The peanut dance

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care in hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be there." No word are more true in our household. Aiden is so excited for Christmas he can hardly stand it. Trent and I are so excited too. It is so fun to watch the kids open their presents, the excitement dancing in their eyes!
We have been enjoying the holiday festivities to their fullest...looking at Christmas lights, going to Christmas concerts, watching all the holiday movies on TV, etc. Last night we were watching the Nutcracker. Surprisingly Aiden was really enjoying it.
So tonight, as we were settling down for the evening, Aiden says "can we watch the peanut dance again?" The Nutcracker...get it...ha ha!

Birthday Party!

Can you believe that Aiden is four years old already? Where does the time go? Now that Aiden is getting older, he is asking questions about when he was born. So, here is his story...

It was a dark and stormy night...literally! Is was super cold and hadn't been above zero for days. Fresh snow had fallen and the change in weather had begun to stir up some contractions. I was still working night shift OB and had worked the entire night before I went into labor. After a long 12 hour shift, I went home to sleep for three hours and then went to my doctor appointment. While I was at Dr. Ellis' office, my water broke. Up to this point, it was one of the happiest days of my life because it meant I wouldn't be pregnant too much longer AND because that meant Aiden was almost ready to join us in the world! So, after only a few hours of sleep, the excitement began. That was at 1 in the afternoon. By two by contractions had started. Unfortunately I wasn't blessed with my mothers fast labors and Aiden didn't arrive until 12:32 the following afternoon. 22 HOURS OF LABOR! It was all worth it to hold him in my arms. What a blessing. He weighed 7lbs and was 18 3/4 inches long. Up to that point his name was Gavin, but that name really did not suit him. We decided to change to Aiden and later found out "Aiden" meant fiery spirit. I guess that name was meant to be as fiery spirit fits him to a T.

I always tell Aiden that 2's and 3's are his lucky numbers. He was born on December 3rd at 12:32 in room 32 after 22 hours of labor!

As you can see by the pictures, Aiden chose to celebrate tractor style! Grandpa Bill was nice enough to bring over a real tractor for the boys to play on. Hard to see, but in the tractor is Aiden, Parker, Chance and Braylen. Aiden hasn't had a single birthday where is has been nice outside and this year was no different. The tractor excursions didn't last long as it was only about 10 degrees outside and the wind was blowing at least 30 mph. Brrr! All the kids had a great time, especially Aiden. He is now to the age where he will start remembering some of this stuff. Hopefully this was a birthday worth remembering. Happy birthday sweet boy!

Little ladybug birthday

Here are a few pictures from Kaylen's first birthday. She had a great time. While I don't think she realized all the hoopla was centered around her, she was thrilled to have so many people she knows in one room. She loved all her new toys and had a great time demolishing her lady bug cake. So, now she is officially a toddler. That sounds so weird to say. Baby or big girl, we will continue to enjoy all her sweetness. (until the terrible twos hit that is...yikes!)

Kaylen - a year in pictures

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Following Kim's lead

So a friend of mine, who followed a friend of hers, decided that blogging, while fun, often creates this picture perfect world of your life...whatever! So, in order to keep it real, here are just some of the not so perfect things going on in my life:

*Kaylen is a year old this Saturday and is still using a pacifier at night. I said I would break her of it by 8 months at the latest. I know I need to do it, but I'm one of those mothers who just can't make her kids "cry it out". So, when she has buck teeth later in life and hates me for it, I deserve it!

*On the topic of Kaylen and hitting the one year mark, she is no where near walking. You never want your kids to be "delayed" in anything, so of course I worry. To be honest, she is kind of a chicken. Through the inner workings of my private mind, I know I want to raise a smart, strong, independant woman. I know it is weird to associate her walking timeline with her personality traits of adulthood, but as a mother you constantly worry.

*Aiden, bless his heart, is the social director of life. This is not a good thing. He has his "rules" for everything! Games, playtime, bedtime, eating; you name it he has rules that go along with it and when you don't follow the rules, life quickly becomes a meltdown. I know that this is partly just his personality, but I also know that I have been a part of this growing bad habit. For Aiden, I do not worry about him becoming a strong, independant sole...this will not be problem! However, I do want him to learn that we all need to work together and get along. You can't always have your way and you need to be part of the solution, not the problem. Trust me, we're working on it!

*Aiden can't draw...period! I fear the right side of his brain is actually not intact. He can scribble like nobody's business, but to actually draw anything coherant; good luck. Shouldn't he have learned this by now? Worse yet, was I suppose to teach him and didn't!

*I have had so many "bad parent" moments, I have lost track. Every time I say it will be the last time, but of course that doesn't happen. I just hope my kids aren't old enough to remember my mistakes and that someday I will hone in on my parenting skiils before they realize what a bad mom I am (kidding - just some days).

*I'm going back to school. While I know this will be good in the long run, I contantly worry that this is affecting my family in the present. Am I spending enough time with my family? Is my homework distracting me from my family? Really...how irritable am I from the late night of studying? Only time will tell.

*Trent and I have become one of those old married couples. Yikes! When did that happen? We never go anywhere, we never do anything. Luckily, we rarely ever fight, but sometimes I don't really feel like we converse either? While I love our kids to death, sometimes you can't help but admit they suck the life out of your marriage. On the other hand, the kids have strengthened us in many other ways, so I guess you take it one day at a time and hope for the best.

*This year, my Dad turns 60. My Mom is not that far behind. This sounds so old (sorry Mom). I know the day will come that I won't have my parents to lean on, and that scares me to death. They are my rock. They are always there for whatever I need; cooking tips, parenting advice, plumbing & electrical emergencies, or just general life instructions. What is worse is the thought of explaining to my children why they can't see their grandparents anymore. Life lessons are the hardest to learn!

This is only a small glimps of the many worries and fears I think about on a daily basis. You do the best with what you have and hope for the best possible outcome. I'll go with the Beetles - all you need is love. If I need more than that, I may be out of luck :-)

Visit to the fire hall

The fire hall had their annual open house a while back. What a perfect chance for Aiden to go check out some real fire trucks. They let all the kids get in the trucks, play around with the sirens, the whole bit. It was awesome. Now, (shocker) he wants to be a fireman when he grows up. That or a transformer...it's a toss up.

I'm a big girl now!

I can't believe it, but Kaylen is 11 months old already. I have ordered all her birthday stuff, but still can't fathom it's time to actually have her first birthday party. SO bitter-sweet! I was gone for four days last week (conference in Dallas) and she changed so much in the short time I was gone. Before I left, she was barely pulling herself up on the furniture, was crawling but not very fast and was very hesitant at walking. When I came back, she was pulling herself up on everything in site, crawling like a mad woman and will walk anywhere as long as she has something to hold on to. How quickly they change :-)

She is also getting quite the vocabulary. Here is her growing list of words:

Mama
Dadda
Aidan (Ayda)
Dog
Cat
Hot
Uh Oh
Wow
Hello (Heywoh)
Up
Yuck
Papa
And her first two word sentance: Papa Bill

First day of school

Today was Aiden's first day of preschool. Amazingly, it wasn't as sad as I thought it would be. To be honest, I fully intended for HIM to have some tears over the whole ordeal. He is still a mama's boy and pretty hesitant with new situations. Well, not today. He ran in, hung up his book bag and went on like he owned the place. I had to go chase him down to get a hug and kiss goodbye. Ouch...hurt to my ego. Really, it was nice to see him act like such a big boy. So, I have a few years to get myself used to the preschool schedule and then it will be on to kindergarten. That may be a bit harder!

Irrigating with Grandpa Bill

Here is Aiden's comments after irrigating with Grandpa Bill last night:

Aiden: "Grampa, whatcha doin?"
Grandpa: "I'm setting this dam so we can irrigate"
Aiden: "Grampa wees not 'pose to say damn"

Growing up too fast!

As I sit and watch my amazing children tonight, I can help but be a bit sad as to how fast it all goes by. It seems just yesterday when Aiden was at the stage Kaylen is now; learning to crawl, first words and personality starting to show through. I wish I would have started blogging when Aiden was a baby as I know there are so many thing I have already forgotten. In an effort to preserve my last few brain cells, I wanted to write a few of my favorite things about my babies:

Aiden:
*I loved to give big kisses to his chubby cheeks. You could almost bury your whole face in his squishy sweetness.

*He has always had such a big belly laugh. Even as a baby, it was easy to get him giggling. When he was younger, he had a spot on his butt cheeks that made him wiggle and giggle with laughter every time. It was hilarious.

*Aiden was always on the move. I think that is why he was so quick to pick up on physical milestones; turning over, crawling, walking, jumping. It just came so easy for him.

*He is stubborn to the core (I say he gets that from his Dad), but once he decides he wants to do something, you can't hold him back. For months we struggled to get him to try and learn to use peddles on his bike. He refused to try and got so frustrated, but one day he said he wanted to do it and he has been a peddling fool ever since. That was only two months ago and now he is almost ready to take off the training wheels.

Kaylen:
*My favorite spots to give her kisses are in the crook of her elbows and on her neck. I don't know why.

*You really have to work to get Kaylen to laugh. Lately she has developed this really high pitched little twitter laugh - almost like a bird. It is hard to explain, but I wish I could bottle it and take it with me wherever I go.

*Kaylen loves to just sit and have you near her. That is all she wants and it makes her completely content. She doesn't have to be entertained or on the go, just be near her and she is happy.

*She is our cuddle bug. Kaylen loves to give big sloppy kisses and hugs. When she first started to give her sloppy kisses, she would suck on your lips just a little. It was so funny and sweet.

I love to watch both my children sleep, and of course rocking them to sleep has to be one of the most calming, relaxing and special times I have spent with them. When I use to work shift work when Aiden was little, even when I was so exhausted, I would wish for Aiden to wake up in the night just so I could rock him back to sleep. This is one of the things I will miss the most as my children grow older.

Aiden Aphorisms

A few of my favorite sayings this week:

"Look mommy, the trees are dancing. When the wind blows it makes music and the trees dance."

"We weren't jumping on the bed, we were flying and then falling down." (sounds a lot like jumping to me)

A: "Grandpa, where is your floatie?"
G: "What is a floatie?"
A: "That thing that flies in the air."
G: "The frisbee?"
A: "Ya, the frisbee. That's what I said."

A: "Daddy, start your engees!"
D: "You mean start your engines."
A: "Nooooo, start your engees. Engees are faster then engines. They're super fast. Vroom Vroom!"

Slip N' Slide

My brothers were in Powell visiting last weekend. They came so the kids could watch Trent in the derby...second place, YEAH!

The slip n' slide was a big hit. (thanks grandma!). The kids always have so much fun hanging out together. This weekend we will all be headed to the mountains for a family camping trip.

Thomas the Train

Just wanted to share a few pictures from our trip to see the real Thomas the Train. We got to ride the train and they had lots of other fun activities.

The bottom picture is on the way home. Aiden put stickers all over his face and then fell asleep for the remainder of the trip. I had to pull over to get the shot. It was too funny to resist.

Oreos!

Kaylen had her first oreo yesterday. Enough said!

(Great) Grandma Rose

I just had to post a picture from (Great) Grandma Rose's 90th birthday party. She is an amazing woman and always looks pretty as a peach. Happy Birthday and we love you!

summer pictures

I am long overdue to post some pictures, so here a few snapshots of our summer outings. A few from camping and some from our Casper trip in early June. As usual, our summer is going by way to fast. We have only gone camping twice, but plan to go much more in the weeks ahead. Aiden is doing great. He is in swim lessons now. Some days he really likes it and others not so much. Kaylen got her first tooth this weekend. She didn't even put up a fight! As usual, she is mellow and easy going with most everything that comes her way. She has yet to really figure out how to crawl. She can push herself backwards but not forward. Mostly she just sits up and scoots herself around on her bum. She doesn't seem to mind staying non-mobile, and, of course, Trent and I can't complain about it either.

I will leave you with one story...it tops the cake. I'm actually a little embarrassed to even post it, but I want to have it for Aiden and Kaylen to read when they get older. Here goes:

We have finally hit some nice weather for the summer. Over the weekend the temperature was into the 90's, so we decided to fill up the inflatable backyard pool. As we live in the country, Aiden will often swim in the buff, so he was stripping down getting ready to take a dip. Kaylen was sitting in the yard, just soaking in the sun. I was watering the flowers nearby when I heard Aiden shout "I have to go potty". Again, we live in the country, so Aiden often finds a bush and does his thing. Then I hear it..."Kaylen got wet". Surely he didn't...no he couldn't have...oh yes he did! While I don't believe it was on purpose, Aiden peed on his sister. I'm sure he wasn't paying attention, and you know when boys pee, it goes all over (as evidence by my toilet). So, Kaylen got a good scrubbing in the bathtub, Aiden swam in the pool and life went on as usual.

Dance in my butt

I have been horrible about posting lately...I promise to get some pictures up soon. We have been so busy lately. That is a horrible excuse, but it is the best I've got. So, here is a short Aiden story

As I was trying to get Aiden to settle down for the evening, we popped in a movie. As it was starting up, and the music was playing, he started bouncing around and showing off some of his AMAZING dance moves. I said "do you have ants in your pants?" to which Aiden replied "No, I just have a dance in my butt." He is always good for a laugh!

I other news, Kaylen is now 8 months old. Wow, how time flies. The past few night I think she has been teething. All I know is she has not slept well at all...as evidence by the bags under my eyes. YIKES! Hopefully the little suckers will pop through soon. She continues to be our little sweetie-pie. She loves to gives hugs and kisses and her goofy little wrinkles-nose grin can't help but make you smile. She is not crawling yet, but I think she is close. However, I have been saying that for over a month. I'm fine with her staying stationary, but I'm sure before soon she will be all over the house! She is talking more all the time. Gibberish of course, but she does say dada and mama, which is oh so cute!

Grandpas vs. boys

The other day Aiden was talking about his grandpas. He said "I have my Grandpa Bill and my Grandpa Bob." I said "what about Grandpa Gary?". Aiden says "Grandpa Gary isn't my grandpa, he is just my boy. " WHAT? Then it dawned on me. Gary always calls Aiden "his boy" so I guess it goes both ways. Ha!

I have been horrible at posting any pictures, so here you go! Last weekend we went up to Northfork for a drive. It was so nice outside and we had a great time. It made us yearn to go camping...a few more weeks. Of course, camping with a baby will pose its challenges, but I'm sure we will still have a loads of fun.

Kaylen is getting bigger by the second. She is sitting up well now and can scoot backwards. I give her a few weeks before she is army crawling. We'll see. She continues to be a very calm, mellow easy going baby. She is always smiley and cheerful. She has started giving us this new cheesy grin (as you can see in the pictures). It is so cute.

Aiden is great, as usual. He is excited for summer to come and can't wait to go camping. He continues to always make us laugh with his comments and anecdotes. Also, I think his snow boots have become permanently attached to his feet. What is it with boys and boots? Whenever he takes them off I try to hide them, but he eventually finds them. I've limited him from wearing them in public (shorts and snow boots look a little funny), but he continues to wear them all over the house and while playing outside. I think we will go shopping and find some irrigating boots to wear instead. His new favorite pasttime is to watch the weather. His usual routine after coming home from daycare is to eat a bowl of cereal and watch the news/weather with his dad. He'll always tell me "the weather man said...". I think he likes to see if it is going to be nice outside so he can wear shorts. Who knows. Crazy kid!

Stinky dinosaurs

Last weekend Aiden was watching a show about dinosaurs. After it was over, I asked him what he learned. He went on to tell me how the dinosaurs are big and scary... and stinky! I asked him why they were stinky. "I don't know, they just said they stink." Oh, I get it. I then had to explain what it meant to be extinct!

~~~~~~Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've had a baby.........somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, normal is history.

~~~~~~~Somebody said a mother's job consists of wiping noses and changing diapers.........somebody doesn't know that a child is much more than the shell he lives in.

~~~~~~~Somebody said you learn how to be a mother by instinct........... somebody never took a three-year-old shopping.

~~~~~~~Somebody said being a mother is boring.........somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.

~~~~~~~Somebody said teachers, psychologists, and pediatricians know more about children than their mothers....somebody hasn't invested her heart in another human being.

~~~~~~~Somebody said being a mother is what you do in your spare time..... somebody doesn't know that when you're a mother, you're a mother ALL the time.

~~~~~~~Somebody said "good" mothers never raise their voices.......somebody never came out the back door just in time to see her child wind up a golf ball into the neighbor's kitchen window.

~~~~~~~Somebody said you don't need an education to be a mother....... somebody never helped a fourth grader with his math.

~~~~~~~Somebody said a mother can find all the answers to her childbearing questions in the books........ somebody never had a child stuff beans up his nose.

~~~~~~~Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery...... somebody never watched her "baby" get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten.

~~~~~~~Somebody said a mother can do her job with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back........somebody never organized seven giggling Brownies to sell cookies.

~~~~~~Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married....... somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings.

~~~~~~Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home...... somebody never had grandchildren.

~~~~~~Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her....... somebody isn't a mother.

Kayeln 5 months

Here are a few recent pictures of the kids. We have had big happenings in the Greenwald household in the past few weeks. We have traveled the past two weeks to Casper and Pinedale. We always love visiting our families and we all had a great time. It is always an adventure taking a road trip with kids, but they both did pretty well. Last Friday Kaylen finally rolled over from her back to front. Since then she has been rolling...and rolling and rolling and rolling all over the house. Aiden thinks this is hilarious, especially when she rolls to get to him. He told me yesterday that Kaylen is his best friend. We'll see if he still says the same thing when he is 16. While we were in Pindale Kaylen had her first trip to the swimming pool. She loved the water and is quite buoyant! Aiden always has a great time in the water. We got him some new goggles, which for some reason he calls "doggle goggles". I have no idea where that came from. On Sunday Kaylen had her first taste of real food. Rice cereal of course. Not too exciting but she seems to like it. This weekend we are planning to do absolutely nothing. After two weekends of travel we are all ready to veg!

3 year old essentials

Aiden: Daddy, do you have to go to work in the morning?
Trent: Yup, I do
Aiden: Why?
Trent: Why what?
Aiden: WHY do you have to go to work?
Trent: So I can make some money
Aiden: (thinks for a minute) So we can go to the store and buy gumballs?
Trent: That's right buddy, so we can buy gumballs

I love the way his mind works. So cute~

Happy Valentines Day

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