Sad, Sad Day

We took Cayden to see Santa the other day. Clearly he's not old enough to understand the whole Santa thing, but I wanted to get a picture of Cayden with him. Sadly, the mall decided this year that you couldn't take your own pictures of Santa. You had to buy theirs (cheapest being $20) or stand outside the Santa area and take your own.

This is the best I could do. Sad, sad day. :(

If I would have been able to take a decent picture you would have seen Cayden crying and reaching for Chad. Cute and kind of sad. Maybe we'll try another mall and see if they'll let us take pictures.

It's True

It's true. Despite what you may think I still love this little boy! He's just so dang cute!

H - E- Double Hockey Sticks

{I hope you all didn't mind my lovely advertisement post last week. I got 50 free Christmas cards out of it. If you click on the link at the bottom and write a beautiful post of your own, you can too. Yay for free Christmas cards. Since I had no idea how we were going to pay for them this was just perfect.}

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H - E - double hockey sticks... that is what today has felt like. As far as Monday's go today was definitely a Monday; not a great way to start off the week. By 2pm I wanted to crawl back in bed and start the whole day over. Why was today a 'terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day?' Here's why...

* My workout this morning about killed me. Seriously. I was only halfway though and was already gasping for breath and every muscle in my body felt like it was on fire. Yuck.
* After my workout I heard Rose and Reuben getting in their car outside (Rose and Reuben are the older couple we are renting from). We needed some ice melt a few times this past week and so I went out to see if they could get some. They were actually on their way to get some - yay! As I was walking in the door Rose asked me if I would shovel the driveway (we shovel the driveway, rake the leaves, mow the lawn as part of our rent). It snowed a lot yesterday and we shoveled. Then last night it snowed too... as in like almost nothing. A very, very light dusting on the driveway. Not what I wanted to do, but okay. I was just about to put Cayden down for a nap and hop in the shower, but figured I could quickly shovel the driveway. I put on my jacket and left Cayden inside to play.
* While shoveling I looked up to see Cayden walking down the driveway. Yep, you guessed it; Cayden has figured out how to open doors. Oh joy. I picked him up and told him to stay inside and play while I finished.
* About five minutes later I was done. I put the shovel up and went to open the door. It didn't open. I tried again only to realize that my son had locked me outside. Seriously? Of course I hadn't brought my keys out with me because who honestly takes their keys with them when they go to shovel the driveway. Luckily I had my phone on me and was able to call Chad to come unlock the door. (Any other day I could have just had Rose and Reuben let me in, but remember, they were out buying ice melt.)
* I waited/froze outside for about 25 minutes waiting for Chad to come home. Meanwhile Cayden is inside screaming and turning the door knob trying his best to open the door (he could lock it, but apparently couldn't unlock it). During this time he was also able to make a HUGE mess.
* After rescuing my son and putting him down for a nap I was finally able to shower and start the laundry. Because I started the laundry so much later than I normally do I was doing it clear up until dinner. Fun, fun, fun.

I thought this was the end of the horror, but sadly I was wrong...

* While feeding Cayden lunch he started grunting. No biggie. Except that I quickly realized that this was very juicy sounding poo. I pulled him out of the highchair as fast as I could in an attempt to prevent a blowout... no such luck. I had a poo covered child.
* I cleaned Cayden and got him dressed and then started rinsing his clothes. (I suppose this is the silver lining... because I had started the laundry so much later I had a load that hadn't been started yet. I was able to throw the poo clothes in after rinsing and spraying them. Yay!) As I was cleaning out Cayden's lovely poo clothes I heard a crash and the sound of something shattering. I ran from the kitchen to find Cayden standing over a pile of broken ornaments with an empty box in his hands. At this point I was about to lose it. I took Cayden to his room and left him in his crib for about 20 minutes while I calmed down.

That's why my day has been the day from H - E - double hockey sticks. I am so glad that Cayden is in bed right now. And I'm so glad that tomorrow is a brand new day. Here's hoping that it's better than today was.

'Tis the Season

This morning as Chad was getting ready for church (I'm a sicko and Chad has to teach so Cayden stayed home with me) he picked out a Christmas tie to wear. I told him that he was crazy! The stores might start putting up Christmas things the day after Halloween, but I refuse to. I am a believer in the "day after Thanksgiving" as far as Christmas is concerned. But I have to admit, the snow that we got last night had me really wanting to listen to Christmas music; I wanted to cheat, but I didn't.

Anyway, I've been debating back and forth the past few weeks over whether or not to do Christmas cards this year. I've never done it in the past - when Chad and I were first married I figured we were too boring to send out a Christmas card. We didn't have any cute kids to look at and everyone already knew what we looked like. So I never did. Last Christmas was the first year where I even thought about sending out cards, but we didn't have any cute family photos (aside from a few we took at the hospital when Cayden was born, no way in heck I was going to use those... I looked so... lovely) and it just kinda slipped my mind. This year I have no excuse as we had adorable family pictures taken in October, see how amazing they are!

There you have it. I have come to the conclusion that I have to do Christmas cards. I've decided to go with Shutterfly this year. They have the cutest everything... photo books, Christmas cards... really anything related to photos.

I'm loving this one (click here) and this one (click here) even though it is really traditional. I also really love this one (click here)... it's different. And finally, this one (click here). It is so unique and something I normally wouldn't think of.

As you can see, I'm having a difficult time deciding, so let me know what you think!

Check out their cute Christmas cards:
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/holiday-cards,
adorable calendars (a possible Christmas gift?):
http://www.shutterfly.com/calendars/wall-calendars,
and birth announcements:
http://www.shutterfly.com/cards-stationery/baby-cards-stationery/birth-announcements?c=60461&lid=cards&lpos=bm_hp.

(I totally regretted not sending out any birth announcements when Cayden was born, so I've decided that whenever we have another baby I'm totally going to do it!)

Take a moment and check out Shutterfly. Maybe you'll find some great Christmas cards or presents!

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http://bit.ly/sfly2010

Helping Daddy

This week we raked up what was left of the leaves (well, except for the few that are left on two stubborn trees). Cayden had a blast helping his daddy, though I'm not sure you can really call it helping. :) Next year should be even more fun!

Raking the leaves with his broom. Weird kid didn't want to use an actual rake.

Playing in the leaves.

Cheese mom!