Friday, July 31, 2009

Luau Layout


A new Tahiti Layout


Kayaking and swimming around our hotel. Some of the shots are looking through the glass section in the floor of our overwater bungalow into the water below.

Monday, July 27, 2009

Back to scrapping, again....


Moorea Pearl Hotel, a perfect paradise!
Paper is done, that was tough! My topic was really interesting, but the research was challenging and getting focused on writing the paper was even harder. I ended up taking Aaron to day care for 5 days and spending that time in the library. Since Chris is in summer school, it really was the only solution. The work is to big brain to concentrate on while interaction with
Aaron. But that is done (along with my second masters class!), the Rothes are here, and I am back to scrapping. I have A LOT of summer fun scrapping to catch up on, I need to get started on a wedding album soon and the cute pictures of Aaron and cousin Cameron are already rolling in!

Monday, July 20, 2009

Potty Progress

Aaron playing in the Forest of Fun, Busch Gardens in July, taken by Grampy



After 2 weeks at the start of summer pushing and agonizing (Aaron and I both!), we decided to back off on the potty training. I got a lot of advice from mom friends who said, just wait! And yesterday and today, Aaron has been telling us when he has peed or pooped in his diaper! Not every pee, but every poop today has been reported! Not only that, he says, "I pooped" and walks right to the bathroom to get a clean diaper! It's really exciting. :) I was feeling a lot of potty pressure, self-inflicted, to get Aaron all neatly potty trained during the summer, like it was going to be that easy. Also, I have worry in the back of my mind that he will take "too long" or be traumatized. But already he is more ready than he was two weeks ago! Patience Mommy, patience!

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Aaron loves me best at Bedtime

Aaron and Mommy in the Land of the Dragons Treehouse at Busch Gardens, taken by Grampy


Because of the way our school mornings go, we decided when it was time for me to go back to work after having Aaron that Chris would be in charge of Aaron in the mornings, and I would do nighttimes. There are a few exceptions, but we stick to this routine pretty closely. Aaron thrives on routines. I think that is an age thing, but is also pretty true for most of our household. No matter how cantankerous a day Aaron has had, or how much he fights during instructions, or resists brushing teeth, or hollers while changing into his jammies, once Aaron and I are in his chair and he is drinking his milk and cuddling under his blanket, a switch is flipped and he is at his very most loving. It has been widely known that Aaron is a Daddy's boy. He prefers to be with his Dad in almost any situation. That is starting to even out a bit, but even at his most Daddy-loving, Aaron is so affectionate with me during our nighttime together. Here's how it goes, I want to make sure I remember this years from now:


  1. Aaron brushes his teeth, checking for sugar bugs and now he flosses.
  2. He walks to his room in his diaper and then puts his clothes in his hamper.
  3. He picks his jammies and I put them on.
  4. He calls "DAAAAAADDDY BWING MIOUK PWEEEASE!!!!"
  5. Chris brings up milk and Aaron turns on his twilight turtle, closes his door, and turns off his lamp (he is especially proud of that).
  6. He gives Chris a hug, Chris puts him in my lap in the chair and covers him up with his blanket.
  7. Aaron drinks his milk and requests his first song, Baby Mine. He then requests LaLaLu and then You'll Be in My Heart
  8. Then, Aaron cuddles up in his blanket and puts it over my arm too. He then pushes on my chin so I lay my head down on the side of the chair and says "Close you eyes Mommy, go to sleep." I pretend, he keeps his eyes open watching me, but makes a fake snoring sound. Then I open my eyes and catch him watching me and he giggles. He also sometimes rubs my face or hair during this part.
  9. Finally, it's time for kisses. One lip smooch, kisses on each cheek, rub noses, and then noggin. He says "Noggin, Dude."
  10. Then it is into the big boy bed, where he lays on his big stuffed "Dude" as a pillow and insists on having both blankets put on him. I always make him say love you Mommy, goodnight, no matter how many times it takes.

Many times Aaron has done excruciatingly sweet things during this ni-night time like singing to me or holding my face, and it is not at all unusual for me to come downstairs crying due to the overwhelming love I feel for my boy. Chris humors me and listens while I tell the stories, which are repetitive to be sure. I love this time I have with Aaron. Sometimes I am tired or cranky and I don't want to wrestle with him while trying to brush his teeth or even trudge up the stairs and Chris tag-teams for me. But really, it is my favorite time of day with my little man.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

The End of the Inner Island Safari


More Inner Island Safari


My first blog layout!

A couple of hours and a lot of frustration aside...this was fun! Well...being done was fun. This is my first blog layout, made with a digital scrapbooking kit called Recess that I got from Scrappersguide.com. I like being able to make the blog look exactly the way I want it too. What do you think?

Back to Scrapping...


I finally got another layout done, sheesh! Sometimes when it is late at night (that and naptime are the only time I can scrap and Aaron just flat out skipped his nap yesterday) and I have tired eyes or a headache, I can't really start scrapping. Also, I have this thing where if I start a layout, I can't go to bed with it undone. This is partially just neurotic, but also because I take so much time to load the photo bin in photoshop with the supplies I need for the layout and if you close photoshop everything leaves the photo bin. Anyway, we have reached the end of a week long visit from my parents, layouts from the visit and from Busch Gardens trips coming up soon...but I got this Tahiti layout done yesterday. It is the beginning (there will be AT LEAST one more full layout) of our Inner Island Safari, an exciting adventure around the island of Moorea in the back of an open land rover type vehicle on a very bumpy dirt road!

Friday, July 3, 2009

Summer Project Update!



Linen Closet, CHECK!















My desk, CHECK






Yeah baby!!!


(let's see how many more of these I will work on in the next week to continue putting off my paper...)

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Other Side of the Island, the other side of the island...


This is the rest of our scooter ride. I haven't been leaving out any photos of us...there was just so much amazing scenery like no place we had ever seen before! It was 2004, my camera was nice then, but still had comparitvely low resolution, so the pictures can't always be as large as I would like while scrapping. I am interested to see how these layouts will look printed.

Scooter Tour of Moorea, part 1

We had to walk from our resort to the airport, no small effort, to rent a scooter. We were told that getting a scooter was the best way to see around (literally) the whole island. Beautiful day, a couple of stops for pictures, it was really fun.

Back to the fun stuff...


This week I forced myself to finish my grad school readings and postings for this week before I spent time on any of my own hobbies. Since neither my school work nor my hobbies take place while Aaron is awake...well there you go. That is the same issue I have during the school year. In any case, my work for this week is done, however, I have looming over me like a giant cloud my MAJOR research paper that is due in three weeks. I will be starting that...soon. In any case, for the rest of naptime and tonight at least, I can scrap and blog! Hooray!