Aidan's Fourth Birthday!

Aidan is finally 4! He wanted to make a party hat, so we did. Actually, he wanted party hats for all his guests, but since they were all adults, we didn't make any... Next year I think we'll have a friend party and invite kids.



This is the most boring cake ever! I discovered that gel icing tubes don't work well after they have been in the cabinet for a year. Oh well, he loved it anyway!



His present from Grandma Packard - a cowboy outfit made out of my old leather jacket!



His present from Grandma Evonne - a construction worker set!



And the infamous dinosaur.

So all in all, it was a great birthday. He was a little disappointed that he wasn't any BIGGER when he woke up on his birthday. He had visions of wearing bigger shoes and being able to reach more things.

Aidan and the Dinosaur

So yesterday, Aidan was given a small plastic dinosaur that was a fast food toy. He has hardly put it down since! Today we went to the mall, and of course he brought the dinosaur with him. After lunch, we were looking for shoes, and he was using the dinosaur to "chomp" several pairs of display shoes (his mouth really opens and closes!) and I asked him to stop. He kept right on chomping, so I put the dinosaur in the stroller. Aidan then proceeded to whine, hit the stroller, try to push the stroller off course, mutter disrespectful things, etc. Finally I tossed the dinosaur into the trash as we walked by. Now, before you decide that I am a mean mom, hear me out on the rest of the story!

After a HUGE screaming fit that attracted the attention of everyone in the mall, we made it to the car. I explained to him that because he could not be happy unless he had that dinosaur, I had made the decision to get rid of it. Daddy was there with us, and we both talked with Aidan about how things can become "idols" for us when they become more important to us than obeying. He obviously wanted the dinosaur more than he wanted to obey and please God and more than he wanted to obey Mom. He was willing to do all kinds of ugly things in order to try to get the dinosaur back. We explained that if he had the right attitude when I put the dinosaur in the stroller, we would have kept it, and he could have had it back when we got to the car.

Right before he went to bed tonight, he decided to write a story. We have a book called, "I Love You Because You're You" and he decided he wanted to write one like that book. Here is what he came up with:

I love mommy when I'm sleeping.
I love mommy when I'm resting with honeybear and blankie.
I love mommy when I'm having wild time.
I love mommy when I'm having silly time.
I love mommy when I'm mowing.
I love mommy when she's throwing out my dinosaur.
I love mommy when I'm having breakfast and mommy and daddy are having breakfast.

When he got to the dinosaur part, I said "really? Why?" He said, "I don't know, I just do."

His birthday is on Friday and I am getting him another dinosaur which I will wrap up with a note about how I want him to look at this dinosaur and remember that God forgives us and is gracious to us even when we are ugly.

We are officially into everything!!

Gresham is now crawling FAST and pulling up to stand on anything he can get his hands on! Sometimes he ends up in some very precarious spots! He is definitely keeping us on our toes. He refuses to eat many foods we have offered him, but wants to try grass, dirt, rocks, pieces of lint, paper, etc... that he finds on the floor or outside!

These pictures were taken within a 5 minute time frame after dinner.

I have no idea why everything is underlined....





How wonderful that he can now reach the silverware and plates in the dishwasher!

Eat mor chikin

This outfit earned Aidan a free chicken sandwich at "Cow Appreciation Day" at Chick fil A!

Reality Check

I just ran across a craigslist post of someone looking for 3 full-time nannies for their 3 children. Well, 4 actually. One nanny to oversee all of the other nannies. Each one is needed from about 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. to basically be, well, mom and dad. It is obvious that these parents want their children to be extremely smart and talented, and they obviously have way more money than they know what to do with!!

This was a good reality check for me, because we just had an exhausting day here. Gresham screamed. A lot. And Aidan disobeyed. A lot. But I would rather spend hours and hours rocking a screaming baby (my own baby!) than pay someone else and miss every important moment of his life. Our combined income is probably less than what these people will pay one nanny for a year, but I would rather be home with my children and enjoy the cheap play doctor kit we bought today than have a magnificent career and pay someone else to be their parents!

Anyway, just some thoughts...

And now some cute pictures!

Here are Aidan and Daddy being "mower guys"







Gresham eating his bib.

Yesterday

This post really needs some pictures to go with it, but unfortunately I don't have any...

Yesterday started with Jordan waking me up at 7:00 a.m. saying, "What's the best way to get poop out of the carpet?" I'll omit most of the details on this one, but let's just say that when Aidan has an accident, it's best if he is not the only one doing the cleaning up. He meant well because he was trying to not bother mom and dad, but, well...

Jordan left for work, and the boys and I got busy on the million things we needed to get done. We cleaned the hall bathroom and did four loads of laundry. Then, we decided to vacuum out the van. It has been a mess lately with all the rain and mud. So we put Gresham in his excersaucer in the garage and got out the Shop-vac. Well, the noise of the Shop-vac made Gresh go absolutely bonkers! Aidan was doing the vacuuming so that he could earn some quarters for his piggy bank, but I had to just take over and try to finish fast. I sent Aidan into the house for some Cheerios to try to keep Gresham happy. Aidan couldn't find the diaper bag with the small bowl of Cheerios in it, so he brought out the whole box. I turned around in the van in time to see him pour a whole ton all over Gresham's excersaucer. I decided to just see what he would do... unfortunately he started stuffing Cheerios into his mouth while still crying (and now choking) so I used the Shop-vac to vacuum them all up off his saucer. You can imagine the crying that produced!

So the van isn't much cleaner, but at least we tried. It took Gresham a good hour to get over it. I finally got caught up on all our house projects during nap time, which was good because Uncle Andy was coming over later to go with us to rent a Budget truck so that we could move Andy's couch from our garage to his new apartment and move a piano to our house that a family at church gave us.

Thunder started rumbling while we were waiting at the Budget place, but thankfully it rained while we were eating dinner and stopped in time to load the couch and go get the piano.

When we got to Andy's apartment, we discovered that the couch would not fit through the door. Well, actually, the door wasn't the problem, it was the coat closet directly in front of the door. The couch had to go in at such an angle that it was impossible. Why would anyone design an apartment like this? Where people are going to be moving in and out on a regular basis? After a frustrating 30 min., we loaded the couch back up and went back to put it in our garage again. At this point, it was raining again...

When we got back to our house, Andy pulled the truck into the driveway and hit Jordan's car in the process. The back bumper is folded in half backwards... This was quite exciting for Aidan who was riding in the truck! It shouldn't be a big deal to fix, but poor Andy was pretty much thinking he should have just stayed home by this point!

At least the piano is safely in our house and we have enjoyed playing it today!