piano. Isabella yells, "come see YOUR baby." "I'm on the phone." She says, "he's stuck." He isn't crying so I figure it can't be that bad. I thought maybe he had put himself in the dog kennel or gotten stuck crawling under the piano bench. Then I hear her say, "Parker come look at Aiden, hurry you don't want to miss it." So now I'm curious and head in that direction while still on the phone. I round the corner and this is what I found....

In this super blurry photo, Notice the dog treats he decided to spill everywhere as well.

Monkey for sale. Sorry he is untrainable.

First Snow

I hear there was another snow but we were out of town. So this was our first snow. Aiden headed straight out into it the first chance he got.
Then when Daddy came home they put on his snow suit and headed out for some real fun.
Daddy forgot to take the tags off his new snow suit.He had so much fun sledding.

Neato

Click here for something flippin awesome
Totally stole it from Mindy.

Camera 1

Like I said earlier I have been super lazy about posting things that involve pictures. So I am finding each camera (yes we are freaks and have too many cameras) and downloading pictures and blogging about what I find.
SOOOOOOOOO here comes the super long post with thousands of pictures....

PETCO
Checking the date on the camera, On Oct. 20th.
Toby, I'm sure, got caught chewing on yet another thing he shouldn't. So even though Aiden was in his house pants, we decided to go to Petco and get some bones.
Good Idea: Getting bones for dogs so they stop chewing on your beloved items.
Bad Idea: Taking 3 dogs and a toddler to Petco at 8:45pm.

Aiden liked these treats

One of the few times Aiden was actually with us instead of wandering the store looking for new pets. He wanted the birds, turtles, fish and rodents. None of which he got.

Aiden wearing a cute doggie collar thing.

Toby as "Pippy Longstocking"

Josh finally found a way to keep them all entertained. The Ferret Cage. Notice Zeke sitting on a shelf of the cat climbing wall in the background.

Maybe Aiden should be a Dragon?
Trying to decide what Aiden should be for Halloween we tried on a dragon costume. Too cute!

"Where'd my feet go"

I'm just going to pretend you can't see how messy my house is. There are clean times, after Aiden goes to bed or before he wakes up.

Afterwards....
When we got home from the hospital. Aiden was back to his usual hyper self. It made me super nervous because he was still wobbly from the drugs.

We were painting right before it happened so he looks like a homeless man.
After we cleaned him up. Look how swollen his nose is.

Draper Fall Festivities
For Family night on the 27th we went to Draper City's fall activities.

Getting his face painted

Having their fortune told by a crystal ball.
Playing Twister.
Aiden: I am only poking her with one finger so I can't get in trouble. If you recall we do have a one finger rule in our house.

Pumpkin Patch and Carving Pumpkins


Aiden loved squishing around the pumpkins guts. He thought he should be carving. He like climbing on the pumpkins. He was a crazy man. I thought we might have another trip to the ER because he was running around so much and slipping on pumpkin guts.

Halloween
Isabella had a beautiful cape for Halloween. Mommy and Daddy had awesome capes, so of course Aiden wanted one. And as we all know, What Aiden Wants.....
Grandma made him one. He loved running around in it so much I couldn't get a face on shot. I am guessing the rest of Halloween is on another camera.

You can see I have been much to busy to post but, WOW!

To be Continued....