Sleep, sweet sleep.

We have had a very...... interesting Novemeber thus far. Apparently the wee hours of the morning are the best times for 1 year olds to be awake. Ayden has decided that he doesn't need to sleep anymore. He only takes ONE nap a day, and the most it ever is, is maybe 45 minutes. We put him to bed between 8 and 9 and then for some crazy reason he's up somewhere between 1 and 2... Now I'm not talking up as in, he needs a bottle and a diaper change and he goes back to sleep, were talking UP FOR HOURS!!! And the crazy thing is, he doesn't seem tired the next day. Take last night for example.... he got a total of 7 hours of sleep...yet today, he is happy and acting his normal self... I just don't know where he has this energy stored... If i find it, Im going to borrow some because its wearing me out! Tears... I was in tears this morning over it all... When you're overly tired i suppose the tears just come a little easier. Mama always says... This too shall pass. I just need to remember that!

Eli is a great almost 3 year old. Jamie and i are constantly having to remind ourselves that he's ONLY 2. Hes such a great helper that i think we tend to forget, he's really still a LITTLE guy too. Its unreal how fast he's growing. Spelling his name, singing his ABC's, starting to write, he knows his colors, shapes, and even recognizes some letters. Seems like just last week i was helping him get his balance. He's AMAZING with his brother. Yes, they do fight a little, but for the most part, Eli is REALLY patient. At times having the boys so close together is difficult, but man is it worth it!

Jamie and I are doing well. We have many things that we are praying about and contiplating. Seems that we have a clear direction, and now all we need is some follow through. Soon we will know where our next stop in life is, and I am very excited about taking this step in faith. Please continue to pray that we are HEARING Him clearly, and not being clouded by our own selfish desires.

I promise, im going to start doing this Blog thing more, we just got a computer desk last night, so now I can be in the same room with the boys without sitting on the floor while im on the computer! YAY!

And then there was one......

Child in diapers!!! YAY! thats right, our Eli is potty trained!!! He's doing so well. We had a couple accidents today, but they were little ones. He just waited too long to tell me and had a little bit come out before we made it to the potty, but just pee! He's doing SO well! I thought it would be harder than this to do, since we pushed it so hard, and he kind of reverted back after Ayden was born. But i guess its true, if ya wait till THEY'RE ready, then it makes the process much smoother. Now Ayden thinks that he needs to sit on the potty every time his brother does.... Do you think that means he'll not only be an early walker, and talker but also an early big boy pee-er? I hope so, how great would it be to have NO boys in diapers! I won't hold my breathe tho. Nor will i push Ayden as hard as i pushed Eli... I learned my lesson there!

Today was a good day. Got lots of stuff done around the house. Eli and Ayden play so well together. And now daddy is starting to get into the swing of the weekend routines. The boys love to play ball with their daddy. Mama isn't such a fan.... daddy hit the wine rack today and nearly broke the bottle that was on there! The TV is in grave danger i fear...

Plans for tomorrow: Church! and a nap! Ayden had me up at 5:30 this morning, guess he didn't get the memo that on Saturdays mama gets to sleep till 7:30!!!! I think we'll just hang out and do family stuff the rest of the day. I love Sunday's, they're so relaxed.

Dinner tonight: I made Tacos, Spanish corn, and spanish rice. ALL from SCRATCH! i've been on a bit of a baking and cooking spree lately, I made brownies, peanut butter cookies, apple crisp, and cinnamon rolls! Guess im practicing for my Christmas baking :)

WHEW!

Why is it than the moments that you just want to take in and enjoy, seem to fly by. October has been like that. We moved into our new home, which we LOVE. Its in a great location, the people are great, the community itself is great, the apartment is perfect, the only issue i've found so far is with spiders.... there was seriously a baby tarantula size black spider IN my house... Eli found him and decided to play with it... Needless to say, the thing RAN across the house, causing mama to jump up on her chair..... I am NOT a baby about bugs, but if you had seen the size of this thing..... you woulda done the same thing... i shoulda taken a picture of it.

My ayden turned one a week ago. Where did the year go? I was just holding him in the hospital and thinking how perfect he was. Now he and his big brother have turned into a troublesome duo..... Some how Ayden can convince his brother to do ANYTHING, yet then Eli gets upset that they are BOTH getting in trouble... Guess a 3 year olds logic is that whoever had the idea should be the one getting in trouble :)
We had a good first year... Talking at 5 months, crawling at 7 months, standing at 8, walking by 10, now he full blown runs! and hes talking CONSTANTLY. Hes much more vocal than his brother was at this age. And never misses an opportunity to voice his discontentment. The way he eats you'd think we never feed the poor child.... And his newest thing.... if you are in the kitchen or by the table, or if you have food he grunts at you until you give him some..... while its incredibly annoying... its also adorable. Seeing how different my boys are is just amazing to me.... they are polar opposites in so many ways, yet so much alike in other ways.

Eli too is growing up so fast. Can you believe he's going to be 3 in just 2 more months? When did that happen!??!?! Hes such a great big brother. He shares very well and is more than patient with his baby broha. He's been working on his potty training again. He has good days and bad... he got sick last night, so today hasn't been one of those GOOD days, but thats okay, it'll happen.... and i think it'll happen fast once he "gets it". He can spell his name, tell me his colors, count to 10, he helps me with house work- never being asked to, he's just a good helper by nature... wonder how long that will last. He's started to write. he knows his animals and their sounds.... and he's repeating EVERYTHING.... Im not sure if thats a blessing or a curse yet :) Certainly makes us all more aware of what we say.... I told jamie to shut up yesterday- jokingly of course, because he was teasing me again- and he comes the shut up police.... MAMA WE DON"T SAY SHUT UP!!!! Guess God gave us children so that we remember that we have someone watching us ALL the time!

My one year old wants to play ball with me, thanks for reading our update! Love and blessings.

The dreaded "to do" list

Why is it that whenever i have a million things to do, my motivation seems to make a new friend and run off and play? I move into my new apartment in 2 weeks, thats right 2 weeks from today... DO you know how much i've packed....uh huh, you guessed it... NOTHING! Good thing i don't have much here!!! I did manage to get rid of SOME of the stuff that i needed to sell, but i still have more than i'd like to admit... Hopefully tomorrow will be a more motivational day.

My to do list:

*pack up all clothes, except a weeks supply
*take the baby stuff to a consignment shop
*get rid of the remaining things listed on CL
*sort the boys toys into what is ours, and what is Gramma's
*EAT ALL MY FOOD!!!
*figure out how the heck im gonna get all this stuff into my car again
*check on prices for hotels
*check on prices for the moving truck
*spend as much time with family as possible- man am i gonna miss them!
Im sure there are tons more, but those are top priority right now....

Anybody wanna loan me their motivation for a couple days?

We have LEASAGE! :)

Whew! What a day. Sometimes i am really guilty of saying "i know that i need to give it to God, but i just cant." its funny how much of a control freak i am. I don't thikn im really that bad, but then situations like the one i was faced with this last week come up and i realize how self dependant i am, rather than God dependant. And i ask myself why. I am working on this on a daily basis and am striving to be more God dependant. Ask me about it next time we talk, it'll put me back in place :)

So, as you know, we were very excited to be moving into The Reserve. Unfortunatly, i was given some bad information, and decided that it was not the place for us. I again went on the search for the place that we should be. Well, i found a GREAT place in Bothell. Its a 3 bedroom, 2 bath- which jamie and i REALLY wanted- and is MUCH bigger than anything that we've lived in before or anything that we had looked at. So i went ahead and found out some information, and did apply for it yesterday morning. This morning i received a call that we got approved and he could even fed ex me the lease so that we could have it off the market! That means, we will have an address this week! Its funny that the ONE apartment i decided i better talk to God about is the one He gave us..... And people deny the power of prayer.....
here is the link the our NEW HOME for those that are interested :) Our floor plan is the MADRONA and we move in on the 27th!
http://www.avaloncommunities.com/avaloncore/nfloor.asp?comm=120

We ran around with Gramma today to get some stuff for the house, then we went to church. Unfortunately, Ayden was not into being without mama tonight, so i ended up having to go get him about 30 minutes into the service. But then i got my BABY fix, since we officially have a toddler on our hands! Ayden is walking around like he's been doing it all his life. He's getting so big! He has a mouth full of teeth, he claps and has a couple of signs, says MAMA, DADA, BUBBA, GO, and VROOM. he LOVES cars :) He and his big brother get along very well. Eli taught him how to get off the couch, and he is very proud of that :) He is just fantastic with him. Patient, and understanding, Eli is my little translater.... he knows what ayden wants just about everytime he whines. Having these boys 22 months apart has been a huge blessing, and i couldn't be happier. God really is Good.

Just when i thought it couldn't get worse.....

We had a rough day today. It started off with Ayden deciding he needed to wake me up at 5:30 this morning. He did decide to go back to sleep, but I couldn't go back to sleep, so i just laid there and watched him. Babies are so peaceful when they sleep. He kept dreaming and he was making faces they were SO cute.

So i got up for the day at 7:30, did dishes, laundry, emptied the trash, changed the sheets, i thought i had a rather productive morning. Unfortunately, during all the productivity, i missed a phone call of Jamie. At that point, i should have known the rest of my day was going to go down hill....

Most of you know that I am a part of a pregnancy board. We have become pretty close over the last couple of years, and there were a few events that lead to some hurt feelings, and as a result some people that were upset with me. We seemed to have gotten things resolved, so i took off to go spend some time at my moms. I faxed in the application to The Reserve, she got back to me and told me that we were indeed approved, but then proceeded to tell me that there were some fees i was going to have to pay. Well, if i'd know this BEFORE i sent in the application, I wouldn't have sent it in. These are not only SOME fees they are OUTRAGEOUS fees. So i am again on the hunt for an apartment. I did find one, that i think is even better than the reserve. they're new, they're HUGE, the pricing is better..... now im just praying that we actually get this one, and its not an insane about of move in fees and deposits.

I called my mama and was talking to her about all of this, and i had just gotten finished saying "i don't think my day could get any worse" and eli threw up..... He's not sick, i think he just drank too much too fast because 20 minutes later he was running around like the crazy banchee he is.

There was one good thing that came this evening. I put Ayden to bed with a warm bottle, and he actually went to sleep. Thats right NO NURSING!!! I was SO proud of him. This is the first night he's done this. I wonder how long he'll sleep before he realizes that he needs some mama milk.... Im going to go to bed now, and pray that he sleeps well and that we hear good news about the NEW complex tomorrow... Please say a little prayer for us, I know that whatever HE has for us will be better than anything i would have found without Him. But for some reason, the letting go is REALLY hard right now.... Love ya'll!

God is SO good!

This was suppose to be posted 3 days ago... my apologies...

What a good day! The boys slept until 8 this morning. Eli and I made eggs for breakfast. Then he insisted that we have yogurt and cinnacin rolls too. I think Ayden ate more than Eli did, but it was so sweet to have Eli helping, he got to "scramble" the eggs.

Then we went to Gramma's house, they are upgrading their house so we got to go to home depot and lowes to get light fixtures and door handles. The boys is SUPER good. They were so patient! Ayden would start to fuss and Eli would sing to him, or be silly, or give him back his binkie, they were just AWESOME!

Then we got the best news of all.... Our DREAM apartment is available and they are willing to hold it for us!!! Im so excited i almost want to leave CO early just so that i can move in!! Now i just need jamie to give me the go ahead and i'll send in our applications and get the process started!We had barbque pork, stuffing, green beans, and biscuits for dinner and it was YUMMO! Then the boys had their bath, mama cleaned up the kitchen and folded laundry again, because the boys decided it would be funny to empty mama's clean and folded laundry out onto the floor and then throw it at each other. I guess that tuckered them out because Ayden didn't fight going to sleep tonight when i put him in bed, and Eli fell asleep on the floor..... It was a nice change from yesterday. Now im going to bed and looking forward to what God has in store for us for the month of September!