Nana is here, visit w/ the social worker, Aidan hits the catwalk!

Mom made it safe and sound yesterday. When she first got in the car Aidan cried and turned his head to ignore her. I think he is starting to have a little stranger anxiety. After a few minutes he warmed right up to her and all was right in the world. We went to have a lunch/dinner and went to Target. He was a great shopper as usual.

Our Social Worker came for a home visit this morning. It went well and we are almost finished with the adoption process. Yeah! She has to write her report, submit it to her supervisor and then they submit it to the court and our attorney. Our attorney then lets us know when our court date will be. It will take a couple of weeks to write the report, but it looks like we are on target to be complete with Aidan's adoption by the time we move April 30th. I will be soooo happy when everything is finalized!!!

On a different note we were in Nordstroms the other day. The sales lady asked if I would be interested in Aidan being in a fashion show for Nordstroms. How fun! He has to go in on March 9th for his "fitting" and will be walking ( or rather will be carried) down the catwalk on March 15th. My son the model! I am teaching him how to do "Magnum" ( from Zoolander) but he says he is working on his own look. Tee Hee. Jacob and Suzanne will also be joining in on the fun!

Rainy Day Fun

I had lunch on Friday at my old school with my teacher friends and principal. It was great to see them again and to catch up. It seems that my district is having major cutbacks and they are doing away with 20:1 ( 20 students to 1 teacher in grades 1-3), laying off many teachers and possibly doing away with our schools program which is the TLC model ( teaming for the learning of all children). I admit the TLC model does have its flaws but overall I think it is a great program and it allows almost all children to get their needs met ( hence the flaws). It allowed for children to be in homogeneous groupings for Math and Reading and heterogeneous groupings for the remainder of the day. All ( and I mean all) special ed. students were fully included during the entire day.We constantly assessed kids and grouped them according to the assessments. This way kids were able to always be taught at their instructional level and were never "stuck" in one group. It took a lot of teamwork and communication between teachers, but this is one of the things I loved about my school. As one of the special ed teachers on campus it was part of my job to help coordinate the assessments and groupings. I got a chance to work with just about every teacher in our school. It was a pretty easy job the first year the school was open but became more difficult as our numbers kept doubling. Anyway, it was great to see everyone, show off Aidan, and have some adult conversation. I hate that the morale is so low there right now and happy that I am at home with Aidan.

It has been raining off and on this weekend and Clinton is in San Diego teaching. Aidan and I have been hanging around the house playing and I have been watching movies. I bought this basketball goal for Aidan at Target the other day. It has crowds cheering and saying "YEEAHH" when you pull down on the net. Aidan has been having a great time playing with it. His dad can't wait until he gets bigger so he can teach him to play basketball for real, but I think this is a good start!

"Mama, you know I got skillz!"

I love how he is totally cracking up in this picture.

"Are you lookin at me?"

"Hey, don't I know you?"

T minus 6 days until Nana visits!

My mom is coming to visit in 6 days! Yeah! We are so excited. She is coming to Hawaii with us and then staying 2 whole months! Clinton is going to be traveling for part of March and most of April so she is going to help me with Aidan while I get ready for our move at the end of April. Aidan is sooo much fun to play with these days I am sure we will have a blast!

I took Mr.A to the park the other day and he got to experience the swings for the first time. As you can tell by his face he had a good time. You can't see his shirt but it says Mr. Happy - so my child!

carrots and cupcakes

Aidan had his first taste of carrots the other day. He was not a big fan and kept spitting them out. The above picture is the end result of that days lunch. I have to say that feeding Aidan has not been my favorite part of the mothering experience thus far. I was having a very difficult time feeding him while he was sitting in his highchair. He kept looking at his feet, looking at Annabelle, turning around to see the t.v., etc... It was basically hit or miss. My mom suggested I put him in a chair that reclines a little bit, so I put him in his rocking chair. This has worked much better. He really likes green beans and sweet potatoes and eats those without much problem. I gave him bananas yesterday and he gagged on them and spit them out he hated them so much. I have read some books that say that sometimes you have to introduce a food 8 to 10 times before a baby will take to them. I guess we will just continue plugging along and cleaning up messes!

There has been a lot of talk lately in the blog world about cupcakes. I was watching Martha Stewart the other day and the owner of Sprinkles cupcakes was on the show. Sprinkles was the very first store that just sells cupcakes. They are all natural with no preservatives or yucky stuff in them. Currently there are 3 Sprinkle stores in the US ( with plans to expand all over the US). There just happens to be a Sprinkles 5 minutes from my house! I finally had to break down to see for myself what the big deal was all about. I went there on Valentines Day and the line was out the door and down the sidewalk ( about 1 hour wait). I thought I would be smart and come back the day after Valentines Day ( when everyone would be all sugared out). It didn't make much difference. The line was still out the door and down the sidewalk. I had to wait 1/2 hour for my turn at the delicious cupcakes. I decided to get a red velvet cupcake to eat there and to take 2 home ( coconut lemon and strawberry) for Clinton and I to eat later that night. I was kind of dissapointed in the Red Velvet , but the coconut lemon was Oh so good!

Lake Arrowhead

It is 4:00 in the morning and I can't sleep so I decided to blog. Clinton and I have been spending some quality time together with Aidan this past week after Clinton was away for 2 weeks. Clinton decided that he wanted to show Aidan snow so we spent yesterday at Lake Arrowhead. Annabelle got to go too and she had a great time. We used to spend a lot of time at Lake Arrowhead when we used to live at the foot of the mountain but haven't been there in a couple of years since we moved. It was interesting to see it after the fires swept through there. The place was actually more green then in the past. The fire took care of all the dead trees.

On a different note, I found a really cute truckers hat for Aidan the other day. He totally looks like a little So Cal boy!

I have decided to start making my own baby food and making it organic when possible. I will have my first attempt at it this week. I will let you know how it goes.

I have some other cute pictures to post later but I am off to bed now. Aidan sporting his "rocker" look and demonstrating his new skill of the week - sitting up on his own!

You can't really see his shoes here. I finally decided to break down and buy him a pair of Robeez. Can I say that I LOVE them! I have already bought him a second pair. They stay on his feet so well! These are ultra cute with guitars and flames on them.

Lake Arrowhead with the fam. See all the pretty green trees in the back. They were all brown.

I just noticed in this pic that Annabelle is sniffing Clintons butt! Tee hee

Mama and her boy!

Happy Early Valentines Day!

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

O.K. I stole this from Kya Blu. It is sooo much fun!

What is Aidan Kai up to?

Yesterday morning I woke up to the sound of "crinkle, crinkle crinkle....crinkle, crinkle, crinkle... on the baby monitor. What in the heck was Aidan Kai up to? I know I didn't leave any paper of any kind in his crib. When I went to check on him I found him laying the opposite direction at the other end of his crib playing with his "friends" ( one is a crinkle book that is also a stuffed pig). I have always left a couple of stuffed animals at the opposite end of his crib. Up until this point it hasn't been a big deal because the other end of his crib was like an entirely different universe to him. Let me tell you that my boy can now move! He is now rolling and flipping and moving around everywhere. I have now baby proofed his crib and there are no stuffed animals that has anything on them that can come off. The cutest thing that he is currently doing is laying on his stomach and flapping his arms and kicking his legs. Its like he is willing himself to crawl but doesn't quite know what to do yet. The look of concentration and determination on his face is priceless. He looks like he is swimming. This is how I found Aidan playing with his "friends"

Boys Rule!

When Clinton and I first started this adoption journey I was sure I wanted to adopt a baby girl. I had a vision in my head of frilly dresses and bows out the ying yang. I know I am stereotyping girls and not all girls like wearing dresses and bows but that is just what I pictured in my head. I didn't even think twice about having a boy, it just always seemed natural for me to have a girl. What exactly would I do with a boy? I didn't have the faintest idea how I would relate to a boy.

I have come to realize that there is something very special about a mother and son bond. I think it has to do with that whole "mama's boy" thing. Just like there is "Daddies little girl" there is
"Mama's boy". I absolutely love having a baby boy. I now couldn't imagine it any other way. There is just something so special about having a boy that I can not articulate. I still would like to have my baby girl one day, but I honestly think I would like another boy first! Someone that Aidan could play with and enjoy growing up alongside. It is my experience that same sex siblings seem to get along better than siblings of different sexes. I think they just have more in common. However, this is the opinion of someone who is an only child - so what do I really know? There is another part of me that really can't imagine having any more children. I can't imagine taking any time or attention away from Aidan ( I guess this is the only child in me speaking). I am a true believer that what is meant to happen will happen. So whether it be one child, two, or three only God knows.

Now here is some Aidan cuteness. I just happened to grab my camera at the right time and caught him cracking up.

Jacob Turns One

This sweet baby boy shares the same birthday as me - Jan. 29th. His mom Suzanne had a party for him yesterday. It was lots of fun and there were lots of kiddos there. Jacob was an early walker and is now walking / running everywhere! Aidan is the same age now that Jacob was when Aidan was born. I can't imagine chasing after Aidan in just 6 short months! They just grow up to quickly. Catch me if you can!

Silly mommy forgot the stroller at home. Jacob was nice enough to lend us his while we were there. Jacob's mom says that it is now his torture chamber and he no longer likes to sit in it - so Aidan took advantage of it.

This beautiful little Punkin' is Jocelyn and I think Aidan's future girlfriend! Check out that smile and those curls!

Aidan and Jocelyn just hangin'.