Fun in the snow

On Friday night began a wonderful snow storm that kept our family at home for the weekend and on into this week. The kids loved it, we got out into the snow Saturday and had snow ball fights, slide down hills and Ty and daddy tackled each other in the snow. The weekend was filled with the warm smells of all the cold day comfort foods. Homemade pot roast with all the fixings, hot chocolate with marshmallows and warming ourselves by the fire. Sunday church services were cancelled due to the icy road conditions so we spend the day reading our bible stories, playing in the snow again, and having family time with movies. This was not Ty's first time in the snow so he was prepared for our snow games. Aidan's first time in the snow went well for her. She enjoyed eating some of it, and didn't shy away from touching the snow (even when she took her gloves off) She just giggled at Ty and daddy as they ran around crazy. It was a wonderful weekend of amazing memories.

Busy first of the year time

Christmas was wonderful. We enjoyed lots of food and almost all of my family (minus two of my nephews due to new jobs and girlfriends) were there. Santa was wonderful to the whole family but we have to say Ty and Aidan must have been really good last year. Ty still asks when we go to the mall if Santa is there. Poor boy has no idea how long it will be before Santa is back again. The new year is always busy but for us we have been especially busy. Traveling to see friends, getting to go to Cousin Carson's b-day party, Granny coming to stay for over a week. Now we are preparing to pack up the house to move. We can almost safely say Ty is potty trained. He has only had a few accidents while we have been out. We get so excited for our morning poo poo in the potty. This week I took Ty to Starbucks for chocolate milk for going poo poo on the potty 5 straight days. On our way Ty asked me "mommy are you going to get coffee for doing poo poo on the potty too?" He knows his mommy - any excuse for starbucks coffee!!! Aidan is beginning to take small steps but is very careful not to fall. She and Ty are so sweet to watch, she loves to give Ty hugs and kisses and he is very loving to her as well. We know they will have their share of fights but it melts my heart to see how much they love each other. He is going to be a very protective big brother. While Granny was here one day we were outside playing and Ty came over to Granny and I and sat down. He then said "mommy I'm your protector, then he turned to Granny and said I will protect you too" The tears swelled up in both of our eyes. We are blessed to have children with such sweet, tender hearts. They both love our book reading time. Ty has gotten into reading books to Aidan all by himself. I've finally captured it on camera so we will upload it soon. We thank the Lord every day how blessed our family is.

Getting excited for Christmas

Ty and Aidan are trying to get over this horrible sickness. We have mentholatum pumping through the vents (wish that was possible) Ty is doing much better, he has been fever free since Thursday. We had to take Aidan into see the doctor, no fever but she had developed a horrible cough and not eating. I've been getting creative with food choices, but she is mainly sticking with fruit. She has developed bronchitis like symptoms so is now on antibiotics. It's been a lot of rough nights of not sleeping well, and during the day she just wants mommy to hold her. We are hoping our sweet baby begins to get better soon. We haven't been out of the house much, Ty is starting to go crazy. He asked me the other day if we could go somewhere. We had rescheduled an ornament painting party from last weekend to this past Friday night. I make these cinnamon ornaments and Ty had a blast with all his friends here to hang out eating some fresh homemade gingerbread cookies (I made my mom's cookies and they came out wonderful) peppermint hot chocolate, and the traditional christmas wreath from my mother-in-law's recipes. On Saturday we had Aidan's 3rd b-day celebration here at our house with her two little girl friends all turing 1 in December. She managed to have a little fun, poor little girl with her running nose. She didn't dig into her cake this time like she did at her other parties. We are hoping that we can recover quickly and get out to enjoy some of my most favorite time of the year. I think it's quickly becoming Ty's favorite time of the year too.

Thanksgiving & Aidan's big first birthday

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We were able to get to Chad's parent's house Tuesday night so we could have an extra day there. We had Christmas with them so Ty and Aidan could open all their presents from granny, granddad, and uncles and aunts. Ty was so excited to get his buzz, woody, and slinky from toy story. He was so much fun to watch this year, so much more excited about presents than last year. Aidan just loved playing with all the wrapping from her presents. Thanksgiving dinner was amazing. Even though Ty still doesn't do a great job at eating he managed to eat some of Granny's turkey, stuffing, and fruit salad. However, our little Aidan ate everything on her plate, sweet potatoes, turkey, stuffing, fruit salad, etc. Our little girl loves to eat!! We had the first of three birthday celebrations for Aidan on Friday after Thanksgiving. Aidan was able to celebrate with cousins, aunts, uncles, granny and granddad. We decorated with hot pink and lime green balloons, good food, and amazing cake and cupcakes made by a local women in town. Aidan was not shy with her cake, she dove right in. We will put pictures up very soon. We drove home on Sunday and went pick up Nana (my mom) on Monday from the airport. Nana was able to come spend the week and celebrate another b-day party with Aidan. On Tuesday night I made the traditional quiche, hot apple cider, put on our xmas music and we got the tree all decorated. We got some good pictures of Ty finding some of his favorite ornaments and hanging them on the tree. Sadly on Wednesday Ty began running a high fever. Being a bit nervous about the H1N1, on Thursday after we had Aidan' b-day breakfast I took Ty off to the doctor. He and Aidan were both put on Tamiflu but it did no good. Both had fevers on Friday and have continued now for 5 days. They do not have H1N1 but the virus they have is not fun. We are doing constant hot showers, mentholatum, humidifiers, etc. We are praying our babies are well soon. Ty is so excited about going to see Santa, we have to get better so we can get out of this house and enjoy the Christmas season.

All our favorite things of Fall

I apologize for length of time since writing last, so much to catch up on. Aidan got to spend her first week alone with Granny and Granddad at the end of September. Granny and Granddad were reluctant to bring her back, they had a blast. Ty was able to have some alone time with mommy and daddy. We went our first annual camping trip of the fall at the end of September, we all had a blast in spite of all the rain. Ty loves camping, after returning home he requested to sleep in his sleeping bag in his own little tent in the playroom instead of his bed. In October we made another trip to the beach, this time Aidan really got into playing in the sand and not eating it. She and Ty both enjoyed splashing in the water, although it was quite a bit cooler than our last trip. We returned home from the beach with just enough time to shake off the sand, do a little laundary and pack up again for our second annual camping trip, the trip that Chad and I actually plan for our group of friends here. Aidan did fabulous sleeping in the tent, and loved being outside. Ty, as always, had a blast playing with all his friends in the woods and of course enjoyed the junk food weekend. Soon after getting settled home from our final camping trip of the year Granny and Granddad came for a visit. They were able to go with us to the pumpkin patch where we rode the hay ride, went to the barn to feed the animals, and pick our pumpkins. Ty was also more than excited to take Granny and Grandad to the stores to show them what he was asking Santa for this year. Little did Ty know that while he wasn't looking Santa began packing his sleigh that very day :) This year Santa isn't the only thing Ty was excited about, he was actually very excited to pick out his halloween costume. He and I would sit down and look at the catalogs. With Toystory being his most favorite movie right now, he decided early on that he wanted to be buzz lightyear. Once we got his costume he proceeded to wear it for 2 days straight, only taking it off to take baths. He was so cute as he "flew" around the house yelling "to infinity and beyond". Aidan was our precious pink bunny, and actually didn't mind wearing her costume. We went to a very cute little local downtown area on Friday night where they do a candy crawl and the shops all hand out candy. On Saturday night we had some of our close friends over for some hot chili, and good old fashion trick or treating. The kids all had a blast, as well as the adults. It has been a busy few months, but that seems to be how our fall goes. We are looking now towards Thanksgiving, where we will also be celebrating Christmas with Chad's parents. We are also busy planning Aidan big first birthday, we can hardly believe our baby girl is already going to be 1. She is a speed crawler now, and beginning to walk around ottomans, and up and down next to the couch. It won't be long before she is taking steps on her own. She is getting so big, she is signing "eat", "more please", "milk", "all done". She loves to play peek a boo and blowing kisses. She is a happy girl, however no one can make her smile quite like Ty can. Anything he does she thinks is hysterical, her face lights up simply when he talks to her. He is such a sweet big brother. They are our two most precious blessings, in which we give thanks everyday.

Family

We mourn the loss of our beloved Papaw who passed this afternoon. We cherish the wonderful memories and rejoice in his life (of 87 years). We are so thankful that our two children had the privilege of knowing him. We leave tomorrow to travel for the funeral. Tonight at dinner Ty said a prayer for papaw and grams. We told him papaw was with Jesus now, in heaven. Ty said "I want to see Jesus too." Daddy replied, "We aren't quite ready for you to see Jesus just yet." We hold close all the precious pictures and memories we have of Ty and Aidan with papaw. He lived a long, wonderful life and we know he is in a glorious place now. However, he will be greatly missed.

Family summer fun

We had a blast on our annual family beach trip. The beach was so much fun, Ty loved looking for shells and Aidan (much like her brother on his first beach trip) wanted to eat the sand. Ty has many beach trips under his belt now, and joined in with mommy's excitement many weeks before we left for our trip. After almost a dozen plane rides for Ty this was the first one that he really enjoyed, and stayed awake for. When we were landing we flew over the ocean, Ty was amazed. Aidan and Ty both loved the pool. Ty was in the pool every morning almost as soon as we got up. Ty and I would be up early (usually at sunrise) while daddy and Aidan slept a little longer. We would go outside to watch some blue's clues, eat a little breakfast, then by the time I got my coffee he was asking for his swimming trunks. If we weren't at the beach Ty was swimming. We will continue to have a busy couple of months with another beach trip planned for Sept, along with two camping trips. Aidan has been army crawling for about 3 weeks now. She is getting really fast. She is up on her hands and knees often so it's only a matter of time before she decides to really get going. Ty is bigger than ever. He is now riding the bike he got last Christmas. He rides it everywhere. Each morning, if the weather is good, I load up Aidan and Bailey and we take a long walk so Ty can ride around the neighborhood. It is so sweet to watch Aidan and Ty together. Ty enjoys so much making Aidan laugh, and he does it with such ease. She adores him and thinks anything he does is just hilarious. We are so blessed.