Saturday, December 27, 2014

Christmas 2014

I think Christmas just keeps getting better and better for us. It truly is a million times better to experience Christmas as a parent. Both kids were so excited about the whole thing and their energy was contagious. It took me a little longer to get in the Christmas spirit this year, but the kids helped pull me in with their excitement. It was exciting to go through the family traditions and start some new ones as well. All the anticipation and excitement made for a great Christmas season and we are all a little sad to see it go.


















Wednesday, December 24, 2014

2014 Family Pictures and Merry Christmas

Our tradition over the past few years has been to do a family Christmas mini photoshoot with Magnolia James Photography. We love Nikki and she has done all of our Christmas pictures since 2012. This year's session got moved a couple of times due to terrible weather, but it was worth it in the end. I am so excited about how these pictures turned out. Both of my kids were cooperative and smiled. It was like an early Christmas present for me!






These were the photos I used for our Christmas card. I was so happy with how they turned out.


I am so excited for Christmas this year. Both kids are excited and anticipating Santa's arrival and I can't wait to see their happy faces on Christmas morning.

I hope everyone has a joyful and merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 21, 2014

November 2014

Its that time of year where we we barely have time to breathe, let alone time to sit down and write blog posts. I realized just last week I hadn't even uploaded pictures from my phone for the month of November and that's pretty unusual for me. I try to keep those backed up because I'm terrified of losing them, but it hadn't even crossed my mind in the last few weeks. So, I decided today I really needed to get caught up because I am getting old and my memory can only hold so much so its time to purge.

Luckily, November was quiet until the end. The early part of the month was focused on me switching titles at the hospital and starting to look for a nanny. I was given the opportunity to have a more consistent schedule with daytime, weekday hours working in the IOP program so I gladly took it. I am still a PRN worker so I can also work extra hours in the ED or the unit as needed, but I have a much more consistent schedule which makes our lives a little easier. The downfall to the schedule is I am required to work on Mondays and have to be available to work on Tuesdays, which means I need child care for Mason. We really didn't want to pull him from preschool so we decided to start searching for a part-time nanny to keep him on Mondays and Tuesdays. The search started out well and we interviewed 3 candidates, but the one we offered it to couldn't take it and the other 2 just didn't work for us. So, we are still searching at this point and I've modified my schedule to work while Mason is in school on Mondays and beg my mom to help when I get called in on Tuesdays. It works for now, but I really hope we can find a permanent solution soon.

We got the Christmas season started early this year by decorating at my in-laws' house the weekend before Thanksgiving. While it goes against my beliefs to decorate for Christmas before Thanksgiving, it was the only weekend that worked for everyone, so we just went with it. The kids enjoyed putting their little ornaments on their tree while Todd and I decorated our college tree.


We held our annual Thanksgiving lunch at our house and it was awesome. It is so stressful to get it all together and make sure we have everything, but so worth it in the end. While we got ready, the kids watched the Macy's parade. They were both fascinated by the balloons and performers, which was perfect to keep them out of our hair.  We had 14 people crammed into my house by lunch and food covered every inch of my tiny kitchen and it was fantastic. After lunch, we hung out with our families and enjoyed our turkey highs. We ended the evening with a little dart gun marathon in our living room and it was pretty entertaining to watch.



I was supposed to work the day after Thanksgiving, but luckily I was called off. It was a great blessing because we had planned start potty training boot camp with Mason and go buy the Christmas tree. Mason has been ready for weeks to start potty training, but we needed a solid 3 days to do the  boot camp so Thanksgiving weekend was perfect. However, combining the first day of potty training with decorating was tough. Mason didn't have one successful potty trip that day and went through 8 pairs of underwear. We really weren't expecting that kind of disaster because Aubrey only had 1 or 2 accidents the first day in underwear so we thought it would go that easy again. Wrong. We were trying to put lights on the tree (which ended up requiring a whole new set of lights at the last minute, necessitating a trip to Wal-Mart) and Mason was running around peeing and pooping at the drop of a hat. It was pretty stressful and we were exhausted by the end of the day. The next day brought progress with peeing in the potty, but no progress on pooping. He only had 2 pee pee accidents on day 2, but was just as stubborn as Aubrey when it came to going number 2 and just went wherever he felt the urge. Day 3 of boot camp was better, with no pee pee accidents, but still no poop in the potty. This trend went on for a quite a few weeks and I'll give the update in next month's post.




So, that was our November. I probably should start writing December's post now and maybe I'll have it ready by the end of January because next month looks to be just as nuts. Its our crazy life and I love it, even when its crazy.