Happy Birthday Aidan!

It's been a whole year! Aidan Alexander is getting bigger, stronger, and funnier every day. He has taught us more lessons than we can count since he has been with us, and I'm pretty sure he has made this one of the best year's we've had together. Here are a few fun facts to celebrate his first year.

Wearing size 12-18 months.
Weighs 20 lbs 6 ounces.
Drinks 24 ounces of cow's milk a day and is still nursing about 2-3 times a day.
Eats 6 little gerber food things a day plus turkey/ham deli meat for dinner.
Still no teeth!!!
Crawls around but sill also likes to scoot.
Can stand and pull up on anything and loves to do it!!
Can walk if you hold his hands and walks on his own around furniture.
Says mama and dada.
Can wave goodbye, clap his hands on command, and give hi fives.
Loves to sing with mama and during church.
Using his left hand the most right now.
Favorite toy is his rubber ducky in the bath.

We are taking his professional shots in a couple of weeks but here is a shot I shot I took this morning in his new St. Louis Cardinals chair from Grandma and Grandpa who are visiting right now and also ones from all his month marks

New Born

One Month

Two Months

Three Months

Four Months

Five Months
Six Months

Seven Months
Eight Months

Nine Months

Ten Months

Eleven Months

ONE YEAR!!!!!

Starring Baby Aidan!!!

Our church is putting on a Christmas Play and Aidan was asked to be Baby Jesus. He has done great at rehearsals so hopefully tonight will run smoothly. Here are some pics I got this afternoon.

Jesus receiving gifts from the wise men.

With Mary

With Joseph

Curtain Call

Our Anniversary Getaway!

Cliff and I just got back from our short getaway trip. We had an amazing time. I was a little nervous to leave because this was my first time to be away from Aidan overnight since he was born but I was really glad we went. We choose a bed and breakfast in western Idaho. It was voted best B& B of the Rockies. Here are a few pics of our stay.....

"5 Years and Going Strong!"

The outside of the lodge.

Pic of our room.

Another view.

This was our own private deck overlooking the woods.

5 Years!!

Happy Anniversary Cliff!!! You have truly made these last 5 years the most precious of my life. I look forward to our journey ahead!

A Bad Week

Most of you have probably heard our sweet doggy passed away. Gazey was around 6 years old, and she was about the best dog a person could ask for. If you haven't heard the story, we picked her up (a.k.a. stole her) from a situation where she was being abused and neglected. We spent the last 2 1/2 years helping put her back together. And despite her many oddities she quickly become a dog that was hard not to love. She'll be impossible to replace, and we will most certainly miss her. Here are a few shots to chronicle her time with us. The last three are from her first week with us.

"What mama?"

I used to baracade everything because I was so scared of Aidan hurting himself or making a mess....But the other day I just decided I didn't care and I was going to let him go and explore where ever he wanted. It has been fun watching him explore.

And for a short funny story...Aidan was playing with my phone and I heard him dial a number. I grabbed the phone and saw that he called 911. I hung up really quick but I was too late...they called back and asked if I had an emergency...It was pretty embarrassing.

Christmas Tree oh Christmas Tree...

The family I nanny for invited us to go to the downtown Davenport Hotel with them for their Christmas display. Different stores donate prizes that each include a Christmas tree, cash, and other items like tv's and game systems. The VanVoorhis's gave us 20 raffle tickets and we got to walk around and choose the displays we liked and put our tickets in. It was really beautiful and a lot of fun. We stuffed the box with the flatscreen tv, Wii, and $1000......LOL.

Holly would be so proud!

So I know my new blog design doesn't look near as fancy as the one that Holly created for me but I am excited to say that I actually figured out how to do it myself. It is a little simple but I like it and maybe when I have time I will figure out how to do more fancy stuff...but for now....I am very proud of myself!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Our fireplace!



This was my Christmas present this year...I have always wanted a prelit tree!!!

The tree skirt my mom made us for a wedding present!

These were the center pieces from our wedding reception. I love having a little tree to look at while I cook and clean in the kitchen.

Thanksgiving

We had a very fun unique Thanksgiving this year. With our family living 28 hours away, we felt very fortunate to be invited into so many homes. This year, we chose to spend the holiday with our friend Breanna from college. She and her husband live in Portland but have extended family in Spokane. They invited us back in July to spend the holidays with them. They have a fun/unique tradition of dressing everyone up as Indians and Pilgrims for Thanksgiving dinner. Of course I was on board because I knew it would make a great scrapbook page for Aidan's first Thanksgiving. We had a great time!! Here are some pics of our day.