prayers please

My boys both have the flu and Aiden (his fever spiked during the night and the symptoms all came back like Christmas Eve even after being on antibotic) even has strep right along with it. So please keep us in your prayers. I did not get preventive medicine because they don't offer it anymore so when leaving the nurse said to me, "I'm sure I'll see you back in a couple of days."
PLEASE NOO! My house looks like an F5 tornado hit, my Christmas decor is still up, the laundry is stacked sky high, shopping needs to be done, and it's my week off work I don't have time for sickness.
PRAYERS PLEASE!!!!

short and sweet

Short and sweet:
Wed. my mom and dad went WAYYYY out of their way and spent their entire 2009 salary (only kidding) on Christmas presents for everyone. Aiden got sick Christmas Eve night with 104 fever. Even with a high fever and miserable he still loved that Santa brought him a tool bench (and much more). We still took him to all the Christmas functions in hopes to not get everyone else sick. Christmas night Brandons parents spent their entire salary on us again by getting us WAAAYYY too much stuff (we aren't complaining though). Aiden started feeling better Sat. night. We did Christmas with my dads parents tonight. While there Brandon starting feeling sick and is now VERY sick. Aiden is getting better but potty training will probably be postponed now. Oh darn, now we will just have to enjoy our week off work and school and get Brandon well.
Thanks to all our family for making Christmas so great this year and remembering the reason we celebrate this season.
ON A FINAL SIDE NOTE AIDEN'S 2ND BIRTHDAY COUNTDOWN HAS BEGUN- HENCE THE BACKGROUND CHANGE. 28 DAYS

As you may remember from my post last year Christmas for the Barden/Stephenson Christmas (my mom's brothers family) it was not so fun. This year was MUCH more exciting for me because I wasn't sick and Aiden is older. We had a blast and the girls loved their pom poms so much they did numerous cheers for us. Way too cute.Bring on the presents

Aiden had all his presents opened in less than 1 minute and....was on to help his cousins with theirs.

Pacifier Freedom COMPLETE

PACIFIER FREE!

If only potty training is this easy- we will find out next week! Wish us luck!

Pacifier Freedom Day 3

Day 2 Aiden must have hit a wall because Day 3 was a BREEZE. Aiden hasn't asked for or wanted his dis at all. He didn't whine at all last night when we stood in the funeral home line for 2 hours. He ate, bathed, and went to bed all without dis. I did put it beside his pillow in case he woke in the middle of the night and needed it. Of course he did wake and find it and woke this morning sucking on it but I'm thinking this is more of a habit than a soothing thing. He ate this morning, dressed, and rode to school without even asking for dis. I took it to school today for the teachers if they need it at nap time but she told me the past 2 days he hasn't even asked for it. Hopefully Monday my post will be of many fun pictures from our first Christmas parties and Aiden will be without a dis. HUH?? What are you serious pictures of Aiden without his paci, yippee!!!

Pacifier freedom day 2

So night 1 without dis was actually fairly easy and like I said yesterday school went well without it also. However last night I really realized how much we used Aiden's pacifier as a crutch to pacify him. We went to eat last night and Aiden was fairly well until he was through eating and ready to go, before we were done of course, and the only thing I could do to keep him from making a scene was either get up and walk with him or make a bigger scene by spanking him. Usually I would give him his dis and he will sit until we are done and since he had NO desire to touch his dis the only option was to walk with him.

Going to sleep was in no way similar than Tues night and Aiden let the tears flow when he got in bed and wanted his original dis. Keep in mind I never took his dis I just tampered with it a little. He finally calmed down and went to sleep but not until he just became content with the broke dis and sucked himself to sleep. When he woke this morning he still had his dis in mouth and before leaving for school (and before getting his hair brushed of course) I snapped a pic. Looks like he is being content with the broke dis instead of getting rid of it. Everything I read said give them a week before they completely put the paci down for good so we are keeping our fingers crossed still.

Sucker

Aiden loves suckers especially this one from Will's birthday party.

Pacifier Freedom Day 1

So after very little thought and consideration Brandon and I decided we are sick of our sweet, perfect, handsome boy having a paci. After all what is so cute about a 2 year (soon to be) removing his paci in public in order to eat or talk. Aiden's paci is literally his best friend, he wants to have it all the time.
Therefore after reading many articles online I decided the best way to get rid of the pacifier is to snip the tip off and still let him keep it, in hopes that the soothing effect the paci gives him will soon wear off. So on a whim last night I decided tonight is the night and I snipped the tip off. I handed Aiden his "dis" (he calls it dis because when he was a baby we would say "Aiden you want this" while handing him his paci and that name just stuck as "dis"). After flipping the dis many times (I guess flipping helps I don't know he does it alot) he handed it to me and said "mommy dis broke". Brandon and I proceeded to laugh hysterically, hiding the laughter from him of course, and said yes baby dis is broke just like your piano (which the batteries died on and we haven't replaced).
He never once cried or complained. However it did take him quite a while to fall asleep last night, 2 hours to be exact, but I never rushed him just let him calm down on his own and learn he doesn't have to have dis to calm down. He held it in his hand and eventually fell asleep. He did wake unusually early but actually left dis in his bed. I gave it to him as we left for school and he sucked on it very little on the way to school.
Brandon just informed me he napped at school today and never once asked for dis. When leaving school he did ask Brandon for dis, when Brandon gave it to him he said, "oh daddy dis broke" and handed it back to Brandon. We will see how the night goes tonight and prepare for an update tomorrow.

Christmas fireman

Did you really think we would go to a Christmas function without the backwards fire hat?

accomplishments

"Mom do these things make me look smart""Even though I wear them upside down""Mom, this bear is really loud can you make it stop or do I just need to plug my ears?" "Now thats better" (He actually just ran to his room and got these and came back in the room like this)

"Look I can undress myself" "Goodness how do you do this so fast mom?"

"FINALLY IT'S OFF"

THANKSGIVING DAY WOULD NOT BE COMPLETE WITHOUT HUNTING

Aiden and I after running the St. Jude 1/2 marathon As you can see the past few weeks we have been very busy. Aiden is just way to full of himself and learning all kinds of new things. He has picked up a new favorite phrase..."Oh my goodness". Thanksgiving was a great time spending with our families, eating, and shopping.

This Sat. I ran the St. Jude marathon with my brothers and cousin for the 4th year and it was absolutely incredible just like always. This year was by far the coldest weather and largest group I have ever ran with but this was also the first year we have ran through the St. Jude hospital. It was just as rewarding as all the other years to know as one sign read "children are alive because of you."

22 months

Yesterday marked Aiden's 22 month birthday. He's growing so much. We are working on his animals and colors. We are also working on complete sentences for instance: "Where it go?" should be "Where did it go"

I can't even begin to go into detail about what all he is doing now but he does everything most 1 year olds can do plus more.

Just a few funny facts about Aiden:

- His favorite word is NO

- He has never NEVER cleaned his plate, in fact he would go days without eating if I didn't force him to eat.

- Don't worry he gets his vitamins in- he drinks about 20 glasses of chocolate milk a day

- In his mind- a cow says meow

- In his mind- A dog doesn't say "whoof whoof" all it does is pant

- He refers to me as Renee when he needs something

- He refers to Gram as Deborah at day care

- If Aiden has meet you one time he will never forget your name

- "Who's that mommy", "whats that mommy", "where it go", "come on"are his constant phrases all day

Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving season.

"If your not thankful for what you have, you will not be thankful for what your going to get."

Photography

Have you ever wished you could learn to do something so bad and no matter how hard you tried it's just not for you? Well, one of those wishes for me is photography. Maybe I don't have the right camera or maybe it's just not my gift but for some people it is. I pledged Chi Omega with a friend, Elizabeth Wiggs, that photography is definitely her gift. Even though Aiden was not in the mood for pictures she snapped so many cute pics. I had to lower the resolution of the pics above so they are blurry. We took these pictures at my grandmom's house and the beautiful lady you see in these pics is her. I'm SOOO mad at myself for not getting any of just Aiden but atleast we have our first ever family pictures! If you are looking for a very talented photographer check out some of her other work here.

Pepaw

Thank you for all the prayers for us and our family over the past few days.

On Sunday Brandon's grandfather (who he is VERY close to) passed away from a massive heartattack. These past few days have been very hard for the entire family. Aiden has had a hard time trying to figure out where pepaw has been the past couple of days and he was so precious telling pepaw bye bye while he laid in the casket, unfortunately Aiden has no idea he will not see pepaw again (in this life). We will surely miss him! Please pray for all his family especially during the holidays!

Sheriff Aiden

Fishing for Ducks at Fall Fun festTrick or treatAiden and EllaAiden and his buddy Cade my nephews and brother aka Alvin and the Chipmunks with Dave

tears....

The past 2 weeks so many exciting and heartbreaking tears have been shed.

One of my best friends, Beth, is pregnant. We are soo excited and Aiden told me he can't wait to have a new friend coming in June 2010. She is due a week before my sister in law was.

Yes you read that correctly- was. This brings on the heartbreaking sad tears. This week my sister in law and brother had their 6th miscarriage. I have come to realize we will never have the answers to why God opted for them to go through this but I know 2 wonderful things they came from it- my adoptive nephews!

Please pray for my brother and sister in law during this heartbreaking time.

VACATION PICTURE OVERLOAD

This week we took a much needed vacation to Pigeon Forge. We had so much fun despite the rainy cold weather. The boys still golfed and I still shopped. Aiden loved spending so much time with his cousins and I loved being with my newphews and niece. Enjoy all the pics:

Brandon and I riding the roller coaster that I got sick on!

Rock Climbing for the 1st time- I am NO good at this!

Brandon Rock Climbing- he was a lot better than me!

ME

I couldn't even get off the ground!

My big brother- it took him like 20 sec. to get to the top!

Laying on a bed of nails- it didn't hurt too bad either!

Riding motorcycles

aquarium with everyone

telling Sawyer about the fish

Quinton redirecting Aiden

up close and personal with a shark

and crab

and jellyfish

brotherly love

Sweet Aiden

my brother's family ( I didn't get a pic of my other brothers fam)

mom and dad