Call this a Whirl Wind

I have thought a great deal about what to title this post in order to describe the last two weeks - Jury duty, modeling gig, new apartment, Aiden updates, and fiery red hair - but there's just no way to be clever about it.

Jury duty was super intense, not only could I not talk about it, but I didn't really want to. And now that it's over, I still feel so burnt out on it that I still don't wanna talk about it, but I learned a lot met some really cool people and walked away from the experience feeling really good about my decisions.

I also had a modeling job which was a lot of fun, but super exhausting, and since it was for a hair company I had to get my hair done (by them obviously) so now I have copper-red hair...my hair has balls now they said!

Aiden got to spend half of this last week at Grandma and Grandpa Tennant's house so I could start packing and cleaning for our big move this month, but that meant he had to miss Aunt B's birthday which both parties were bummed about. We had a good time though, having family dinner and cake at home.

I am super excited to take Bre to use her Charming Charlie gift card and even more excited to go get a massage with her - it's about that time of year for us :)

After Bre's birthday I spent the next couple days cleaning and dropping things off at Goodwill, then I headed up the mountains to get Aiden and see Mom and Chris' new place.

It is beautiful!!

I am really looking forward to basking in the sun on this patio in the summer.

Aiden loves that there is water everywhere and tons of rocks to throw into it!

To the right of this bridge is their own private fishing pond complete with a canoe - Aiden is in heaven!

Watching him throw sticks and pine cones into the water reminded me a lot of Pooh Bear and Piglet playing Pooh Sticks.

Sadie is clearly enjoying her new boundless space, both the grass and the water.

I took Kane with me to get him some exercise -- he's hard to see out there in all that wide open-ness.

Aiden also got some play time with his pal Bella. She's about 2 years old and they had a great time, throwing sticks, playing in the mud and fighting over who's toy is whose. There was some serious nap-needing happening at the same time as a couple major bouts of only-child-syndrome.

For all the whining and crying happening on Sunday though, I have no complaints - Aiden spent the whole weekend in big-boy underwear with only one accident (which we kinda suspect was on purpose/out of curiosity) and we started the week out splendidly by wearing big boy underwear to school today!

Oh, I Sowwy

Aiden's communication has improved dramatically over the last six months. And with his new found love of chit chat has also come a blossoming, spunky personality.

When we got home Friday evening, we came home to a crime scene. Dexter had knocked Nemo's bowl off the night stand and on to Aiden's bed. Miraculously, the fish survived with about half a bowl of water but it smelled so bad in our house.

When Aiden walked in and saw what had happened, he pointed his finger at Dexter (a la Michelle Tanner's famous "shame shame double shame") and said, "Bad kitty! Clean up yo mess! Jus look at yo mess."

Of course, shortly after I cleaned it all up and got Nemo back to his rightful place, Dexter re appeared, clearly feeling no shame at all:

Later that evening I was wrapping a birthday present and Aiden approached me to ask, "Mommy, what doing?"

I told him, "It's Aunt KiKi's birthday, so I am wrapping her present." 

At this he gasped and said, "Presents?!"

"Yep."

Then, he gave me his new favorite phrase, "Oh, I sowwy."

Aiden says this in response to almost everything these days - "Grandpa, what doing?" >trimming trees< "Oh, I sowwy."

"Mommy, what doing?" >cleaning the house< "Oh, I sowwy."

Anyway, when he realized it was Aunt KiKi's birthday, he was suddenly very concerned that she may not have had a birthday cake. So he had to call her to find out, then he worked on a birthday card for her - very thoughtful young man.

On Saturday, at the birthday party, he was the only kiddo by a long shot, but that didn't stop him from hamming it up and making new friends. He hugged every single person there good-bye at the end of the night  - some that I never even met before!

He even had a wonderful time playing with the dogs and their toys.

Good thing he had such a good nap Saturday afternoon, because he was really running around all night!

On Sunday, we spent most of the day taking care of our errands and doing all sorts of run-around.

While at the grocery store, he did the honor of holding the list and telling every person we encountered what was on it, "More food."

He even tried very hard to retrieve and carry a carton of eggs for me. He really makes friends everywhere he goes - he announced to the entire cereal aisle that he had to poop his pants and when a friend of mine who works at the store asked what he was shopping for, Aiden's response was, "poop."

Aiden often asks about Aunt B and Dave - this weekend was no exception. He took it a step further though, when he picked up the phone and *pretended* to call them:

And of course, what weekend would be complete without a little song and dance?

Oh, I sowwy - Happy Monday.

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish - We Got A Blue Fish

Aiden has a new pet. Despite my best efforts to get him named "Mr. Boogers" or "Viking" -- he name is, of course, Nemo.

We had to get the fanciest fish bowl and coolest rocks, and what would be the point if the decorations didn't glow in the dark.

Since it was Steve's idea (a reward for Aiden doing so well on the potty) I made him set it up. It was actually originally going to live at Steve's house, but somehow ended up at ours :)

The boys had a really good time getting it all set up and when we turned the lights off to see how it looked, Aiden went crazy! He absolutely loved it.

Aiden actually spent most of the evening "watchin feesh" and changing the color of the light.

Now I only pray that Nemo and the bowl are still in one piece when I get home.

Wordless Wednesday - King of the Throne

Look how full the potty chart is!

With a present from his prize basket.

Easter Re-cap

Church did not go well with Aiden at Christmas. He cried all the way there, screamed during the service and ruined my hair. So he didn't go to church on Easter.

But he did spend some good, quality time at Grandma and Grandpa Deiker's.

Instead of a basket this year, I got him a bucket to use at the beach this summer. He is already very excited about going to the beach and keeps putting the bucket by our front door and telling me, "Remember my bucket for beach."

The bucket doubled as his egg collector too! We may have over done it on the eggs - he and Dana had about 5 dozen to find in about 500 square feet of space.

There were so many eggs in so little space, he got really distracted and missed a bunch off the bat!

Good thing Buggey was there to help find them all.

He had to dump the bucket half way through so he could get more!

Oh boy was it exciting when he realized they were filled with money!

We had a no-candy Easter ;)

Here, Daddy is trying to explain the difference between pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters - we've been working on it a lot but Aiden is kinda like, "Whatever dude, hands off my eggs k?"

Aiden's second cousin Truly, who is 5 months old and a whole 7 pounds of adorable was in attendance as well. Aiden was extremely fascinated with the "baby" and all week has been asking, "Mommy, what baby doing?"

He even got caught givin her a couple smooches :)

As I mentioned earlier this week in my Spring Cleaning post - there was a funny poop incident followed by a potty triumph. 

While "mowing" the yard with his lawn-mower-bubble-maker toy, Aiden made a dash over to where I was sitting. Half way across the yard, he slowed to a very dramatic, slow-motion walk and started breathing really heavily. First I thought he was having some sort of asthma attack but when  he got to me I asked, "Do you need to poop?"

He bent over and leaned on his knees with both hands, sort of squatted down and let out a very exasperated, "Yeaaaaaahhhh." Too late.

I was baffled that he would a. do it right in front of me like that and b. in total disbelief that it even happened. It was hysterical.

He's been getting very upset when he has accidents, so I was trying hard to make sure he knew I wasn't making fun of him and took him inside to get changed. About 5 minutes after, he asked if he could go to the potty again, sat right down and did a big boy poop!!

At Grandma Deiker's house he has a basket of "presents" - when he poops in the toilet he gets to pick one. I think between the presents and feeling so bad about having accidents, we may have reached a potty-training-turning-point!! 

Hallelujah and Happy Easter!!

Pillow Talk

"Mommy," said Aiden all snuggled in bed.

"Yes...?" I inquired.

"I like Dave."

"You like Dave?" I repeated.

"Mmmhmm," he thought for a second, "And B. I like B."

"Oh that's good," I said, "I like them too, but I bet they are sleeping, why don't we go to sleep?"

"Okay." And then he got really quiet for a minute before, "Mommy?"

"Yes Aiden."

"I like Grandpa's house," he said matter-of-factly.

"I supposed that's good," I told him, "I like Grandpa's house too."

"Grandpa sleeping?" he asked.

"Yep." I lied.

"Oh," he paused, "Mommy, I like Sam."

"I think Sam likes you too Honey, now close your eyes."

"I like witch," he responded.

"You like the witch?" I asked, puzzled.

"Yep, and I like beach," he replied.

"I'm glad you like the beach, the beach is fun, huh?"

"I like frogs too."

And then he went to sleep.

Spring Cleaning

I don't know if it's the extra time I've been spending on Pinterest recently, or the organization blogging that seems to be off the charts right now, or the fact that we are moving soon and I don't want to deal with all the crap....but Aiden and I have been doing some major spring cleaning.

Every year, Aiden gets a boat load of stuff from an older friend at the lake and in turn donates a bunch of his stuff to a younger boy. We have been sitting with boxes and boxes of clothes for almost a month now...

This is the closet floor here - I keep a few things every year that I just can't part with but this mess is just ridiculous.

I spent two nights working on the project, and it doesn't look like much, but maybe that's the point?

This year I bought all of Aiden's pants big, that way they would last the summer and fall hopefully and wouldn't be a necessary expense at Christmas. However, with the weather so nice, they were in the way all last week and didn't leave enough room for shorts - so I moved all but a few pairs of jeans to a closet shelf and loaded his "bottoms" drawer with shorts.

The jeans are rolled neatly and off to the side, out of the way!

I also decided that Aiden didn't need nice long sleeve shirts hanging any more, so I pulled out his nice t-shirts and organized his "tops" drawer.

Nice, button down t-shirts hanging.

Casual t-shirts on one side, long sleeve t-shirts on the other and tank tops folded for easy access in the front.

Next, I went through his PJs -- he has a bunch, which is good since we are potty training and having more night time accidents, but bad because a lot of the favorites are one piece zip ups - not conducive to mid-night potty-runs.

Stacked by pants vs shorts and on the far side a stack of boxer shorts for when it gets hot out.

Finally, the monster drawer. I keep Aiden's swim trunks, socks, and under pants in one drawer. He has lots of everything - so I used Rachel's/Pinterest's shoe box trick to separate them all out.

 Seeing all those underpants set up so nicely reminds me -- I meant to jump for joy and tell everyone -- Aiden has gone to the potty to poop MULTIPLE times now!!

Funny story about this to follow with my Easter post ;)

Anyway, a big plus to getting everything organized is we know what we have and all the places we are looking at have more than enough room, which of course meant I needed a trip to IKEA. I went looking for desk-related organization things and ended up deciding that I want to decorate our new place with lamps and candles:

And I got to thinking that night - IKEA can really make your mind race - Aiden has put on 13 pounds and 4 inches in the last two months...I don't think the toddler bed is gonna hold him much longer. Instead of moving it, wouldn't it be nice to just store it and have a new bed set delivered - one that's super cute and super organizational???

So that's on my wish list - and I did find a desk related organizer/pin board I loved!

It's amazing that I left that place with just a $4.99 set of tupperware.