Our newest addition!

Welcome Andrew Timothy Rogers!!!

Born on November 28, 2010 at 8:07 pm weighing 6 lbs 5 oz and measuring 19 inches long.

We are in love with our new addition to the family!

Here is a picture from our first moments as a family of four!

We arrived home yesterday and are adjusting to life with our new one. Things are going great and we are loving every minute with our boys.

More pictures to come very soon once I get them uploaded!!!!!

Fun Friday

So this posting is a bit late, but here are some pictures from an outing that Aiden and I had with another mom in the area. We headed over to a kids village where five dollars provided a morning of entertainment!!!!

Look who found the computer room!

And this picture is dedicated to Molly-my DDR partner/awesome college roommate. It looks like Aiden is ready to learn some of our dance moves:)

Loves the kitchen!

The big slide-he did it over and over and over again!

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving! We enjoyed a nice, relaxing holiday with just the three of us. I still made a turkey dinner-although I realized two things: 1. Don't cook an entire Thanksgiving meal at 39 weeks pregnant-you will make errors! 2. Thanksgiving is really better when you aren't pregnant and have space for all that food!

We are lucky to have Chris' parents arrive today to spend the week with Aiden:) I know that they hope this baby arrives soon and I won't be complaining as my belly can't get any bigger!!!

38 Weeks, Never Ending Leaves, and One Crazy Toddler!

So tomorrow we hit 38 weeks with this pregnancy!!!!!! It's crazy that this baby boy can come any time, although I really, really, really hope that he stays in until Friday so we have some grandparents to help us out. I have both of my sisters on call in case anything happens, but for their sake, I hope that this baby is cooperative is the first one was:) I feel pretty great for being so far along despite waking up between 4 and 5 am every morning-I guess it's nature's way of getting me ready for those all night feedings! And thankfully, Chris has been waking up with Aiden in the weekends allowing me to catch just a few extra moments of rest!

So fall has definitely hit our new house in New Jersey and we are blessed with leaves, leaves, and more leaves. So far they have done two town pick-ups of the leaves with one more to come next week. Our gutter area was FULL of leaves before the last pick-up and I have a feeling that this next time around we will be filling it up all over again. Chris loves using his new leaf blower (once he gets it started!) and Aiden loves to watch and help his daddy with leaves!

Sweeping up the leaves on to the tarp:

Enjoying some fall weather:

Now it's time to mow:

I'll take care of the grass, Daddy, and you take care of the leaves!

We have been working SO hard to get ready for this baby! My to-do list is finally shrinking to a manageable size and I am hoping to get it completed once, or as much as I can, when we have some grandparents here to help babysit:) Aiden keeps me pretty busy during the week, so the only bouts of free time that I have are naptime, bedtime, and short bouts during the day to get things done. My little rugrat is a handful, but I love him to pieces:)

Taking a ride around the house:

I'm not sure giving our little boy a blue M&M was a good idea!

Loves to pretend to go night night with the puppies:) These dogs are so patient for all they have to put up with!

Eating a "marshie" (marshmallow)!

Someone looks like Bozo when he woke up from nap today!

The last thing that I have to share is my creation from today! I put this together at naptime for big brother Aiden! I could not find a big brother shirt for Aiden anywhere that was in his size, so I decided to get creative. Even better, we got this shirt as a hand-me-down from some friends and it had a bleach stain on the front so it needed something to make it cute! So I used some fabric, heat and bond, and my sewing machine skills and whipped this up:) This boy is all ready to be a big brother!!!

A bit of nostalgia...

I can't believe that my little boy looked like this about one year ago. Where has the time gone?

Aiden is celebrating his 23 month birthday! And I can't believe that in just one month this little peanut will be turning two:) I don't think that this mama is ready for his next birthday yet!!!

At 22 months:

You are quite the noise maker! If you aren't talking, you love to jibber and jabber although you have inherited your Mommy and Daddy's shyness and are much more timid out in public than you are at home.

Your favorite toys are your Mighty Morphin Power Ranger phone (which I hate to admit but what a toy deal it was seeming that we picked it up at CVS for about one dollar), your old school Little people bus, the vacumn, a set of random keys, your computer, and books!!! You love to play, play, play:):):) You call people all day long on your pretend phone-mostly Mimi, Grandpa, Daddy...but sometimes you call your cousins, aunts, and uncles too! Thankfully, we haven't lost your phone yet!!!! You are such a reader. You pull out at least 50 books a day flipping through them and reading them to yourself. Your favorites are Go Dog Go!, The Foot Book, Elmo, Hop on Pop, The Eye Book, and many more!!!

You love to go to story time at the library. Your favorite things are the BUBBLES and the stamps that they put on your hand! Since we have moved, Mommy is always looking for things to do with you. This week, we have run errands, been to Mommy's doctor, been to 2 storytimes, and went to a kids village today! I have to keep you busy somehow with all the energy that you have. You love to get out and explore the world around you. We play outside almost every afternoon, if not morning too! You love to "drive" in your car, swing, go on walks, and push your mower around. You love to be outside, which makes this mommy happy because I do too! At the park, you love to drive the steering wheel, walk on the "beam", go down the slides, and watch all of the older kids:)

You are sleeping pretty well in your big boy bed, although some nights you do like to fight us! You still take a good afternoon nap and wake up with a crazy amount of energy.

You aren't a huge television watcher, but you do LOVE the Wheels on the Bus video! We watch it over and over and over. You love to do the actions to the video, like shhing the babies. You sometimes like to watch Elmo and Mickey, but other times you just want to watch the "bus".

You LOVE the puppies and get into some pretty crazy games of chase with them. We walk them everyday and you love to get into their kennel pretending to go night-night with them.

You do have some meltdown moments, which makes this very pregnant mommy even more exhausted! You hate when you can't find something or not have immediate attention when you want "help pease". Sometimes, you are picky about your clothes-which means that sometimes you are wearing blue shoes that don't match or your Crocs with socks. We do what we have to do to get out the door sometimes. When we run errands, you only last in the cart for so long before you want to walk. Which means either you are helping me push the cart or our errands are SHORT!

You are one PICKY eater. About the only foods I can get into your belly are: yogurt, oatmeal, Goldfish, shredded cheese, cereal bars, fruit, peas, and fruit snacks. You fight getting into your high chair, but I'm not ready for you to move to the table yet as I know you would be wandering all around instead of sitting, so for now, we do what we can to get you in:)

This month is going to bring you lots of change! We have your second Thanksgiving to celebrate, a baby brother on the way and your first night that you will be away from Mommy and Daddy, lots of family planning to visit, and then you will be 2!!!! Please make this month go slow as I want to enjoy each and every day left in your second year of life:)

A Belated Post...Hayrides, Pumpkins, and Family

So I meant to post these pictures earlier, but it's taken me awhile for me to download them from Chris' iPhone. We enjoyed a fabulous visit in October with some of my siblings and Aiden especially enjoyed some playtime with cousin Jack:) Hope you enjoy these photos!

The Rogers Family

Look Mama! (Pointing out things on our hayride:))

Lots and lots of pumpkins

Helping cousin Jack pick out their pumpkin

Jack and Aiden

Finding his way through the corn maze

I am off to enjoy a few quiet moments of doing nothing, a rarity with my neverending to-do list! Which means I am putting this computer away...I am so frustrated with it as I am working on cleaning out my iPhoto, moving photos to a hard drive, and making space for new photos as the baby is close to arriving. Sounds easy, but instead this whole process gives me a HUGE headache so I'm going to take a break from this neverending task and watch some unproductive television instead and prevent a meltdown before the week begins! Happy Sunday night:)

Another Part of Home Tour: Our Bathroom

So this isn't the most exciting room to show, but I wanted to continue our home tour with the bathroom. We moved from our Connecticut house with relatively spacious 2 full bathrooms and 1 1/2 bath to 1 small full bathroom and 1/2 bathroom in the basement. So we have to be creative with space and keep it simple and I am very happy with the end result:)

Our vanity area! We purchased this storage tower from Target which is awesome for holding my bathroom items, Aiden's baby supplies, and bath toys!

Our new shower curtain and bath mat are featured here! This is one of the only rooms in the house we have not painted and instead of repainting, we decided to get a few items to spark this brown bathroom up:)

Hope you enjoyed another part of our tour! Our week is flying by with days at home our little toddler bug, Chris keeping busy at work, and preparing to meet our baby boy very soon. I hit full-term this weekend and I am starting to feel it, finally, with a wave of massive exhaustion (or it could be the late night hysterics that are suddenly occurring-YIKES!).

Our Weekend In Review...

Besides our adventure in trick or treating, as shown here, we had a great and BUSY weekend!

A BIG milestone for Aiden, he has moved to a big boy bed!!!! On Friday, I put this fabulous Ikea bed together for him and we moved him into his own bed:) We wanted to move the crib to the baby's room, if possible, so we decided it was now or never. The bed is twin sized, so he looks like a little peanut in it, but so far...the transition has gone relatively smooth! We added a toddler rail on the side so he won't fall out, which he loves. The rail has a spot for his water, books, and a mini-nightlight. He also has to use a little step stool to get in and out, which our little monkey climber loves. I love his bed...I spent many hours on this quilt and am excited that we are finally using it! We follow the same routine as before...brushing teeth, bath, pajamas, and reading books with our little boy. Instead of reading in the rocker, we now read his books in his bed:) And I have to say it is pretty comfortable!

So you can see, we have moved the rocker out of the room for two reasons. 1. We can use it for our next precious babe:) and 2. Aiden was climbing in and out of it WAY too much and doing some dangerous moves in it! So it needed to go before we had a major accident! Instead, we changed that side of the room into a reading corner and a play area:)

Aiden LOVES his bed! The first few days he would beg for a nap all day long! He climbs in and out of it all day long-taking toys and books up there with him. The first two nights were amazing, but the third night was not a charm. He was in and out of bed screaming for over an hour until the tough love came out in me:) I used the Supernanny method (after googling what to do) and just kept walking him back to his bed. I have used this technique for naps and bedtimes this week and so far, he has done quite well. I probably have only had to go in there about five times all week to remind him to go to sleep!

As you can see, even with the doorknob cover on...he can still open the door! So that was a bust of a product to buy:) Usually he is either opening and closing this door from the bed or playing with his noise machine instead of sleeping:) He likes to take random objects into his bed, which sometimes I have to go in and confiscate, today was his electronic cell phone! At the moment, Aiden is napping and I think he has like ten stuffed animals in there, the books we read before nap, another cell phone, a camera case, and his pacifiers. If it makes him happy and gets him to sleep, then I do what works!

Another big project for the weekend, we cleaned out our garage! If you saw it before (right Dad?), you know that this is a huge improvement! We can now get a car in there!!

We also carved our pumpkins:) Can you tell who did which one?

Chris worked through another weekend on the house! He started painting the baby's room and is hoping to finish in the next couple days. He also blew our leaves for the fall pickup which happened on Monday. Aiden LOVED watching the leaf blower and running through the leaves. Here is a shot of our little man astonished at the leaf blower:

Looking at all the leaves:

And last, but not least, I am feeling bigger by the day! About a month to go, here I am with baby boy #2! We can't wait to meet our little boy and are working hard on getting things done around here so we can enjoy the precious newborn days with our baby.

Trick or Treat!

Yesterday was our first Halloween experience in Cranford, NJ and our little boy LOVED it!!!!!!

We didn't realize it, but Halloween here is a whole afternoon/evening affair. Trick or treaters started coming before 2:00 in the afternoon-YIKES! Our neighbors warned us that we should expect around 300 visitors and boy, they were correct. I bought 400 pieces of candy in bulk and we used at least 3/4ths of the candy. While Aiden napped, Chris worked on painting the baby's room while I passed out candy to the first of our trick or treaters. Once, Aiden woke up and had a snack, we quickly got him dressed in his outfit and ready to go! A few of our family members saw Aiden's opinion of his costume...everytime he saw it, he would run away and say "No, No, No". So we have been preparing him for Halloween and even did a practice run at home on Saturday night letting him have a small box of Nerds for fully putting on his costume. I was surprised on Sunday, after just a small battle, how he decided his costume was pretty neat and wore it the WHOLE time we were trick or treating.

While we were waiting for Chris to clean up from painting, Aiden helped me pass out treats. He loved greeting our guests and putting candy into their bags:

Then, we headed out for Aiden's first experience with trick or treating. We just hit our block, but with a toddler who wanted to walk on his own, it took us quite awhile! Here is Daddy and Aiden as we start to head out:

Mommy and Aiden walking between houses:

Trick or Treat!:

Yeah! Aiden was so happy to get some candy:) He loved getting the candy so much. He would put his bucket down in front of other trick or treaters on the sidewalk and sign "More" to them hoping they would give them more. Let's just say that some houses gave us more than our share because Aiden was just too cute in his "trick or treating"!

Walking with Daddy:

Heading home with a Snickers in his hand:

Our little elephant ready to have some candy!

We had such a fun time and I can't wait for another Halloween to come!!!!