Thanksgiving 2010

Myles loved making our Thanksgiving place mats.

This Thanksgiving was only the second time in our 5 years of marriage that we did not spend the holiday with one of our families. The first was when I was pregnant with Myles and was on bed rest. Missing Christmas on the farm was torture for me.  It was torture for Nat as well :-). This Thanksgiving we spent with Nat's family 2 weeks ago and then we got to spend our first Thanksgiving as just our family. I was actually excited to start our own family traditions. Unfortunately, Ty was sick and had a fever so this was not his favorite day, but the rest of us sure had fun. We started the morning by sleeping in and then watching the Macy's parade. Myles was a little bit confused with the whole massive flying balloon thing, but he did enjoy the characters. Nat has a "thing" for his Thanksgiving turkey. Every year he looks for the biggest turkey he can find and then takes great care cooking it. He loves Thanksgiving like I love Christmas. He did a great job cooking the turkey, the only bummer is that I really do not like turkey and it seems that neither off the boys do either. We had ham instead. So if you do the math....Nat has 22 lbs of turkey to eat himself, and he is so happy about that.

Now this is MY kind of Turkey!

This was a once in a lifetime treat for Tig. Never again. :-)

Nat was SO happy in this moment.

Getting to Skype with everyone back home. Can't describe how nice this was!

Eating some Thanksgiving ham.

Giving Thanks.

Pumpkin pie to finish it off.

Even though he was feeling crummy he still gave us a Thanksgiving smile.

First Snowfall

Much to Myles' delight we finally had our first snowfall. The day after Thanksgiving we woke up to a light coating of snow. Myles didn't even get out of his jammies to go outside. Nope, we just put the snowsuit on right over the jammies and headed out. We didn't want to waste any time since we knew that the snow would melt before noon, which most of it did. About 2 weeks ago I told Myles it was "winter" and we needed to wear a coat and hat. Since then he has been asking me when it was going to snow. I made the mistake of telling him that Nana and Papa already had snow. He has been asking about the snow blower and where the snow is ever since. When this snow came Nat told him that Nana and Papa sent it to us. Pretty sure that they are even higher on his list than before (if this is really possible). We played for as long as I could stand it. We made a MINI snowman, some snow angels, had a snowball fight, and took a walk through the snow. Myles was in heaven and could have stayed out there all day if I had let him. He always helped me shovel snow in MN even though he was only a year old. We we also went out in his sled to play. I think he is a true Minnesota boy at heart. I am sad to say that the warm weather has turned me soft. Just hearing about the zero degree weather of MN makes me shutter. I still love my snow and winter weather, but I have to say that the warm weather of KY is kinda nice. Here are a few pictures of my little man enjoying our first snow fall. I hope Ty is feeling better for the next one. I can't wait to see what he thinks of it.

He decided to make a snow angel all by himself. I think Nana taught him how to make these actually.

Can you see it? It is my little angel.

We will have to save the big snowman making for Minnesota I guess.

Not Feelin Good

This week it seems that whatever bug was out there got to Ty. He has been battling a fever and is just one sick mini man. He has been my cuddle bug for the last 3 days. I am exhausted from his lack of sleeping as well as from carrying him all the time. The silly thing is that Ty is such a mover that the cuddle time for me is priceless. I hate that he is sick, I hate it, but getting to hold him is something I love. All too soon I won't be able to hold him like this so for now I will snuggle my mini man until he feels better. Oh how I love my mini man snuggle time. If I could just teach him how to snuggle without being sick.

Just can't seem to get comfortable anywhere.

Finally just gave in.

Such sad eyes.

Haircut Time

There are lots of ways that I try to save money. One way is by giving the boys haircuts myself. I could not figure out how to get them to sit still until the amazing Dum Dum came around. So now instead of it costing me $14 for a haircut it costs $0.20. I think Ty has come to love haircut time. It is the only time he gets real sweets and man he devours them. He eats it all the way to the stick. He is one big happy mess. Myles is usually not as happy and compliant, but Dum Dums always work with him. Always.
I don't think the haircuts were perfect, but they will tide us over until we get home to Jackie. A friend once said, "The only difference between a good haircut and a bad one is about a week's time". It will all be better in a week. :-) 

Does my little man need a haircut or what?

How happy is he?

The Mitchell salon. Dum Dums for everyone.

Little Man is looking more and more like a big man.

 

 

Here is his "after" picture

Two Favorite Moments

Here are my two favorite moments from this weekend.

 

I know that my boys WILL grow up no matter how hard I try to keep them little. I ADORE this picture though because it has captured them little just one more time. I look forward to the day they are shoulder to shoulder and pray that they will be good Christian men. Until that day, I will LOVE every minute of their smallness and cherish the time that I have with them.

This just makes me smile. This is what we do on our Saturday nights. We build "jungle gyms" and flex our muscles.

Potty Training....UGH!!

We are well into the potty training phase. I spent most of the summer working with Myles and had to take a break for a little while after we were just not getting it. If Myles is naked he is TOTALLY potty trained. He knows exactly when he has to go and will make it to the potty no problem. Funny thing is, even though we live in Kentucky, they still appreciate it when you have clothes on. Teeth are optional, but clothes, not so much. The moment I put underwear on Myles he goes to the bathroom in his pants. UGH. I started using a timer and making him go every 25-30 minutes. After about an hour he was sick of this game. I have since increased it to every hour and that is causing a lot less stress. We are down to about 1 accident a day, which is not too bad, but he is still not tell me has to go. He also will only pee in the toilet. He still likes to hide if he is going number 2 and really will not go in the toilet. I tried to get creative with giving him privacy since he likes to be in the room with us but does not want to be seen. I am looking for any ideas as I am kinda sick of the amount of laundry that I have been needing to do lately. :-)

The Potty Training Fort

A fort AND a Dum Dum. I am pretty sure he is winning at this game. :-)

Busy Weekend

This weekend was one of those weekends where you just need another day to get all the things done that you wanted to do. I knew that the weekend was going to bring us some nice weather and it may be the last nice weekend we get so I better get as much outside stuff done as possible. Hearing about the ice that was hitting back home in MN also made me want to get as much outside time as possible as well.

The first big thing we got done was the removal of two big pine trees in our front yard. They were big and not very good looking. We have done all of the tree trimming ourselves so far, but this one we left to the professionals. They did a great job. They also told us they could take the tree branches that we had piled in our backyard and chop them up and take them away. The only problem was that their truck would not fit through the small gate we have. I had piled all the branches all the way in the very back of the yard against the fence with the intention of burning them some time soon. The pile got so big and the amount of time it would take me to burn it was just too much for me to deal with. SOOOOO this meant that the massive pile needed to get to the front yard somehow. I was that somehow this weekend. I moved ALL of the wood to the front yard one wagon load at a time. I did have the lawn mower to help me out, but I will say, I was one tired lady. It was a big job that took me two days and I never plan to do that again. :-) With as little as the landscaper is charging me to chop it, I will be using him from now on. He came today and got about 20 minutes of chopping done before his machine broke. :-) Looks like the neighbors will have to look at the ugly pile of sticks a little longer :-)

The last job that we got done was we had dirt delivered and put in the front yard to level out the yard a bit because it was sloping toward the house which meant that every time it rained it went into the crawl space. This job provided the boys with the most enjoyment of all. There is something about little boys and dirt. I do not see this with little girls, but little boys and dirt are like magnets. You can't fight the attraction and you may as well not try to fight it. I finally had to bring Ty inside after he put handfuls of it in his mouth. REALLY? I do feed my kid. :-) Myles was my worker boy. He calls himself "little farmer Joe". Farmer Joe is the main character on his favorite movie. He had a blast on that dirt pile and was so content just raking and shoveling. I LOVE that he is so good at playing alone without needing t.v. or someone right beside him to keep him focused. My little farm boy in the city. 

Here are a few pictures of a weekend of getting projects done.

The house before we removed the trees.

The horrid trees

As the tree is coming down.

AFTER!!!

My pile of branches. SO excited to get rid of it! It is like the ultimate Spring cleaning for me!

A look at the new dirt.

Now we just need some ideas for landscaping....This is a little out of my comfort zone. I have tried to walk around the neighborhood to look at other people's landscaping. Pretty sure I will just copy someone else since I have no skills in this area. We are also trying to decided if we want to repaint the shutters. They are not our favorite, but with the brick being so light we are not quite sure what to go with.....So many projects...The list keep growing.

Lasagna Night

Thank Goodness Kids Are Washable!!

Boys and Dirt

As soon as our new load of dirt was delivered Myles' eyes lit up. It became pretty apparent that naps were going to be skipped for the day. It would be impossible to get a little boy away from a dirt pile that big and really, if he is going to be happy and playing who needs a nap? I really wish we could have kept the dirt pile in the yard forever, but it did need to get spread. The boys did get their fair share of playing done and I got my fair share of cleaning dirty socks and washing a dirty floor after the dirt was brought in the house. Sure was nice to see two happy boys playing outside and enjoying wonderful weather. All the cleaning was worth every second if it.

That is one happy worker.

Dirt feels so good between the fingers.

No it is not Ash Wednesday, just what happens when you play in the dirt.

Yep..He's eating it. Can't wait to see the diapers after this adventure. :-)

Banana Eater

I love to start my day with a smiley little boy!

I hope your day starts out as well as mine did!!