A review of December

I am slow on posting our Christmas, but with good reason. Todd has been off work since last Monday and I have just been enjoying my family! So here is a bit (okay a lot) of our Christmas and a few other things.

Alyssa with her talking baby from Santa, this was her number one wish and she takes it almost everywhere (I will let her that is) and she sleeps in a cradle beside her bed at night. Her name is Baby...shocking I know :)

And her new dollhouse. Takes up a lot of space in the playroom, but surprisingly Aiden plays nicely with it too. I really just expected him to take all the furniture out and throw it about the house, but so far it can stay downstairs.

Aiden crawling into his puppy ball pit...this takes up most of the family room...so even though I have done an "old toy sweep" we still are overtaken with toys downstairs...he loves it!

Aiden also got his own phone with an answering machine, perhaps now he will stop changing the message on our real answering machine...not likely.

By the time they were done Aiden really only wanted the Goldfish left in his stocking. When it comes down to it this boy only cares about food.

Demi opening one of his gifts, it lasted about 4 minutes until he chewed a hole in the ball and it landed in the trash.

Alyssa helping Daddy make homemade noodles. Aiden was back in bed by 8:30 in the morning, since he got up at 6 which is very early for him. My first (30 something) child got up about 5 and somehow the rest of the house was up before 6!

Some snow fun the week of Christmas.

Sledding down the driveway.

This is the only time I enjoy our steep driveway.

And I don't think I ever posted about Alyssa's preschool Christmas program. Her she is all ready to go. She did a great job singing and dancing...she even had her own line that she said into the microphone perfectly. Unfortunately the pics from the program are all dark, so this is all I've got.

So I think that is enough to catch us up for now.

Happy New Year!

~~Tracy~~

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Yesterday at Grandma and Grandpa Raines house.

A glimpse of our Christmas...so far. I hope everyone has a safe and Blessed Christmas Day. Happy Birthday Jesus!!

~~Love Todd, Tracy, Alyssa & Aiden~~

A New Week

I am so glad to start a new week, as last week was a bit terrible. Alyssa ended up in the hospital on Tuesday morning and was admitted for dehydration, low blood sugar and a temp of 103. Luckily a night of fluids did the trick and she was able to come home on Wednesday. She ran the temp of 103 for 6 days until it finally went away. The doctors never found a source of the temp (even with a very unpleasant straight catheter in the ER and two other blood draws). They wrote it off as a bad viral infection and I am just grateful it wasn't something worse. She really was a trooper during her stay. It probably helped that she had her own TV, and a terribly long movie list to pick from.

So now we get to start a fresh week and really get ready for Christmas. She ended up being 7 days behind on her Christmas candy countdown so we are slowly catching that up. Aiden apparently didn't want to wait as one day he broke into the Christmas Day one and ate all the M & M's inside...oh, if you could have seen the smirk on his face when he got busted :)

So just a few more loose ends to tie up with shopping (I know, we are ALWAYS done before Thanksgiving), Aiden and I plan to finish that up tomorrow morning after we drop Alyssa off at Preschool. Todd works until next Monday and then has 10 (maybe even 12) days off...WHOOO HOOO!!! I am very excited!!

Later this afternoon I am watching a couple of my Friend's children and then tonight it's my monthly Mommy time (AKA: a haircut).

Have a Great Week and Stay Warm!

~~Tracy~~

A few random things

This will just be a random post on what is going on at our house lately. First, a bit of a brag (I have seen some bragging lately on other blogs and thought I would join in ;-). I started running again in August mostly just to lose some weight and get in better shape. Well I am now up to 4.6 miles (and down 9.5 pounds) and feel great. A bunch of my friends are going to run the Mini Marathon in May and I had been debating on signing up as well. After just deciding not to, more or less because of the training time, Troy asked me on Thanksgiving if I wanted to run it with him...so back to the debating. I have decided to wait and do the one in October (Troy, you are willing to do that one with me right?). That way I can train more outside instead of on a treadmill. And I don't have to shell out more money at Christmastime. So that is what is new and exciting in my life (HA!).

On to the kiddos. We have been letting Alyssa watch the Christmas shows on TV at night and this is pretty much what that scene looks like:

This is her and her crew watching The Polar Express. She also had her first Preschool Christmas program last night, but that will be another post.

And Aiden, poor Aiden...he is undecided on still taking 2 naps. This is what happens most mornings around 10 am lately. He had been down to one nap for a few months, but lately his body is wanting more. So yesterday he plopped himself in his bean bag and crashed.

And here he is in a more upright position after being startled by a certain little girl trying to put stickers on him. You can barely see the stickers on his left arm, but notice it didn't phase him much.

That's all I've got for now...

~~Tracy~~