Aidan's First Christmas!

Santa paid Aidan a visit over the holidays...a few visits, in fact! Grammy, Papi, and Uncle Jason were here for Christmas and we had a great time with them. Grammy and I took Aidan to the Christmas Eve service at our old church. Then we celebrated with Cookie, Great-Grandmother, Uncle Cody, Aunt Amy, and Aunt Lindsay after Christmas, then Grandpa, Nanna, and Uncle Jacob drove up for a visit. Aunt Kathleen had to work but we got to see her right before Christmas. Aidan raked in tons of new toys, as you can tell! His favorite thing to play with on Christmas morning was the wrapping paper that Great Pa & Gamma wrapped his present in! He has a brand new playmat and a new cubbyhole bookshelf for all his toys, so we have converted our gameroom into a playroom. Aidan is babbling more and is trying to pull up on stuff! He just turned 8 months old, Mommy just turned 30 years old on Christmas Day, and Daddy's 29th birthday is on Saturday!

Revenge is not sweet!

Aidan's "Aunt" Leslie sent him his Christmas present, a dump truck that makes noises and moves along the floor. Aidan loves watching it and he especially loves playing with the shapes that the dump out of the back. I don't know why Leslie decided to give Aidan such a loud, annoying toy. She's so mean! Could it be that I gave Jack the exact same truck last year???

Christmas party

We went to our Sunday School Christmas party tonight. Aidan stayed up way past his bedtime but he did great and we all had a good time. We tried to get all the kiddos together for a few pictures. It was much easier said than done! Aidan was sick of pictures after a few minutes, as you can tell.

Crawling!!!

Aidan finally figured out how to get around! He's not zooming around yet, but he's getting there. Now Daniel and I have to scramble to baby-proof!

Meeting the REAL Santa!

Aidan met a man dressed up as Santa last weekend, but today at Northpark Mall he got to meet the real one! Lots of his friends were there (Kaelyn, Bryce, Brooke, and Grace) with their moms. Aidan was very good and even flashed a smile for Santa. He also had a fun weekend with Papi and Grammy who were in town. He has figured out how to go from his tummy (or from all fours) back to a sitting position, which he does over and over now when anyone tries to get him to crawl! I have a feeling he'll be crawling by Christmas though. Then life will be very interesting around here :)

Chuck E. Cheese

Today we went with Kaelyn and her cousins for a birthday lunch at Chuck E. Cheese. Aidan had never been and I hadn't been since it was called Showbiz Pizza back in the '80s! (How's that for an old-school flashback?) Anyway, we had fun and Aidan even got to ride one of the rides all by himself. He is getting to be such a big boy...he cut his very first tooth last week!

Meeting Santa

Aidan got to meet Santa this weekend at his friend Kaelyn's birthday party! He will probably go to see him again at the mall sometime in the next couple of weeks.

Some random pics

Here are just a few pictures from around the house. One picture in particular was taken after dinner so Aidan has carrots (or maybe it's squash) smeared across one eyebrow! He has loved every single vegetable and fruit he's tried. He got Dad's appetite instead of Mom's! He is such a busybody these days. He's still not crawling, but he wants to grab EVERYTHING. One of our favorite things to do together is read books. He is a big fan of his books about trucks and planes, to name a couple. We've had to doctor some of the pages in the pop-up books because he's such a grabber. It is supposed to be freezing and rainy tomorrow, so we are staying indoors. Poor Daniel broke his finger on Saturday playing football, but he was determined to try and put Christmas lights up tonight. He didn't get to finish because it started to sleet but hopefully the weather will be a little nicer in a few days.

Happy Thanksgiving!

We just got back from Comanche, where we spent Aidan's first Thanksgiving. Aidan didn't get to try any turkey this year, but he had plenty else to be thankful for! We are so blessed to have such a wonderful little boy, loving family, and good friends. Anyway, we had a good time in Comanche. Cookie and Great-Grandmother were busy getting the house ready for the Christmas Tour of Homes. The house was bought for Aidan's great-great-great-grandmother (I think) so it has a lot of historic significance. I took some pictures of him playing in the leaves in the front yard. I hope everyone had a great holiday!

Fighting over Girls

Today Aidan and his friend Brice turned on the charm as they flirted with a pretty girl named Brooke. Brooke's parents and Brice's parents are in our Sunday School class. There is also a new friend named Seth but he was busy eating during picture time. We are so happy to have Daniel home after he was in Las Vegas all week. Aidan missed his Daddy!

Gamma and Great-Pa's farm

Aidan and I went to visit Great-Pa and Gamma on the farm this week! It was too windy to go outside, so Aidan didn't get to go look around the barn or ride the tractor with Pa. Maybe next time! There was plenty to do inside and Aidan enjoying being spoiled by his great grandparents (as if he wasn't spoiled enough already!). Pa also made him his very own "farmer's cap." One of Aidan's new fascinations is his dump truck. He loves to spin the wheels and dump things out of the back. I don't know who had more fun with it this week, Aidan or Pa! We stopped in Weatherford halfway to see Aunt Marsha so that was fun too. We almost left his Leapfrog table (his very favorite toy, mentioned in the previous post!) at her house, but she called us before we got too far away :)

Leapfrog table

The Leapfrog table (or tabletop I should say...we'll put the legs back on it when Aidan starts to pull up) is one of our favorite things around here! Aidan loves to sit and play with it and he's learning to pull himself up off his bottom to get to different parts of the table. It's a lifesaver for me because it lets me get things done! You can see his famous "popeye" face in a couple of the pictures. Also, I posted some pics of our visit to Daddy's office last week. Seems as though Aidan is leaning toward a career in either football or accounting! Daddy is in Las Vegas all week on business, so I'm taking Aidan to visit his Gamma and Great-Pa on the farm for a couple of days. I'll post pics when we get back.

Green beans, anyone??

Aidan has a new favorite vegetable! He liked peas and carrots too, so we are 3-0. I just tried oatmeal because he was starting to fight me on the rice cereal, and he seems to like that much better. We'll probably start fruits pretty soon. Needless to say, dinners are getting very interesting (and messy!).

Papi

Here's a picture of Aidan with Papi (my dad). We think the two of them share a lot of traits, especially their big pumpkin heads :) My mom sent me a picture of my dad when he was Aidan's age and the resemblance is uncanny!

More pics

Here are some extra pictures that Grammy took with her camera, including when Uncle Jason came to visit. Aidan is now bathing in the "big boy" bathtub so that's been fun. We are now going to gym class on Fridays instead of Thursdays, and the new class has tons of little boys (and only one girl!).

Trick or Treat, Ma'am

Aidan's first Halloween was lots of fun! After carving pumpkins that afternoon with Mommy and Grammy, Aidan got dressed up again to go trick-or-treating. We went to our neighbors' and then to Uncle Cody and Aunt Amy's, and finally we went to Kaelyn's house. Aidan was a great sport but by 7:00 he was ready to get in his spooky pajamas and go to bed! I think he was tired of wearing all his Halloween gear (jeans, shirt, vest, bandana, hat, boots, holster, and gun!). He also had his six-month doctor visit yesterday and everything looks great! He weighed 16 lbs. 6 oz and is 26" long (40th percentile for both) and he only cried for a few seconds after getting his shots!