Christmas

We are so blessed with great families. Christmas is more like a four day long celebration than just one day. Aspen and Journey got so many fun toys and really enjoyed playing with their cousins. We normally spend Christmas Eve with Mark's family and Christmas Day with mine. This year we went up to Mark's parent's house the weekend before Christmas. There was a couple feet of snow on the ground and snowed on Saturday. Aspen had a blast being pulled on the sled (with daddy) behind the motorcycle by Uncle Ryan. He was literally screaming in excitement! Journey and Ava (7 1/2 months) are both sitting up now and could play together. And they were so cute in their Christmas dresses. Lisa and Aaron and "the boys" all came on Sunday afternoon and we had a great time watching all the kids open their presents. There was no shortage of toys, let me tell you! Journey got some adorable dolls and loves them :)

Thanks to Aunt Lisa for the handmade bows. They are so cute!

Aspen loves to play with his cousin Luke and we were sad that we couldn't stay longer to let them play. Unfortunately both the kids did not sleep well away from home so we went home a night early.

Christmas morning Aspen woke up right at 7am. He came in our room and in the sweetest voice said "Merry Christmas mommy! I'm going to give you a big Christmas hug!" What a great way to wake up and start the day! We opened presents at home and then went to my parent's house for brunch and more presents. Journey enjoyed playing with the wrapping paper and Peyton slept through most of the day. Every year it is a contest between my brothers and Justin on who gets Aspen the most loved present. Usually Adrian wins but this year it was a close call between Adrian's gumball machine (thanks a lot!) and Justin's huge excavator. A couple minutes after opening the gumball machine, Aspen had about 10 in his mouth. I can't wait to find that in the carpet around here!

Great Job!

This week Mark took and passed his exam to be a loan officer. He already has three loans in progress! He does not waste any time :) I am very proud of how hard he works for us.

He is always thinking ahead and finding creative ways to improve on what he is already doing. So many times it seems like nothing goes the way it should, and I am amazed at how he tackles each challenge without giving up. I could never do what he does!

Love you sweety!

(He's going to kill me for the pic! I clicked on the wrong one. I can't figure out how to delete it though!)

Christmas Dresses

I love having a girl!!!

The Man

Aspen is the kind of kid that needs a lot of attention and doesn't really "play" with toys that much unless you are right there to do it with him. But he does tend to fixate on one toy that goes everwhere with him. Right now it is "the man". He has carried and slept with it everyday for the past 4 months. His name changes, sometimes he is superman, sometimes transformer and sometimes spiderman, but most often he is simply called "the man". I am so curious to see if that will change once Christmas comes!

Appreciating the Differences

Now that I have two kids, I am noticing the differences in each of them. There are so many traits of Aspen that I didn't really notice until I had Journey to compare to and vice-versa. There are so many things I love about each of them.

Aspen

- He is so loving and affectionate. Rarely does a day go by that he doesn't tell me how pretty I am.

- He is all boy. Camo is his favorite thing to wear. He loves to wrestle and rough house. He LOVES to burn things and make fires.

- Aspen loves to help me in the kitchen, do the laundry and do his "job" (putting the silverware away).

- He has a great memory. Whether it is memorizing scripture or events, I am always amazed at his memory. Just the other day we were driving past a vet's office that Mark and Aspen took our cat to over a year ago (while he was 2 1/2 years old). He pointed it out and recited the whole story in detail of what happened when they took the cat in. Including how the cat got a shot, how the cat was trying to get away, what daddy said, etc. It was the only time Aspen had ever been there and we hadn't talked about it since it happened. It blew me away!

- Okay, I don't necessarily love having a super picky boy, but it doesn't really bug me too much either. Although it is pretty weird at Thanksgiving dinner when everyone is eating this amazing dinner and he is eating a PB&J sandwich (happened last two years in a row). So that I can remember later, here is what he will eat:

oatmeal, berries, waffles, pancakes, french toast, cheese sandwich, PB&J sandwich, mac & cheese, pasta w/ butter & Parmesan, kiwi, string cheese, yogurt, granola, cereal, milk, crackers, nuts, chips and of course, pretty much all sweets.

Journey

- All the adorable outfits, bows and headbands! Everyday is like dress-up. Journey has only worn pants a handful of times. The dresses are too cute!

- She is not a picky eater at all! I can't think of anything she has tasted that she spit out or even really made a bad face at. I was so worried that I would have to make 3 different things at each meal.

- Journey is a mama's girl all the way. I love that she always wants me over anyone.

- She does so good in restaurants. Even at this age, Aspen was too active to sit in a restaurant without squirming, throwing everything within reach on the floor and squealing.

- No one can make Journey laugh like Aspen. She loves him so much. She especially loves to touch his hair in the morning when it is huge and sticking up everywhere.

- Journey is not as busy and loud as Aspen. This is good because Aspen is soooo high energy and I'm not sure I could keep up with two crazy, loud kids!

- Did I mention just how cute the dresses are?

A Hard Lesson

Yesterday poor Aspen had to learn a lesson the hard way......

Here's a little background - We had baked two different types of Christmas cookies the day before to give to the girls at our favorite coffee shop (Coffee's On). Aspen loves to help me in the kitchen and had a great time with me. As I made the dough into balls and he made his into snakes. Lots of snakes. And I allowed him to eat all of them after they were done cooking.

Okay, so fast forward one day. We were now going to frost all the cookies so that we could make our delivery. The first kind of cookies were going to get chocolate frosting made from real chocolate bars. As I was chopping the chocolate up to get melted, I told Aspen that he was not to eat any of the chocolate (mean I know, but he had eaten lots of cookies the day before and had told me that he wasn't feeling good that morning). A few minutes later I glanced over at Aspen and he had the guiltiest look on his face. And he was chewing something very, very slowly....... "Did you eat the chocolate?" I asked him. Trying to decide what to say he slowly nodded. "Oh Aspen! Didn't I just tell you not to eat any chocolate?" I asked "Why don't you meet me in the bathroom." The bathroom is where we do spankings and sometimes time-outs, and I needed a few minutes to think of what the punishment should be :)

I kept cooking for about another minute while I tried to think over what to do next. It didn't seem like a spanking issue. But time-out didn't seem to fit either. I quickly asked God what I should do in this situation and went to meet Aspen. He was there waiting for me. "let's talk about this mom" he said (a common stalling technique). I told him that because he could not wait like I asked, he would have a 3 minute time out and that he would not be able to eat any cookies today. His jaw dropped and he exclaimed "No, mom! Can I have a spanking? Can I please have a spanking instead???" That's when I knew that God had guided me to pick the right consequence. It was a hard one for him and there were a lot of tears. All day he would ask me if he could have a cookie, already knowing what the answer would be, but tesing none the less. Something I have realized that we need to work on is self-control. Hopefully that is a lesson that will stick with him. I think it hurt far worse than a spanking ever would :)

Fussy and Fighting Naps!

Okay, I have to vent here. Where has my easy going, laid back baby gone? Up until about a month ago Journey was so laid back and happy. From the time she was born she was completely happy in the swing or on the floor with toys or watching Aspen. Now I can barely leave her side without her fussing or crying. She is so clingy and just plain fussy. I thought at first it was teething because her top front tooth was taking its sweet time coming in, but now that it has been in for a while I don't have anything to blame it on. I am really hoping it is somehow a phase and not just my parenting style.........

And another thing, I am having the hardest time with getting Journey to nap. She is so inconsistent. Every nap time I am holding my breath to see if she will actually sleep. I am getting so tired of being stressed out listening to Journey cry it out. Night time sleep has gotten better though. She almost always sleeps through the night now. I am thankful for that. Wow, its been a tough day! I work so hard at being consistent and it just doesn't seem to make things any better or more predictable. I absolutely love having a baby girl. It has been so much fun. I think it has just been the unpredictability that has been wearing me out. I think she has a stubborn streak. Yikes!