Wednesday, December 28, 2011

November 13

Today Aaron wanted to play trains out of the blue. It’s always interesting to watch how a certain toy gets ignored for a long time and then makes it back to the forefront again.

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I scrapped it…of course.

still love my trains

November 12

Here are some t-ball pics. Looking back, most of them look the same and I could easily get away with taking a quarter of the pictures I took…but isn’t that just the way it goes?

Chris has started going out in the outfield with Aaron (along with the legion of other dads that do the same) to help stay engaged during what can be a really boring and frustrating portion of each game. There is very little action in the outfield, and every time a ball gets hit, every boy runs towards it and makes a massive dog pile. Aaron doesn’t want to get hurt, so he participated in the dog pile madness exactly one time and now prefers to just go for the ball if it is right near him, which is not often, which means he gets bored. Having Chris out there to direct and encourage him has made a great difference.

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November 11

This picture makes me so happy. Chris’ leadership classes are sponsoring a No-Shave November fundraiser at school. Participants paid 5 dollars to enter and got their freshly-shaved faces photographed on November 1st. Then they let their facial hair grow and they will be judged at the end of the month based on awesome beard growth. It just so happens that 8 of the 13 faculty participating are in our social studies department. I love our department. We are so fortunate to work with such an amazing group of people, and in situations like this we are reminded how invested our department is in the good of the school and supporting each other. We were missing a teacher for this picture and none of them came out very well because they were all too busy laughing, but I love them anyway. Here is the facial hair progress so far.

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November 10

Tonight when I got home all I wanted to do was rest and snuggle with my boy. We had some lovely time on the couch that was just perfect for me.

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I scrapped it :)

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November 7-9

no pictures for these days

November 6

Today we made some very important progress in the “redo the family room” project. This was like two phases done at the same time! One of our work friends husbands owns a home project kind of business, and he really seems to do everything from tile to plumbing to kitchens. They both came over today, Ginger to socialize and Dale to work on the TV. After the incredible work he did in the walls to make the cables and outlets totally professional, it is hard to imagine Chris having tried to do this on his own.

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Now the TV is mounted over the fireplace and we have three new outlets behind it!

November 5

no picture for today

November 4

Tonight we went to the football game at Edison. The leadership kids hosted a pregame tailgate (boy was it cold!!) and Aaron had fun in the bounce house. I think this was the last home game of the season. It was against Hayfield and we had the pleasure of seeing one of our teacher friends who is now working there. Aaron had fun running around, but he had an even better time once the hot chocolate warmed him up a bit. Just some cell phone pictures tonight.

The new entry tunnel!

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…on Daddy’s shoulders

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some hot chocolate

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November 3

no picture for today

November 2

Here is Aaron in his brand new Sam Bradford jersey that arrived today. We had a heck of a time finding one, but Chris finally did and now Aaron has a jersey like everyone else in our household. He is really excited and is planning to wear it every Sunday.

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Here is Aaron on his laptop just like Mommy and Daddy. Lap desk and all.

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As you may already know, our beautiful daughter Mara was still-born on December 17th. I have been absent from social media and blogging and scrapping and all of those things since that time. I felt ready to make a post today, but I know that some of the pictures I have coming up for November and December blog posts will be about baby-related topics. Although it will be difficult, I am committed to posting the same pictures I would have posted if she was still with us because anticipating her arrival and being excited about her birth is not something I want to erase from our memories just because she is not with us today.

I ask that if you wish to contact us about our daughter’s passing, which we welcome, you do so via email (at mermaid913 at aol dot com) rather than here in the blog comments or on facebook. We are very grateful for all the love and support we have received from our family and friends during this horribly painful time.

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

November 1!

YES!!! Made it to November!

Here’s Aaron, just doing a little “fishing” in the backyard. Until he got it caught in the soccer goal, anyway.

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October 31

It’s Halloween!!! On a MONDAY.

Look…it’s Rachel Berry and a Brave Knight!

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Now Aaron REALLY wanted to pass out candy, like WAY more than he wanted to go trick-or-treating. While we were taking these pictures, about 10 kids came to our house, the first of which was a brother and sister that go to his school. He was beside himself with excitement as he saw them coming up the stairs. So we kept the trick-or-treating early and short so he could come home and pass out candy some more.

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Sadly, even though we were out for less than an hour, once we got back home, NOT ONE person came to our door. Aaron was so so sad and just cried. He sat by our front door with the bowl of candy, and got more and more sad until finally he just laid down on the floor and cried. His little self broke my heart. I felt so bad for him (but took a picture of it anyway).

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I also took this awesome shot of my boy…he is so handsome, just look at that face! IMG_6175

and a little candy silliness…yes, we had ALL of that left. Light action on a Monday I guess!

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Oh man…a day of school and then trick-or-treating was just TOO much for me. I was definitely hurting the next day.

October 30

no picture today…guess I was saving up for Halloween!

October 29

Today we braved some REALLY crappy weather (it actually SNOWED!) to go up to Edison for the Haunted Halloway hosted by one of Chris’ leadership classes. It was a little Halloween fair of sorts for little ones. Colleen and Cameron came too, and Belle and the Brave Knight had a nice time walking around and playing games.

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October 28

I had an OB appointment today, and just to get in the mood, I wandered around Babies R Us afterward just gazing at baby things :) I found a few items I liked.

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October 27

No picture today!

October 26

Aaron got a car in the mail from Grampy to play with the SUPER COOL Cars app on my iPad. It’s so amazing how you can drive the car on the screen, and it even knows the difference between the different cars you can get. What will they think of next?!!?!

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October 25

We had dinner at Montclair Family Restaurant tonight and practiced sight words with Aaron on the placemat again. He didn’t know the words that were crossed out. Great job buddy!!

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October 24

This morning when I went in to wake up Aaron for school…I just couldn’t resist running back downstairs for my camera. He was just so perfectly peaceful and sweet. IMG_6122

October 23

And on Sunday…Rufis joined us for waffles and Rams football.

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Then before bed on Sunday, we printed out the pictures of our weekend fun, glued them in the class journal, and wrote about the things we did with Rufis. Didn’t Aaron do a great job? :) I was so proud of his writing!

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October 22

The fun continued with Rufis at Aaron’s t-ball game!

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