Our Hoppy Easter

 We had a fantastic Easter! Aidie woke up in the morning and the Easter Bunny had left a basket of goodies plus overflow of eggs and other goodies. Boy was she excited! Her favorite thing all day was looking for eggs and hoping to catch a glimpse of the Easter Bunny ( daddy is very good at spotting him!).

 Of course, after we found all the eggs we went inside to peruse through the spoils. Apparently it was a good haul.

 One of the awesome things the Easter Bunny brought was sunglasses. What a movie star!

 We loved decorating eggs for Easter! Helping the Easter Bunny is an awesome job.

 And just in time for Easter, the first baby chick was born Easter eve. A new little one is on his way now. Soon the place will be cheaping and chirping with babies.

BIRTHDAY #2

My husband is amazing. Thank you for another year of fantastic birthday invites, darling! Hope you all can make it!

All the things I've missed talking about since January

 This will be primarily a picture post. After my long absence, I figure it is about time that you all get to see a few pictures. Our move has been successful and we are settling in. Hoping that I will be able to find a job in the fall and we can set out on our own. Enjoy the photos!

Aiden playing outside. She has been loving all the insanely warm weather and lots of gardening. I am pretty sure she is happiest when covered in an inch of dirt.

 I finally broke down and allowed her to go on a boat, safely preserved by an infant life jacket. Yes, I said infant. She is still far too tiny to fit into the smallest of small child life preservers. She LOVES the boat and like to pretend she's in a boat, even when she's not. Her favorite song: Row, Row, Row Your Boat... Who would have thought...

 Here we are at the flower and patio show. We thought that it sounded like so much fun, plus we took my parents. We all had a grand time touring all the awesom exhibits that I now want to exist in my future home.Water coming out of the wall? YES I WANT IT!

 And when there was still snow: Aidie loved to eat icicles. Best winter treats.

 And we had a great time during maple syrup season. We played and drank so much maple syrup water that I think we slept in comas.

 Also, Aiden loves to be up off the ground. In swings, trees, etc. She is officially a big girl swing kid. No more baby swings for her. If it doesn't put her in a precarious enough position, it's not good enough.

 We also got to go to the zoo a couple of weeks ago with my cousin, her husband and their little boy, Iroh. Aiden had so much fun spending time with her cousin, something I did not expect. She was so helpful, helping pick up his sippy cups and patting him on the knee when he was sad. So cute!

 She also LOVES CHOO CHOO TRAIN!

A Much Needed Post

I haven't posted in way too long. It has been very busy around here. School has been really busy and I feel like I am constantly trying to reinvent ways to turn the wheel to keep it interesting. I have decided to pull in some of my added school materials for reading to help out with the 6th grade vocab reinforcement. I just really feel the biggest reason some of my kids have difficulties is because they don't have the extended vocabulary of their peers. So I am on the vocab beefing up rampage! Okay, enough school talk.
I guess the biggest reason we have been so busy is because we have decided to move into Dan's parent's house in order to save some money for house down payment/car/etc. in the hopes that I will be finding a full time teaching position this coming fall. So we are remodeling the downstairs basement, which is actually it's own apartment, so just needs things like paint, ceiling tile, etc. No one ever told me how much work all of this would be. With having spent every weekend for a month over there, I'm hoping Aidie is adjusting well. Fortunately, Kathy wanted to remodel anyway. So it is actually good for all of us.
As for Aidie, she is doing fantastic. We are almost to the end of another prescription for yet another ear infection. But she has been great. I think her teeth are the real culprits. I can actually see her eye teeth under her gums, but they refuse to push out the rest of the way. I just wish they would get it over with. She is chewing on things more than when she was a baby, baby. She must really be in a lot of pain.
Right now Aiden LOVES Winnie the Pooh. I have a tendency to call everyone, including her, "honey" (Thanks Mamaw Champlin!). So every time I call her that she says "HONEY! POOH!" and immediately wants to read a Pooh Bear book or watch a Pooh Bear movie. It is pretty adorable. She has also recently adopted into her heart a stuffed bear from Uncle Matt that she has affectionately called "Momo". She takes him everywhere. And honestly, I can't blame her. That bear is dang soft!
Aidie has started to use pronouns a lot lately. I'm actually really impressed because I didn't work with these at all. "me" "you" "we". I'm very proud.
Aidie loves to use silly talk. Aidie dictionary:
Noni= no
Dado= Daddy
Mommio= Mommy
And there are many more in there that she uses because she thinks they're silly or because she can't say the letters to make up the real words (Ie. Caina is nanny. She can't say the hard C or long A). She refers to herself as Addie.
She LOVES to dance. I think she would sway, spin, twinkle fingers and toes and shake her tushie all day. It's too funny!
So many fun things and OH! We went sledding for the first time this past weekend. Everything is now WHEE!!! I LOVE BEING A MOM! Will have to post pics later. Now time for bed.

A Giving Spirit

Aiden was all for getting ready for the holidays. She loved decorating the tree, hanging the lights and making Christmas cards, but her favorite thing was making cookies for SANTA! I originally set aside about five cookies for her to decorate, thinking that she would get bored after that many. Haha, Mom! Nice try. Guess I was wrong. She decorated about 20 cookies! Painting and then dipping (her idea). She had so much fun! I just love that smile on her face of "Oohh! Look what I just figured out!" I even found the best, kid friendly cookie cutter from dollar tree. $1, 6 shapes. Can't beat that!

 Of course after baking we headed to Aunt Cindy's house for the Mead get together. I don't think anything could have separated Aidie and her "PawPaw" once they got together. They haven't even seen eachother very much, but I'm thinking they are quite the pair already. They read stories, watched a movie, and later she got to be his little elf to help pass out Christmas envelopes. She was LOVING it!

Way more to come. Stay tuned!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas #1

Christmas at Our House

Very much a picture post (with more picture posts to come)! Since we spend the night at my in-laws for Christmas Eve, we told Aidie that Santa would be stopping by early during her nap. Here we are having our family Christmas. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did :-)

 Rub a Dub Dub. Now Dan Aiden can be an artist in the tub!

 Santa brought Aidie a cleaning set. Now she can use a broom that is her size instead of my overly huge one. lol.

 Awesomely sweet Christmas present from my hubby and little girl. A memory book of my best gift ever, AIDIE!

 This was Aidie's gift to Mommy and Daddy. She was so proud of it. She wanted to take it everywhere. We FINALLY got to put it on the tree. *tears*

 And thank you Auntie Ellen and Uncle Biruk for the awesome gifts. I think our favorite might be the little Mountee Hat. It is too darn adorable!!!

 We have a tradition of Christmas jammies in this family. Aidie wanted to wear her's around her neck, but it was okay if her baby wanted to wear her nightgown already... so she did!

 Anyone for a little Hockey for Beginners?


Merry Christmas #2
Christmas Eve with the Kings. We opened a couple of superly awesome Christmas Eve appropriate book gifts: Olivia helps with Christmas (we LOVE the Olivia series by Ian Falconer!!!) and a classic, The Night Before Christmas- Illustrated by Jan Brett (best Illustrator ever!).

Merry Christmas #3
Christmas Eve with the Wisleys
Since we were staying the night we were busy folks. We opened some gifts, had some appetizer dinner, watched some football and of course (after Aidie went to bed) had a few drinks and stayed up way too late. Needless to say, we were all exhausted by the time morning rolled around. Thank goodness Santa did all the morning preparations ;-)

 Little Edith Anne Aidie in her favorite rocking chair.

 I'm really peddling Mama! Well, kinda. I'm working on it. Give me a break!

 Wisley family pictures. The time when Kathy and I say, okay this will only take a second and be totally worth it in the future and the men say "Is this over yet?"

Santa Clause is coming to town!

We have been so busy with all the upcoming festivities that I've hardly had a minute to document. However, I did finally manage to pull out the camera and capture a few absolutely adorable moments (with more to come!)

Auntie Ellen and Uncle Biruk sent a Christmas package and Aiden was very upset that she could not rip open all the presents immediately. It's taken about a week (presents under the tree are miraculously still in tact) but she is finally understanding that she has to leave the presents wrapped until Santa comes.


To help distract her a little, we started making some Christmas cookies for Santa. We have to make several since he stops at three houses just for her. It would be rude to only leave a plate at one house after all ;-) So we have baked cookies and will be icing them after nap time. So fun. I found some great little cookie cuter (plastic and rubber) at dollar tree that are just her size. She has been having a lot of fun! I will definitely post pictures of the icing escapade!


We look just a little drunk on cookie dough...


And here is little Miss Bookworm. She refused to pause in her reading to hold her Santa letter for a photo. Hoping I can get her to hold it on Santa's lap tomorrow! But it was pretty adorable and I think I'm going to frame it.We asked her what she wanted for Christmas and then I helped her write her letter (Ie. she held the crayon, I held her hand). It reads: Dear Santa, For Christmas, I would like a baby doll, a hat, a brother and to draw. Love, Aiden Wisley.
All her words. We did have to ask her what she meant when she said "boy". Dan and I kept thinking what on earth does that mean. Finally I asked to you want a brother? A boy for here at home? Aidie: "Buba?! Yea! Buba! Buba!" Too cute. Sorry to disappoint, Aidie, but no brother this year...


Also, Christmas cards. I love them!