What would you do....

If you came out of your bedroom and saw THIS...

He's all boy, that's for sure!

Easter - at last.....

Daddy and Raleigh dyed more eggs the night before Easter...
Raleigh and Aiden found the eggs hidden by the Easter bunny...

Aiden slipped into a candy induced coma...
It was a great Easter. The kids really enjoyed it!

Another touching moment....

Ahhhhh, just a year ago I posted some crying pictures of Aiden. I assumed it was a phase that would pass. Clearly, I was mistaken. Here are some snapshots of a touching moment from our day today.


At least Raleigh is smiling! Who knew water bottles and ziplocks were such great toys???? To think of the money I wasted on Christmas presents.

Really, they are both great kids - Chris and I are so blessed.

Family is visiting!

We have family visiting from out of town. Yesterday we all went to Busch Gardens! Brooke and Raleigh had SUCH a great time! They really get along great!
Brandi, Brooke, Nonni, Poppy, Grandma Terry, Grammy, Grandpa, Chris, Raleigh, Aiden (and me of course) went to Busch Gardens...

Yep, he's with us....

Aiden is finally old enough to ride on some of the kiddie rides. He just LOVED this "choo choo"! He rode it twice in a row!

These HUGE puppets controlled by people on stilts are always a hit with the kids. Aiden even gave one a kiss on the nose.

Raleigh and Brooke got their faces painted. This was Raleigh's first face paint experience. She was as still as I have ever seen her. She cried when we had to wash her face last night and asked promptly this morning if we could go back and get her face painted again today. Silly girl!

At the end of the day we let the kids play in the sand box. Aiden escaped once and was lost for about 2 mins before we found him running back from across the play area. He was GONE from the sandbox, and I was in panic mode!

Christmas 2008

Here are some pictures of our Christmas season this year:

Raleigh helping to decorate the tree. Any idea how many ornaments you can fit on one branch in one spot of a 7 foot tree? Ha!

We had Christmas Eve dinner at our house. Great Mimi & Great Papa, Nonni & Poppy, Grammy & Grandpa plus the 4 of us! It was nice....

As you can see Santa barely brought anything... (ok, that's sarcasm, we barely had a square inch left to sit Christmas morning)....

Our "little man" turned one!

(Better late than never I suppose)

Aiden turned ONE in December.... Hard to believe a year had already gone by! Nonni and Poppy came down for his birthday and Christmas. We had a small party with family and friends ! Here he is destroying his little gingerbread man cake!

Halloween 2008

Here are Raleigh and Aiden - the Safari hunter and little lion:

We took the kids to Orlando (side note, I wrecked the van on the way over after swerving to avoid hitting a COYOTE! Bad idea. This was not a good start to the vacation, but it did get better. I'll spare the pictures of my van, which had the overall texture of a ruffles potato chip after the high tension guard wires went up one side over the roof ripping off the roof rack and back down the other side) We met up with Darrell and Sandy while there and everyone went to Universal Studios. Then Grammy and I took Raleigh and Aiden to the "Not So Scary Halloween" at Disney. They had SO much fun!!!

Finally, on the actual day of Halloween we took the kids Trick-OR-Treating around Grammy and Grandpa's neighborhood. Then Daddy took Raleigh around to our little street, since she really enjoyed the whole experience!

Our Trip Up North

In September we took a trip up north to see Chris' family. We visited with Nonni & Poppy first, then went to Jamestown to see Grammy Hayes, Great Grammie Long, Aunt Colleen, Uncle Brian, and the cousins! Raleigh had a great time playing with her cousins! Here are all the kids together (above) - this is the LAST shot of many, they are all pretty much looking at the camera. I think that's a miracle! Raleigh and Aiden with Grammy Hayes and Great Grammie Long...

What a happy little man!

We visited the Aquarium while we were in Niagara Falls. After we walked over to a little look out on the American Side. It was a really beautiful day.

They threw a little birthday bash for me since my birthday was just a week before our trip...

We had a great trip!!!