Tuesday, December 30, 2008

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.

Thursday, December 25, 2008

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.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

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?

Sunday, December 21, 2008

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.)

Friday, December 19, 2008

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.

Saturday, December 13, 2008

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.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

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?

Thursday, December 4, 2008

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.