Thursday, September 30, 2010

We are still HERE!

Life has been BUSY, BUSY, BUSY since our last post!!!! In the past two weeks, we have closed on our house in New Jersey, packed and moved, and are working on getting settled into our new place. It's been a few CRAZY, HECTIC weeks and I am looking forward to a little downtime once we get settled here. So here is the update on life:
Our NEW house: We closed on the 17th of September on our new house in Cranford, New Jersey and have been working on this place ever since. The house has lots of character, but has needed lots of work to get it into the shape that we want it to be in. It was built in the 1920's so it has some old house charm and style. We are loving it more as we get settled, but our to-do list gets longer and longer as we discover more things that we want to do to it. The previous owners left the house dirty with lots of junk and trash around-one more hurdle that we have been facing as we move in. Let's just say, I don't really appreciate cleaning another person's junk after just leaving our old place spotless. We were lucky enough to have the company move us...which meant the movers packed, loaded, and unloaded everything. The movers were awesome and we were so thankful for all of their help. Since we have closed, we have painted the kitchen, dining room, living room, sunroom, and Aiden's room. Our next plans are to paint the basement and baby's room, and eventually our own room. We have also done numerous things around the house-fixing cracks, painting trim, putting new carpet in the sunroom, putting up blinds, and more. The past two weeks have been exhausting, but will pay off with a beautiful house. I promise to post some pictures soon:)
Aiden: I can't believe our little boy has hit the 21 month mark! He has been SO much fun and has loved the attention that we have got from all of our special visitors. He is really a joy to be around and loves spending time with people. He loves playing with the doggies and even calls out "Sheff" now. His vocabulary is really taken off-he probably says somewhere between 50 and 100 words. His favorite things to do, besides playing with anything electronic, are: playing outside in the Cozy Coupe, reading books, dancing, helping Mama with any chores, climbing/being at the park, and just having fun. He is starting to develop some strange routines...for example, he must close the blinds before nap, he must have lotion after bath time, and he likes for the GPS to be mounted in the car before we go. I think that this is all normal toddler behavior, but he definitely is one stubborn boy! We had to say good-bye to his CT friends and hopefully once we are more settled here in NJ, we will find some new friends to play with. This weekend, we are hoping to pick up a big boy bed and a new dresser and work on getting him transitioned out of the crib before baby #2 arrives...wish us luck!
Baby #2: We are almost at 31 weeks, craziness. I just hope this baby doesn't arrive too early because this mama needs every moment she can have before the next one arrives to get us settled here. Everything seems to be going well with the pregnancy so far-next week, we have an ultrasound with our new doctor's office. I also have to figure out the hospital registration and get myself mentally prepared for the upcoming delivery. Yikes! We are very excited to meet our baby boy soon...and for those of you who love to ask, we still don't have a name picked out!!!!
Chris and I: Chris is back at work this week trying to figure out the commute from New Jersey. Now, he can just walk to the train from home and the commute is less than half of what it used to be. So once he figures out a routine, he should be able to enjoy more hours at home with Aiden and I. He is busy getting back into the swing of things as he took off last week at work for moving. He also loves having a lawn to take care off-he has been attacking our weeds, mowed the lawn, and already has plans for the yard before winter comes. I am working on attacking my very long to-do list while having Aiden running around and being 30 weeks pregnant. I have many boxes left to unpack and less and less space to unload them into. We are downsizing from our last place, plus instead of a guest room, the baby will have their own room. So it takes a bit of creativity to figure out where to put everything! I haven't had much time to do anything else, besides work on the house and run errands, but I am looking forward to getting settled in and hopefully getting more familiar with the community.
Thank you so much for all the wonderful help that we have had. Chris' parents were here for a week to help us get moved out of our CT home and into our new place. They worked like crazy and we really appreciate all that they did. My mom also flew up here for the past few days, helping us work on some other tasks, helping us with decorating/shopping, and keeping me sane with the chaos that the move has produced. Thank you Mama! Now, we are going to have one more visitor coming tonight through the weekend...my dad. I think he is looking forward to a weekend of football games, but little does he know, I have quite the list for him to work on! Aiden has loved all this time with his grandparents, soaking up all the extra attention that he has been getting.
We have taken hardly ANY pictures these past few weeks because of the chaos of our lives, but I will share this picture of our little rascal searching through my shoe collection before we moved:
ENJOY!


Thursday, September 9, 2010

Still enjoying the summer weather...

As fall quickly approaches (sadly!), we are trying to take full advantage of sunshine, fresh air, and the unlimited space of the outdoors. Enjoy the pictures!
Driving at the park! He loves any park that has any type of steering wheel:)
Going on the hang rail with Daddy
Learning to walk the balance beam
Enjoying the beach on Monday afternoon
We will miss living so close to a beach!
Soaking up some sun in our pool
Doing the big kid slide all by himself
Swinging!!
Another car, except this one doesn't have a steering wheel?
Having fun on the see-saw

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Favorite Things

Aiden has certain "toys" that he LOVES to play with!!!! He is often found wandering around the house with one or more of the following items, as seen in the pictures below: a pink cell phone, Elmo's World cell phone, any other type of play phone, cowboy boots, Leapfrog steering wheel, Wii steering wheel, yellow toy car, yellow toy bus, his computer, or his cracked sand art necklace!