The Aquarium

I love this age.  A three year old who has seen all of our fun outings before, but he acts like these are always new.   He gets so excited!!  We are studying fish in preschool and I thought a fun outing to the aquarium would be super dee-duper awesome.

I will let the pics speak for themselves.

The Radio, um... I mean rodeo

We went to Nana Charlee's house for a party, then to the Oakley Rodeo.  We had so much fun.  Aiden had never been to a rodeo and I thought it would be too much and boring, but he really enjoyed it.  I can't believe how much he loved it.

Holy moly, I love the small town feel and it makes me miss living in Eden.  I can see why Charlee and her hubby, Gary, love being up in the mountains.

Charlee and Gary are so wonderful.  They had such great toys and other kids that Aiden can play with.  

See why I chose Charlee to be best buddies with?  She is so awesome with the kiddos and she has so much energy that it nearly kills me.

Aiden kept saying that he was going to the RADIO instead of the RODEO.  It was pretty funny, but he understood what was going on and that was pretty awesome.

I tried to get a good pic with the two of them together, but someone gave Aiden the last 1/16th of a Slurpee. See the girl that is behind Charlee?  The one that is too pretty?  Her name is McCall and she is too pretty to be in my pictures.  CURSE YOU, PRETTY MCCALL...

Love it!!

Check it out!  These guys hang on to a little handle and nearly die for eight seconds.  NOT WORTH IT!  

Fun night out!  Hanging out at the radio with my cowboy buddy.

4th of July

Happy 4th of July, Ya'all!!  I LOVE the 4th.  One of my favorite holidays.  We have an annual tradition as a family that we have a great barbecue at Rays house and we have so much fun!!!

This year did not disappoint.  We went to Ray's new house and went swimming.  It was a hot day and the pool was awesome.  Aiden really did great and started swimming a little on his own.  

Lisa's pool!

Aiden hanging out with his best buddy, Marshall.  They are so fun together.

Rays had a cotton candy machine.  Well, let's just say many many cotton candy bags were consumed by my own little man.

After all this, we watched a movie outside and had a BALL!  

This year, they are in a new house that is in the restricted section for fireworks, so we just hung out.  

Party Hard!!

I know it has been a while, but we did have a great rocking birthday party for Aiden with friends and family.  

Our "theme" was the great movie Despicable Me.  Right now it is Aiden's favorite movie and it is pretty hilarious.  

The Minion cupcakes were a hit!  

Steph, Haili, and cute little Caden man came to play with us.  Caden will be moving soon (sniff, sniff) but it was so fun to have them here.

We had a BBQ with a whole lot of family and it was STINKING hot, but Mikey volunteered to man the grill.  He was awesome and the food was decent.  The watermelon was the best!

Aiden and some of his cousins

Our wonderful neighbors let us borrow their screen and we watched Despicable Me outside.  WHAT FUN!!! It was one of the funnest nights ever!

Happy Birthday to Monkey!!

Wow!  Three years have flown by.  Where is my little 5 1/2 pound peanut that I held so tightly?  We have been on some grand adventures these last three years... some incredibly fun and some incredibly scary, life-changing.  But all worth it in the end.

On Aiden's birthday, I took the day off work and we partied hard all day.  I started off the day singing a huge happy birthday and he just beamed and giggled for a full minute.  It was priceless.  

We started off our day with scones from Sill's Cafe.  Aiden loves waffles, but we had to find something special.  So, we headed to the local grease joint.  

Aiden ate the whole scone and then proceeded to eat all the honey butter.  On any other day, I would have put a stop to such behavior, but hey, it was his birthday.

Then, we headed down to the Frontrunner Train Station.  I know, I know... how could Aiden love trains so much and we had never ridden front runner?  Because I am a neglectful mother.  BUT Aiden LOVED the train and it was way too short for his tastes.

We rode down to the Gateway and saw many trains on the way down.  Cute little bug was glued to his seat.

We walked to the Gateway and decided to cool down by watching a movie.  We watched Brave.  It was an awesome movie, but Aiden was a little scared at some parts.  He did fine, though, and ended up really liking it.  

After the movie, we headed downstairs to the Happy Sumo where we got Aiden's favorite... sushi.  He was totally goofy with his chopsticks...

I wonder where he learned it.

Halfway through sushi, Aiden crashed and slept for a while.  Chris and I stayed quiet and enjoyed the cool air of the sushi joint.

We headed to Build A Bear after his nap and he picked out a tie-died seahorse.  The helper lady asked him what he wanted to name his seahorse.  He said, "Gary."  ??? We don't really know a Gary... well... okay then.

Aiden and Gary getting ready to head home on the train.  

We were hot and tired from the long day, but Aiden still loved the train.

We headed over to Smedleys because Aiden shares a birthday with Aunt Kari.  They gave him the coolest ball and bat, 2 outfits and a baseball mitt.

Check out the face.  Pure excitement.  His best friend, Nana, helped him open his present.  

Then we headed home with a Thomas cake and pretty awesome ice cream.  We shared it with Uncle Chris and gave him his present... a Thomas at the Diesel works.  He loved it!!

Someone crashed HARD.  With Gary.

Aiden had a great day and I was able to think back to all the wonderful times we have had as a family so far.  I love this little man and remember there was a time when I thought I was okay to not have children.  How wrong I was!!!

Happy Birthday, Monkey!!!

Remembering...

Three years ago today, I was in the hospital getting ready to have a baby.  Granted, I wouldn't have this baby for another 48 hours, but I didn't know it then.

The next two days were so hard and so intense and so wonderful.  I was surrounded by many people who loved me, who supported me and those same people have loved and supported my little man.

The biggest cliche is that a baby changes your life.  But it did.  And my son saved my life.  We have been through one hell heck of a rollercoaster ride since he was born, but every minute of it has been with a little wonderful man by my side and have never once looked back.

So, blog posts will come about his upcoming birthday SLAM, but this one is about the joy of being a mom.  More than that, it is about being Aiden's mom.  I love being Aiden's mom.

All Aboard!

Yesterday, we started the potty train.  It did not go so great.  But we are determined and, let's face it, he looks pretty darn awesome in his lil' white undies.