Merry Christmas!

I just wanted to take a moment on this day to send a Christmas greeting from our house to yours. I know I am not the best blogger in the world, and sometimes I have to be reminded to put up a new post, but I greatly appreciate you taking the time to come and visit with us. We come to the close of another year, a year in which Aiden turned 2 and we had so many adventures. Thanks for being a part of it! And we'll see you in 2010.

Just a couple of quick videos of our little guy enjoying his Christmas morning. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas to All

Wow... a month since our last update. It's been a busy time around the house. What with the holiday season at work and all three of us being sick for an extended amount of time, posting an update has kind of fallen by the wayside.

Aiden had a bit of a stomach virus there for about a week. The first night of it he woke up at around 1:30 and started crying for us. We were going to let him cry for a bit to see if he settled himself back down when he changed from his usual cry for us to come over to "I'm Messy" I went over to see what he was on about to find a bed full of vomit. Uh Oh.

What followed was about 3.5 hours of Aiden throwing up every 5-30 minutes. A very sleepless night all around, and a very tired family on Thursday. We weren't sure what to think of this as Aiden had never been throw up sick before. After the session of throwing up, the next several days Aiden had nearly no appetite whatsoever, drinking tons and eating a lot of ice chips, but not really willing to go for food. That combined with the stomach bug led to some pretty nasty diarrhea for the next 5 days or so. Mix that in with momma having a cold and the stomach bug at the same time and daddy having the worst cough/sinus infection of his life and we had a pretty unhappy household.

Fortunately these things ran their course as they always do and everyone is on the mend. Aiden got to go to his Parent's Day Out Christmas Party on Thursday and had a great time. With the illnesses we haven't made it to see Santa this year, and I am not sure if we will or not.

We're getting acclimated to it being too cold to go outside. Aiden still asks to go outside a time or two a day, but once we tell him it is too cold he is pretty good about finding something else to do. Parents Day Out has helped with that to give him someplace else to play other than just our house. I suppose I need to be looking into other activities I can take him out for so we can get out of the house more often over the winter.

Like everyone else we are busy preparing for Christmas. Lots of fun in store there. Aiden has some pretty awesome toys waiting for him to open, so I am sure there will be good pictures to share from that. In the meantime, Aiden got a much needed haircut today. Momma cut it and I think she did a great job. Here are the before and after pictures for you to check out.

More soon! Merry Christmas!

New pictures and video

Sorry it has been awhile since I updated. I am posting more often little updates on facebook and not so much taking the time to sit down and write actual blog entries. It seems like Aiden learns so much and is doing so much new every single day and it is difficult to document everything. His vocabulary is getting so big, and he understands what words mean pretty quickly. Still a big sports enthusiast, it's pretty cool how smart and engaged he is.

I have several pictures and a video to share tonight. The video is from awhile ago when Aiden decided to sing me a song after school, I tried to get him to sing for the camera, and he did a little bit. The results are what you see here.

The pictures are from ICE at Gaylord Opryland. This year's theme is Charlie Brown Christmas. I think they have done a wonderful job with the sculptures this year. I liked the Grinch when it was here, but I had trouble with some of the sculpting, as the who's lacked definition and didn't really stand out very well. Of course who's take a lot more definition than the Charlie Brown Characters, so in that sense, the artists had an easier job this year. But there is no question who the different characters are, and the scenes present themselves very well. And here is a little insider's secret. The building ICE is held in has an all new sound system this year, capable of playing different selections in 8 different zones. This lets them play scene appropriate music throughout. If you give it a few minutes (tough to do in the cold I know) you can actually follow the story through the soundtrack.

Enjoy!

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this is Halloween

It has taken some doing to get Aiden accustomed to his Halloween costume, but tonight he finally got the whole outfit on. Amazing but the outfit that is supposed to be sized for children 2-4 years old that we expected to be too big is.... too small. We're goign to see if we can get it in a bigger size tomorrow, but otherwise this will do for Saturday. He won't be wearing it next year, or even next month though.

The down side of all this work to get him comfortable with his costume is there is an 80% chance of Rain on Saturday, meaning that we might not even get to trick or treat. Maybe he will just dress up and great anyone hardy enough to be out trick or treating inj the rain. Who knows.

Just a couple of pictures and quick videos for you to enjoy of our little dragonasaurus.

the pictures

Many of the pictures speak for themselves, but I will caption them anyway, just to be sure we all know what is going on. Be prepared. This post includes 20 pictures and 4 videos. And doesn't even cover our entire trip. There is still some stuff on the Laptop I need to transfer over as well!

Aiden gets a crack at his first Pool Table. More on this in the video segment.

And he Jams to Guitar Hero. Too bad his guitar wasn't plugged in.

Light Saber action

I'm not really sure. But I think we are celebrating Jeyssa's cooking.

Tram ride at the beginning of our Disney day. Yes that is a "What have I gotten dragged into" expression. Modes of transportation today include, car, tram, ferry, bus, and monorail. Many of those being firsts for Aiden.

Is that a smile or a look of concern? We have no idea what we're getting into do we?

The Ferry ride on the way to MK. To the left of the ferry in the background is the Castle... yeah that little dot back there.

Here we are at the most magical place on earth.

Daddy gets a turn with Aiden in front of the Castle.

Aiden points up at the Dumbo rides. Interested, but skeptical?

Our First ride of the day, Dumbo.

We're all excited to be going up and down in our Dumbo car.


Next up is Philharmagic. We all looked silly in our special 3D glasses.


Aiden was enthralled with Small World. Everything was moving and interesting.

We got to meet Lightning McQueen and Mater in the chrome!

Zonked out at AK. But he woke up in time to see Aunt Nellie in the Good Night show. Even if he didn't have the energy to dance with her.


Still a little sleepy on the bus from AK to Epcot. It's been a long day. 3 more hours to go too.

Waiting for the Fireworks to get started.


Wow. Illuminations is one of Aiden's favorites too. (But he hasn't seen Fantasmic! yet)


Jamming with his new guitar on the car ride home.


Now a couple of videos. First Aiden "plays pool", then he plays guitar. A little live action light saber duel and then a non Aiden taste of Illuminations, because I will have to play it over and over for Aiden so it may as well be conveniently on the blog. :-)

Four WDW Parks, One Day. Good times and exhaustion

We have just recently arrived back at the apartment we are renting for the week in the Orlando Area. Today we did a 10 hour whirlwind tour of the 4 Disney Theme Parks. Sound crazy? Well maybe a little bit. But mommy and I are both former cast members and we knew what we wanted to do and how to get from point A to point B quickly and efficiently.

Firstly I need to give big props to our friends Andy & Janelle, without whom this day would not have happened. Don't want to spend $300 for two one day park hopper passes to Disney? Spend 10 years becoming good friends with Disney Cast Members and then beg, borrow and steal their comp passes. :-)

Our day started a little late, we slept in and had to do a couple of things before we could head to the park. Arrived at Magic Kingdom (Park #1) right around noon. Decided to take the ferry across from the parking area to the park itself and let Aiden enjoy the boat. Our goal at Magic Kingdom was to do as much of Fantasyland as possible, if time permitted we wanted to get to Pirates of the Caribbean since neither of us has seen it since the "additions". Our first ride was the Dumbo ride. October and a 30 minute wait... who says that Disney attendance is down?? After Dumbo we walked across and right into Philharmagic, which was cute although it scared Aiden (this will turn into a running theme throughout the day with shows). Afterward we went over to Pinnochio's Food Haus or whatever it is called, picked up a little lunch and actually caught a table right next to the windows over looking Small World Boarding. Throughout lunch Aiden waved at all the people riding on the boats out the window. And after lunch we went right into the Small World Line. About 15 minutes for Small World, and it is pushing 2:20. Our goal was to make it over to Hollywood Studio's for the 3pm Parade, so off we go to ground transportation. We missed out on Peter Pan's flight (stating a 45 minute wait) and did not make it over to Pirates. But MK was a success. Favorite part so far for Aiden:Dumbo.

There is a bus station right outside of the Magic Kingdom and we expected to hop a bus and run right over to Studios. But No! the bus terminal at the Kingdom is only Resort buses. So we have to get back on the Ferry, cross over to the Transportation Center, then catch a bus from there to Studios. No way we make it by 3pm, we barely made it on a bus for Studios by 3. So we walk into Hollywood Studios (park #2) about 3:20 and figure the parade is over. There is a lot of music going on but we figure it is just general park music. Walking back toward the hat we saw a big Monster's Inc float. The Parade was still going on! We managed to find a decent spot and there are 4-5 songs left in the show stop. Aiden was jamming a little bit in his stroller, but was not interested in getting out. (He had fallen asleep on the bus ride to Studios and the noise of the parade woke him back up.) After the Parade we wandered back looking for the Cars display. They have a full size Lightning and a full size Mater out for people to come up and have a picture with. Aiden and Daddy got our picture taken with the cars. Aiden was a bit skeptical, but he kept pointing and yelling out "Mater" and "Light Queen". We made our way from Cars over to Playhouse Disney where Handy Manny was out doing photo ops. Aiden waffled back and forth about taking a picture with Manny, and eventually the answer was "no" until we got into the Playhouse Disney theatre for the show, at which point all he wanted was Handy Manny. We watched the Playhouse Disney show which Aiden alternated between clapping for and being scared of. Afterward, mommy wanted to go see the High School Musical 3 show by the hat. We we went out to that and Aiden grooved a little to the music. That finished off our list of things to do at Studios. next stop, Animal Kingdom.

We had really wanted to see the new Finding Nemo show at Animal Kingdom (Park #3) but the High School Musical show was at 4:30 and the last Finding Nemo of the day was 4:45. So obviously timing wise that didn't work out. Still we could make it over to see the last
Festival of the Lion King show at 5:45. We made it to AK about 5:15, plenty of time to make it to Festival. But Aiden had other plans. Like falling asleep. Bless him he did good to stay awake as long as he did, but he was tuckered out. So we just found a place to sit and hang out for a bit and let him sleep. Timing wise we COULD have done the show, but didn't happen. We were in the park though, so it counts. Our friend was going to be in the little park closing show at 6:15, so we stuck around for that, by which time Aiden had woken up and was grooving along in his stroller, again unwilling to get out and dance. After the Park closing celebration at AK it was time to move on to Epcot.

We made it to Epcot (Park #4) a bit before 7pm. Our goal here, quite simple, Illuminations, the finale firework display. We had time to do a few other things, so in looking over our options decided to head for the Living Sea and the new Finding Nemo adventure. They have taken the living Sea ride and transposed video of the Finding Nemo characters over the existing Tanks, which is pretty cool. After the ride we headed over to Turtle Talk with Crush. This was a neat little interactive, just as cool as the little videos of it you see on TV. Pretty fantastic first hand interaction. Aiden, once again, was scared. But he made it through with his face buried in daddy's shoulder. After Turtle Talk we needed to grab a bite to eat, which we did at the Electric Umbrella with some decent bacon Cheeseburger and fries (we deserved it with the walking we did). After dinner we had just enough time to check out the newly retooled Spaceship Earth (mostly the same ride with a neat little personal interaction thing added in) and then find a spot for Illuminations. Mommy and I have always loved Illuminations, although if there had been a Fantasmic! show at Studios tonight we would have gone there instead as that is where we both worked and met each other. Aiden was a little scared by the noise, but he liked the fireworks and applauded sporadically throughout. He alternated between being held by one of us and sitting in his stroller, mostly preferring his stroller actually. After Illum it was the long walk back to the exit and Aiden's first ride on the monorail. We left the parks right around 9:30.

So all told we did just under 10 hours to scoot through all four Disney Parks. Yeah we didn't do a ton of stuff in any single one park, but we got to get a lot of highlights in and really don't think we missed anything we truly wanted to do other than Pirates and Fantasmic! and Fant was not on today so that was never an option to begin with. We could have spent a lot more time in MK with all the things there are to do there, and maybe next visit we can devote a whole day there. But like I said at the top, we knew what we wanted to see and we had a plan to get it done. Now it is time for a night of rest. There are a ton of pictures, but since I am on a Internet connection that is barely saving my progress on the typing I won't be able to upload photos until we get home on Monday. Till then you will just have to use your imagination.

Late Update

Well it has been a while since I was able to get a post put together. We have not gotten many pictures of late, everyone in the house has been ill at one point or another over the past couple of weeks. So I will just update a few developmental things Aiden has accomplished since last time.

His vocabulary is leaping forward every day. A lot of the time it seems like he is just mimicking what we say, but later on he will use a lot of the words he was "mimicking" correctly.

He is suddenly very good at identifying himself in pictures and video. Whereas until recently he would point to a picture of himself and say "Baby" now he knows he name and uses it often. He will see a picture and say "Aiden". He had my cell phone the other day which has a picture of him on it, when he flipped the phone open his picture came up and he shouted Aiden Aiden. Then after a few minutes the screen went back to black and he got confused "Where Aiden Go?!"

Today he has been pretty funny. One of our neighbors was having their roof replaced today and with all the noise he wanted to know what was going on. So we went outside and took a look around at what they were doing, and I taught him "They are fixing the roof" now every time he hears a pounding he says "They fixin the roof!".... I've heard it about 200 times this afternoon. But it's still cute. :-)

We'll work on some pictures and videos soon!

Updates and Updates

Where to start. So much has been going on over the last 10 days. I guess chronological order is best. Last Thursday was Aiden's first day at Parent's Day Out (They call it Mother's Day out, but since I am the one at home with Aiden I will call it what I like) all indications are that he had a great time with his first day, he even did well during nap time. We are able to walk to the school from home, it probably takes less time to walk over there with him than it does to get him packed into his car seat, drive over, get him out of the car seat and then inside. So as long as the weather cooperates walking will be the norm. Mommy took the day off so she could go drop Aiden off and pick him up with me for his first day. During the hours he was in school we got a lot of clean up done around the house. Lots to do with the school time. Long list of things that have been "neglected".

On Friday Aiden went up to Indiana to spend a couple of nights with his grand parents. Mommy and Daddy had a date with the local theatre Friday night, so Aiden's mimi and papaw agreed to watch the little one. He had a good time and I will try to post a couple of the videos from mimi's collection at some point.

When Aiden came home on Sunday he found his room rearranged. His crib wasn't there anymore. The book case now sits where his crib was, the desk has moved and in the corner there is a big boy bed. Mommy went out and bought a new bed for him on Friday and we got it put together and ready for him to come home to. Tonight is night 3 on the regular bed and so far so good. He's good at getting up into the bed using his little stairs, but so far seems a bit scared of getting down on his own. Doesn't seem like much of a problem to me, as that means that he won't be wandering around his room at 4am just yet.

Unfortunately, yesterday the little guy came down with a fever. He was not showing any other symptoms of illness, and Tylenol reduced the fever, but it stuck with him throughout yesterday and into this morning. The fever finally broke for good sometime this morning, but since he had been feverish all day yesterday we kept him out of school today. We really didn't want him to miss the second day, but it was safer for everyone, and he was a grumpus anyway most of the morning till he got his energy back this afternoon.

So that's a quick overview of what has been going on. Should have a few new pictures to add soon.

Videos and news

So we have some video to share with you tonight. I hope that blogger lets me load it all fairly quickly as we have several really cute videos to share.

But first... a bit of news! Tonight before bath time, Aiden peed in his potty for the firs time!! We're so proud! It was kind of unexpected, as we always have him sit on the potty when he is getting ready for a bath but he never does anything. tonight he just let it go. WooHoo for progress!

Now for some video entertainment!

Kicking the ball! We were watching pre-season Football, and Aiden decided kicking the ball looked like a lot of fun.

What's a Dinosaur Say?

This may take a parent to understand. But the Book we are looking at is "The Little Engine that Could" The first page of the book goes something like this "Chug Chug Puff Puff Ding Dong. The little train rolled down the track. She was a happy train." Now listen carefully.

New Pictures

Alright.. It is past time for some new pictures, so here we go. A few captured moments from the last couple of weeks.

We start with Aiden showing off his shiny new Lightning McQueen jammies. Yes he is Still obsessed with cars. We have managed thus far to get through the weekend without watching it (quick everyone knock on wood)

This picture was taken Approximately 30 seconds before Aiden ripped one of the sides right off the frame, permanently making a mess of daddy's glasses. I will say for him that he put them on by himself, and did so correctly. If only we had skipped the breaking things part.

Aiden loves the water. The first picture is from a pool party held at a friends house a couple of weekends ago. Aiden had a blast! Then we go to the pool at mommy's work and the pool party they had this week. Aiden was a bit skeptical of the water at first, but once he warmed up to it, he didn't want to leave!

This weekend work through a appreciation party, with all kinds of inflatables and bouncy things, games, food, and prizes. Again Aiden wasn't real sure about things at first, in fact we almost didn't stay because he was scared and crying. But eventually he found the balls. Basketballs and Footballs, and he LOVES anything that looks like a ball, so we spent a lot of time keeping other employees from being able to play basketball or football while Aiden monopolized the balls. Then we found the slide and obstacle course and Aiden had a good old time with those, daddy got worn out trying to keep up. But it was all a whole lot of fun!

No Pictures Please, I'm busy having fun!

innocent wonder and the breaking of stuff

Yesterday I took Aiden to the park. We spent a good hour wandering around and playing. For whatever reason I started thinking about the innocent wonder with which this child looks at everything around him. How much delight he takes in just pointing to a hole and shouting out "A HOOLE" over and over again. Everything is new, fun, and delightful. Then I started considering how early we lose that sense of wonder... 10? 13? Surely by our middle teens we have come to see things in a cynical fashion and that innocent wonder has burned away. For however long it lasts, I am going to cherish every moment of wonder I can with Aiden. It opens a daddy's eyes to think about how all of this is new and amazing to this little person. The mundane becomes incredibly interesting and must be explored.

Of course then there are the things that SHOULDN'T be explored. Like Daddy's glasses. He has always liked to grab them and play with them if he can. I got out of the shower today and came out to the bedroom to see what he was into, he had my glasses on (correctly) and was playing with the computer mouse. I snapped a quick picture (which I will upload soon) and went to finish up in the bathroom. 30 seconds later when I came back out the glasses were no longer on his head. He has taken them off and somehow managed to break off one of the earpieces at the frame. Like REALLY broken, twisted metal broken, no repair. No idea how this happened, but there you go. this is what happens when you leave a inquisitive child unattended for two seconds. On the upside, these glasses lasted me probably 7 years, so they were probably due for retirement. And insurance will pay for most of the new frames & lenses, so while there will be an expense, it won't be horrible. Just an "ungh" experience, and trying to superglue the old glasses back together enough to use until I can get some new ones.

Aiden tells a story

So. Aiden's favorite story at the moment is Cars. We watch the movie, read the book, and he has several Cars toys. Tonight instead of us reading the story, he read it for us. Here's a little video of Cars, as told by Aiden.

2nd Birthday Party

So they are a little late, but here are the pictures and a video from Aiden's 2 year birthday party. Thanks to everyone who was here, and those who couldn't be here but sent birthday wishes along to the little man. He had a great time, and the party was a bigger success than last year, since everyone got their nap and had more energy this time around. Not to mention the whole being a year older and having a better understanding of what was going on. All of the presents have been a big hit, the t-ball set quite literally a big hit. He took to baseball immediately. Looks like we have a lot of sports to keep up with in our future.

Aiden was a little under the weather yesterday, running a little fever, but his mood was much improved today. We went to the Zoo and he had a blast pointing at all the birds and fish.

We're working on left and right, amazingly. I don't know if kids at 2 are supposed to get left and right yet, but when I ask him to give me a certain foot to put his shoe on he has a better than 50% chance of giving me the correct foot, and it is improving with each time we repeat the exercise. Also working on having him repeat the alphabet to us, with admittedly limited success.

More soon!

2 year Photos

Today was the day of Aiden's 2 year photo shoot. Mommy scheduled the appointment for 1:30 this afternoon. Aiden, of course, fell asleep on the way to the studio, and was a massive grump when we arrived. It took all we could do to get him to be interested in golfing (his favorite thing and thus the theme for the first round of pictures. Once we changed his shirt for the second outfit, he LOST IT. There was no way he was going to get photos taken. Fortunately, the studio was having a slowish day, so we were able to leave for a little bit and come knack and try again. After getting some Chick-Fil-A into him he seemed to cheer up, and the second round of photos went much smoother.

Thankfully Dan, our Photographer was very patient with us. I am sure they get bad kids all the time, but it just sucks when it is your kid who is bawling. All of the Staff at Portrait Innovations were really nice about it, and at least outwardly smiling, though they may have been inwardly gritting their teeth. The second time out when it was time to pick out the pictures we wanted, he thought that was high time to be running all over the place, which was probably almost as bad for the staff, as they watch a 2 year old zooming around everything, but again, all smiles.

Once again we purchased enough pictures to give one to the entire world. And we got the CD with all of the "proofs", so I can share some of those with you now. They are in reverse order as to when they were taken. Fortunately, even though he was upset in the beginning, the photos in the orange outfit came out just fine!

ENJOY!