wheeeeeeeeeeeee

2 years ago today...

My world changed. Life was never and will never be the same again. And it's perfect.

I could not be more blessed with a more perfect child. {Well, maybe he could be a better eater, but that's nothing to worry about as long as he's healthy.} Aidan Joseph is the most wonderful gift anyone could have ever given me. Every day he teaches us something new as we try to help him learn and grow in every way. He is perfect.

A snapshot of Aidan as a two year old:
His vocabulary is growing by the minute.
He's starting to use more two word phrases.
He wants to be very independent-feeding, pouring, scooping, brushing his teeth, feeding the dog, putting on and taking off clothes, etc.
He still loves his cuddle time with Daddy and Mommy.
He still goes to bed and naps awake because Mommy and Daddy love the cuddle time.
He has two bears cleverly named "bear" that he sleeps with. Now they sometimes are called "brown bear" and "blue bear".
He loves all sports-watching, playing, attending events, even watching Daddy and Uncle Colby play PS3.
He is a huge Phillies fan and wishes he could take the Phanatic home with him.
This is his 3rd season of attending Phillies games. Crazy.
He loves his Aunt "Cake" and going to all of her sporting events.
He is loved by sooo many family members and loves them all so much.
He loves the outdoors and wants to go "ouside" no matter what the time or weather.
He continues to bless us with his love and smiles every day.

Happy 2nd Birthday Aidan!

My thoughts on life right now:
wow. Where have the past two years gone?
Thank you Sean for being an awesome daddy to our little guy.
Thank you God for such an amazing little boy.

Aidan's birthday party

Aidan's party was a great success. It was much smaller this year and it was fun and relaxing and I think everyone enjoyed themselves. He had fun opening gifts which was a relief, since it took about a week to get the Christmas gifts done. He also LOVED blowing out his candle. That had to be his favorite part of the day, well that or all the outside play he enjoyed. He got a lot of great gifts...toys, clothes, books, and more. Thank you to everyone who was there to help us celebrate another awesome year of our favorite little man!

My thoughts on life right now:
Wow. 2 years old. Amazing.

Photo shoot: FAIL

{Taking a break from picture people which was a super FAIL. Hello terrible twos. }

{Dinner at Ruby Tuesday's where he was full of smiles and even stuck his tongue out when asked to...bugger}

Tonight we had an appointment at Picture People to get Aidan's 2nd birthday pictures done. That did not go well AT ALL. The best shots were taken in the first minute then it went downhill fast after that. He was sobbing at one point and we decided that maybe going for a walk and taking a ride on the train might make him happy. Oh sure, the minute his right foot got out of PP he was happy as a pig in mud. Heck, he was a dancing machine on the train ride, and even waved to strangers. If I was any less sane I would have offered the train "conductor" dinner/drinks/money to come and entertain Aidan while he was getting his pictures taken because Aidan thought he was hilarious. He even gave high fives and fist pumps. Ridiculous. We cruised on back to PP and may as well have thrown in the towel right away. It was a major fail. The photographer and Aidan just didn't mesh. I think he was frightened by her. He's quite shy and she was loud and spoke very fast; but was very nice and patient with him. Finally I said it was enough and we stopped. We never even got into the nice outfit I wanted pictures in. Oh well...I have been wanting to try out Kelly or maybe Steph. So maybe now is the time and tonight was my sign.

We did manage to get two different poses printed and there were a handful we thought were cute, but darn if I didn't have these cute outfits picked out and we never even put them on him. That's okay though, we can always try again. Maybe I'll give it a try myself. I just realize now more than ever that he grows up so quickly and I want to capture him while he's still small.

My thoughts on life right now:
Terrible twos, did you show up tonight?
Is my baby boy already just days away from two??? Crazy.

Every bathroom should have sinks his size

Happy Birthday, Phanatic!

We had standing room only tickets to the Phillies game today to celebrate the Phanatic's Birthday. We took Aidan last year as well and he really enjoys all the extra mascots and fun. After we walked in and got Aidan's free t-shirt, Aidan and I went to stand behind a nearby section while Sean exchanged the shirt for a smaller size. We hadn't stood there for more than a minute when an older gentleman walked up to Aidan and I and said "I have two extra tickets to the Hall of Fame club, would you like them?" My reply, "Yes! Are you serious? That would be awesome. Thank you so much!"

Then no sooner did he walk away and I pulled myself together, Aidan I went to find Sean to tell him the great news! We then walked up to the Hall of Fame club to find our seats and it only got better. Once inside the club, Sean took a bathroom break and Aidan and I checked out the wall of balls. I was familiar with the room as Sean and I had our unbelieveable wedding rehearsal dinner there, but Aidan was an excited first timer. They even had boxes of cookies that were free for the kids, so Aidan was even more happy. We found our seats next to the super-nice gentleman in the 2nd row of section 231. Turns out, the tickets are his brother-in-law's season tickets. His brother in law couldn't make it to the game because he's the Flyer's dentist! Yup, the man who fixes all those pitiful smiles has a full season ticket plan of six seats in the Hall of Fame Club. Crazy! Oh, and get this, the seats are padded! How awesome! :-)

{our view}

{Aidan who hates the camera & Mommy} {a very sleepy Phillies fan}

My thoughts on life right now:
Thank you very nice gentleman for giving us awesome ($55/each) tickets so we didn't have to stand the whole time.
Aidan's going to be 2 in one week, holy crap.

busy, busy

Can't a lady get an extra hour or two in the day where all other things pause and I can get caught up? If you haven't noticed by now, it's now after midnight on a Monday night while I'm writing this. Yeah, any other night and I'd be happily sleeping in my bed, but not tonight. Tonight I had to get things done. Let's see...

After work Aidan and I had to make a trip to the library to return books (I've already got a debt of $2.60 but I'm still waiting for them to ask for the fees...it's been months). Then we got a few more books and of course a couple of DVDs. Necessary trip: yes, I love our library time and I loved the little laughs from him today when he used the handicap accessible button to open the doors and then proceeded to place the books in the book return all by himself and he's not even two yet!

Next stop, Acme. Yes, Aidan came along for this as well and it's quite enjoyable, most of the time, to bring him with me. I look at it as a learning environment for him. He likes it, most of the time, especially when he gets his slice of cheese. Necessary trip: absolutely or Sean might have had to start eating cereal for every meal.

After a short stop at home I headed to Steph's, this time without Aidan but with lots of mommy-guilt for leaving him. We then took off for Auletto's for a bridal show where if they hadn't served us all kinds of yummy cheeses and a complimentary glass of wine I would have probably cried over missing Aidan just to walk around and get free crap for Steph to look through. She had a few returns to make at the mall which led me to stop at Gymboree to use my gymbucks. Necessary trip: not really, but I can't let those gymbucks go to waste and plus I got a free glass of wine.

Finally, home to do a quick straighten up of the family room and my side of the bedroom (Sean's side literally looks like a small tornado came through, seriously, at least it makes my clutter look good). Then on to searching for some cute stuff for Aidan's scaled-down 2nd birthday party. I ordered some decorations and then I found a really cute t-shirt on etsy for him. Now obviously it'll have "Aidan" instead of Chase, but how stinkin' cute is that?!?! It's my second etsy purchase that I'm really excited about.

Now I've just got to make sure we sent out all of the invitations and know what we'll be feeding our "train passengers".

As for the rest of my week, here's what it looks like:
Tuesday-meeting in my classroom afterschool then boot camp at 7:30
Wednesday-dinner meeting at 4:30, also Cait's birthday
Thursday-bridesmaid dress shopping
Friday-time to breathe and clean up the house
Saturday-Phillies game
Sunday-Phillies game

School is a bit crazy since it's the end of the marking period and annual review time for my students' IEPs. Somewhere in my free time at home I've got to load all of the pictures that are on my camera, including Easter that my brother has been begging for since I took them. Really, the only thing I want to do is hang out and play with Aidan.

My thoughts on life right now:
It's time for bed.