Aiden's First Zoo Trip

While we were in Texas, Aiden got to go to the zoo for the first time. The temperatures had been over 100 for weeks, so most of the animals were inside. There were still a few out to see and Aiden had a fun time. Here are some of the pictures that Aiden took of the animals at the San Antonio Zoo.




The rhinos were really stinky (as usual), so my mom told Aiden to tell them to take a bath. Aiden then turned toward this rhino and said, "Rhino, you are stinky. You should take a bath and get all clean and then you won't stink any more." When we asked him later what the smelliest animal in the whole zoo was, he said it was the rhino.

July Vacation

So here are some of the pics from our family vacation. Unfortunately, some of the really cute ones are on my mom's camera. It's hard to be mom and photographer too :-)

We visited with Joe's parents for several days. His sister and her two sons were there at the same time. Aiden really enjoyed playing with his cousins. Samuel is 5 and Joey will turn 4 just after Aiden turns 3.

Aiden, Samuel, and Joey enjoying a wonderful pancake breakfast on Grandma's back porch.
The boys enjoy a bedtime story read by Grandma.

A little later in the trip, we went to a children's museum. Aiden spent 5 or 6 hours there and had a blast the whole time.

Here are pics of Aiden in the rocket on his trip to the moon.

He also got to be a bat and go kayaking.
There were tons of other things to do there, but I didn't get any more pictures. I was too busy playing with Aiden :-)

Father's Day

I didn't make a cake for Joe's birthday due to an overabundance of leftover sweets from other things. So, I used Father's Day as an excuse to bake. Joe got silly and said he wanted a green cake, so I flavored a plain white cake with lime jello. It tasted great!

I also made a shirt for him this year and am very happy with how it turned out. I'd never done any embroidery before.

This is the front of the shirt.

And here's the back!

Old Pics

We just got back from our big family vacation, so I thought I'd update the blog. When I started looking for the pics from the trip, I found all these great shots that never got posted!! So, I'll do the vacation separately. This is just my trip down memory lane.

This is Aiden the robot with his robot hat shortly after Christmas.

This is the first Sunday that he wore this suit to church. It's getting a little too short in the legs and sleeves now.

Here are the pictures from the snowstorm back in March. It caused a lot of damage to trees and plants, but it was certainly beautiful.

Here is Aiden's first snowman. It's not very tall, but he thought it was great!

Aiden kept taking the head off the snowman to use for snowball fighting.

Eventually the snowman was kicked over. He didn't even try to defend himself!

Aiden and I took a walk around our neighborhood after the snow stopped.

This picture is from May. It's nothing special. We just thought he loooked so cute in his blue jeans with the blue jean jacket.

Aiden Writes His Name

I got Aiden to write his name on a picture we were coloring today. I had to post this, because, as I watched him do it, it actually was close to correct! He knows how to spell his name, but I didn't really think he would try to write it without any help from me. The top picture is his attempt and the bottom picture has been "Mommy enhanced".




You can see that he didn't get the loop and the stick connected for his letter "d". Still, I think this is pretty good for a first try. He's still only 2, after all :-)

This Week for Aiden

I think I should have named this Aiden's Blog, since everything seems to be about him. However, that's just the way our life is right now :-) I do have pictures of Aiden in the snow, and will try to get them posted soon. I had to share these tidbits before I forgot them, though.

I) Aiden's first prayer "all by himself". I loved this: "Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for our day. Thank you for our house. Thank you for our letters and our numbers. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Isn't it nice to be reminded that sometimes we should just thank our God for all his good gifts to us (even letters and numbers) and not ask for anything in return?

II) Aiden's first story. This one happened today:
Once upon a time there was a mommy pig and she said to watch out for the bad wolf. The wolf blew her house down and said "roar". The end.

III) Watching out for Daddy:
We were cooking in the kitchen and Joe took one of the pieces of food he was working on and tossed it into the air like a ball. Aiden said, "No, Dad. Don't throw. You make bad choice. You go time out!" I loved it. We told him he was right and that if daddy threw the food again, he would have to go to time out. :-)

I'll try to get some pics posted soon!

Classic Aiden

Aiden often asks me to draw things for him, and since I have no artistic ability at all, the results are always interesting. This morning's theme was numbers. Some people might think that you don't need art skills to draw numbers, but they would be wrong.

First, Aiden tells me which number I should draw. Then he calmly tells me that the number needs eyes, mouth, and feet. (Thank you Math Circus!) This morning, I was asked to draw 1, 2, 5, 3, 0, and 4 (in that order). I thought the results were pretty good.

Then he threw in a new hitch; each number needed arms! After drawing arms on all the numbers, he told me that each number needed a baby. With a little more questioning, be told me that the 2 needed a baby 2, the 1 needed a baby 1, etc.

This explains why I never seem to get anything done around the house!