December 29

How about a little Lego time? Cameron and Aaron are now old enough to argue with each other. Whereas before, Cameron was young enough to put up with Aaron being the bossy older cousin, that is no longer the case. There was a whole lotta toy-snatching-not-sharing-tantrum-throwing-arm-crossing behavior during this visit. Yikes. Sometimes it was a teeny bit humorous.

I think this picture of Ash and the boys really captures the activity level of the next few days. It was nothing if not relaxing. We did a lot of sitting around in clothing with no waistbands, playing on our respective electronic devices, and watching Lord of the Rings. We wanted to watch the trilogy while they were here, and I got it on Blu-Ray for Christmas! Oh MAN do they look good in Blu-Ray.

Today was my hubby’s birthday, so we all went out to dinner at Outback. Cameron fell asleep on the way there despite Kelly trying to keep him awake. Darn time difference. He was so tired and frustrated that he started crying in the car and told Kelly, “Mommy I don’t WANT to go to a restaurant when I’m crying!” There was a hilarious episode between the boys at dinner that involved some apple slices. I think it was that Kelly had taken Cameron’s bowl of apple slices to peel them and when Cameron turned and looked at Aaron, Aaron was eating one of his own apple slices but Cameron thought Aaron had nabbed them from him and he was ENRAGED! He looked at Aaron and yelled at him over and over to stop it and Aaron was just looking at us, munching on that apple slice, with this look on his face like, what the heck??? Caleb and Kelly tried to explain to Cameron that Aaron had apple slices too, but the little guy was just too exhausted to process all that.

Oh and I remembered something else we did in the days before the Rothes arrived. Chris and I watched all seven episodes of Once Upon a Time that had aired before Christmas. I saw one episode at Ashley’s urging and thought he might enjoy it, so we parked our butts on the couch and watched them all in a row. It was deliciously lazy and indulgent and I SO enjoyed it.

September 11

First of all…it’s September 11. I can’t believe it is the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. I was inspired by an SM challenge to scrap my experiences from that day, and I really should have done it right away instead of waiting 10 years. I have been surprised at how emotional I have felt seeing all of the commemorative commercials and articles. I spent two mornings reading the ESPN magazine September issue and it was pretty gut wrenching. Life has changed so much for so many people, and no matter how much time has passed, the pictures online and on tv take me right back.

We spent our day hanging out and watching football. Before that though, I made some french toast and hit the farmer’s market.

I got all geared up to support my hubby’s Rams, and though the game didn’t turn out so well, it was good to know that I am still looking cute in this jersey.

September 9

WHERE THE HECK HAVE I BEEN?? Well, school started, and I have been trying to stay AWAKE long enough to get anything done around here. Being on my feet at school all day is pretty tough and by the time we get home I just want to put my feet up for the rest of the night, but you know it doesn’t really work that way. I have NOT been taking very many pictures this month at all, so getting caught up on these posts may not take very long :(

BUT on September 9th, my seestar’s birthday, we didn’t have school because of flooding! We had a TON of rain, like day long soaking rains for the past three days, and then yesterday we got between 6-8 inches in 24 hours on top of already soaked ground. Our friend’s basement was flooded, the area where our students live had many evacuations, and our rec center was used as a red cross shelter for a week. That’s a lot of rain!

Here’s some couch lounging pics, we sure love our new couch, which is good, because it’s my and Chris’ birthday and Christmas gifts! We actually got a lot done on this day off…the kinds of chores and odds and ends that fill up a weekend. So it was pretty nice!

September 4

Here are Aaron and Daddy making waffles on a Sunday morning :) I love it. (and waffles)

August 19

Today Chris did some house/electronic arranging and I worked pretty much all day on packing for our Myrtle Beach trip for our anniversary week. Here is a picture of the gullywasher we had today. You can really see how heavy the rain is if you look in front of the darker areas like the driveway or in front of Ashley’s car.

Aaron got sent to his room today (gosh DARNIT he was on his most crummy behavior) and he put himself in bed crying and slept for two hours. This is how I found him when I went in to pack his clothes.

July 21

Here are the boys enjoying a little tv. Tonight we had our first of two dinners provided by Neecers! She brought us a delicious Paula Deen chicken casserole and the makings for Paula Deen’s Corn Casserole. Plenty of butter, but really good!

July 8

Here are a couple of superheroes heading out to check the mail…

Aaron and I played upstairs for a long time tonight. When I was getting tired, and therefore needed him to get tired too, we snuggled on the bed to read. He got hold of a big body pillow and said it was a bird nest, which he promptly curled up in with tons of blankets. He fell asleep that way. I love him.

July 7

We have been running a lot of errands and trying to tie up all kinds of loose ends before surgery. At the same time, we are trying to have a lot of fun with Aaron. I thought today would be a good day to take Aaron swimming at the lake, but Chris geniusly remembered that the last time Aaron went swimming at the lake, he had a rash afterwards and threw up for two days. We never found out specifically what caused it (you know when you take a sick kid into the doctor and they say, ummm…could anything, here’s an antibiotic, good luck) but just in case it was some kind of lake scruge…it wouldn’t be a good time for that to happen again. We can’t risk any giant injuries or illness right now. So instead, we bought a plastic pool at Toys R Us and let him splash around in the backyard.

Aaron has picked up bunny ears from somewhere…and he thinks it’s hilarious to give them to himself in pictures.

July 6

Tonight Aaron caught the second half of How To Train Your Dragon on TV and he has wanted to be a Viking ever since. How genius is my hubby making him a Viking helmet with two strainers!?!?!?!?

Cutest Viking you ever saw, right?

June 11

Here is my silly boy. He found his winter hat and gloves in his dresser and put the gloves on his feet so he could be a bird. When he walked around with his little “bird feet” he looked SO funny!

May 2

Aaron crammed a bunch of soldiers into Buzz’s helmet. While he was doing it, he described to Ashley that they were hiding from someone, but by the time I asked him who they were hiding from, he couldn’t remember. Woody’s hat is just the icing on the cake.

April 9

What can I say…relaxation styles seem to have been passed on from father to son.

April 5

Aaron and I are watching something on my phone…really wish I knew what it was. It seems like it made us happy! I bet it was a video of Cameron.

April 3

Is this what you get when YOU go to Panera?

March 25

How about a little chutes and ladders? Aaron got this for his birthday…and he was a little  frustrated that he couldn’t go up all the ladders whenever he wanted to, but I had fun playing with him.

March 24

Aaron put his green army men in the pantry to protect it. He had them on a lot of different shelves and in every little nook and cranny.

March 14

Aaron likes to pick up the Rock Band guitar and be a little rock star. I think his face in these pictures is just too funny. I love them. He is singing “Life is a Highway”, the Rascal Flatts version, which is from the movie Cars, of course, one of his favorites.

This is the same day I took this video, which makes me SO happy. I watch it all the time. I love him :)

March 11

Some Daddy and Aaron snuggles on a Friday night. To tell the truth, we keep Aaron up WAY too late on Friday nights. Part of the reason is, we sit down, get our feet up, and its hard to get back up again. Secondly…look at those snuggles. Some Fridays he falls asleep right there with his dad. Also…sometimes WE fall asleep, and Aaron just goes right on watching whatever is on!

March 9

I love when Aaron takes out a toy or other amusement that he hasn’t used in a long time. Tonight he looked through his animal binder. We used to subscribe to these and get a pack sent every month or something like that. We stopped the subscription because it was just too much. But tonight, he turned through them one by one looking at each one carefully. When I was talking to him about it, I said, “Hey buddy, did you enjoy looking through your animal cards…animal book…animal…” and he said, “It’s an animal binder, Mommy.”

duh.

March 3

The afterschool activity Aaron picked out for today was making a fort! So…here we are in it!