Cute Smiles & My Active Little Boy

Samantha: 44 Months, Week 1
Aedan: Week 38

I am going to write this post about Tuesday, January 13 through Sunday, January 18, so that way I can include our entire Disney trip in one blog post.  This post will probably be shorter because of that.  Plus, Ben was gone to the Southern Political Science Association conference in New Orleans from Wednesday through Friday.

Here is Samantha eating her typical Tuesday morning breakfast, a bagel.  She and Daddy were eating breakfast together while I was upstairs with Aedan.

We were so excited on Tuesday morning because the weather was finally going to allow Samantha to go to preschool.  We were all up eating breakfast, anticipating heading to preschool, when Ben got an email on his phone from Miss Betsy, Samantha's preschool teacher.  For some reason, the heating was not functioning properly and the temperature was below 65.  They had to cancel preschool again because of the heating problem.  Samantha was SO sad when I went over to the table to tell her.  She cried, and I gave her a great big hug, holding her until she calmed down.  The only thing that made her feel better was the fact that we could, instead, go to the open gym at the TRI, after going grocery shopping for a few things to get us through the rest of the week.  She had a good time playing in the gym, and I hoped that Aedan might nap in the Ergo while we were there, but there was far too much commotion going on.  He much preferred watching all the kids playing with balls.  Towards the end of our time there, Samantha wanted to hold Aedan and ride down the slide with him and also sit inside one of the tents with him.  She loves to include her little brother whenever she can.  It's pretty cute.

Aedan was pretty tired that afternoon for lunchtime since he had gone all morning with no nap.  For being tired, he still was a pretty happy kid.  His smile is so infectious.  I love this happy little boy.  He always brightens my day with his happy disposition.

After we are done feeding Aedan his baby food for lunch and dinner, we usually pile toys on his tray for him to play with while the rest of us finish eating. (The reason we give him so many toys is because it then takes him longer to throw them all off the try and onto the floor.)  Lately, he has particularly liked his little yellow duck toy.  It is the perfect size for him to hold in his hand, to manipulate, and just rubbery enough to be a great teething toy, too.

He also likes to play with his little plastic bowls, anything he can grab in his hands, hit, and stick in his mouth.

 He's a handsome little boy, isn't he?

And here's my cute little girl that day at lunch, too.  I think she looks really pretty in this purple sweater.

Aedan took a nice, good nap on Tuesday afternoon after being out all morning.  Samantha played in her room for an hour before finally falling asleep.  Sadly enough, though, I had to wake her up because a man came from our property management company to fix the door to the crawl space in Samantha's closet that was slightly ajar and allowing lots of cold air to pour into her room.  It seems like we always have to wake her up on Tuesdays for one reason or another, particularly because she has ballet at 4:15.

That evening after dinner, we had a good time of playing together as a family before Daddy went out of town for his conference in New Orleans the next day.  Also, since Samantha took a nap that day and had to go right to ballet, she was able to watch the rest of Pinocchio that evening after dinner.  (You can hear it on the background of this video of Aedan.)  I included this video because it shows how fast Aedan can roll now, and also how he is working on getting up on his knees or getting his leg out to the side, like he knows he needs to move his legs in that way in order to move where he wants to go.  It's fascinating to watch Aedan learn and develop all on his own.

On Wednesday morning, Ben got up and ready for his flight, we all piled in the car, and we drove to the Dayton airport.  It was nap time for Aedan, so we decided to let Samantha watch a movie on the portable DVD player in the car on the way there, allowing Aedan to nap without being woken up, giving Samantha some down time, and providing time for Ben and I to talk to each other as well.  It's amazing how little time we have to have conversations with each other, especially when both kids are awake.  After dropping Daddy off at the airport, Samantha started crying in the car, her lip quivered, and big tears rolled down her cheeks.  She said, "I miss my Daddy.  I don't want him to leave."  She stopped crying not too long after that, but pretty much sat quietly the rest of the ride home from the airport, with a sad, forlorn expression on her face.  Life is just not quite the same when Daddy is not around.

We got back a little after 11:00, giving us time to play at home and have lunch together before nap time.

Now that Aedan has learned he can roll to get places, he is beginning to discover the world around him.  He particularly likes rolling towards the entertainment center, kicking the devices with his feet, and playing with the buttons with his hands.  We just make sure they are always turned off so that way we don't have to worry about him messing anything up.  You can also see Aedan's crazy sister in this video, trying to watch out for her little brother, even though sometimes she can go a little overboard.

Aedan has learned how to clap this week, and now it's one of his favorite activities.  You can find him many times throughout the day, laying on the floor or sitting up, in his high chair or in your lap, clapping his hands together.  We like to encourage it and clap right along with him.

One of Samantha's (and possibly Aedan's) favorite games is balancing objects on Aedan's head and then watching them tumble down when he moves.  Both think it's hilarious.  It's a fun game to watch.

I took this cute picture of Aedan to send to Uncle Matt.  Aedan is wearing the shirt Uncle Matt got him for Christmas.  He looked pretty handsome in his button down shirt and jeans.  Pretty stylish for an 8 1/2 month old. :)

That afternoon as we were getting ready for nap time, Aedan was slowly starting to lose it.  He was very tired.  I laid him down on the floor in his room while I quickly did something in the other room.  Samantha was in the room with him and said, "Look mommy!"  I came into his bedroom and Aedan had rolled all the way across the room and under his crib, trying to get at a plastic bag underneath.  However, he then bonked his head on the crib rail, making him cry.  He has some of the most pathetic looking faces at times, as you can see in the pictures below.  I just had to take a couple pictures to send to Daddy.  Aedan sure was a tired boy that afternoon.

However, don't be too worried, a few minutes later he was no longer crying, but smiling.

Samantha did not nap that afternoon, which is fine because she does a pretty good job of just playing and reading quietly in her room when she doesn't nap.  When I went in her room to get her, she had changed clothes and put on her Elsa dress instead.  Then, after getting Aedan when he awoke from his nap, we played with blocks together in his room for awhile and I got this ADORABLE picture of the two of them together.  I think we have two of the cutest children. :)

Oh, my little man!  He has stolen my heart.

A little while later, before I nursed him, I decided to get a picture of his four little teeth on the bottom.  He still has no teeth on the top yet.  I like this picture below because you also get a glimpse of his big, gorgeous eyes and long, curly eyelashes.  He gets his eye color from me, but definitely gets his eyelashes from Ben.

It was strange having Daddy gone, but we were looking forward to Upland Grandma coming that evening to spend a couple nights with us to help me out while Ben was gone.  I figured I could do a couple days by myself, but it would be much easier to have some extra help.  Plus, Grandma isn't teaching a full load anymore so that she can do more of this type of stuff with her grandchildren.  She arrived after dinner, and Samantha was SO excited.  When we saw her car pull into our driveway, Samantha began to dance around the room and yelling, "GRANDMA'S HERE!  GRANDMA'S HERE!"  And from the moment on, Grandma didn't have a free moment to herself.  Samantha took her to play with her in her play room right away, and even wanted Grandma to come into the bathroom with her while she went potty.  It's funny when we have people here visiting because Samantha always wants someone to be playing with her and interacting with her.  Whereas when it's just the four of us, she's much more content to just go play by herself.

Grandma was a huge help to me in getting Samantha to bed on Wednesday night while I put Aedan to bed, and even giving the kids breakfast on Thursday morning so that I could take a shower.  I took Samantha to preschool and ran some errands that morning while Grandma stayed with Aedan, played with him, and put him down for his morning nap.  It was nice to go out by myself and not have to worry about lugging a baby in and out of the car.  I even got our house cleaned on Thursday.  It was a very productive day!  Grandma also stayed with Samantha and Aedan on Thursday night, putting them both to bed for me, so that I could go to my Bible study.  It was so nice and so helpful to have her here.

Friday was a busy day, as Grandma left early in the morning to get to Ball State for her class.  Aedan also had a rough night on Thursday night, waking up three times during the night and crying quite a bit.  Luckily, he was fairly easy to get back to sleep, but I was tired from having my sleep interrupted so many times.  We had no idea what was causing his sleep troubles.  We were thinking it might be teeth coming in again and hoped that whatever it was would be resolved before our Disney trip.  We intended for Samantha and Aedan to sleep in the same room in our hotel suite, but that wouldn't work so well if Aedan is waking up crying multiple times a night.

Anyways, after having a fairly relaxing morning of playing and letting Aedan take a good nap, my friend Maggie came over to help watch Samantha and Aedan while I did the hands-on component for my CPR/First Aid Training.  The only time I could find to schedule was at 11:30, so I had to make it work, as I needed this taken care of before we left for Disney World.  My Indiana teaching license was set to expire on January 27th, and I wanted to make sure I got all the paperwork submitted with plenty of time for the renewal to go through.  The hands-on component was pretty easy and only lasted about 20 minutes, much easier than sitting in a class all day long.

After a week of no napping, Samantha actually took a nap on Friday, which I was grateful for.  She had gone to sleep later than usual while Grandma was visiting and definitely needed the sleep.  Our plan was to go pick up Daddy after nap time, and Aedan actually woke up before Samantha did.  She ended up sleeping almost two and a half hours, sleeping past 4:30.  As soon as we were ready, we headed out to pick up Daddy from the Dayton airport.  Since she took a nap, I let her watch Dumbo in the car on the way there.  I requested it from the library this past week because I figured she would enjoy seeing that classic Disney movie before going to Disney World and riding the Dumbo ride.  Everyone was very excited to see Daddy.  It's just not the same without him.  I miss him terribly while he's gone.  I'm glad that he doesn't have to travel much for his job.  That would be difficult.  He's my best friend.  I like having him around too much. :)

Friday night ended up being a late night because after picking Daddy up, we had to stop for some dinner before driving back home and getting the kids to bed.  I think it ended up being past 9:00.  Aedan ended up falling asleep in the car on the way home, but we had two tired kids (and parents) on our hands.

On Saturday we spent the day doing laundry, running a couple errands, getting ready, and packing for our trip to Disney World.  We had been planning for this trip for so long, it was kind of hard to believe that the time had actually come.  Samantha did take a nap that afternoon, which was good considering she was up late on Friday and was about to face a crazy week with a lot less sleep than she's used to getting.  In fact, Samantha was SO excited that she had a hard time calming down to sleep on Saturday night.  We had to go up to her room a couple times to tell her to be quiet and go to sleep.  Then, both kids woke up early on Sunday morning, well before 6:30.  We attempted to get them to go back to sleep, but our attempts were futile, so we decided to just get up and get ready for the day.

Our flight to Orlando was on Monday morning, so awhile back we planned on staying in Indianapolis overnight in order to make it easier to get to the airport for our flight.  It is a two hour drive from Oxford to Indy, so we decided to make a day of it, leaving on Sunday morning, driving to Indy, and spending the day at the Children's Museum since we have a family pass now.  We packed our lunches and had a great time playing and spending time together at the museum.  Here are some pictures from our day:

Now that Aedan is rolling around, scooting, and moving a lot more, he really enjoyed the baby area in the Playscape section of the museum.  They have this padded area particularly for babies who can't walk yet, and Aedan had a blast rolling around, finding (and eating) toys, looking at himself in the mirrors placed on the walls, and even making friends with other little babies.

Aedan took a nap in the Ergo that afternoon while Samantha played and enjoyed the carousel.

We stayed at the museum until after 3:00, got ourselves some ice cream for a snack, and then headed to our hotel for the night.  We stayed at a Staybridge Suites using points from our credit card and were able to get a suite there where Ben and I had a separate bedroom.  Samantha slept on the pull out couch, and we set up Aedan in the pack and play out in the living room area as well.  We ended up ordering pizza and eating it in our hotel room that night so that we didn't have to drag the kids out again.

Both kids were pretty tired from having a full day at the museum, and we gave Aedan some medicine before bed that night because we thought he may be teething and that's why he has had some rough nights lately.  He did not sleep too well in the hotel either, and we actually ended up moving his pack and play into the bedroom with us so that he wouldn't wake up Samantha.  However, Samantha ended up waking up around 3:00 a.m. to go potty and she was burning up.  I didn't have a thermometer, but I could tell she had a fever.  I gave her some medicine, too, hoping that it was something that would go away and she would be feeling better by morning after having a good night's sleep.  However, this fever would turn into a pretty bad cold and cough that would then pass through our whole family.  This was such an unfortunate time to get sick, right before we went off to Disney World, but what can you do?  More on our trip to Disney World in my next blog post.

Snow Days & Aedan Rolling Around

Samantha: 43 Months, Week 4
Aedan: Week 37

After our busy weekend, and our last Christmas celebration with my family, we were looking forward to a week of getting back to normal.  Ben was itching to get back to work on his dissertation and his conference paper.  Samantha couldn't wait to get back to preschool and see her friends and teachers.  I was excited about getting back into a regular schedule and routine again, with our normal day-to-day.

However, the weather had different plans for us.  Over night Monday into Tuesday, it snowed and snowed, blanketing the ground in white and forcing local schools to close for the day.  As a result, Samantha's preschool was closed as well.  She was a little upset about not being able to see her friends and teachers, but she was excited about being able to go out and play in the snow again (and have hot chocolate), so that made up for it.  While Aedan took his morning nap, we got ourselves bundled up and went to play outside.  I shoveled the driveway while Samantha played in the snow, made snow angels, and slid down the slide into the soft, fluffy snow.  We had a good time outside for over an hour, and Aedan had a nice, long nap, sleeping almost till lunch time.

 

Since Aedan slept so late, the rest of our day got pushed back as well.  We ate lunch later than usual, so that way Samantha and Aedan's afternoon nap time could still align.  For some reason, Aedan started crying at lunch time, which then made Samantha cry.  (She hates seeing him cry hard, it always makes her cry, too.)  I tried to get a video of the two of them crying at the same time, but as soon as I got the camera out Aedan stopped crying and started smiling and laughing, but Samantha continued to cry.  Funny, sometimes we say that Samantha cries more than Aedan.  She's definitely very emotional and dramatic.  It will be interesting to see what she's like as a teenager.

Aedan was in a weird mood that Tuesday, as we wasn't really interested in nursing all day.  I kept trying at various times, and he would just arch his back, push me away, and cry.  I felt bad because I had no idea what was going on, if something was making him not feel well or if he just really wasn't hungry.  It's hard with a baby Aedan's age because they are constantly putting things in their mouth and sucking on things, so it's hard for me to read the signs of hunger.  However, he finally ate well when I was putting him down for his afternoon nap, so that was good.  Aedan has been much trickier with nursing than Samantha ever was.  I don't know if it's a difference between boy and girl, or the fact that I am at home rather than working full time, or just a difference between their personalities.  Aedan is so much more active, sometimes when I nurse him it feels more like I am wrestling with him, than holding and nursing my baby.  Samantha did this to some extent, but once I introduced her blankie, she would just hold and cuddle with that, which saved me from being pinched and scratched.  Aedan, however, is not interested in his blankie.  He is more interested in pulling my hair, every chance that he can get.  I have now started wearing it in a pony tail every time I nurse him.  He is more interested in hitting his hand, palm side down against various areas of my body to see what fascinating sounds he can make.  He is more interested in sticking his fingers in my mouth, hooking them around my bottom teeth, and pulling down my jaw.  He is more interested to trying to pull my nose off my face.  Man, he is a boy, through and through.

Samantha had ballet on Tuesday evening, the first day back since Christmas break.  Daddy took her, and I stayed home with Aedan.  Then, we just had a good night at home together, relaxing, playing, and trying to keep ourselves warm because with the snow came bitter, arctic cold.  Samantha wanted to cuddle under her new Frozen blanket with Aedan.  (Sorry about his face in this first picture.  I tried to get a picture of both of them smiling, but there was always one or the other not looking at me or not smiling.)

At Miami they have a January term before the Spring semester starts back up again.  Every year they have one week in January where you can get into the Recreation Center for free.  This past week, January 5-11 was their free week.  As a result, we could go swimming in the leisure pool for free!  (Maybe at some point, if we end up staying at Miami long term, we will get a membership to the Rec center so that we can swim, work out, and go whenever we want to, but right now we can't afford it.)  Some moms were meeting up at the pool on Wednesday morning, and I was excited to go.  I originally planned on taking both Samantha and Aedan, but Ben planned to work from home that day because I had an eye appointment that afternoon that he would have to be back home for so I could go while the kids were napping.  Anyways, because he was at home anyways, he offered to keep Aedan home so that he could nap rather than be out with us during his nap time.

The pool was really nice, and Samantha was SO excited to get in the water with her Puddle Jumper floatie.  It was sub-zero temperatures outside that day.  We could see the snow swirling around through the glass windows, as we were enjoying the 85 degree water.  They have a zero-depth area, a basketball hoop and ball, as well as a small part with a current, mostly for people that are looking for leisurely water exercise.  There were quite a few moms and kids there, and Samantha had a good time playing with them, jumping off into the water, and swimming pretty much constantly for almost an hour and a half.  Samantha definitely takes after Ben and I in her love for water.  She is not afraid at all, nor has she ever been. She will dunk her head under, jump in so that her head goes below the surface, and even try to hold her breath under water while she swims, although that is definitely a work in progress.

Aedan got a whole bunch of new 12 month outfits for Christmas, so we are having fun dressing him up in new clothes.  Here is a little monkey outfit that Aunt Christy and Uncle Matthew got for him.  You can't see it in the picture, but there is a monkey on the tushie of the pants as well.

We were all ready for Samantha to go back to preschool on Thursday; however, the local schools ended up cancelling school again due to sub-zero temperatures on Thursday morning.  As a result, Samantha's preschool was closed as well.  She was really disappointed, especially now with missing both days that week.  We ended up just staying home and playing there.  I had plans to have a family swim night that evening, if Samantha took a nap and was in a good enough mood.  She was pretty tired and cranky throughout the morning because she woke up really early that day.  Despite that, she resisted her nap for awhile.  I ended up going into her room and telling her to go to bed, that when she wakes up early, she has to nap.  It's interesting because she took naps most days over Christmas break, probably because we were busy and she wasn't getting as much sleep at night.  Well now that she's kind of caught up on her sleep and is getting more sleep at night, she is getting back into not napping, like she was doing before.  Ben and I are fine with that, we can't force her to nap, but it's not okay when she wakes up before 7:00 a.m., acts tired and cranky all morning, and then still refuses to nap.  Anyways, after I went into her room, she did end up falling asleep and taking a pretty decent nap, allowing us the chance to go swimming as a family that night.

We ate dinner fairly early so that we could get to the pool.  I borrowed a swimsuit and swim diaper from a friend so that we could take Aedan swimming as well.  He has never really been totally in a pool before.  Back at the end of the summer, when we first moved to Oxford, we went to the TRI pool a couple times, but the most we did is stick his legs in the water since we didn't have a swim diaper for him.  The zero-depth area at the Rec Center is perfect for Aedan.  We brought a rubber ducky toy for him to play with, and he just sat next to Daddy in the water, splashing and laughing and having a wonderful time.  I swam around with Samantha, and this time she brought Ariel with her in the water so she would also have a toy to play with.  Once we got closer to the time we were going to leave, we brought Aedan down into the water, and he loved it.  Just like his sister, he was not afraid at all.  I wish I would have gotten some pictures of him in the water, but we didn't have our phones with us.  We took him around the area with the currents, showed him the little waterfall, threw him up into the air, and let him splash his arms up and down to his heart's delight.  It was a great evening in the water together.  (Samantha even saw her friend, Matteo, from preschool and got to play with him for awhile, too.  That kind of made up for the fact that she didn't see any of her preschool friends this week.)  Once it was getting closer to 7:00 and close to bed time, it was time for us to head out, even though everyone was still having fun.

The Thursday night women's Bible study was starting up that night, and I had plans to go to it.  Ben lovingly agreed to put the kids down to bed so that I could go each week.  I think it will be much better to do the Thursday night study and get a chance to fellowship with other women and discuss God's Word (plus get out of the house by myself), rather than drag both kids out to the Wednesday morning study that generally focuses on watching video studies with a brief time of discussion.  I'm looking forward to the study on Philippians and then whatever is chosen next, once the semester is in full swing.

We had kind of a weird week with getting Christmas decorations put away on Monday, and then Ben working from home on Wednesday as well.  I know he was anxious to get back to work, as he had a paper to work on for the SPSA conference in New Orleans and wanted to get a working draft of the last couple chapters of his dissertation sent out before our Disney trip.  Friday, however, was a normal work day for Ben and a normal day for me at home with the kids.  Our plan was to let Aedan take a nap and then go to the library to play for a little while, but Aedan was fighting his morning nap, so I figured we'd just skip it and head out.  They didn't have story time because it hadn't started up for the semester yet, but Samantha had fun playing with the dollhouse, looking at books, and seeing Felix from preschool as well as Jacob and Miss Pam from church.

After lunch that afternoon, Samantha wanted to build a tent, so we draped her blanket over the couch and coffee table, and she climbed underneath.  She got some animal friends to join them, and of course, she wanted Aedan to come under the tent with her as well.  (You notice this theme of bundling up and laying under blankets?  It was so cold outside, our heat was working extra hard, but it was still cold, perfect for cuddling under a blanket.)

That evening Ben called me to let me know that he was getting ready to leave campus when he noticed he had a flat tire.  He was able to put on the spare tire, even though that wasn't very good either, and drive it to a tire place.  Once Aedan woke up from his nap, we all piled into the car to go pick up Daddy.  They would have the car for the weekend, and we could pick it up on Monday with new tires.  We got pretty much the cheapest ones they have because the Saturn only drives around town, and we really just need one to two more years out of it, until we're in more of a comfortable place financially and feel like we can make car payments again, this time probably on a minivan.

I can already tell the difference between girl preferences and boy preferences in Aedan.  Aedan LOVES balls.  He loves to play with them, hold them, squeeze them, eat them, roll them around, and he particularly likes watching Daddy throw the ball up in the air.  We will bounce the ball on the floor in front of him.  Or, Daddy will lay Aedan on the floor and then lay right next to him.  Daddy will then throw the ball in the air right above his head, and Aedan will happily watch the ball go up and down.  When Samantha was his age, she never really liked balls as much as he does.

After dinner that night, Samantha wanted to recreate her tent, except bigger, and in an area where it wouldn't keep falling down.  So we draped our quilt over the table, and Samantha had her tent.  :)  Again, she wanted Aedan (and Mommy and Daddy) to join her in her tent.  She thought it was so exciting that we were sitting under the table together.

On Saturday, after letting Aedan take a morning nap, we made another trip to the Rec Center for swimming as a family.  We knew this would be our last chance to go, and I wanted to take advantage of our ability to go for free.  Again, we had a great time in the water.  Samantha swam all around in her floatie and Aedan enjoyed splashing and being carried around.  We got back a little late from swimming, had a quick lunch, and then hung out for awhile before nap time.  While we were playing, I captured this great video of Aedan.  He has been much more active lately, rolling around, and even rocking up onto his knees for a few seconds.  Maybe there's crawling in our future?

We didn't think Samantha would take a nap because being in the water revs her up too much, but after a little while of talking and singing, she stopped making any noise, ending up sleeping about an hour.  After nap time was over, we decided to go to Five Guys for dinner.  Ben and I were craving delicious cheeseburgers.  We also stopped by JCPenney to look for some clothes, but Aedan was starting to lose it, so we cut our trip short.  However, Samantha really enjoyed walking around the department store.  She thought the mannequins were very interesting and even wanted me to take her picture standing by one.  It was so funny.  She just walked up to a mannequin, held his hand, and posed.  Did she find a replacement Daddy?  You can tell that we don't go to department stores very often.

After finishing up at JCPenney, we made one more stop at Meijer to get food for our small group lunch the next day.  I figured it wouldn't be the best to drag both kids out of the car, into the store, and then back into their car seats again, so I stayed in the car while Ben went in to get the food.  Aedan was not happy about being in his car seat in a vehicle that was not moving, so I crawled into the back seat between Samantha and Aedan to talk to them, play with them, and keep them happy until Ben returned.  Aedan entered a slap happy phase, and I made this recording of his happy laugh.  The poor guy was so tired that he ended up falling asleep in the car on the way home.

On Sunday we had small group after church, making for a busy afternoon.  Aedan took a good nap in an upstairs bedroom, and I think Samantha was slightly overwhelmed by all the kids in the basement because she chose to play with a Tinkerbell fairy house quietly upstairs in the living room where the adults were meeting.  It was cute watching her play while we discussed last week's sermon.

Over the weekend our MagicBands came in the mail.  We are now about a week away from our trip and are really getting excited.  Even Ben admitted that he's getting excited about it.  This will be our first trip together as a family of four. :)

Ben's car was still in the shop on Monday, and Miami was on a delayed schedule due to some ice we got overnight, so Ben decided to work from home again.  The rest of us had some good play time, and I got some good pictures and videos of Aedan's new favorite thing: rolling around and getting into everything he can get his hands on.  I think we're going to have to do some baby proofing sometime soon, putting away small toys that would be choking hazards for Aedan.  It's fun to see him discovering his world, figuring out how to roll to get where he wants to be, and learning how to grab things that are just out of his reach.  How a baby develops is so fascinating to me!

Aedan at 8 Months Old & Kappel Family Christmas

Samantha: 43 Months, Week 3

Aedan: Week 36

Even though Aedan was back in his own bed on Monday night, he still woke up quite a bit crying, but he was easier to get back to sleep than he was in Upland.  As a result, we were all pretty tired from our busy weekend and sleepless nights.  Ben went to campus to get some work done on Tuesday, while Samantha, Aedan, and I stayed home, played with new toys, and had a pajama day.

We were concerned with Aedan's cough since it had been lingering for over three weeks now.  We were also concerned about how his sleep was affected, not knowing if it was a result of the cough or of teething or of something else.  I called our pediatrician on Tuesday morning to try and get him in, but they didn't have any appointments available until Friday.  They weren't taking any patients that day unless the illness was more serious since they only had one doctor available.  Ben and I were both a little frustrated that we would have to wait that long to get our son in to see a doctor.  We are still used to how things operated in Bloomington, where we could always get in the same day if we had a sick child.

Even though we were a day late and had a boy that wasn't feeling the greatest with his cough and runny nose, we took his 8 month pictures on Tuesday once Daddy got home from campus.  (Sorry for the inundation of pictures.  They were just too cute to not include a little slideshow for you.)

Our kids both get so drained by being away from home with a different schedule and different beds, with lots of people and commotion.  So, we spent most of our week between the Toll family Christmas and the weekend after New Year's when my family was coming for Christmas just resting, relaxing, and recuperating.  Aedan was working on fighting his cough, and we were all getting caught up on sleep.  Here are my two sleeping cuties at nap time on New Year's Eve.  The first pictures are of Aedan during his morning nap.  He was still sleeping at 11:45, when I decided it was time to wake him up.  I had to take some pictures of him fast asleep on his side, before waking him up.

His little sleepy face is so precious.  I love him so much.

Since Aedan took such a long morning nap that day, he did not fall asleep with me when I nursed him after lunch like he usually does.  So, I just laid him down in his crib so that I could get Samantha down for her nap.  She was very tired and fell asleep easily.  I love how she tucks the blanket all the way up to her chin, covering herself completely with her blanket, with her wild hair spread out on the pillow behind her.  We have a precious little girl.

After leaving Samantha's room, I went back in Aedan's room to check on him since I laid him down while he was still awake.  He had turned himself all the way around facing the other direction in his crib and was laying on his tummy, holding the pacifier close to his mouth.  I'm glad that he is able to fall asleep while be rocked, while being nursed, or completely on his own.  What a little cutie!

We have a tradition of eating fondue on New Year's Eve, and we decide to carry on that tradition this year as well.  For dinner, we had cheese fondue with bread, green apples, carrots, and pears to dip.  Samantha participated with us again this year, but still wasn't a huge fan of the cheese fondue.  Last year, she cried when we put dipped her fruits and veggies in cheese.  This year, she just told us she didn't like that and continued to eat a good dinner of bread, fruit, and vegetables with ranch dressing.  Then, after cleaning up the cheese fondue and letting our food settle a bit, we had our dessert of chocolate fondue with strawberries, bananas, marshmallows, brownies, and doughnut holes to dip.  Samantha was a HUGE fan of this fondue, particularly the chocolate dipped doughnut holes.  :)  I had us take a New Year's Eve picture, but Samantha was too interested in eating to stop and take a picture.

While we were enjoying our chocolate fondue, we let Aedan try Cheerios for the first time.  At first he wasn't quite sure what to do as he doesn't have the pincer grasp down yet, but he enjoyed trying to figure it out and we enjoyed watching him.

As you can see in these videos, he reaches out with his hand, knowing that he's trying to grab the Cheerio.  A lot of times he would just flick the Cheerio away from him as he moved his pointer finger back and forth.  Occasionally, he would get the Cheerio in his fist and move it towards his mouth, but he had a hard time getting it from his fist successfully into his mouth.  We would help him out or put a Cheerio in his mouth for him as he tried to pick them up himself.  I think this boy is going to enjoy feeding himself once he gets some top teeth and figures out the pincer grasp a little better.

Speaking of teeth, we discovered that Aedan got his fourth tooth on New Year's Eve!  It's another bottom tooth, the one on his right side.  So now he has four teeth on the bottom and none on the top!  I joked around saying that he looks like a jack-o-lantern.  It was kind of reassuring when we saw that tooth pop up through his gums because it explains so much about his irregular behavior over Christmas and why he had such a hard time sleeping in Upland.  I know Ben and I were both worried about how he slept as we looked forward to our Disney trip where he will have to sleep in a pack and play again, as well as sleep in the same room as Samantha.  We definitely did not want a repeat of our sleepless nights in Upland.

As parents of two young kids, we don't find staying up to watch the ball drop at midnight very exciting anymore.  I think Ben and I made it to 11:00 and then decided to get in bed.  We knew our kids would wake up at the same time regardless of how late we stayed up.

For awhile now, I wanted to take Samantha on another Mommy-Daughter date, and I also wanted to get back to the Festival of Lights.  We thought about going with my family when they came to celebrate Christmas, but it was looking like the weather wouldn't be good enough to do that.  So, on January 1st, after Samantha took a nap, I decided it would be fun to take her that night to the zoo.  It was chilly out, but nothing that she couldn't handle if she was bundled up enough.  I was looking forward to spending the evening with just Samantha, leaving Aedan home with Daddy.

Our first stop at the zoo was the area with the hidden fairies.  We didn't do this last time we came to the Festival of Lights as a family, and Samantha really enjoyed finding all five fairies that were hidden among the trees.  We then walked around and saw the elephants and the giraffes in their night houses before going to the petting area.

Samantha loves petting and brushing the goats at the zoo.  She even hugged several of them, which got many smiles from the people standing around her.  She could have spent a long time there that evening, but I knew we had a limited time and I wanted to take her to the black light holiday puppet show that started at 7:30, so I convinced her to say good-bye to the goats and move on.

The puppet show was really very entertaining, and even though my rear end was freezing from sitting on the concrete seats, it was worth watching.  (I had Samantha sit on my lap so that she could stay warmer.)  It was done by the group called Madcap Puppets, the same group we saw at the Oxford Community Arts Center.  They had black lights shining on the stage so that the puppets would glow in the dark.  They had snowmen dancing and marshmallows bouncing.  Samantha thought she was just watching a TV screen, not understanding how the people were making the puppets move without being able to see the people.  Then, at the end of the show, the lights turned back on and the puppeteers showed how they made the puppets move around.  Samantha thought the show was very interesting.

After the puppet show, Samantha and I went to ride on the carousel.  She has always loved carousels, and as you can tell by this picture, was super excited to be going on the ride.

It was getting late, and we still had plans to ride the train and get a snack before heading home for the night.  Samantha was getting tired, so I carried her across part of the zoo so that we could get to the train faster.  Last time we came, the line for the train was really long, so I didn't know what to expect.  Luckily, we just had to wait for one train ride ahead of us before it was our turn.  The lights at the zoo were beautiful, and it was fun to see them all from the view of our train.

I thought it would be fun to roast marshmallows to make s'mores as our snack that night.  They had a couple stations throughout the zoo, and I thought it would be good to warm up by the fire, too.  However, by the time we went to a s'mores station after the puppet show, they were closed for some reason.  We went on the carousel and the train because we passed by those on the way to the front of the zoo where the other s'mores station was located.  However, by the time we got to the front of the zoo, that s'mores station was closed as well.  Samantha would have been really disappointed if we didn't get some kind of a snack, so I searched hard for a place that was still open so that we could get hot chocolate and a snack.  I found one place that was close by that was just about to close.  We got the last hot chocolate and the last Christmas cookie of the night.  Whew!  Just made it!  Then, we made our way into the gift shop to warm up and sat on the floor to eat our treat.  Samantha and I had a wonderful night together.  I'm so glad we are able to do special things like this with just her, to give her our undivided attention.  We stayed at the zoo until 9:00, so Samantha was pretty tired.  I encouraged her to go to sleep on the ride home, but unfortunately, I had to stop for gas and ended up waking her up.  Luckily, it didn't take long for her to fall back asleep again.  I enjoyed listening to her sleep in the back seat as we drove back home.

Friday was the start of a big weekend.  My entire family, Chicago Grandpa and Grandma, Uncle Matt, Uncle Matthew, Aunt Christy, and Brielle, were all coming to Oxford for the weekend to celebrate Christmas.  Now, Samantha knew they were coming, but she didn't know exactly when, so she woke up to a surprise, having visitors here.  A while later, Aedan woke up and she wanted to hold him.  I took this adorable picture of Samantha holding her little brother.  They are so precious together.

Our weekend was full of family.  Grandpa and Grandma slept on an air mattress in the play room.  Uncle Matt slept on the couch.  Uncle Matthew, Aunt Christy, and Brielle slept in Aedan's room so they could use Aedan's crib.  Aedan slept in the pack and play in our room.  It was a full house, but everyone fit, and I think everyone was comfortable enough.  It was fun to get the cousins together.  Aedan thought Brielle was pretty interesting (and thought she might taste good as well).

We laid them on Brielle's floor gym for awhile, until they started grabbing at each other's eyes a little too much.  I think Aedan liked having another baby around.

Samantha DEFINITELY loved having Brielle around.  She loves babies and is so good and loving with them.  She was like a little mother hen taking care of her baby chicks.

It's great to have these memories of the cousins playing together and my whole family being together.  I was so glad that everyone could come to celebrate Christmas.  I don't even remember the last time my whole family spent this much time together, probably not since we all lived in the same house together growing up.

Saturday, after Samantha and Aedan woke up from their afternoon naps, we decided to open Christmas presents before having our Christmas dinner.  We got Brielle some soft blocks, a few books, and a rattle toy.  Uncle Matthew and Aunt Christy just needed money towards some expenses, and we wanted money towards our Disney trip, so we just decided not to swap money.

We gave Grandpa and Grandma the footprint plate that we made for them, and I think they liked it. :)

Samantha got a Veggie Tales DVD and Aedan got a CD from my Aunt Diane and Uncle Bob, which was really nice of them to think of us and send presents along with my parents.

It was definitely a Disney Christmas for Samantha.  She got a Frozen cup with a straw and a built in snack cup.

Then, Grandpa and Grandma opened up another present from the Toll family and the Clemons family.  We all went in on getting them Willow Tree figures of a Grandpa and Grandma and three grandchildren.  So they can add to their collection as new grandchildren are born.

Samantha then opened up a Frozen shirt, which she immediately wanted to try on.

And Aedan got a new sleep sack from Grandpa and Grandma since he was outgrowing his old one.

Then, Samantha opened up another present from Uncle Matthew and Aunt Christy, a beautiful, sparkly Elsa dress, which replaced the Elsa shirt and brought a HUGE smile on Samantha's face.

All the commotion of opening presents tired out Brielle, who hadn't slept much that day, so she fell asleep in Christy's arms.  Too cute!

Here is Samantha in her Elsa dress...

And, of course, she had to sing "Let It Go." :)

Aedan got some nice 12 month clothes, as well as a little dinosaur toy from Grandpa and Grandma.  After a good Christmas dinner of ham, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, homemade bread, and fruit, we also feasted on pumpkin pie and pecan pie.  Our tummies were full, it was getting close to bedtime, and our kids were getting slap happy.  I got this cute video of Samantha playing with Aedan, making him totally crack up.  I love this laugh of his.

Sunday morning was a pretty relaxed morning, spent hanging out and getting ready for church.  Here are the kids in the morning when everyone woke up for the day.  Samantha wanted to hold both babies.  :)  Just look at that great smile on Brielle's face!

Later, once Samantha was ready for church, Grandpa was holding Brielle, and Samantha thought it would be a good idea to read her some books.  Samantha is so good with little kids. :)  It's rather amazing to me how much she enjoys including little kids in activities, whether it be reading to them, playing with them, or making them laugh.

Grandpa, Grandma, and Uncle Matt left as soon as we got home from church on Sunday.  Uncle Matthew, Aunt Christy, and Brielle stayed through until Monday morning because Matthew got the day off work.  The rest of Sunday we had nap time for the kiddos, rest time for the adults, and we even played a game together.  Uncle Matthew and Aunt Christy are always up for playing games when they come to visit.  They offered to make us white chicken enchiladas for dinner that night, which was really sweet of them to offer to make a meal after we'd made all the other meals that weekend.  It gave us a nice break from the kitchen.  That night the adults were all a bit tired, and a new season of Downton Abbey was on, so we just vegged out on the couch together, watching TV and eating ice cream.

Uncle Matthew, Aunt Christy, and Brielle got up and got ready fairly early on Monday morning so that they could head back to Chicago during day light hours, hoping that Brielle would do better in the car, and also giving them more time to celebrate Matthew's birthday at home.  After they left, we went into full force taking down our Christmas tree and packing away all Christmas decorations.  It's always this time of year when the tree has already been up for close to six weeks, things are a bit more cluttered than normal, and I have a desire to just get everything Christmas put away.  Samantha was a big helper in taking the ornaments off the tree and helping me find their proper boxes.  By dinner time that evening, we had everything boxed up and stored away in the garage.  Ben even got me a few plastic bins for storing most of our Christmas decorations, so that way hungry mice don't find their way into our boxes again.

After a busy day of work around the house, we were ready to relax that night.  We got the Wii out and played some games with Samantha.  She especially likes the fighting game where you are to knock the other person off the pedestal and the bike racing game.  We tried a couple other games, but most of them took a little too much coordination for her.  It's fun to do together as a family as a way to relax and spend time together.