ohio: hanging out

Aiden told J that his favorite part of our trip was Gran Gran and Pop Pop's house. I think because that's where he could explore all sortsa crazy stuff he doesn't usually get to see at home. It was a nice change of scenery, but mostly he was surrounded by doting people who love him and will laugh at him if he giggles, stomps, sways, or just about does anything... he loves it when people laugh at him ;) He was spoiled by all the little relaxing moments.

it's elvden

So I figured I'd give Gran a good laugh from her Birthday Buddy Elvden:

Elvis shares a birthday with my mom - who knew?! And I share a birthday with Madonna - those are some prime birthday buddies!

gran's bday

Happy Birthday Gran! A little dancing joy for you:

cousins!

Cousin Kaaayleeeey is Aiden's new favorite person to point out in pictures. They were jamming together, pointing at ornaments, singing We Will Rock You, playing picnic, and pretending to sleep on K's new sleeping bag. It was so sweet to see them playing and getting along so well.

happy 37

I'm not too sure how we ended up celebrating my folk's 37th wedding anniversary at Chuck E. Cheese, but I think it was an idea from that smart Gran. I think everyone had fun playing games and watching games being played. we had 204 tickets at the end of some wicked skee ball and dog bone games. Aiden got a bug that slithers down the wall, a Chuckie spoon, two lizards that are lost already, and stickers. We had a good batch of notso fries and pumpkin milkshake at Yours Truly afterward. Everyone got into the photographing, so there are a ton, but here are a few of my favorites - and of course video ;)

A 37th Anniversary Celebration from LB on Vimeo.

eye of the tiger

silhouette

Continuing my silhouette love and fine tuning my photoshop skills:

toe jam toast

We're back to our routine and Aiden was sad to see me leave for work this morning (and those fierce two year old molars were giving him some trouble). He kept saying "just work in house" in a little sad voice. I knew that it was going to be a little rough since we'd had so much fun being together all day, every day for the last 12 days - so it made my day when I got this video message from Rebecca this afternoon.

"We went to the Toe Jam at the zoo with Tyler today. Aiden was soo excited to see the "funny guys." He kept going up to the front and following them around the room. It was cute! They were having a mini New Years party today that's why we went. Aiden loved yelling Happy New Year, I think he had some practice in Ohio or something because he knew just what to do. ha. They had a toast for the kids, and gave out actual toast. hehe It was a fun first day back! He pooped out in the car on the ride home :)"

Here's the grainy video of Aiden marching in a circle - it's easy to make my day even with choppy video:

ohio: big fun

I have so, so many photos from ohio, so I'm going to space out posting them to save up the fun.
We had brunch at Tommy's (which Aiden slept through almost completely after falling asleep in the car - he was prepping for his late night new years party), and I devoured such a good sandwich - egg, cheese, bacon, and natural peanut butter! After Aiden woke up we stopped in at Big Fun. I had my camera with me, so I resisted the urge for a strip photo (a Big Fun tradition).

26 months

Dear Aiden,

I have to say that when I think about this month I think about cars. You playing with cars, you pleading to watch the cars movie, and you "helping" dig our cars out from the big snow. You have nearly every noise a car can make down....vroom, brrrw, zoom, grrraw... You like to run the cars down every surface including my leg. You pretend your cars have conversations with each other. You ask daddy to draw pictures of your favorite cars for you. You've suddenly become a cars fanatic. I'm just hoping that you won't be a car snob and laugh at your mom because she would rather drive a car into the ground for sentimental reasons than buy a new one.
I think that singing is the other thing that I will always remember from this month. You rocked the Rock Band mic with the family, singing We Will Rock You with your cousin, and singing songs from your xmas books. You will let your dad sing, but if I sing I usually get a quick "nah, no singing mommy" in your little robot voice. You must have a good ear.
This has been a pretty mommy clingy month for you. You wake up in the morning and greet me with a giggle when you say hiiii, mommy. You've made a big transition into almost always using mommy and daddy now instead of mama and dada. When you first wake up you want to find the pig book and read it on your bed. I don't mind eating breakfast at work just so that I can take some extra time to read with you. Your favorite book - Where is Wibbly Pig? - is actually a flap book where you search for tiny pig. It blew your mind that it including a second word for couch - sofa! Now you inform me that "sofa same as couch" every time.
You like to have us speed read you a book - like the Polar Bear, Polar Bear (a version of Brown Bear where he hears things instead of sees them). Then you say "my turn" and you read it to us. It's pretty funny to hear the bits you remember and the bits you make up. It's my favorite. Your little voice is getting clearer to understand, but I do think that some of the time your dad and I are the only ones that pick it up completely. There is this funny Iphone application on your dad's phone which he had you sing the alphabet into the other day. Your sing song versions of "defghijklmnop" came up with "you be on her. obama." Ha!? We are able to understand you more and more each day and maybe the iphone will catch up too.
Your favorite phases this month included "here it comes," "hold on," and "not yet." "Here it comes" is usually in anticipation of the playdoh coming out of the can or a "big cracker" out of the box. "Hold on" and "not yet" are your nicer ways of saying no. You even ventured into the 16 year old version of no with a little "na-uh, no way" which I promptly ignored. I think you picked that "na-uh" up from Rebecca - We have to be more careful what we say around you ;) One of the funniest thing is when you started imitating us - you say "Rebecca says shhh" and "Mommy says hoorah!" Rebecca was embarrassed, but kiddingly convinced him that Daddy says shhh instead ;)
You have this funny little mystery language of words that we can't quite identify but that you use over and over again. One of the most notable is "tootah" - we still can't figure out what it is, but when we point to things you like to say, "no, that's silly" Your dad asked if it was your forehead and you said "nah, not my fort head." Eventually I think we'll figure it out.
You got in the habit of saying "dats my favorite" when you get excited about things. Our yoga dvd (aka. stretching on tv) was a perfect addition this month since the sand box is buried in snow and the playground is covered in ice. The favorite move is the hot air balloon that inflates and deflates. You kept eating applesauce pops despite the cold outside, because they are your "fav-rit" also. I like to ask you what you favorite part of things are to see what you remember. When your dad asked you what you liked most about ohio when we landed in the airport you said "gran and pop's house." When you got home you immediately declared "this is my house" ran up to the cats and said "hey guys." You were home after a nice visit.
You like playing in the snow where you can shimmy around in your boots and even jump right out of them. Dad asked you as you were going to bed "what did you do today?" and you replied with enthusiasm, "I fell in the snow." You like the little snowman kit we got for xmas last year, but you knew that it was missing "arms to hug." Snow angels wasn't your favorite idea, because I think you have trouble getting back up. We made a legendary seven foot tall leaning snowman in ohio and when I was loading the photos you called him "the funny guy."
You are what Uncle D calls a "repeat repeat" kid. You will hear a word and repeat it really quickly or sometimes a little bit later. Opposites are your favorite reply. When dad jokingly asked you if you were educated, you replied with "nope i ignorant" in the cutest little voice. The saddest cute voice moment was when you got sick from all the sniffles that made your tummy sick. You asked, "what dat?" while you threw up in bed, I replied "it's ok, it's throw up," and you quickly replied "i did not throw, i good boy." I guess we're lucky that you didn't know what that was since you hadn't been sick since you were itty bitty and you were fine the next day.
You stayed up waaay past bedtime to ring in the new year and you were in good spirits playing with stickers while we played women versus men outburst. Not only do I allow you to stay up late like that, but occasionally we share a little luke warm hot chocolate. I like to call that flexible parenting (aka. living on the edge - especially when it's the night before a big flight home without daddy ;)
You can sorta do a summersault sometimes unintentionally because you tip over in your boots. Your like to shimmy and shuffle your feet. You will walk backwards while calling out where you are headed. When I asked where you were the other day, you said "aidenwhere" just like everywhere...
You use your last name pretty consistently now, but you still don't quite understand that is our family name. You use Lauren Mommy and J Daddy instead. If we say our last name is Brennan, you say oh no, no myyy name is Aiden Brennan.
We are looking forward to another cold month of playing all your new games - Uno Moo is your top choice lately. We'll stay warm making some matches! Love you cozy bug, Mommy

happy new year

snowman story

This is a story of a seven foot tall snowman with a train track smile, canola oil spray can cap eyes, and huge dangerous looking branch arms. He was created by a surgeon and his team during the first day of his 11 day vacation. There was no need for a corn cob pipe because this snowman rang in the new year playing limbo with an imaginary stick. It's amazing lean was frozen in 2009 and is now registered as an engineering marvel. Here is the creation of this crazed snowman:


The good wholesome snowman poses with the family:

At 1:00am on 1/1/10 the now frozen snowman threatens to topple over:
The next morning the partied-out snowman has another glass with Gran.
A bee skeleton arrives to make the scene even more bizarre.

thanks fest

It's a new year to celebrate! I have so much to be thankful for in 2009 and here are a few of the things I am so grateful for from the last week of 2009 spent in OH - in no particular order:

- Aiden being excited to share thank you hugs:

Thank you hugs from LB on Vimeo.

- Bringing in the new year at a traditional WFP get together to bring back my sister's "where's my party" tradition - Aiden making it to midnight and then asking for lunch

- good idea to share the Art Museum Hall of Armor with Aiden (because every two year old needs to know what a saber is, right?) and good recommended Mexican food afterward (we've missed our mexican and this came closer than anything around here)

- Pop carting us all around and keeping us safe by not driving in the storm - everyone who sat in the back back seat

- getting in good shopping to avoid "squandering" nap time

- the best new game on the radar - Zingo!

- my mom lending me her wrapping paper to wrap all our presents (and for letting me borrow her cuddly robe)

- good idea to enjoy chinese food and new drinks called the pink squirrel (and mom trading me her margarita since I couldn't handle the amaretto)

- meeting up with friends for girl talk surrounded by chocolates of every kind - thanks KTB!

- Indulging in an Elsie Combo at Tommy's - egg, cheese, bacon, and natural peanut butter - surrounded by good people that either tried it with me or weren't too disgusted ;)

- Aiden's train collection nearly tripling

- Aiden's new Elmo kickers

- Celebrating my folks 37th wedding anniversary at Chuck E. Cheese ;)

- Graples - Apples that actually taste and smell like grapes!

- Little book ornaments that Aiden can ask for Gran to read to him off his tree

- playing woooaah games like playdoh canister head and buzzy skeleton bee

- Bob Evan's cinnamon pancake and bottomless hot cocoa

- Aiden and Woah wrestling in the snow with the seven foot tall snowman (who eventually started leaning - more to come on that since there are photos ;)

- fixing some lean and mean grilled cheese and tomato soup

- the little dinosaurs and calls from Lightning McQueen and Thomas to congratulate him that inspired Aiden to use the potty

- Biagio's Donuts

- Lizzie helping make the magnificent Gingerbread tree:

Gingerbread Tree from LB on Vimeo.

- Robyn's great suggestion to visit the Train Museum:

Train Museum from LB on Vimeo.

- Everyone having fun playing rock band:

Family Rock Band from LB on Vimeo.

- Sharing hellos and goodbyes with people that mean a lot to me and make my family smile - thank you and we love you!