Playing with the camera. Thought I would show pictures of the little goobers!









Here's Dylan with his camera

Its a bit out of focus, and grainy because I was messing with the settings, but I love the look on Ethan's face

Happy New Year everyone!

It feels like a big step for me. I am officially getting rid of the baby stuff. I posted ads on Craigslist. Today someone came and picked up the swing. No more babies for us. I hope that in the next week or so, I can get rid of all of it. I'm ready to move on to the toddler and school age part of mommy-hood. I don't have it in me to have any more kids. We are a family of four and it works...for me.
Its almost January. And on January 16th, my brother leaves. He will be headed to Afghanistan for a year. He is supposed to be able to come home for 2 weeks in the middle of his deployment, but that could change. I don't know what I should say or do, I don't know if there are things that I shouldn't say or do. I don't want to make things harder for him, but at the same time, I don't want him to think I don't care. Mom will be a wreck. She will constantly be worrying about him. How could she not. Its what mothers do. I will do what I can to be here for her. I can't imagine what could be going through his head as he prepares to leave for such a scary place. He will never tell anyone if he is scared. He isn't like that. I am scared for him. How could I not be? All I can do is offer any support to him, give him a hug and an "I love you" as he leaves. Then, pray. For his safety, and for the safety of the ones he is with. I don't want him to know how worried I am or how helpless I feel. I guess part of me feels like I should be doing more. I just don't know what else there is to do. If I were in his shoes, I would be scared, but I wouldn't let anyone know. Maybe that's what he is doing. He isn't sure of the types of communication he will have access to. I hope something is available to him, and I hope it is easy for him to do. Being able to talk to people from home would help me. Maybe that's not true for everyone. I don't know. Like I said, I kind of feel like there is something I could do. But there probably isn't. Is there?

I cannot believe that this year is almost over. I don't know why it has flown by so fast. Ethan is soon to be a year old. Soon he will be walking. Which, honestly, I am not ready for him to do. He is into enough stuff as it is. Both boys have changed so much this year. Dylan is now 4, somehow. I can't imagine how this next year will play out. This time last year I was very pregnant, and anxiously waiting to meet Ethan. Although, at that time, we hadn't picked out a name. We didn't decide on the name until he was born. We had 2 names in mind, and Ethan won. In less than a month we will be celebrating his first birthday. Part of me is happy to get away from the baby days, but the other part of me isn't. I do miss holding a tiny infant. I don't miss the sleeplessness though. As Ethan gets older though, the 2 can start to play together. Once Ethan starts walking and talking, a whole new chapter will open with us all.
So this next year will be interesting. For Ryan, spring work will start, then wheat. In August we are taking a family vacation, that I cannot wait for! Once we get back from vacation, Dylan will start preschool. He is growing so fast. Then the fall work will start up for Ryan. After that, we will be back to where we are now. I wonder if next year will go by as fast as this one did...

Ok, here are a few pictures from Christmas. Of course there are more, but other people are in them, so I didn't want to post those.

Here's Dylan with his Chia Pet from Santa

Well we had one busy weekend.
Friday started out on a bad note. I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, and things snowballed that morning. I just had so much stuff to do, things got to me more than they should have. Anyway, it evened out later in the day. No big deal. Most of it was me. But I finally got through my "to do list" for the day.
Saturday was nice. We woke up, I fed Ethan, and we got ready to get Dylan up. I thought he would be excited to see the gifts under the tree, but it was more of a "whatever" reaction. So we ate breakfast, then did gifts. I made cinnamon rolls from scratch for all of us to enjoy that morning. We let Dylan open his gifts first, and kept Ethan separate. Dylan got a truck/livestock trailer combo, a kids digital camera, animals for the truck, and a bath toy from us. Then Santa brought him exactly what he wanted...a Chia pet. A Spongebob Chia pet. He was extremely excited to get it. Then we tried to have Ethan open his gift. He wasn't interested. We only got him one toy, and then a bath toy like Dylans, because we really didn't know what else to get. Between the 2 of them there is enough for Ethan to play with. Anyway, he wasn't all that interested. That held true for the rest of the weekend too. After the boys were done, Ryan and I opened ours. After gifts, Ethan went down for a nap, and Dylan was able to play with all of his toys. He loved the camera, once Daddy showed him how to use it. Once Ethan woke from his nap, we all left to go to Ryan's parents. We had a nice lunch and received nice gifts. It was nice to sit and talk with everyone too. Again, Ethan didn't care about the gifts. Dylan loved the Thomas the Train toys he got. That evening we were all pretty tired. Ryan helped me get a few things done before Sunday.
Sunday morning I got up early to stick the ham in the oven, then laid down on the couch in hopes of getting a couple more hours of sleep. Once the boys woke up, I started working on the rest of the meal for lunch that day. Mom came over to help, thankfully. We got everything ready in time, and everything turned out great. The food was great and much more than we needed. That day, mom's side of the family was coming here. It had been so windy, and was snowing off and on, and mom said the roads were a mess from the drifting snow. I was so surprised when everyone showed up that day! I was so happy that they all made it. The kids played so good together. They tore through their gifts in no time, and then went back to playing hide and seek. After everyone left, mom and Kyle (my brother) stuck around so we could exchange gifts. Ryan and I were so tired that evening.
Like I said it was a busy weekend, but it was great. I really enjoyed it. Its not often you get to see so much family all in one weekend. Got up and took Dylan to school. He was excited. I think I am having another episode of vertigo. Sunday morning I had one dizzy spell while I was sleeping. Then again this morning dizziness woke me up. Since then, it comes and goes. If I turn my head to fast, or lean over, or even tilt my head, I get dizzy and feel like I am on a boat. Who knows how long it will last. If it doesn't get worse, then it will be manageable.
As you can see there are no pictures. I took over 300 this weekend. It will take time to get through all of them. So hopefully sometime this week I will get some Christmas pictures up.
It is so hard to believe that this year is almost over. Its also hard to belive that Dylan is 4 and Ethan is soon to be 1. My babies are no babies anymore. Ethan had a molar pop through last week and is now working on one on the opposite side. Both on the top. He is doing well with them so far.

I was playing around with my camera today. I don't get to practice as much as I'd like to. So while Ethan was napping, I decided to practice with some of the ornaments on the tree. I just did a basic edit on most of them. Played with some of the colors too!

This last picture is my favorite for some reason! I like the edit I did on it, but couldn't repeat it on the others for some reason!

Lots of stuff to get done around here. I will post on Monday telling how our weekend went, and hopefully have some pictures of the boys from Christmas too! Until then...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We had a decent weekend. Friday night we went to a birthday party for Ryan's nephew. As soon as we got to the city, Ethan started crying in the car. He didn't stop until we got him out. I'm assuming he was bored. He got up from his nap, I fed him and we left. So I imagine he just had a lot of energy and didn't want to sit there any more. He just isn't all that great at riding in car. He has always been that way. Saturday we stayed home for most of the day. We had to go to the Christmas dinner at the firehouse that evening. Ryan and Dylan left before Ethan and I. The dinner went well. The boys did good. Both nights we got home after their bedtime, and we were all exhausted. Sunday Ryan had to work, so the boys and I went to moms for a little while.
I have a lot of things to get done this week. I didn't get anything done but getting groceries today. Ethan was having one of his days. He only slept 1 hour the whole day. So he was tired and clingy. I hope to have a better day tomorrow, so I can get started. I want to get things around here straightened a bit, and move some toys around, before I start baking and prep cooking later in the week. I've got a couple of things I want to make for Christmas dinner at Ryan's parents and then I want to get a few things done ahead of time before the big meal I cook on Sunday. Supposedly on Friday we are getting a decent amount of snow. Right now they are calling for 3 to 5 inches of snow. I am hoping they are wrong and we don't get near that much. I want the weekend to go as planned. I am looking forward to it all so much. I have been looking forward to the Christmas dinners.

We haven't done much this week. I didn't take Dylan down to school on Monday because we got a few inches of snow. The schools were all closed and the roads were horrible. Just not worth making the drive down there. Last night I took the boys up to the firehouse so they could see Santa. I thought Ethan would cry, but he didnt! Dylan asked Santa for a Chia pet. Anyway, getting out the door was a nightmare. I laid Dylan's clothes out and told him to get dressed. He was fine until it came to putting on his socks. Something didn't go right, and he had a meltdown. Tears and all. So I helped him with that and went back to getting Ethan ready. Handed Dylan his shoes and told him to put them on. One shoe went on fine, but the other one didn't I guess, and he cried again! Meanwhile, Ethan is fighting me with all he has while I am trying to bundle him up. So I get Dylan's shoes on, get Ethan dressed. Told Dylan to get his jacket and put it on, while I try putting Ethan's on. Ethan hates it when I put his jacket on. He always throws a fit. I just expect it. Well this time Dylan had a fit, because he couldnt get his arm in his jacket for some reason. At this point, I almost said forget it we aren't going. But I knew that Ryan wanted us to go up there, so I took a few deep breaths and finished dressing them and we were out the door. Once we were there everything was fine. We stayed up there with Ryan for a bit and then came home and I finally got everyone to bed.
Friday we have a birthday party to go to, and Saturday the Christmas dinner at the firehouse. Sunday Ryan works. Here are a few pictures from the Santa visit!

Updated the look for winter!

It feels like it has been a long week for some reason. We haven't done much, but still. Dylan got in trouble at school on Monday. Occasionally he does act out. I'm sure he isn't the only one from time to time. I talked to him about it. The weather has been so cold this week. Luckily we are staying warm here in the house! Today the boys and I went to town to get a few things. I needed to get some stuff for Ryan, and get a few things from Walmart. Before we left I took a strap that is supposed to go to Dylan's booster seat in the kitchen. I figured that since Walmart doesn't offer a cart with room for 2 kids, I needed to do something. Dylan would need to be in the cart, because going into walmart is never quick, and I didn't want to set myself up for a fight trying to keep him close while getting through the crowded store quickly. So anyway, I took that strap and set him in the basket of the cart, and used that strap to keep him sat down. With the strap around his waist, there was no way for him to stand up! So he was in the basket and Ethan was in the seat. It worked well. If I had to get a bunch of stuff, it probably wouldn't have worked so well, but since I wasn't getting a lot, it worked fine. I'm so proud of myself.
No huge plans for the weekend. Grandparents are coming to see the boys. And I think on Sunday we are supposed to get a bunch of snow. Although I guess they aren't sure whats going to happen yet. We'll see!

It was a nice weekend. Ryan was home early on Friday, so Dylan and I ran to town and got a few things at Walmart then picked up dinner. The store was packed, so I didn't get half of what I wanted to get. We had to park way out in the middle of nowhere, and Dylan kept getting distracted by anything and everything, that it seemed to take us forever to actually get inside the store. There were just way too many people there.
The rest of the weekend we just sat at home. Ryan had a meeting at the fire department Saturday morning. While Ethan was taking his first nap that day, Dylan and I were on the computer looking at anything and everything that had to do with Santa. For some reason Dylan had Santa on the brain. I asked Dylan if he knew where Santa lived and he said "Yeah, at the firehouse." The local fire department always has Santa one night in December for all of the kids to come and see. So that is the only place (other than tv and books) that Dylan has seen Santa. It was just so funny. I asked him what he was going to ask Santa for and he said "A new bear and a big rock." He is so funny!
Saturday night we did get our Christmas tree up. I bugged Ryan all day, and he finally brought it up that evening and put it up for me. I think I have the branches where I want them, so I went ahead and put all of the decorations on it. I think I am happy with it. We also have baby gates surrounding it so that Ethan doesn't pull on it. Honestly though, Dylan is just as bad. He knows he isn't supposed to, but that doesn't mean that he wont touch it. He knows when I am distracted, and that's when he does things he isn't supposed to. Ryan worked today, so the boys and I just stayed here.
I dread getting up and dragging the boys out in the morning to take Dylan to school and get groceries. It is so cold right now and I can't imagine how cold it will feel in the morning. I shudder just thinking about it! Winter is here. Its not supposed to get out of the 20s all week I don't think. And stay in the teens at night. Yuck!
No plans this week. Staying warm!

I can't believe that it is December already. It feels like his year has flown by. I'm sure December will do the same. And around here December came in like a lion. I know that is only supposed to apply to March, but oh well. Its been snowing here all morning. Yesterday the high was in the mid 50s, and now we will be lucky to get to the mid 30s. If the ground were colder, than all of this snow would have stuck. But most of it is melting away. There is a light dusting in most places though. Its pretty. And I am so glad that I do not have to go out and drive in it. Ryan is out working, hauling beans with the semi, and he said he has seen so many accidents around the county. People get stupid around here when it snows a bit. The whole week is supposed to be cold. I think winter has decided to stick around. I don't care so much for the winter. I'm a warm weather person. Not a hot weather person, but warm weather. Now that December is here, I swear a switch flipped inside of me. I want my tree up now! If it weren't in a box in the basement, I would be setting it up right now. Its a bit heavy, and awkward for me to push or drag it up the steps from the basement. So our tree process will probably go like this...I will pester the crap out of Ryan for a few days before he finally gives in and drags the tree out of the basement. He will probably do this while I am cooking dinner. So he will leave the box in the dining room. It will sit there for 2 or 3 days before I pester him more to drag it in the living room and help me put it up. I need help with the top part. I'm not tall enough. And the bottom is too wide for me to get close enough with a chair to stick the top on. Then it will sit un-decorated for almost a week before I get tired of looking at it and moving the branches around. I will decorate it one day while the boys are napping, then obsess about the way it looks for a couple of days before I finally leave it alone. That's how it goes every year.
Boys are good. Ethan is extra cranky this week. Its getting a bit tiring and frustrating. Dylan spent Saturday night with Ryan's mom and dad. They took him to the parade that I mentioned. He says he liked it. I don't think he has ever been to one, so I am sure he did enjoy it. They kept him until the next evening. I'm sure he really enjoyed the one on one attention. I don't think we have any plans for the weekend. Ryan works one day this weekend, but I'm not sure which day.