Gentle Years

Our first son, GB, is getting married in September, so yesterday was JC's bridal shower.  Unlike the average bride-to-be, all she wanted was appliances for the house.  She got everything from a waffle iron to a washing machine.

Today we celebrated Aidan's fifth birthday, though that date (estimated) is still three days away.  The party was early-10:30 to 12:30-to accomodate all of the guests' naptimes.  The kids played outside in our unseasonably beautiful weather, had lunch, played some more, opened presents, then had cake and ice cream.  Since it was time for our social worker to make her six month visit, she came to the party as well.  This gave her a chance to meet Aidan's friends, see him with his whole family (big brother and big sister and their families), and meet his daycare director (her daughter was a guest) as well as some of his playmates' parents.

After our nap, we did it all again.  LB turns eighteen tomorrow, so the evening party was a cook-out but I cooked in.  She doesn't like hot dogs or hamburgers so I roasted a pork loin and we had that with the usual salads, chips, watermelon, etc.

Some of the pictures are here, some are under LB's page (click on her name on the home page for that link), and some are under photos.

Here he is with his favorite playmates from daycare.  One highlight of the day for me, though, was when it was time to eat lunch and he insisted that he sit beside RB to eat.

Below he is sitting on "the bike" that he wanted.  He loves Diego, and wanted a bike, so fortunately they came together.  Then he is blowing out the candles on the cake I made-notice the Spider Man theme to everything.

Here is a short video of Aidan, between parties and before his nap, playing with the party favors from his sistr's party-we broke them out early.

We had three days off which was good, since G and I both had flu bugs of different sorts, and Aidan enjoyed the rest.  LB is the only one who wasn't really hit over the last couple of weeks with anything.  Running the wood stove probably didn't help us any, but you can't beat the price of our wood (free).

We weren't too sick to be contagious, so on Sunday I watched BB while our son went to sign papers for a new (newer used, that is) car, and on Monday RB spent the day with us since his mother did have to work.

I am working on hooking videos up to my site, but here are some photos for now:

Returning to work was great for me.  Aidan did just as I expected-fine the first day, not so fine the second, and very unhappy the third.  On the fourth he stayed with G, and on the fifth he was with me since we lost power and I didn't work.

Here are some random photos from our week:

Aidan decides that he loves turkey, after all.  He came out into the kitchen, sniffed it, said yum-yum and rubbed his belly, then spent a good twenty minutes with the baster.  He also decided that he loves cranberry sauce.

Entertaining in the dark-Aidan loves to operate the camera-forgive our grimy appearance (no showers or baths until the electricity came back on)

We went shopping both to get it done and also to get warm.  Here are the boys, both smiling at the same time, with Santa Claus.

Getting into the Christmas spirit now that the lights are back on.  LB was playing carols in the background (driving me crazy-I can either listen to music or have conversations, but not do both at the same time).  Aidan was trying to be ever so helpful with his first tree.  Mangus was trying to check everything out and also get out of the way (not too successful there).  But we finally got the thing up and lit.

RB comes over, gives his exuberant kisses and hugs, then asks, "Where's Aidan?"   Aidan is upstairs watching tv, cups his hand and gestures, saying, "C'mere, c'mere".  Together they decide to watch the Cars DVD which holds Aidan's attention for about five minutes (unlike  Tom & Jerry, which he could watch all day) while RB knows the movie just about by heart (he doesn't have cable or satellite, so it's a favorite at his house).  So RB watches while Aidan makes puzzle squares on the floor.  Then they both end up in G's model room checking out car models and parts before eventually settling down to good old-fashioned Play-Doh.