FOUR!!

First of all... FOUR? I have a 4 year old... what?!?!?

Oh Man!!!

 

More importantly, Happy Birthday Jaxon! And Dean, we kept our first human pet alive for four years! Yay us!!!

 

In honor of Jaxon's birthday, I started doing this last year with him, and I wrote a little poem for him on his special day! No words can say just how proud I am of Jax and how lucky I am to be his Mommy!

Happy Birthday Big Boy!!

 

 

You are FOUR Today...

1,460 days ago, I laid eyes on you for the first time.
It took you a few moments, and that's when I first heard you cry...
I couldn't get past how perfect you were, something all new parents say, but perfect is what you were and I say that still today...
Those precious first moments just you and I, and those moments that I still cherish to this day...

Your first year was breathtaking. Discovering who you were, a journey which will never end...
Your smile, what made you laugh, the foods you loved and hated, your favorite toys, and all your "firsts"
I tracked every milestone, counting down the days till you turned one... Looking back now, I wish I could have waited...

As you grew and grew and grew, it dawned on us that soon you would be two!!
Your personality really came out this year, as we compared you to who you took after more.
You were no longer our baby, as "Big Boy" was used much more.
Your big boy bed, potty training, a tricycle, your first puppy and that you'd be a "Big Brother"...
Who knew that in just one year, how BIG you'd be at TWO!

When you turned three, I said the same thing I hear myself continuing to say...
How fast the time has flown and where did my baby go?
Year three is the last I have to compare to, but just like the year before, it was the most fun by far!
Your personality, your communication. How you're so playful, loving, and funny. Your jokes, snuggles, and that you love playing games so much. You are learning SO fast and discovering who YOU are... As we go into your next year, I hope you know how much I enjoyed you being three!

Now that you are FOUR, I will wait patiently to see where this year takes you.
I will enjoy seeing you learn, build friendships and be in awe of you just as I have in each passing year before, of how funny, smart, and talented you are.
I will take in your every cuddle, snuggle, kiss and hug.
I will encourage you to try new things, to push yourself farther just to know you can do it. To hold you when you are scared (and secretly love when you still come to me for protection)

I will let you and your brother squabble knowing that at the end of the day you will give each other such loving hugs and goodnight kisses...
I will pray for you and I will love you even more...

Jaxon, you have taught me so much in your four years of life, something that I will never be able to put into words. You amaze me each and every day.
You have truly been the greatest gift of all.
Happy Birthday Bug!

Xoxo -Mommy

Thank you...

Thank you to our Veterans, past and present for protecting our country and my rights to be free.

Thank you to the families who have sacrificed so much to let loved ones; defend, serve and protect our freedom. Thank to the ones who never returned, you will never be forgotten!

"This nation will remain the land of the free only so long as it is the home of the brave". -Elmer Davis

 

My favorite Veteran...



 

30 Days of Thanks...

Welcome to November... a month full of blessings. First off, we have Thanksgiving. We also have so many awareness causes like March of Dimes and National Prematurity Awareness Month, MOvember (Male Health Awareness), Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month and I am sure there are so many more, but those are what we are personally a part of...

I really enjoyed posting 30 days of Thankfulness last year, and I plan on doing it again this year... since I am a few days behind on several other posts, I will more than likely combine a weeks worth and post at the end of each week...  but to get started, I will post the first three days now...

I am always very thankful for my life and all the things I try not to take for granted, however writing them down really drives it home...

I hope everyone has a wonderful November and can take part in this "challenge" too!

Xoxo
Shylah

Day 3: Thankful for Dean allowing me the last few hours to upload photo's and get caught up on computer stuff. It may seem silly, but I am so behind with my "family" things and doing the things that keep me close to others so far away, that it feels good to even get one overdue thing done! :)

Day 2: Thankful for silly reminders that my children are in fact mine, and that reading the Bernstein Bears (after racing to the library for a specific "lesson") books to them, just as my mom had read to me, brings back such great memories of my mom's loving ways to help me learn a lesson. Tonight, "The Gimmies" and "Those in Need" :) I've been cracking up all week reading my past but enjoying each one even more as the parent!

Day 1: Thankful for the reminder in MOPS tonight about how truly important it is to have the special friends in our lives that are introduced to us and become our safety nets, especially when it comes to being a mom! Annette, Dava, April, Carolyn, Mama Ward (not on FB but also my Mommy, Aunt Terry)... You are just a few I could not live w/out! Thank you for always being there for me when I need you and always offering me laughter, help, advice, vent sessions, tissues, etc. I love you and near or far thankful for you all!!

Pumpkin Patch and Halloween...

Happy (belated) Halloween!!

 

This year's Halloween was very tiring but so much fun. I guess the older your children get and the more involved they get to be, the more you enjoy the fun as a parent.

 

I really miss the days of dressing up and having fun myself, but I would never trade it for the fun I am having with my boys!!! We did miss our friends annual Halloween party this year, and Dean and I were both a little bummed especially since it was a 90's themed party... We could have definitely pulled off Zach Morris and Kelly Kapowski! :)

 

Anyways back to what we actually did...

 

With Jax and Liam both being in school this fall, we had a busy week of dressing up, Halloween parties and running around doing our last minute holiday shopping. At least that made for a  light load in actual laundry!! Jax picked our theme again this year, and I guess he based it on popularity as EVERY. OTHER. KID. ON. THE. BLOCK was dressed the same... we were SUPERHERO'S!!! Jaxon was Spiderman, Liam was Superman and Dean and I took the easy route and just wore superhero t-shirts... (Hey better than nothing and still part of the theme).

 For a week before Halloween, I asked Jax if he wanted to do pumpkins this year. His response each time was that he didn't want to get his hands yucky and that he didn't want to carve or paint pumpkins, and that went for Liam too.

So on Monday around 7 pm he decided that he finally wanted to have a pumpkin... Well that lead to Dean looking for pumpkins on his way home from work, and the boys and I frantically going to each and every store in Albert Lea area only to find that there were no pumpkins sold there or left to purchase. The biggest we found were the micro mini desktop pumpkins and each time we found one, Jax would explain they were much too small to carve and that wouldn't work. There were pumpkin patches in town, but only opened on the weekends with the Saturday before being the last day... Thankfully I found a pumpkin patch about 25 miles from us on Tuesday, and after lunch we ventured out there... It was so much fun. We were missing Dean, but glad that the boys had as much fun as they did, especially with the majority of the pumpkins being picked over already. We stayed there for about 4 hours longer than I anticipated, but I got some great pictures of the boys!!!

So Halloween Eve, we had a very late night carving pumpkins trying to get the boys' done before they actually went to sleep... Just like the last 2 years, the pumpkins also have themes and this year matched the boys costumes!

 

Halloween Day was a full schedule for sure! Liam and I had our class while Jax had his sibling class... then after that we decided to go to a classmates house and have a double play date for the boys... then raced home for naps... and afterwards headed over to yet another classmates house for dinner and trick-or-treating together! Dean luckily got off early enough to have dinner and join us, which we needed all the help we could with 4 kiddies in the dark!!! It was a lot of fun though, and not as cold as we thought it would be, although definitely not our TN trick-or-treating weather... Jax and Liam both had their pumpkins completely filled and then some... Needless to say the last month of me exercising is pretty much pointless now... This candy is going to be here till next year if I don't help them eat some of it right!?!?

All in all, it was another successful year of fun with my boys!!! I can't even imagine next year with Liam actually having an opinion! :)

I've posted two new albums to the right that have the Pumpkin Patch photos as well as all the Halloween Night photos. Please check them out!!

Hope everyone had a fun Halloween as well!

Love,
Shylah

Slacking...

Holy Cow! I was certain I had posted at least one thing after my last... nope. I have several post's that need to be published, but am still working on the edits/photo's etc... I will be uploading a few in the next hour/day before the ones that were started will be posted... therefore, don't think you are missing something if you remember reading a post with an earlier date than the last post you just read!

And with that... Eeek! I've got work to do!!!

And yes I'm aware something has gone completely weird with my blog template/design... still working on that, but it takes HOURS and I'm already so behind!

Xoxo
Shylah

Just another Friday...

 

Dean's view when he pulled onto the job site this morning... :)