The Best Day Ever!!!

Aaron and I just had the Best Day Ever! Our morning started out by sleeping in until almost 7:00 a.m., which IS actually sleeping around here. We played around for awhile and then finally got up. 

We did our weekly shopping and I bought some beautiful Mother's Day flowers for myself. While the color is not something I am typically drawn to in other areas, these have become one of my favorite variety of roses. And this set, in particular, smells so amazing! (The scent reminds me of my great-grandmother's rose gardens.)

Happy Mother's Day to all moms, moms-to-be, step-moms (or bonus moms as my own likes to say -- Thanks Jo Ann!), mom-in-laws, and all other mom-like-women.!!!

Around 11:30, we headed over to a new water park that our city just opened this month. Can you say AWESOME?!?!?! We both had so much fun!

We left about an hour later to get some lunch. Aaron had seen someone with pizza and decided he must have that for lunch. Luckily, we were only a couple of blocks away from Pier 49 Pizza, which sells it by the slice.

After lunch was a quick nap and then we went back to the water park. It was a lot more crowded in the afternoon, but Aaron still had a ton of fun. We ended up being there for almost 2 hours, but it felt like half that amount of time. 

On the way home, I asked Aaron if he thought it was the Best Day Ever and he agreed...so it's unanimous!

Silly Songs

I mentioned in my last post that Aaron and I do "books and rock-a-bye's" at bedtime. The last thing we do before he lays down is sing songs. Much like most things, he has cycles of favorites. About a week ago, he asked me to sing 'Old MacDonald Had A Farm', which is not one he had chosen before.

I started to sing using the normal farm animals. After the first 3 animals, I suddenly couldn't think of any more! I stammered for a bit and then said the first animal that came to mind...a monkey. Aaron looked up at me with this silly grin and said, "Not a MONKEY!"

I started to laugh and asked, "Not a monkey? How come?". He gave me several reasons, like the fact that they swing in trees and live in the jungle. I finally said, "Okay, okay, okay" (using a silly tone of voice), and chose another actual farm animal. (Thank goodness I'd come up with another one by then.) ;)

Since then, it's been the "Funny MacDonald's" song every night. I've started to incorporate animals from different areas and we talk about where each of them lives as part of the reason they can't be on the farm. Sometimes, I'll even throw in a dolphin, whale or shark. Oh, and when I do choose an actual farm animal, I make funny faces while making the animal sound. Aaron loves that part, too.

This is one time I'm glad my memory wasn't so great because it started a great new tradition!

I LOVE discovering "new" things...

The last thing that happened with Aaron today (after a very good day, by the way), was to see his very excited face over his "heart beep"! He is so excited that he can feel his "heart beep" in his chest that he is going to tell the kids at church all about it!

So now, the story...

I was putting Aaron to bed tonight, which is always a treat for me. We had the typical "books and rock-a-bye's" for his bedtime routine. After we "read" his book of choice tonight, which was really "The Great Big Book of Things To Find", he laid down for hugs and kisses. (By the way, this kid is incredible at finding the items in each picture!)

He's been having a difficult time letting me leave him at night, lately. I've been working on ways to lighten the separation at bedtime. Tonight, what naturally happened was to treat him like my pillow instead of my beautiful boy. As I had my ear against his chest, I could hear his heartbeat and mentioned it to him.

After a few times of tapping my finger on him in time with the beat, it occurred to me that I could show him where to feel it himself.

Oh my! The excitement that happened after that! His eyes bugged out and he kept saying, "Can you hear my heart beep? Can you hear it in my stomach?"

My favorite part was the eyes, though. Those big, golden brown eyes so sparkling and wide open! Honestly, after how hard the past few weeks have been with him, nights like tonight make it ALL worth it! :-D

FINALLY! An update!

I am FINALLY updating my blog, per a request from Grandma Jo Ann.  (By the way, I will never post anything else about potty training.)

Aaron and I got to go to Las Vegas last weekend for my Mamaw’s 85^th birthday. My dad arranged a terrific dinner at Mimi’s Café with a beautiful birthday cake. We got to see a lot of family that we don’t see very much. My younger sister from Washington was there and shared a hotel room with us. Aaron also got to meet his Uncle Robert for the first time.

I will post pictures later this weekend. I didn’t take very many photos this time.  I know! I was surprised too!

Normally, I love taking pictures, especially when there are people I don’t see very often. Having a very active and very excited 3-year-old really makes a difference in how much attention I spend on things like that right now.

(I am very much looking forward to getting copies of the pictures everyone else took….hint, hint!)  ;)

Aaron was soooo excited to go on a plane. He talked about it for over a week. He did such an amazing job being so nice and obedient on the plane rides, too. He was in charge of his own suitcase and carried it with him the whole time. He didn’t even complain once…although, he did drop it and keep on walking when we were at the baggage claim in the Vegas airport. He just decided he didn’t want to carry it anymore. He picked it up again and we kept going.

Aaron loved seeing his Aunt Jeni, Grandpa Dave, Grandma Jo, Sondra and Bella, the Hawkes, and his other uncles and cousins that were there. There were a few moments that were my personal favorites:

•          When we were leaving Mimi’s, Aaron said, “Grandpa Dave is my best friend”. 
•          As we were giving our final hugs and kisses before leaving, Aaron pushed his way through to get to Grandma Jo. This was particularly sweet because it took him awhile to warm up to her at first.
•          As we were getting into the rental car to go back to the airport on the last day, he was very disappointed and said, “I thought Grandpa Dave was going to drive with us”. He was very sad.
•          Aaron got to play a lot with Aunt Jeni, which was great!
•          Oh, and “maked gwirwirls”. Lots and lots of them in the two tourist magazines the car rental company left in the car for us. Aaron was looking through them and (thankfully!) Aunt Jeni was watching to make sure he didn’t see anything in appropriate. She and Megan were able to censor them after Jeni saw the first “maked gwirwirl” by tearing out any pictures that were not Mommy-approved.

On our last night there, I got to have a girl’s night with my sisters Shera, Jeni and Sondra. (Okay, technically, Sondra is my sister-in-law, but she has always felt like family to me.) A huge THANK YOU to Blaine for watching Aaron so I could spend some adult time with the girls!!!

Aaron wants to make sure I tell the following highlights of the trip (in his own words):

•           To fly on a plane!
•           Eat dinner with Grandma Jo, and give her hugs and kisses.
•          Say I love you” to everybody.
•          To sleep in his bedroom again.
•          To see (his) mom again at Shera’s house. (Not on the trip, but later.)
•          To play on the floor on his carpet with (his) cars and (his) other guys with the blue car.

We were both sad to leave, but I am very grateful for the time we got to spend with our family.

I am also very grateful to Aaron for being as good as he was. Not every 3-year-old can handle that much travel and excitement in such a short amount of time as well as he did.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying he didn’t have his moments or that they weren’t quite dramatic when they happened. There were plenty and they were always dramatic. Some of them even dragged out over quite a bit of time. But overall, he really did very well and I learned a lot about how to handle traveling with him.

Happy 85^th birthday, Mamaw! Thank you, Dad /Grandpa Dave for putting this together!

Potty Training!

Last Sunday, I realized that if I continued to follow the "let the child decide when they're ready to potty train" method Aaron would be in diapers forever. Well, maybe not forever, but a very long time. This is not an idea that I am fond of, so I decided to do something about it.

I  talked about potty training methods with my older sister and decided to just go for it. So, the next morning, I informed Aaron that he would no longer be wearing diaper. We put him in his big boy underwear...that we bought when he was about 20 months old and first starting showing interest in the potty thing.

The first day at daycare was super messy and difficult for all involved. Day 4 at daycare was nearly accident free...only one poopy mess. That night, Aaron went into the bathroomm all by himself. When he was done, he came into the living room (underwear still down around his ankles) and informed me proudly that he had peed. When I went into the bathroom I was very pleasantly surprised to find it was quite a bit more than that.

I was thrilled!

So far today, he is accident free!!! I am so incredibly proud of my boy!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

And it was for Aaron and me. We had the best day!

It started early with a drive up to Sandy (about ½ an hour away) to the nearest Trax station (the closest local train transportation system).

Have I mentioned before that Aaron is in LOVE with trains? We live near some rather busy tracks that also happen to go directly in front of his daycare, so he gets to hear and see them several times a day. This was his first time riding one and, oh my heavenly days, can you say “excited”?!

It was about another ½ hour train ride to The Gateway in downtown Salt Lake City where they were having a St. Patrick’s Day parade followed by several performances with dancers and musicians. The parade was actually more fun than I thought it would be. About halfway through, we ended up with Aaron in the stroller just walking up and down part of the parade route.

Then we ran into one of the groups of pipers. Aaron wanted to follow them and there was no way I was going to object. Have I mentioned before that I am in LOVE with bagpipes?

We walked with them for most of the route with Aaron bouncing his head and tapping his feet to the music. Cutest thing ever! I got a little bit on camera, but not much because they started to move again. (In case you didn’t know, it’s really quite difficult to steer a stroller through a very crowded and narrow sidewalk while videotaping from behind the subject. Picture one arm outstretched in front, camera turned around, lots of zigzagging…not pretty.) I’ll see if I can figure out how to post what I was able to get.

We stayed to watch some of the performances, most of which Aaron slept through. I am extremely grateful that he took a nap so we could stay and enjoy more of the fun. I got to see a couple of dance groups perform, which totally reminded me of and made me miss my sister Jeni. (She is an incredible Irish and Scottish dancer.)

Shortly after Aaron woke up, he was looking around and noticed some musicians outside, so we went out to hear them play. They were really good! I sort of danced along while I held Aaron. There were a few other kids there dancing out in front of the crowd and Aaron almost danced with them. He got shy about it when I put him down, which is not typical of him. Maybe he just wasn’t fully awake yet.

We took another train ride back to our car, had a quick dinner at the Olive Garden and came home where we spent the next hour playing hide and seek “Aaron style”. I’ll write about that in another post, but I’ll just leave with this…it’s about the most fun I’ve had playing hide-and-seek.

All in all, this has been the best St. Patrick’s Day that I can remember.

And now I’m exhausted, so off to bed. ‘Night!

Cutest Sleeper Ever!

I don't think I've met a parent alive who doesn't think their child(ren) are just too darn cute when they are sleeping, and I am no exception. In the 2-1/2 years of Aaron's life, I have managed to capture on film some adorable sleep positions.


There are, of course, the early months of his life....when EVERYTHING he did was just beyond cute!




Then there are the odd and sometimes uncomfortable looking positions as he starts to get a little older. (I swear I don't know how he sleeps that way!)



































But, my favorite so far has to be his latest position. I have found him laying like this on 3 separate occasions in the last couple of weeks.





Too darn cute, I tell you!!!