Happy New Year

It's hard to believe that 11 years ago tonight the man I would marry was telling me he loved me for the very first time while standing beneath the space needle.

Now here we are, 2 1/2 kids later, ringing in the new year at 9pm because we are too tired after a long day at work to stay up until midnight. Pretty lame, but it's our life and I wouldn't change it for the world!

I love you Daniel. Thanks for the best 11 years of my life. I can't wait to see what the next 11 will hold!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

19 months...

because mommy is so far behind she hasn't done an update since 12 months!

Alexander,

You truly are the light of our lives (you, AND your brother of course!). You never cease to amaze us with your ever growing vocabulary, your physical agility and your ability to lighten the mood in ANY situation. Your smile really is contagious in this household.

You are talking up a storm these day, not always in a language that we understand, but man can you carry on. You imitate the last word of what ever we say and like to think that you are a part of every conversation, even when we are disciplining your brother. Your favorite word is "cooooookie", of which you now call your Boppa since he is a sucker and gives you so many. You also favor "baby" which means binky and "BoBo" for blankie as well as "neese" for please and "na-noo" for thank you. In the last few weeks you have started putting words together which I find amazing. Some examples are,

"Bell Bell seeet!" - Bella sit!

"Dadda wook" - Dadda work?

"Dy Dy cool?" - Tyler school?

You ask about twenty times a day to watch Elmo which I take as a mixed blessing. Although you do not sit and watch the DVD it does entertain you enough to keep you in the room and playing with your toys while I get a few things done.

You eat like the champ. So much so that Doctor C wanted to publish your growth chart at 18 months. Most children your age go through food jags and tend to hit a plateau with the weight gain. Not you! Nope you went from 15% at 12 months to 85% and 18 months. Yes, that indeed is a weight gain of about 8 pounds in 6 months! Way to go little man!

I am a little scared to write about it for fear of jinxing us but you continue to sleep like a champ too! You are still know to take 4-5 hour naps on a regular basis. Night times are cake as you are usually ready for bed by 8:30 and go down without a fight.

Days are always fun when you are awake. There is no time for you to be in a bad mood but when you are you routinely put yourself in timeout when you are not getting your way. Yes, you run straight to your room and shut the door like a 13 year old girl. Wise beyond your years I tell you! You had started hitting when frustrated but we seem to have put an end to that behavior with a little diligence. You have your brother to thank, we have perfected the art of discipline! Now if only we can figure out how to effectively discipline a 5 year old. Don't worry, by the time you get there we will have learned :)

You look up to your brother so much. I love to see the look in your eye when you spy him in the crowds of ASB students after spending a mere 6 hours away from him. You get a big smile on your face and yell "Dy Dy".

Your newest trick is going "pa-yee" (potty). Although you love to copy brother and sit there before every bath we have yet to see anything happen. Nope, not you. Instead you promptly get off and pee in the bathtub, without fail. Love it!

As much as we love to see you grow and develop we are savoring the moments of you being the "baby" because before too long you are going to be that dreaded middle child that daddy blames for so much of his childhood :) Don't worry buddy, no matter what comes, know that we love YOU just for YOU and always will! You will always be our little man, our chunky monkey, our monster :)! We love you Alexander, more than words could ever tell!

Peanut Butter balls or the flu?

Well, we did it. Wendy, Shannon and I have been talking about doing a baking day during the holidays for months. For once, we followed through and did it. And bake we did! We baked all sorts of scrumptious cookies, eggnog sugar cookies, biscotti dipped in chocolate, peanut butter balls, pumpkin cookies, and some other kind that I don't know how to pronounce. We even learned to Chappon family secret for icing cookies. Shannon, how are those fingers? It was so much fun spending time outside of work with my great coworkers.

Thanks ladies for a fun morning filled with a lot of sugar and laughter and for leaving me with more cookies than I know what to do with.

Don't

they

look

SOOOOOO

GOOD!!!!!

Later that night I kept the festivities going by having the White family over for dinner.

Being two working mom's Kathryn and I definitely don't get to see each other enough considering we only live 15 minutes apart. But, when we do see each other it is like old times... except now we have three little one in the picture. I know I can always count on Kathryn for a shoulder to lean on, an ear to talk to and designer maternity clothes :) That's why I love her and her little man with the most amazing red hair ever! Oh and her husband is pretty cool too, sorry Jon!

Even later that night the party got going in another way... Tyler began the cascade with a nice present that woke us at 3 in the morning and spread pretty much on every wall in his room (still not quite sure how). Poor kid, being that this is the first time he has thrown up he had no idea what happened and came running to us crying that he was sorry he wet his bed. Uh no, actually I am sure Dan would have preferred pee. I say Dan because I was stuck in bed not feeling well myself. He cleaned up, got an hour or two of shut eye between Tyler's episodes and then woke to me running to the bathroom. A couple of hours later it was Dan. We were convinced it was food poisoning seeing as how Wendy, my baking buddy, was also violently ill that night and we all ate peanut butter balls. That was until my mom came home from work at 2pm and Colleen was soon to follow. They most definitely did not have peanut butter ball poisoning!

Somehow, with a household of sick people, Alex managed to escape this dreaded flu. We are all slowly getting back to our healthy selves and starting to enjoy the season. Of course me being the slowest... thanks bean for taking all that I don't have! That's alright, it's provided me with a very good excuse for spending 75% of my days on the couch and eased my worries for the dreaded prenatal weigh-in's at least for one month.

It's perfect to me...

I have spent the last 2 weeks designing 10 different holiday cards on two different web sites. I have spent hours pouring over my thousands of pictures taken this year, searching for the perfect one of my two boys. I have stressed, I have cried, I have questioned. Finally, last night I did it, I decided on the "perfect" layout with the" perfect" display of pictures of my "perfect" boys only to add the 120 cards that I need to my basket to find that this "perfect holiday card" was going to cost me $180.98 + shipping and handling. That does not include the postage needed to send these bad boys out.

"WHAT... 180 bucks for a piece of cardstock that will be disposed of in a mere 3 short weeks?!!!"

It was then that I slapped my self across my own cheek, headed over to Costco.com and ordered the not so "perfect" holiday cards for a mere $50.99. Who am I kidding, my kids are what makes it perfect anyhow.

So it may not be the most perfect or most expensive card you get this year, but my boys are pretty darn cute... and that's all that matters!

So much to be thankful for this year!

I am thankful for the friends and family that love my children so much.

I am thankful that they don't say no, even when it is the twentieth time that day Alex has led them by finger to the window to say hi to the horses.

I am thankful that I have two of the most beautiful, healthy, energetic and loving boys a mom could ask for...

and I am thankful that they love each other.

I am thankful that I have a family that has made it through so much and only become stronger because of it.

I am thankful for sunny Thanksgiving days spent playing football with the boys.

I am thankful for all of our cousins that the boys get to grow up with.

I am thankful that we have wonderful grandparents that live on a ranch with horses, chickens and donkey's galore!

I am also thankful that we have wonderful grandparents that live 2 blocks away that do way more for us than we could ever ask for!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

It all just worked.

Last night Mr. Alex was running a temperature of 102.5. Knowing we could not send him to daycare like that I called in with a sick child for today. Well, it was a good thing I did because it snowed and in true Seattle fashion school was closed with nothing but a dusting on the road. I could have just imagined Dan scrambling had I actually gone to work today.

The boys were amazed to wake up to a blanket of white stuff on the ground. It was Alex's first time seeing the snow and all he could say was "Woooow!". He appreciated it from the inside but actually being IN the snow was a different story. While outside all he said was "brrrr, cooold!" He wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Tyler on the other hand loved it.

The best part of the morning was coming in to have a nice hot cup of coco with my boys. Yum!

Thank you Mister QFC Checker!

Some days you just need to be reminded that you ARE doing a good job. Yesterday that reminder came from the young man checking me out at the grocery store. I am pretty sure he doesn't have any kids so it was that much more appreciated.

Although behavior in our house has been pretty reasonable as of late there are still moments. They are 5 and 18 months, what more can I expect! Tyler usually likes to save his moments for public areas... oh joy. Yesterday was nothing new when he decided that he was going to help unload the cart and the checkout stand. Which at Safeway would have been fine. But, we weren't at Safeway, we were at QFC! And at QFC that is a big no-no. Tyler was kindly removing the lettuce from the cart when I reminded him that we don't do that here. He looked straight at me, proceeded to grab the lettuce while I was politely reminding him a second time. Nope, not listening! He continued on his mission to unload the groceries only to place the bag on the scanner and proceed to charge the women checking out for our bag of lettuce. It was then that I politely pulled him aside and informed him that his behavior was not acceptable and I expect him to listen to me the first time I tell him something. He was then to stay right next to me and not touch anything else.

It was finally our turn and the gentleman checking us out, without saying anything else, looked up and me and said "Thank you." I smiled and he said again "no really, thank you". It was then that I responded with "Well, we know what behavior is expected of as at the store and that is not it. I am just doing my best to raise a respectful child. :)"

Pumpkin Patch 2010

We came,

we played,

we picked,

we posed,

and by the end, we were pooped!

It was a fun filled afternoon and there were no other people that we would have rather spent it with! Thanks Colleen and Claire for joining us on our hunt for the perfect pumpkin 2010!

Life

Lately life has taken over.

Lately, I have gotten so tied up in the get up, get Tyler to school, get to the gym, clean the house, do the laundry, run the errands, pick up Tyler, and oh yeah, get Alex a nap, that I have quite forgotten that I will never get these days back. Well, there will alway be things that need to be "gotten done", but there will not always be two little boys that need there mommy this much. In light of this I declared friday a mommy/sons day. It was the most amazing, refreshing, loving feeling in the world to just be completely WITH them. No cell phone, no computer, no TV, just me and my boys (and maybe my camera) doing what we love to do.

Alex and I headed out for a walk to the park where we got to play in the sand box (for the first time).

Then we found a cool building to take pictures at.

Alex loved exploring Magnuson park and we couldn't have asked for better weather to do it.

After a nap, for both of us, we picked up Tyler from school and headed out to Golden Gardens to soak up some more of the beautiful Seattle October day.

Of course there were treasures to be found

and water to be tested

and who could forget the pictures to be taken... most certainly not me!

Alex got hungry and I forgot a snack, so he feasted on a meal of the finest golden garden sand.

Now the challenge is to make a mommy/sons moment in EVERY day, no matter what chores are lurking.

Tonight I ready Tyler my very favorite book "I love you forever", it only seemed fitting.

"I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always.

As long as I am living my babies you will be."