Thanksgiving in Draper

We got home Sunday night from such a great Thanksgiving in Utah at Amy and Richard's.  I had been fretting the 10+ hour drive with 2 kids in our little Passat for months, but they were little angel babies. Seriously, they were happy like 3/4 of the time and I completely understood, the rest of the time they just wanted to get out, like any normal child :)  We drove up Wednesday, the 26th, with my parents and Amber.  My mom and I thought it would be good to caravan, and I kept mentioning how we may stick Aiden in the van with them some of the time so that I could more easily get in the back with Janie when she got fussy.  Well, the men (Trent and my dad) were the first drivers, and literally, within the first half hour, they had split off from each other..ha.  We got back together in Flagstaff and Aiden rode with them for maybe an hour and a half, then we all stopped for lunch and we didn't see my parents and Amber again until we got to Amy and Richard's..ha.  But I understand, it's tricky to caravan and not get frustrated with one another.  And we were obviously the slow car because we have two young children.

We were so happy when we arrived at Amy and Richard's around 7:30 that night.  And I had to pee like I never have before..haha.  We immediately realized that most of us dressed in the same-ish color that day!  Me, Trent, and Aiden totally didn't mean too, and Amber actually pointed it out to us earlier in the day :)

Matchy matchy :)

We took it easy that night.  Poor Janie was pretty out of sorts that evening.  I think the long car ride had finally gotten to her :(  

We finally got to meet Amy and Richard's puppies.  Aiden really grew to love them during our trip :)  

Here's Prince.

The next day was Thanksgiving!  Jill, Jen, Amber, and my mom had spent the night at Jill's so that we could divide and conquer in two different kitchens.  We all had our individual assignments.  I got off easy and only had to do the cranberry sauce, and I got it done first thing in the morning so that I could get out of the kitchen.

We all regrouped around 1:30 and ate soon after.

Love her gorgeous blue eyes :)

Aiden became best buds with Jackson and Prince :)

Final touches before eating.

Don't be fooled, she's not crawling yet...

...but she really wants to be ;)

Working on the puzzle before we all sat down.

The girls waiting patiently ;)

Sisters.

Adorable.

Our little fam.

It was all delicious!  Thanks to Richard for doing the turkey.  I would venture to say that was the hardest assignment ;)

We got all cleaned up and played Prize, a tradition my family picked up several years ago.

Aiden was pretty excited about all of the presents ;)

In short, you can only open a present or steal if you roll PRIZE.

We all cracked up when he rolled them like this :)

We kind of crack up because this seems like kind of a greedy game to play on Thanksgiving, but luckily my mom keeps all of the presents to about a dollar. Thank you Target dollar section ;)

Then we had some time to just relax for a bit.

Oh Janie, she loves the phone.

The puppies took every opportunity they could to kiss Miss Janie..haha.  She did not love it by the end of our stay.

Our happy girl!

Aiden absolutely loves that Uncle Richard will play with him :)

That evening we got to see a whole bunch more family who came for dessert.  I really didn't get hardly any pictures because I was pretty occupied with Janie (she was pretty nervous with so many new faces) and I am bummed as always :/  The Clark's came and Rick, Eve, Dan, Meg and Adam.  It was so fun to see them all!

Aiden fell asleep at the table for a little bit.

We did make sure to snap a pic with Meg before they headed out.  She is pregnant with her first, due at the beginning of May :) :)

I love this one of Meg laughing :)  Amy was pinching her bum..haha.

An after pic ;)

I thought this was a sweet picture with Aunt Jen :)

It was a wonderful Thanksgiving!  We have much to be thankful for, more than we probably deserve, but I am oh so grateful.

Stay tuned for the rest of our trip :)

3 Year Stats

So man, I'm finally getting around to posting Aiden's 3 year stats.  We went to his appt. on the 20th and he weighed in at 30.6 pounds (38th percentile).  He is measuring right at about 3 feet (36.5 inches), which is in the 33rd percentile.  It was so interesting, our pediatrician says that if he stays on this growth curve, he'll probably end up being about 5'10''.  That does seem accurate because Trent is just under 5'11", but, for Aiden's sake, we're hoping he ends up a little taller ;)  It will be so crazy to see what ends up happening in the next 15ish years!

Aiden actually didn't have to get any shots, until our pediatrician strongly encouraged flu shots for both kids.  I don't normally bother with flu shots, but she said it would really be a good idea this year since Janie's just a baby.  I guess a lot of babies that get the flu end up in the hospital :(  So once our doctor left, I had to break the news to Aiden before the nurse came back in to give it.  He was very nervous, but I kept reminding him of a book we've been reading, and Daniel Tiger, who both get shots.  He did great.  I think it helped that Janie had to get one too ;)  And that they gave him a sucker afterward.

I had him show off his bandaid proof before he got in the bath that night.

• It is seriously amazing how well Aiden speaks.  I think it really floors people.  So many kids his age are not speaking nearly as much, or as well, as he does.  Here's a little video I got of him the night before his birthday :)

• I mentioned in his birthday post that he'd memorized a whole book that we got from the library, so we ended up buying it for his birthday.  We took it up to Utah for Thanksgiving because I was hoping he'd show off his skills for everyone. He can be pretty shy so I didn't know if he'd actually do it, but he totally did!  And it wasn't just my sisters around, a bunch of my cousins were there as well.  They were all dying!  They all cheered when he was done and you could tell he was so proud :)  I really need to get a good video of it.  He's such a little smartie!

• So I hate to even write this one because Aiden's actually had a really good week, but it seems like everyone had always told me "it's not the terrible twos, it's the terrible THREES."  And we can now attest to that.  Seriously, it was a like a week before his birthday that the tantrums started :/ He probably only averages about one good tantrum a day, but like I said, this last week it was even less than that.  He really is still the sweetest little guy most to the time :)

• Likewise, he is also having a terrible time sharing lately.  He watches Janie like a hawk and won't let her touch any. of. his. stuff.  Lots of times though, he's really good about hurrying to grab one of her toys and will give that to her instead.  Lately he also seems to get kind of jealous when we're giving Janie attention, particularly if Daddy is.  Trent will make Janie do all of kinds of funny things, like dance, and then Aiden will say, "My turn, my turn" and will get pretty upset if Trent doesn't react quick enough..haha.

• Probably factoring into the last two bullets, Aiden has kind of phased out of taking naps.  I still try to encourage him to take one every day - we'll do our typical routine of reading a few books and then he'll lie down and I always hope he'll fall asleep, but usually after about 5 minutes he'll come sneaking out and find me..haha.

• We got him all potty trained during the day in August.  He is doing awesome and never has accidents. We're still working on bedtime though.  We always put him in a diaper.  He goes through phases and sometimes he'll have a week or two where he'll consistently wake up dry, but then other weeks he'll wake up completely saturated.  So if anyone has any tricks, send them my way ;)

• Over the last year he'll either avidly try to avoid the camera OR he'll cheese it up.  A normal smile is hard to come by..ha.  Lately he's been cheesin' it ;)

This was from my birthday :)

I'm sure I'm missing something, but I can't think of much else.  And I don't really have any pictures of Aiden that I haven't already posted. But here are some recent pics of him sleeping.  You know how much I love those ;)

• These pics actually made me think of another point!  A few months ago Aiden made the connection that we use pillows and that he didn't have one.  He kept trying to take Trent's to his bed, so Trent found him his own.  You'll notice him lying on the pillow in two of the pictures, but sometimes he still pushes it to the side.

Propped way up there ;)

Aiden is 3!

Aiden Monkey turned 3 on Monday!  We celebrated his birthday over the course of two days - Saturday and Monday.  This year we just kept it simple and had our families join us and it was so nice. Saturday we went to the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park in Scottsdale and it was so great.  We will definitely be going back! Admission is free and then you just purchase tickets if you want to go on one of the 3 rides - the antique carousel or two different trains.

Aiden decided he wanted to ride the carousel first and was adamant they sit in the hand cart instead of on the horses..haha.

Aiden spotted my mom and Amber entering the park :)

We got Miss Janie fed and then we all went on the bigger train ride.

The group - Mom was taking the picture and Kent seems to be hiding ;)

There was a little museum and then you could tour this train.  The car at the end (the Roald Amundsen Pullman Car) is best known for its presidential travel.  It was actually used by Presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and Dwight Eisenhower!

I thought Aiden would be excited to tour the train, so we didn't spend too much time in the museum before we went out to the train.  But I was wrong!  We had made it about halfway through (there were just 3 or 4 train cars so it wasn't huge or anything) when Aiden had a little freak out and insisted we turn around!  I don't know what happened!  Nonetheless, he was happy when we made it back inside the museum ;)

We all suspected the little freak out may be hunger related so we decided to have some lunch next.

They have two awesome play areas at the park and Aiden was in heaven.  Seriously, we may just go back with a picnic sometime and play on the playgrounds!

Aiden's at the top of the slide here.

We still had some tickets, so Aiden went on the train again with Trent and Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles.

Here they come ;)

Back to the train station.

Miss Janie may have played with Aiden's Mater while he was on the train.  He spotted it right away and took it back right when he got back ;)

Then we headed over to check out the Model Railroad Building.

It was so neat to see all of the little model railroads and trains.  I love anything miniature and it was amazing to see all of the detail they put into everything!

Everything was Janie sized ;)

Some of the trains had characters riding on them.  This one had Spiderman :)

Lastly, I went on the kiddie train ride with Aiden.

I felt a little silly on it :)

As I said before, we had such a great time and will definitely be back. And the weather was perfect.  It was a great day!

Monday I tried to really spoil Aiden :)

He didn't wake up until 9 and then we went out for donuts.  I didn't even change him into clothes, we just went in his jammies ;)  We went to Bosa's Donuts just down the road and Aiden picked out this donut with chocolate frosting and sprinkles :)

Picture isn't great b/c I took it with my ancient phone.

Sunday night Trent and I were talking about meeting for lunch in Tempe.  One of the first things Aiden said when he woke up was how he wanted to go to slides and have chicken nuggets and fries, so I thought we could meet Trent at Chick-fil-a, but it turns out the one near him w/ the play place has closed down.  So it worked out that Grandma Knuckles texted wanting to take Aiden out to McDonald's for lunch :)

Later that afternoon I worked on Aiden's cake and we just hung out. That evening our families came over for cake and presents.

Our presents for Aiden before our families showed up.

The first present Aiden opened was the whole set of Cars from Grandma and Grandpa Knuckles and then he couldn't seem to move past them!  This happened last year too where he gets overwhelmed and opens a gift and wants to start playing with it immediately..haha. We had to keep reminding him that he still had other gifts to open!

I didn't get a picture of every gift.

I got this book (My First Airplane Ride) for Aiden from the library a while back and he loved it so much that he memorized the whole thing!  Then he kept mentioning how he wanted it for his "birday", so I was glad I could find it for him.

Janie was loving all of the wrapping paper :)

Then we sung and had cake.  I was pretty pleased with how the cake turned out (at least the top).  I did the 3 by simply placing a cookie cutter on there and filling it with sprinkles and then removing it (found the idea on Pinterest of course!).

I was cracking up because Aiden was singing along with us!

So as usual I was terrible about getting pictures of everyone else, so I quickly snapped these pictures as Kent and Tanis were getting ready to head out :/

Bummed I don't have any with Mom and Amber (Dad was stuck cleaning the church), but by that point Aiden was so done.

It was a nice day though and Aiden is still telling us how much he loves his birthday presents :)  We went to his 3-year check-up today so I'll post his stats next.  We love this boy to death, tantrums and all (more on that later!), and are so grateful for the joy he brings into our lives.