Autumn almost upon us

Wow... this year is just slipping by. I looked at the calender this evening and realized that Autumn is almost upon us. Less than two weeks. I look forward to things getting a little cooler, and the leaves starting to change. Aiden and I haven't been to the zoo in quite awhile as it has just been too hot with temperatures over 90 most days for the past two months.

So we'll get out and do more outside stuff through the autumn months, before we get into staying home and snug and warm through the winter.

I keep saying that I am going to be changing the slide show, but this time I really mean it. I was going back through some of the older posts, showing someone the picture of what Aiden wore last Halloween ( as we were discussing what he might be for Halloween this year, which I don't think we know yet) and just looking at a few of the pictures from the past year. I want to change up the slide show to kind of do the year in pictures. Might take some time and some doing, but I'll get it done.

Last week we went bargain shopping at Kohl's. I love shopping the bargain racks, right now all of the summer stuff is on super clearance to make way for the winter clothes. So I can get some really nice stuff really inexpensively. It takes some planning and knowing what you are going to need 8 months from now, and if your weight fluctuates too much it doesn't pan out, but for the most part I have found it to work well for me. We did some bargain shopping for Aiden's gear for next Summer as well. Found some really cute stuff for him and typically a full outfit was about $6, a shirt or pair of shorts around $3. We got an adorable Finding Nemo Swimsuit for him for $3 as well. I highly recommend Kohl's... and if you are shopping for Aiden, next Summer he will be in 24 month or 2T clothes. wink wink nudge nudge.

Revenge of a 13 month old

So I told you yesterday about how daddy scared the heck out of poor little Aiden at the hardware store. Well last night our little man got his just revenge.

He woke up screaming at 2:15am, something he has not done in some time. And he was inconsolable... we decided he probably had a nightmare due to daddy's mummy scare, and decided to bring him in with us. That didn't work... ultimately he was up well past 4am before finally settling back down to sleep.

It was not a good night in our house. A baby's revenge can be pretty viscous. who knew?

Labor Day celebration

We had a fun Labor day here in Aiden Land. We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to celebrate with a cook out and all sorts of outdoor activities. Aiden liked the horseshoes, although he prefered to carry them around rather than throw them. Of course Aiden loved the pool and a new water activity he was not sure of at first, but quickly warmed up to and then wore daddy out carrying him up the hill so he could go down again. Yes, Aiden discovered the Slip and Slide. He had a blast with that, and so did his cousin Dale. Biggest issue was that Aiden didn't move fast enough for Dale to play on the slide enough. By the end of the afternoon I think everyone was pooped.

Today Aiden got scared more than I think he has ever been scared before. All my fault I'm afraid. We went to Lowes to look for a bug killer. Well Lowes has been setting up their Halloween stuff. The endcap of the bug isle is a bunch of Halloween stuff, including a motion detecting Mummy. The first time we went by it startled daddy a little bit when it started humming and it's eyes moved back and forth and lit up. Going back out of the isle daddy decided to get a better look, and in turn give Aiden a better look. At first Aiden was kind of interested in what this thing was, reaching out for the "rags", but when it started moving its eyes and humming he just about jumped out of my arms and started bawling. I didn't know what to do... at the same time trying to comfort my baby but at the same time laughing so hard I'm about to cry.

Lesson being, don't let your baby get too close to motion detecting mummies who hum. LOL

Whew.... what a weekend. We went up to Indiana to Aiden's Mimi's house for a visit. We all got our first chance to meet Aiden's cousin Sean. Sean is about 7 months old, he belongs to Daddy's brother. We had 4 generations of my family there With Aiden's parents, aunt, uncle, and cousin, grandparents, and great grand parents.

Aiden pulled a couple of firsts on us along the way. He drank from a water glass as seen in the images below, and he drank from a cup through a straw. He also got some company riding around in his wagon with his cousin.

We had lots of fun and the grown up kids got to go to Holiday World while Mimi and the great grand parents took care of the babies. In all a very enjoyable and exhausting weekend.

So exhausting in fact that I am going to leave the rest of the writing for another day (I'd say tomorrow, but we know how well I have been doing with that of late) and leave you with some images. mommy was behind the camera for all of the pictures we took, so she is absent in this collage, as are Aiden's great grand parents for some reason we didn't get any pictures with them. But Papaw Danny couldn't have been more tickled with the little ones in the wagon this morning. :-)

Holy Cow

Where does the time go? Didn't I JUST post yesterday? no? what's going on??

Every day that Aiden gets older he becomes more of a handful and it seems more and more difficult to take a minute to sit down and post something. Of course he is a handful in a good way, he's constantly learning. But part of learning is learning how to get into trouble, and Aiden sure seems good at that.

We've got a new funny thing to do in the morning. Aiden always finishes his night sleep in bed with Daddy. Which is to say, after he wakes up from his night's sleep, he gets his morning bottle, and then he gets brought into bed so daddy can try to sleep a little bit longer, sometimes he settles down for me, other times he spends 20 minutes hitting me in the face and climbing up the headboard before daddy finally gets the hint and we get up.

When we do get up, Daddy goes to get changed and ready for the day. While daddy is getting himself together Aiden has the run of the bedroom. Well the last two days he has immediately made is way around the bed to mommy's nightstand, where he proceeds to tip over the glass of water mommy always has there, spilling the half glass or so of water that was not drank during the night.

His other new trick is to show me how strong he is. When daddy is washing his hands in the bathroom Aiden has taken to lifting the toilet seat to see the water inside.... a couple of times he has managed to reach in and almost smack the water with his other hand. Gonna have to teach him the word Gross soon. Oh and of course he loves spooling off the toilet paper every chance he gets.

Speaking of words... he babbles like crazy, but still has not made an official first word. I have a feeling that this kid is going to get his first word and then be talking in complete sentences like the next day. We just have to wait for that first word.

Lazy Daddy has forgotten to take the cameras downstairs with him since the last post, so I have nothing new visually for you. Tomorrow, I PROMISE to take the camera downstairs. Which hopefully will mean some good pictures to post over the weekend.

The Olympics kick off tomorrow night as well. Gotta love that. I am a big fan of the Olympics and have always watched as much as I could. This will be my first Olymps as a stay at home daddy, and NBC and their collection of stations have something Olympics on pretty much 24/7 throughout the games, so that should prove to be a lot of fun.

Things we are gearing up for... Aiden will get to meet his cousin for the first time in a couple of weeks, as we head to Indiana and Mimi's house where my brother and his wife are bringing Aiden's cousin for a visit, and will have him baptized while here as well. So that should be a big event.

Also we are trying to figure out when we are going to make a trip down to Orlando. Sometime between Mid September and the end of October we're going to pack up the SUV and hit the road for Aiden's first LONG road trip. We're planning to make a stop to visit our Friends Erin & Jason in Atlanta on the way down (Hopefully both ways if we don't wear out our welcome on the way down LOL) and spend about 5 days in Orlando visiting our friends still down there, and take Aiden for his first visit to the mouse.

So lots of fun things coming up, and lots of opportunities to take tons of pictures, so there shouldn't be any lack of those soon. hehe

brief update

It's been awhile since I have written, so I needed to take a minute to just jot something down. Life has been pretty busy around here since Aiden's first birthday. Daddy had a birthday, mommy was sick, work has been nuts and all sorts of other little time taker uppers that you don't want to hear about.

In any event, Aiden remains the happiest baby ever, and is enjoying all of his new toys. If he isn't wandering around banging on things with his new drumsticks, he is walking around with his Farmer Ted fridge magnet playing it as his personal soundtrack around the house, or making all kinds of cool noises with his lawn mower.

Perhaps the funniest thing is how much this little man LOVES to dance. It doesn't matter what the tune is, it could be a song, or the opening theme of a commercial, if it is musical Aiden starts dancing. If he is standing up that means bouncing his knees and getting that little butt wiggling, if he is sitting down it means banging his feet on the ground. In either event his head waves back and forth like a little headbanger. I've really got to work on getting video of that to post for everyone.

Speaking of video... yes, I know I promised video from his birthday party. The problem is that all of the videos we took are very long, too long for blogger to let me load the whole thing. That means I have to find the time to edit them down to small clips, and time has not seemed to be easy to come by here of late. So I will try to get some video up soon, but I am not making any promises as to if it will be birthday video or something else we tape in the meantime. If nothing else, the birthday video will go onto the christmas DVD.

That's going to be it for now. Daddy wore himself out today with mowing the lawn in 95 degree heat and then going to work, so it is time for some rest.

Be back soon!

Here's a stack of pictures from Aiden's 1 year Birthday party.

Yup.. .our little man is 1 today. It has been such a wonderful year of adventures. Amazingly, our little 7 pnd 5 oz. bundle who barely even seemed a handful 365 days ago is now a 21 pound, walking, jabbering, exploring, dancing little dude.

Aiden was surrounded by lots of friends and family for his birthday party over the weekend. In all 5 babies attended the party, along with parents, Aiden's Aunt's and Uncle, All of his grandparents with the exception of mommy's dad who was on a business trip, and of course his mommy and daddy.

It was a very long day for Aiden, and in the end I think he was pretty exhausted when it got to be time to open presents. He sat in a bit of a daze as mommy and daddy ripped away the wrapping paper. Lots and lots of new toys for Aiden to play with, almost all make lots of noise to give mommy and daddy headaches, but they all are learning toys as well, which is always a good thing. It's too early to call which new toy is his favorite, but he got several musical instrument toys to play with and he loves making noise with those. He also got a lawn mower and a tonka truck that make cool sounds when he plays with them. The fridge magnet animal farm is pretty cool, but hasn't stayed on the fridge for more than about ten minutes unless he was asleep.

We also asked for Dr. Seuss books along with toys so that daddy can read to him when it is bedtime, we received something like 10 books for daddy to read. Some are tongue twister books (Fox in Sox is an early reader book?!?) some are full out books that will take many nights to read to him, and all give me the opportunity to instill the love of books into the little fella, and that is the goal.

A big Thank you to everyone who was here, thank you for all of the gifts, thank you to those who sent cards and gifts. Aiden will be drawing up thank you cards soon for everyone, he may even sign them himself, but in the meantime, know that our family was so thrilled with how things turned out for our little boy's first birthday!

Here's some pictures... video to follow. ;-)

1 yr Photo Shoot

This morning we went and had Aiden's one year photo's done, so that is what I am going to focus on here. Yes, our little man is coming up on a year old. Wow!

We had a big party this afternoon with lots of family and friends, I will go into that and the loot he got on his actual Birthday on Monday. For tonight, I just want to share a few of the pictures from the photo shoot. Keep an eye on the photo rotator on the side panel in the next few days we'll change up that rotation with some new pics mixed in.

Enjoy!!