2010- Fourth Quarter Recap

Wow, this is the end of 2010 and my boys are changing! I decided to start doing the quarterly updates because my boys are constantly changing and it is hard to get it all down as it happens. My hope is that one day I will actually get bound copies of my blog posts and have them to show the boys when they get older. Enough about that, on with the post.

Caiden- ALMOST 4!

-currently sleeping on the floor in his tent at night. I hope Santa is watching so he can see how much Caiden loves it!

-started Preschool 2 days a week.

-watched all the old Christmas movies like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and How the Grinch Stole Christmas over and over and over.

-plays soccer with Happy Feet every Monday.

-had his first EKG and Echo done on his heart and he was an amazing patient. He will have to have another done next year but everything looks like it should. (They thought he had a murmur but it turns out he has a prominent area on his heart- nothing to be concerned about)

-loves putting his little brother in the tent with him so they can play with the bat cave.

-likes playing with action figures, cars, his 3 Curious George stuffed animals, any of this brother's baby toys. He also like to sit on his bed and pretend like it is a car and go places. Usually I am in the "backseat" with his brother and he is the one driving.

-currently working on not sucking his thumb.....this one may take awhile.....

Lincoln- 10 months

-crawling all over the place.

-pulling up on things. He gets nervous and will start to panic if he tries to move his feet but he is getting better.

-started waking up in the middle of the night again. AHHHH!! We SO thought we were passed this phase.......

-eats some real people food. We still give him mostly baby food but whenever we can, we give him the good stuff like peas, corn, pieces of apple, bananas, bread, chocolate (just a few times).

-says Mama, Dada, Lincoln (een-keh),

-blows kisses

-wants to play with all his brother's big kid toys and even picks fights over them sometimes (he is so ornery!)

-is in the 59% for height but only the 11% for weight (we are thinking this is because of his crawling and might have something to do with him getting up at night again.)

-can scream like a banshee one minute then be happy as a clam the next.

Advent Calendar

I know it's a little late but I wanted to post about the advent calendar we made this year. Caiden wasn't into the making process nearly as much as the daily process of pulling out the numbers. In fact, he only helped me paint one roll and glue one paper on. Next year I am sure he will have more fun with it.

I made it out of poster board, toilet paper rolls (stapled on one end and painted white), buttons, sequins, and fun holiday papers I printed off the Internet.






The finished product before hanging it.


A close up.



Caiden pulling the last number while Lincoln watches.


We had so much fun with this, I think I am going to make this a new tradition.

Christmas 2010

Our Christmas in so many words...

The Advent Calendar (I will post about this in a minute)

Caiden loved pulling out the numbers each morning to count down the days until Christmas.

My beautiful plates that I bought on sale at Target 2 years ago and finally used! We ate Christmas Eve dinner on them and set out cookies for Santa on them too.

Christmas Eve services at our church.

Caiden trying to figure out why Santa brought him an empty bag.....

Oh! There is a tent and a pillow pet sleeping bag with it!

Lincoln trying to figure out why we woke him up....look at those lines on his face! He was out!

Caiden's loot from his stocking.

Ah ha! This is what Christmas is about! Lincoln with his Santa loot

Anything Caiden opened, Lincoln wanted. Anything Lincoln opened, Caiden wanted!

Caiden and his Batcave. This was the largest gift under the tree and he KNEW it had his name on it. I jokingly told him it was socks and underwear and he believed me. He saved it for last since he already knew what was in it....boy was he surprised when he found out it was the Batcave he wanted so badly!



Our family on Christmas morning mass at Queen. Happy Birthday baby Jesus!

If you're gonna dream....

Dream big right?

If I had that money tree, these are the things I would put on my Christmas list:


A new home- obviously.



The GMC Acadia, In white. Fully loaded.


A new laptop. I have a Mac at work and I LOVE it! It took me awhile to get used to but now I like them.


A girl at work uses this and the results are amazing!





I have wanted one of these since I had Lincoln. I don't necessarily like this version. I like the ones that are rings instead of coins.


A wii. We have talked for a long time about getting one.

A tropical vacation to get away from the cold and snow.

It wouldn't hurt to have an endless supply of gift cards to Etsy, Charming Charlie, Forever 21, Michael's and Target either.

What is on your list?

3 things on my mind....

1. Where are we going to put all the new toys this year? Our house is so crowded already. I have gone through the boy's toys and put away things they currently aren't playing with but seriously, THERE IS NO ROOM! So far my family has been really good at recognizing our lack of space and most of them have gotten the boys things like movies and books which don't take up a lot of room. I know they will be getting some toys which is perfectly fine. What is Christmas (to a 3 year old) without toys?!

2. When can we move? When we bought our house, the housing market was booming and we thought we would stay here for 3 years then move to a bigger home. 5 1/2 years later we are still here with no real plans to move. We know we need to, but there is this little thing that controls our lives called money. Do you know where we could get one of those trees that it grows on?

3. When are we going to get "back on top"? We had crazy medical bills 2 years ago that came out of the blue, two months later I did my student teaching so I didn't have a job for 10 months, then we had Lincoln. Money has been tight and we have made all the reasonable adjustments like getting rid of credit cards, canceling our cable, not going out and spending money on silly things, keeping our grocery bills small. I picked up a tutoring job 2 days a week and we refinanced our house to make our mortgage smaller. All these things are great but it will take awhile for them to really kick in and start helping us. Typical Americans, we want our problems solved instantly! All of this going on and my car broke down, Jay's car needs some work, oh and did I mention it's Christmas? Needless to say, it won't be the big production it has been in the years before. Our boys are each getting two gifts from us and Santa will bring them something.

As negative as this post sounds, living this way has really made us realize we are still lucky people. We have our health and we have become stronger as a family. Working through this madness has been hard but it has only proven what a strong connection Jay and I have. First and foremost we are on the same team and we have shown each other how hard we will work to provide for our family.

I know at some point we will "get our heads above water" and we will be able to live freely again. There is a light at the end of our tunnel.....