December Daily 22: Last minute stuff!

My kids are just amazing! They make me so happy every day. I don't know how anyone could not love their child! Mine both make me laugh every day, and it makes me so happy I'm home with them.

Today, Westen's friend Calla came over to play. That actually made the day super easy for me, because even Aeson wanted to hang out with them! She brought Westen some little gifts she'd made.. some Valentines (lol) and a Batman cape picture. He went in his room and found a dinosaur for her to take home. He still tells me they're going to get married when they're older!

Aeson said "mouth" this morning, and I think there was one other word/noise he made but I can't remember now! He's been signing "please" after "milk" lately too.

I FINALLY finished up the gift buying, including stockings, today! This evening, we went out for dinner for my cousin's birthday. Aeson was really well-behaved (and Westen too, as always!). Afterwards, we ran to the store to get everything left to get for our Christmas meal and goodies. Aeson fell asleep on the way home, so Eric and I speed wrapped all of their gifts! I'm so glad that's done! Man, this Christmas stuff gets hard as they get older! We had a hard time finding time TO wrap.. and now we're going to have to figure out how we're going to put the presents out! We usually all go to bed at the same time.. hopefully they'll fall asleep early that night. I'm sure it will get harder as they get older and we have even more kids too... Who knew our parents went through this same stuff?!

December Daily 21

Westen has been sooo anxious for Christmas! He "just can't believe!" it's almost here! A day or so ago, he got so worried because he thinks Santa might not bring him presents since he's been bad "every day." While he does get time-outs for his behavior some days, I told him he's still not a bad child & I was sure Santa agreed! Today, he was so very, very good, even opening my van door for me! He ran around there & said he was going to open it because he wanted to be good for Santa! :) He's too funny. He also told Uncle Eddie "you're my life" tonight!

Aeson's age is just AMAZING to me. Every day, he learns/does/says something new. It's crazy! He's been going to the changing table when I ask him if he wants his diaper changed.. Well this morning, Addy had just gotten here when I asked him, so he shook his head no & pointed to the living room, wanting to go out there! He said Addy's name so clearly all morning too. Then he got up to nurse and when he was finished, he said (and signed) "all done" & got down! He's done this with 'real' food at mealtimes for a long time but never done it after nursing. :) He's been so good all day long today.. and he only napped a HALF HOUR! Usually that would mean grouchiness, but not today! He pointed out where his nose, mouth, tongue, ears, eyes, and hair were tonight. He's also started asking(!) to go "ni night" & going in our bedroom when he's tired.

We figured out the Christmas meal today (finally), re-wrapped some presents (Aeson's unwrapped two!), did even more shopping, continued our countdowns, and ate dinner with Chelsea & Eddie. We're all tired tonight, I think, so we're headed to bed now!

December Daily 20

Less than 5 days until Christmas! We didn't do too much today.. I got all the presents wrapped, except those for the boys. I'm not sure when we'll get those wrapped! I suppose one of us will have to go down in the basement and do it some evening.. but we have plans the next two evenings. We'll figure it out. Last year we did it all on Christmas Eve, staying up late after the boys had gone to sleep and it was NOT fun. We didn't do much else, other than some cleaning, and we made Chex mix tonight... waiting on it to finish baking now! Oh- and Aeson said "eat" and "yes" today!

December Daily 16-19

Uh oh, I got way behind! We've been so, SO busy! Aeson ended up finally getting better by Friday. Thursday was the cookie exchange I was participating in, so I had lots of baking to do Wednesday night. One of my friends stopped by to get the cookies I made (monster cookies) and she also took Westen with, so he could play with his "best friend" at the friend's house they were meeting at. It was a nice day with just Aeson here, but I think he gets bored without other kids around (his brother especially) and he still wasn't acting back to his usual self that day. We got all sorts of cookies brought back to us.. lemon drop sugar cookies, peanut butter chocolate pinwheels, cream de mint squares, double chocolate cranberry cookies, and cherry snowballs. I also made up a couple of containers of the same goodies I'd made Westen's teacher for the couple of friends I meet with weekly.

Friday was Westen's Advent program at school. He had lots of family there! Grandma Martha, Grandpa Dave, Grandpa Jim, Grandma Christy, Uncle Eddie, cousin Bentley, Great-Grandma Jalane, cousin Kasey, and the 3 of us of course! It was really cute and afterwards they had cookies in the gym and Santa came to visit. Westen loved running around with his classmates! Aeson tried to too. :)

Saturday, we had Uncle Eddie's college graduation in the morning and then went to lunch with everyone. I had both kids by myself, since Eric had to work, and it actually wasn't too bad. Aeson was really well behaved at the graduation and ended up falling asleep toward the end of it. Westen went with Grandpa Jim afterwards to get a happy meal but then met us at Aurelio's. He had a blast playing in the kids room, and Aeson was even well-behaved in his highchair-- which is a rarity! We came home for naps and then had cousin Addy's first birthday party. We had a good time there too. Doesn't seem possible she could be a year old already! We had soup and cake and she got lots of girly gifts. We only have one other child in the family that's female and that's on my side. I didn't realize how used to boy things I am! We got Addy a cute pink outfit, a musical vacuum, and a wooden peg/hammer set. We have one of the peg sets at our house & she's always loved it.

Today, we spent most of the day cleaning house, wrapping presents, and finishing up shopping. We finally picked up the boys' big gift. Our cable isn't working on one tv (HATE Comcast!), so we ended up giving Westen one of his gifts early.. It's all four Home Alone's on dvd. :) He was pretty excited. Aeson actually went to bed early tonight on Daddy, so I've had some free time! I can't believe Christmas is less than a week away... I'm going to be sad when it's over! But.. then we'll have a birthday party to plan!

December Daily 13, 14, & 15: Baking & Illness

I don't know if I can even remember the past few days! I'm so sleep deprived! Aeson's sleep has continued to be HORRIBLE, actually getting worse each night. The antibiotic he was on caused a horrible diaper rash, and he was in so much pain I ended up calling the doctor last night. She said not to give him his nightly dose (thank GOODNESS) & to bring him in in the morning. Thankfully, I had my sister to come over to watch the daycare kids this morning so I could take him. His fever has pretty much been between 101 & 103, but last night it even got up to 104.1. Yikes. We'd tried everything too.. giving him probiotics in the cup, all sorts of ointments and creams on his butt, warm baths like they said (even THAT hurt), elevating his head, etc, etc. Anyway, his ears were clear this morning, so we're not even sure he had an ear infection. :-/ He looked good overall, but she was concerned about the ongoing fever & it not getting better.. So she sent us over for a CBC & blood culture. I was so nervous & hated going by myself! :( Thankfully once again, we got the same girl we got last time and she is awesome. They did have to actually take his blood from a vein, rather than a finger stick like usual. It took them a while to find one, but once they did, they got it the first stick & got plenty of blood. I hate that he's had to go through so much so young! The doctor called this afternoon & the bloodwork looked good so far. She's pretty sure it's a viral infection, but she just doesn't know what it is.

Aeson did say "doctor" and "uh oh" for the first time today. He's picking up words like crazy. Some of the others I forgot the other day were... Batman, backpack, brother, nose, kiss, ball, and I'm sure there's still others. He copies all the animal noises & knows what all ours are. He signs everything I know now.. hungry, all done, milk, bath, please, thank you, more. I need to learn help and again. We've been watching The Sing Off on tv & he immediately starts dancing to the music. It is too cute! I need to get it on video. :)

I forgot to write that on Sunday we cleaned out ALL our toys! We threw away sooo much and put two totes of toys downstairs.

I can't remember Monday at all. Tuesday, I did a bunch of baking for Westen's teachers. We gave them a container full of goodies & Westen made them each a card. He drew a spider on one and a turtle dove on the other. I wish I'd taken pictures now, because the drawings were so good. I did a bunch more baking tonight. There's a cookie exchange tomorrow.. I'm going to have to miss it now since Acey's contagious, but one of my friends is going to stop by to get mine. I also made each of those friends a container of goodies tonight. I made the monster cookies, of course, turtles, peanut butter fudge, and almond bark pretzels. I've eaten way too many sweets the past couple days!

December Daily: 10,11,&12 Busy Weekend!

We've been so busy this weekend I haven't had time to write each night! So let's see how much I can remember...

On Friday, Westen took his last angel gift to school and received his last one, which was a giant colored picture of Spiderman. It was gorgeous weather out.. almost 50 degrees! We went to Quincy that night and went to the Avenue of Lights. We let Aeson ride around it on Daddy's lap & he was actually much more interested than we thought he'd be. I think the tunnels of lights made him a little nervous, though! Westen loved the dinosaurs and everything really. It was pretty cool!

Saturday, we made Christmas (sugar) cookies. We made all sorts of different shapes, put green icing on them, and decorated some. We finally, finally, finally got two more stockings and now have all four up! Westen hadn't wanted to choose one when Eric and I did, so we just chose ours & decided to wait on theirs. We never found any better that we liked and this time when we went, Westen really liked one of them- thank goodness! We watched the first Narnia that night, which we'd never seen before. I thought it was pretty good, but it was too long for us! We all fell asleep before it was over.

We had a pretty rough night last night and ended up taking Aeson in today to see the doctor. He has lots of fluid in both ears and was prescribed an antibiotic. :( I'm just thankful we got the antibiotic started today.. I think the infection's been a long time coming. He's had some congestion for weeks now and has been pretty fussy most of the week and holding his ear in the morning.. and then last night brought the fever.

Aeson wore his new Patriots shirt for the football game today, and we watched it with my sister and her family. Tonight, we made monster cookies. Holy cow, I didn't realize the recipe made SO much! We'll have dough for a year! We froze a whole bunch of it, rolled the ones up for the cookie exchange later this week, and baked some.

Now it's late, and we need to get to bed!

December Daily 9: Playdough

Timmy found a good hiding spot today.. He was up on one of our wall hangings. Our house is not that big, and I feel like we're running out of spots for him already! We're going to have to get more creative! We had a play date this morning with my friends Sasha & Courtney and their kids. The house was completely full of boys (6 of them!), with the exception of Addy, so it was pretty crazy! It was nice being with old friends! Sasha had a cookie idea for the cookie exchange I'm participating in next week, so I can't wait to try them! They're called Monster Cookies, and they sound so good! (But HORRIBLE for you!) I got some more Christmas shopping done this evening. I was able to get Westen finished, because he went with Grandma Sandy again. I think now all I have to do is gift certificates and stocking stuffers! We all made gingerbread playdough tonight. We made double, so Westen could have some and still have some for his angel tomorrow.

Aeson's learning so much these days.. He knows how to smell, and he knows where his eyes and hair are now. The words that he can say (that I can understand) include... yeah, no, all done, oh my, dada and mama of course, cracker, cookie, hat, hot, thank you, kitty, ni night, and Addy. I'm sure there's more, but I can't think of them! I've been meaning to write them down as I heard them and keep forgetting. He's known where his nose and tongue are for a long time. He's just growing up too fast!