Phone Photo Catch Up

We've been busy with my dad here.  Lots to do!  One of the things he surprised us with is a new sidewalk to lead from our driveway to the front door.  When we put in the new wall this past summer, it blocked the view of the front door.  So people who have never been to my house before may have trouble deciding which way to walk.  This sidewalk solves that.  It also created a flower bed for me to add some landscaping.  I can't wait to spruce up the wall.  I've got some plans in my head.  Hopefully they turn out as good in reality.  Some of the plants I'd like to use are not availabe yet.  I'll purchase those when it gets warmer.

The sidewalk is not quite finished.  The project was supposed to be two-day deal, but turned into a week.  We still need more pavers, pea gravel and soil to level the ground around the new raised portion of the sidewalk.  No walking in puddles to get to my house dangit! 

I love how a project starts as laying a few pavers and turns into leveling the land in my front yard.

Stupid sideways photos.  I don't know how to fix them at all now.  This happened on my home computer as well.  AHHHHH.

The first weekend my dad was here, he made us pancakes for breakfast.  He made his infamous Mickey Mouse pancake with raisins for the eyes, nose and mouth.  Aiden got to watch him make the cake.  He LOVED it.  He ate the entire thing.  He refused to let me cut it though, so it was quite a mess. 

We had a mini-Valentine's Day party after my dad got here.  He bought us lots of candy and cards.  Ariel came over with alcohol gear from the bar.  Not the most ideal thing for a child to be wearing, but Aiden really enjoyed the wrist bands from Jagermeister.  They turned into arm bands when he got a hold of them. 

Showing off his muscles.  He had to concentrate to "flex".

Aiden has also found a friend in Phage recently . He's our male cat that has always been really easy going.  I think we're going to have to get male cats from here on out.  The females are all too spastic for me.  Anyway, Aiden loves to give the cats each a treat in the morning when he wakes up.  It's so cute.  I told him they only get one each, so he gives them each one and then the cats beg for more.  Aiden throws his hands up in the air, gets this high-pitched voice and says, "There's no more.  That's all." and he puts the bottle back in the cabinet.  Love him.

He also likes covering Phage up for nap time.  He finds every one of his blankets he can get his hands on and tucks the cat in.  Phage just lays there and takes it.  Even if Aiden accidentally lays on him too hard.  He just yelps and waits for Aiden to get off. 

On Saturday and Sunday mornings Aiden lays in bed with us and watches cartoons.  Phage has started plopping down right in Aiden's lap and basking in the attention.  Such a needy cat.  Thank goodness Aiden is here to help.

PS - We're trying to grow Aiden's hair out (in case you didn't notice the shag).  We haven't quite decided how to cut it since his hair is still baby fine.  His hair IS a little wavy, but I was sort of thinking something like this or this.  It's a work-in-progress, I guess.

My Little Guy

Sunday morning we took Aiden to get his second professional haircut.  I have trimmed his hair tons of times and he generally does okay for me.  But when a stranger touches his head?  WATCH OUT.  We went to the same place we went last time.  He wouldn't even sit in the car chair.  So the hair dresser had the brilliant idea to have Aiden sit in Travis' lap while he got his hair cut.

Both Travis and Aiden wore a cover-up to prevent hair from getting all over their clothes.  I gave Aiden a suckers and the hairdresser put Spiderman on the mini-TV.  Aiden chose Spiderman.  Next time, I'm choosing Toy Story.  Aiden tends to get uninterested during the parts of Spiderman when the main character is not in costume.  That was less than helpful during the hair cut.   But it did help little bit.  When he was distracted, Aiden didn't mind the hair dresser at all.  She cut the majority of his hair with scissors, then cleaned up the edges with clippers.  I had to hold Aiden's arms down during the clippers.

Anyhoo, here's the finished product!

He looks so much older to me with his hair cut this short.  I think I'm going to grow it out again.  At least a little.  This was a lot shorter than I was hoping.  At least he's all cleaned up for the wedding this weekend!

Happy Day of Love

Our son and his toddler bed were a little interesting this weekend. This was the first time for him to sleep in the bed during the day, aside from the very first time we set it up last Sunday. When he laid down in the bed all week at night, he didn't really try to play for very long. I'm assuming that's because it was too dark to do anything. But during the day! During nap time! That is a different story all together.

Saturday was horrible. We took all the toys we could out of his room, covered his window with a thick blanket to help block out the light, then let him try to sleep for an hour. Whenever he got up, we would go in silently and lead him back to bed and then leave. When that didn't work, Travis finally sat next to the bed and held him down. He cried for 10 minutes straight, but then finally calmed down enough to sniffle to sleep. Travis left him before he had fully fallen asleep.

Sunday was a complete 180. We took all the toys out before we closed Aiden in. I decided to let him give it a try on his own for 30 minutes on his own. I went in a couple times to lead him silently back to bed, but after 25 minutes there was nothing but silence from his room. Gooooo Aiden! Seriously, awesome moment in parenting.

Sunday afternoon, we took Aiden to a kids' hair salon. Since things didn't go so smoothly the first time around, we let the salon have a go.

Here's the shaggy mullet before:

Unfortunately, they didn't have much better luck than we did. Aiden could NOT STAND that some stranger was touching him.

He kept leaning away from the hair stylist, screaming "No!" Poor kid. The whole thing took no more than five minutes, but I'd bet anything that Aiden would rank it in the Top 5 Worst Moments of His Life. Right up there with vaccinations and being held down at nap time.

Since this was a salon for kids, Aiden sat in a car during his hair cut and got to watch an Elmo movie. The two of those together were not enough to calm this boy for a five minute hair cut. What has the world come to?