Dancing AJ

Aden has become the most hilarious little ball of energy. Just this morning (at 8am) he was running laps downstairs and throwing himself on the air mattress my sister was sleeping on. He still calls me Money.. which is fun, and he is obsessed with the Elf Soundtrack. I'm not kidding, he makes us listen to it at least 4 times a day. I need a new CD to replace it seeing as it's christmas music and I REFUSE to listen to christmas music after January 1st. Even December 26th is pushing it.

He calls Lizzie "Yishi" and Dad "daddy" but that's pretty much it. He prefers to just scream until he gets your attention. He also pinches. It's not hard and it doesn't hurt, but if he wants your attention, he'll walk over and pinch you. WHERE DID HE EVEN LEARN THAT?

Also, Ryan and AJ are plotting against me, i'm sure of it. Ryan says "Aden, go get mommy" and Aden grabs a pillow and runs over and smacks me with it. Not even funny guys. A lot of times, I'll be playing with Aden and he gets so excited and worked up that he just starts hitting me. We're working on it.

How scary is it that he is going to be 2? I am that creep mom at the store that gives unwanted advice about what toy to get your 9 month old for christmas. (This actually happened)...Before I had Aden I was really concerned about what people thought of me but now, I don't really care. If I want to tell you what I got my baby last christmas and what he liked, I'm going to do it whether you are interested or not.

Well I thought I had something interesting to say but now I'm just rambling. So here's a video of my dancing man.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...

So you know how I talk about that awesome gymboree sale they have where everything is 6.99 and under? Happening now. They have to clear out everything from the previous summer to make room for the new stuff. It. Is. Great.

I walked out with Aden's entire wardrobe (minus some swim trunks) thanks to Pippa....

It's really too bad it's only December and we have like, 5 more months until any of this can be worn. Dang it.

Christmas Aftermath

This is Aden's kitchen! I took a picture of all the drawers just because I have OCD and really enjoyed finding a place for all of his fake food.

This is pre-organization. Aden moves things from the cupboard, to the basket, to the fridge, to the oven over and over again just stacking canned goods and other non-perishable items

Aden is in Little People Heaven. He has the bus, the barn, the Noah's ark, the wheelies rampway, and the airplane. I haven't figured out a good set up yet so for now this will work.

He looooves the magnets. We haven't tried painting with the easel or anything... I can just imagine how well that will go.

Aden also loooooves his new slide. LOVES it. He will put his feet off to the side and go "noooooo" and then move them back to the middle and slide down. Can't wait for the day when he decides jumping off the side of the slide and land on the cement basement floor.

This is the bracelet that I wanted SO bad and was convinced I wasn't getting. It's a pandora charm bracelet from Ryan along with Aden's birthstone. My sister's surprised me with the heart charm too!

This is what the entry to the basement looks like after christmas. Too bad it is FREEZING down there and layers are a must.

Those are the Melissa and Doug blocks. Aden is getting more and more interested in them.

And here are Mom and Dad, goofing off with all the toys

Christmas 1,2,3,4,5 2010

I'm not going to lie, I've been putting off this post just because I knew it was going to be a long one. But then I had more things to write about and knew I had to do this one first so, here we go.

As previously mentioned, our christmas started on the 23rd. My brother and nephew arrived around 4, we ate dinner with them, and then Aden and I went to meet Ryan at his dad's house around 7 for Christmas Eve festivities. That night they opened a Wii from Santa along with Just Dance-- which was absolutely amazing. We had our Kiger Christmas on the morning os the 24th. Aden got a talking Woody, a Sit&Spin, a car racing thing, jammers, Toy Story 1,2, and 3, a race car, a teddy bear.. and probably more that I'm leaving out! Then we went over to Ryan's mom's house around 1 and had a christmas there and a late lunch/early dinner. Aden got a tricycle and an awesome recordable book! We got ready for 4pm Christmas Eve Mass at St.Brendan's and headed on over, barely finding seats. It didn't matter anyway because the mass was like 45 minutes and Aden spent 40 minutes walking around whining outside of the church. He was having a really off day.. he hasn't been eating much at all and the whole christmas thing threw him off even more.

After mass, Ryan went to dinner with his mom and Kaitlyn and I went back to my house with my family and Aden. We read books and ate and AJ put on his christmas eve jammies and went to bed. Ryan came home and put together Aden's new Kitchen (with the help of both of my sisters, my brother, AND my nephew), and his slide. And yes, my son has a kitchen. No, it is not womanly. Don't even go there.

Okay so now we are at Christmas Day. We wake up, open presents with my family.. I cannot even remember everything Aden got.. so many books, little people sets, trucks... everything a little boy could ever want. Aden took a 3 hour nap (after no naps the day before) and we got ready and packed up. When he woke up, he ate and we left to go to Christmas #4.

The drive down to Lancaster is always nice because it's 45 minutes of just the three of us. That's the only time during christmas when it's JUST us and it is so peaceful and just feels right. I imagine that's how it will be when we are real grown ups and NOT living with my mom and dad. One can only hope....

Anyways, we get to the Kiger's and just in time for Santa to get there and hand out all of the grandkids presents. We hung out there till about 5:30 when we went over to the Kilbarger's, ate another meal, did more presents, and then finally left at about 8:30.

It was an exhausting 3 days but filled with so much family and love. Aden actually got sick on the 26th with a fever but recovered after one dose of tylenol. We'll have to see about next year... I don't know if we can do 5 christmases in 2.5 days again!

Oh and guess what, I took NO pictures. Seriously, none. All of the pics I'm putting up are someone else's or taken before or after the 23-25. What a HUGE fail. I was tired. and rushed. my bad.

So here are the pictures stolen from other people (mostly my sister, Erika)

My happy guy!

Slide finally done!

Christmas Breakfast

John,Erika,Nana,Evan,Lizzie,Chris,Aden,Me,Ryan, Papa

Grandma and Aden

Ryan and I arguing when putting up the slide. I'm obviously right.

Lizzie,Ryan, Emily, Me, and Erika winning the Gingerbread Competition 2010

Too tired to open presents

Aden and Mommy on Christmas Eve

Christmas Morning

Christmas Morning

Mommy, Aden, and Daddy at Christmas #5

Pretty Baby Aden

John, Erika, Nana, Lizzie, Evan, Chris, Aden, Me, Papa On Christmas Eve

Aunt Kaitlyn, Daddy, Mommy, Aden, and Great Grandma Kilbarger

Sliding down Aden's awesome new slide on Christmas Eve

Mommy &Daddy being so exhausted at the last christmas of 2010

I didn't know I could stretch out sweatshirts..

After losing the a million pounds I gained while being pregnant (okay, not a million, just 70+).. I have realized something. It was not a good idea to try and wear my clothes while I was pregnant.

All of my sweatshirts' elastic is stretched out and loose, my "Frankie says Relax" T-shirt looks normal on top but the "RELAX" part is stretched about two feet farther than it should be, the butt in a few of my jeans is worn out and the legs are so stretched that I can fit both legs into one pant hole. Not to mention the jeans that I tried too hard to put on and split up the middle. What was I thinking? Was I really like "wow, this totally could still fit and look cute on me. I'm gonna wear it" ?

My spandex have turned into sweatpants, my shoes are stretched out.. because yeah, your feet grow when you are pregnant. I went from a size 6 to an 8, then back down to a 6. My feet were doin' all sorts of funky stuff when I was trying to squeeze my fat feet into my skinny shoes... it's a mess. Moral of the story: when you get pregnant, DO NOT try to fit into pre-pregnancy clothes. You WILL lose the weight and you will then be depressed that all your clothes make you look like a homeless man.

Since I realized that my entire loser-mom-wardrobe is full of cable knit sweaters, t-shirts, jeans, scrubs, and crocs, I thought I'd use some extra money for some "going-out" clothes. It's honestly not that easy for me to keep up with what everyone is wearing when I only dress up once a month. I got into jeggings a year after everyone, and yeah... I'll probably be that mom that keeps her styles for 25 years... as much as I did NOT want to be that.

Anyways, I was kind of excited about my outfit last Wednesday, when Ryan and I went out with some friends.

They aren't good quality pictures... dang photo booth... and the second one I was obviously not ready but it was the only one with decent lighting.. but good enough right? right.

The entire thing is from forever 21.. a grey leopard print dress with some dark green in it, black textured tights, and ankle boots. I wore a black cardi on top of it because it was so dang cold.

See? I'm proud of that. I put 3 pieces together and I'm proud. I have style problems, I'm aware of this. In my closet you'll find the same item in 6 different colors.

So that was my exciting event of the week. Putting on a dress and tights and boots.

Man, I'm lame.

On the other hand, I did wrap a BUNCH of gifts this week, went grocery shopping, and did part of my mom's christmas shopping. Which reminds me... running errands with a toddler when it is snowing and below freezing outside is just miserable. You've got to warm up the car, put on all of your warm clothes first because your toddler stuffed into a million layers will not wait 5 minutes for you to put your warm gear on. Then while you are putting your kid's layers on, you start sweating profusely because of all of your layers and having to chase your kid around who is yelling "BOOTS BOOTS BOOTS!" and refusing to put on his jacket. Then you load the car, then you drive 7 minutes and have to lug everything out of the car, get into the store, de-layer your kid or else there will be a screaming fit from him being too hot, de-layer yourself or you will fall over and die from heat exhaustion, grocery shop and entertain the child, pay for the

food, layer yourself up, layer your kid up, sweat some more, put kid in car, put groceries in small tiny tiny jetta with a giant stroller in the back so all groceries most surround the car seat

and the driver's seat, drive 7 minutes home, unload child, take child's warm clothes off and turn on a distracting show, unload all groceries from car to house, put all groceries away.

And it's not like you can just stay home all day every day in the winter. You HAVE to go places. It sucks. I have no idea how parents with multiple children do it.

If I want more kids I think I will move some place warmer.

Also, guess what? My sister comes tomorrow, My brother and nephew come home on Wednesday AND My bff Caity comes home on Tuesday!!!! Caity has been studying abroad in Spain since September and I have missed her so much. She is one of my only friends without kids who I really can still relate to and love to pieces.

I say that because a lot of people without kids don't understand that I can't alwa

ys go hang out with them even when Aden is asleep. It's not my parents responsibility to listen for Aden when he is sleeping... it's mine. Plus, I'm freaking tired. I don't want to go drink alcohol and have to wake up at 6am. I don't always want to go to a bar and meet people who know nothing about me and act like idiots. I don't want to go to a party with people 3 years younger than me who judge me based on creeping on my facebook. That's why I love Caity... she gets it!

Well let's see, it's 9:50 on a Saturday evening... this would be my bedtime. Wooo parenthood!

P.S. ^ How cute is this last picture? He fell and scared the crap out of himself when I was trying to take a picture of food. We were sitting in front of the camera that was still on so I just took a picture of him sobbing instead. He stopped crying two seconds after he saw he was on camera.

Countdown to Christmas!

Wheelies Rampway- Little People make the coolest toys! He is getting this as well as some extra cars to go with it in his stocking

Little People Barn- I can see him being obsessed with the animals and the sounds it makes.

Ryan and I are both guessing that these cardboard blocks will be his favorite gift. He stacks anything that can be stacked.

- Remember how his favorite book is "How I became a Pirate"? Well now he really really really likes pirates. He loves his mega bloks so this will be perfect.

This Step 2 easel was a steal! We got it on sale for $29. We got some magnets to go along with it as well as an easel set.

This is what we are guess-timating to be his 2nd favorite gift. He loooooves slides. He tries to slide down his sillytown ramp (which is about 8 inches long and NOT for real people) and when we go to the park, he goes up and down the slide over and over again. We'll keep it in the basement during the winter and bring it outside when it gets warmer.

This is follow me Thomas. You shine a light and Thomas follows the path. Cool right?

Tag Jr Reading system, carrying case, and 2 books.

He got some other pretty awesome stuff too but I'll have to wait until after christmas to post those!

5 more days until Christmas Extravaganza begins!