A Typical Day!

It's only Wednesday and I'm exhausted!!!! This 22 month old is wearing his mama out:)

We start our day off with reading books and playing toys. If Daddy is lucky, he gets a ride to the train! (Actually if he is still here when Aiden wakes up, then we all head to the "choo choo" as Aiden calls it.) I try to catch a few minutes of the Today show during playtime, so I feel in touch with the real world. By 8:00, we usually eat breakfast, figure out our plans for the day, and do a quick pick-up! Right now, Aiden's favorite breakfast is still oatmeal and a banana that looks more green than yellow.

After watching some "Elmo's World" and walking dogs, Aiden gets some playtime upstairs while I attempt to take a quick shower. Then, it's our daily struggle to get Aiden dressed-he is definitely showing his stubborn side as he likes to dress himself, as much as he can! Our mornings consist of errands/a fun activity/or just hanging around the house. On Tuesday, we spent the morning running errands in this new city and it was exhausting. First, we ran to Home Depot to pick up a part for our running toilet. Not there, of course! And then, we had to go the bank, to the grocery store, and to the pharmacy. I had intention to head to the post office too, but I postponed that until today because Aiden was ready to head home after being in and out of the car so much! Today, we headed to a library storytime around here. Aiden had more interest in taking books off the shelves and sitting at the library tables, then listening to the story! But he did love the star sticker that they gave him so much that he wouldn't take it off all day. (Which meant that I had to tape it to his shirt after it wouldn't stick anymore to keep him content!)

After being out and about, we come home and play outside in our backyard! Let me tell you how much I love having a fenced in backyard! Aiden's favorite things to play with are his cozy coupe and lawn mower:) He carries the same strange various objects in the back of his cozy coupe-his sidewalk chalk, a screwdriver, a bottle of bubbles, and a screw. And if one of those isn't in there, we have to go a search for the missing component to his car ride! And there is always entertainment with the puppies...

Playing outside

"Walking" the puppies

Saying cheese before heading out in the morning!

Around noon, we head inside to break for lunch. Sometimes, Aiden will gobble up his food and sometimes he wants nothing to do with it! You never know what is going to happen, but it's always a new day. After lunch, we have a little play/down time before nap time!!! As much as I love spending my day with Aiden, nap time provides a little sanity break where I catch up on email, watch a moment of television, and lately just trying to get our house in order.

After naptime (sometimes short, sometimes long), we are ready for a new adventure. If the weather is nice, I have been taking Aiden for a walk and then we either play outside in our backyard or head to the park nearby. We head home around 5ish to watch a little television (right now, Aiden is beginning to like Mickey Mouse...but not as much as Elmo!) while I try to get dinner prepared. Sometimes, Aiden eats earlier, but if Chris makes it home in time, we try to eat with him. Today, we even walked down and met Chris down at the train station, then Aiden gets to see the train drive in to the station. After dinner, we play, play, play! And then head into bath and night-night land!

A few shots from playtime today:

Aiden loves the dog's kennel! So much that he tries to lock himself in there with them:)

And even happier that let the dogs free and he is still in there alone!

What am I going to do when winter hits?????? And another baby arrives??????

Life is definitely going to become even more fun, interesting, and exciting!!!

A Fun Fall Weekend

What a beautiful fall weekend! We enjoyed the awesome weather on Saturday by taking our little boy apple and pumpkin picking. Thank goodness that we went this weekend as there was slim picking in the apple trees, but I am happy to have a large amount to make apple crisp (maybe even twice), applesauce, and enjoy apples with some cinnamon sugar! I can't wait to do some cooking this week. Aiden ate his weight in apples while we were in the fields, which made one very happy toddler. We also picked pumpkins at the same orchard. Aiden really wanted to get a BIG one, but our rule was that you could only get one that you could carry. So he was happy with his mini pumpkin and it sat with him in his car seat the whole way home. It was nice to get a break from all the moving chaos and enjoy some time as our little family. Here are some pictures from the orchard:

The Rogers Family

Hello little bee!

Carrying his apple as well as dragging our bag of apples

Yum Yum!

I really want this pumpkin, Mama!

Which one should I get?

I think I like this one!

We were lucky enough to have a special guest today, Uncle Nate! He is working in Hoboken, New Jersey this week and so we enjoyed a fun day with Uncle "Nat" as Aiden calls him. Thanks for coming to visit!

Uncle Nate with Aiden

We put Nate to work as Chris needed an extra hand to help pick up some paving stones at Home Depot for his first landscaping project. First project is a success, it looks awesome:)

Before Chris began working...

And after Chris' hard work

The paving stone on the other side of the doorway!

Aiden's New Room and Enjoying the Beautiful Weather!

So I have decided over the next few weeks to share a "photo tour" of our new house! Since Aiden's room seems to be the most completed, we will start with his beautiful "big boy" room.

Here is Aiden's crib with his name hung above. We are going to attempt a transition to a low twin bed possibly at the end of next week so this will change, but it is what he is in right now! We have picked up the new bed from Ikea and just need to get it all put together and get a mattress to put on top. Once we get Aiden out of the crib successfully, baby #2 will have his own bed:)

Aiden's shelves of books and toy bag! His own little play area:)

The rest of the room! I love his bedroom door with the glass panes:) Aiden will also get a dresser that matches his bed, which I am in the midst of putting together. The rocker will also be moved to baby #2's room-we have used that rocker SO much!!! There is a door for the closet up in the attic...we will see if we can get that up in the next few weeks. If not, life will be okay!

A view of the whole room! It went from being a pink/purple little girl's room to this! Lots of work, but I love it!!!

And just so you know, we aren't quite ready for baby #2 to arrive! Here is his room for now. It holds many of our boxes with no home and a half completed dresser. If you look closely, you will see a baby swing in there! Yes, it will hopefully ready for baby #2 by the time he arrives!

So we have finally enjoyed some nice weather around here after many dreary days! We have been soaking up the time outdoors. First, here are Cobi and Sheffield enjoying our fenced-in backyard. Sheffield did manage to escape the first day we were here, but was found by the new neighbors. What a way to meet the neighborhood, especially after the cops were called to find the owners of this runaway dog. My dad fixed the part of the fence that needed repair so no more escaping from these two-hopefully! They have survived the move well, despite that they are looking pretty shaggy right now:)

And here is our little bug! I have to give my dad a HUGE thank you for my awesome birthday gift-a NEW camera!!!!!!! Our camera was a little out of date and had a huge crack on the screen, although it does work. He did some research and bought us a new, amazing camera that I am in love with. Although I have to really read up on how to use it:) Here are some shots from this morning:

Are you taking another picture of me Mama?

Looking at the airplanes at the park! We see lots of airplanes everyday, because we are about 15 minutes from Newark Airport. Aiden loves pointing them all out.

Enjoying the jumping bridge

Peek-A-Boo!

Thanks to my dad for his help this week-doing odd jobs, getting rid of garbage, and keeping Aiden and I company. We are on our own for awhile and going to try to figure out life in New Jersey...wish us luck! So far, today, we had a great morning at the park near our house and we are off to our new doctor's office this afternoon for an ultrasound of baby #2!

Hopefully, our updates will become more frequent as life is starting to settle down, or at least until our little baby boy arrives!

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!

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

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!

A couple Sesame Place videos for your enjoyment!