Christmas 2012 Part 1

We had a great time this Christmas. Thanksgiving was early, so we had extra Christmas celebration time. We tried to do everything we could to celebrate Christmas.  Christmas ends up being a pretty big deal in the Aichele household.  I call Clint a Christmas elf.  He loves it and gets soooo excited.  He also starts more "traditions" every year than I could ever keep up with.  Clint was a little disappointed with me this year, because I did not have the energy to do a whole lot of cooking thus breaking a few of his "traditions."  They kill me folks.

We had our traditional trip to Arkansas for the Mimi and Kimbo extravaganza at Toys R Us. Sawyer and Beau loved playing with their cousins.

I was hugely pregnant the entire month of December.  I mean huge.  Like embarassingly large.  So I was slow and tired.  We did bake and decorate some cookies.  Sawyer and Beau were mostly interested.

We actually got a TV.  It is a man sized TV for the man cave.  We debated it for a while, but decided that we loved watching Christmas movies, so we might as well get it as our Christmas family gift.  We bought it off of Amazon the Sunday before Black Friday.  They were having a huge Black Friday early TV deal.  We did make some great family memories watching movies together in the man cave.

We also spent a lot of time reading Christmas books and singing carols by the tree and fireplace.  I know it sounds so cheezy, but the boys were obsessed with singing Christmas carols.  They preferred the older, traditional ones.  Clint and I are horrible horrible singers, but they would just cuddle and listen forever.

Sawyer had yet another party at school.  He really wanted Clint to come to his Christmas party.  He was really excited to show Clint his classroom.

We had several parties the week before Christmas with Grammy, Grandpa, and Uncle A.  It was a lot of fun not traveling the week of Christmas and just hanging out.

Our house is in such a temporary state, but we still put up all our Christmas decorations.  Our tree is a 9' tree and our entire house has 8' ceilings.   Cint and I fretted about this from the moment we bought the house, but fortunately we were able to squeeze the tree into the sunroom.

One of Clint's favorite childhood memories was of cutting down and decorating a cedar tree from the farm for Christmas.  I have heard the stories so many times.  Since we are living in the land of cedars once again, I thought we should carry on the tradition.  One Sunday afternoon on a trip to the farm I made Clint grab a shovel.  I had him dig up two baby cedar trees.  When I got home I put them in our planters out front and decorated them.  The Aichele cedar tradition is reborn!

 I still love my cheezy Christmas photos.  I had to keep the tradition up.  Unfortunately I did not make it to Walmart or JCPenny's this year for their backdrops but I managed to capture a few.

 The Kenny tradition continues.  Clint once again drank so much crown and ginger ale (with maraschino cherries) over the month of December that he made himself sick. 

Merry Christmas

House Remodeling Acheived in 2012

by Clint

We surprisingly made significant progress on our house this year. We knew going into this house that it was going to be a lot of work. The previous owners (original owners) built a nice house, but the interior needs significant updating. The inside was painted almost completely pink (even the ceilings), so after a few weeks, Melanie was literally going crazy from being in the house. We got introduced to a nice painter in Stillwater who was willing to take on the challenge. He removed the wallpaper in the kitchen and painted the kitchen including the cabinets. We removed the flourescent fixtures and replaced them with lights from the re-store. The sunroom is the pinnacle of the house, and that was full of pink carpet (with dunes of dirt underneath), pink ceilings, and pink walls. We installed solid wood floors (gunstock oak), painted the walls navy blue, and painted the ceiling white. The room looks great now. We also painted the office gold and installed solid wood floors.

As far as the exterior goes, the house sits on a one acre, mostly wooded lot.  Melanie installed an electric fence underground for Heidi. Unfortunately she is afraid of it and only uses about one quarter of the yard she could use.  Melanie also removed the plants from the front flower bed and replanted, trimmed and weeded all the beds, and cleaned up the back yard a little.  The yard has so much potential, but it will take a long time to get there.  The McRanchion needs a lot of help on the outside, but another project for another time.

There is still so much to do. We need to completely gut the kitchen, remodel the boys' bathroom, remodel our bathroom, remodel our bedroom, and remodel the man cave. Looks like it will be a busy 2013.

Our Sweet Boys

Words cannot describe how wonderful these precious babies are.  I truly enjoy my days home with them because they are so fun and easy.  They love each other so much and get along so well (right now) that my job is ridiculously easy.  Occasionally they do drive me crazy, but I'll just blame that on the pregnancy hormones.

Now as precious and sweet as they are, they rarely like to be left alone.  That means they follow me everywhere.  Most of the time I enjoy the company, but I wish my bathroom did not constantly look like a tornado/playroom.  They are always dragging things out when I get ready in the mornings.  Also they must hang out with me in our super narrow laundry room.  This mama is not super narrow right now therefore I can officially say I know what is means to be claustrophobic.

Our days consist of getting up about 7:30 and eating a hot breakfast.  Once they are dressed they either play or watch a cartoon while I get dressed, clean up the kitchen, and sometimes pack a lunch.  We are really strict on cartoon watching so they only get to watch it when mommy is desperate (which actually has been happening more often lately).  I try to keep it to just a few episodes a week.  Sawyer navigates the laptop like a pro and will pull up a cartoon on Netflix.  I insist is must be educational so they mostly watch Curious George.  They love Curious George.  We then head out for our morning activity.  I mentally prioritize my day into 1) How to burn little boy energy in the morning. and 2) How to burn little boy energy in the afternoon.  Everything else is secondary.  I am a strong believer that kids need an hour minimum of exercise a day.

After our morning activity we then have lunch and nap.  Both boys still nap about 2-3 hours/day.  Sawyer is my sleeper and still cannot function without a nap.  We are a little concerned about how much sleep he requires, but I was the same way at that age.  Our day quickly becomes nightmarish if he doesn't get a nap.  Beau is a little more flexible.  He is pretty easy going unless he is hungry.

After nap, we pick up for daddy then head outside to play.  It mostly involves riding bikes, scooters, and four wheelers with the kids next door.  We rarely leave the house in the afternoon.

We typically play outside until 30 minutes before dad arrives.  This gives me a chance to throw them in the bath (unless I think they will want to play outside with dad) and get dinner going.  When dad gets home it is wrestle time while I finish dinner.  We eat, then play, then the boys go to bed at 8:00 p.m.  My kiddos are pretty scheduled, but we love it.  They do both attend school on Tuesday and Thursdays.  Sawyer loves it, Beau tolerates it.  Mommy needs the break.    

Sawyer's love language is gifts.  He also has a total servant's heart.  He is very strong and athletic for his age, but not the best at throwing or catching a ball.  He loves his brother.  He also seems to be turning more into a momma's boy with age.  That also means he takes out all his 4 year old angst on me.  He can be unbelievably whiney.  Like people don't believe me because most of the time he is so good.  He never breaks a rule though and is a perfect angel at school.  He knows all his letters and sounds.  He can write all his letters and is starting to sound out and write words.  He is also pretty good with numbers.  He talks all the time now and is getting more independent everyday.  He loves nature, books, cartoons, riding his bike, oatmeal, blueberries, pasta, school, hearing stories, being tickled, music, his bear, iron man costume and his buzz blankies.

Beau is our lover.  His brother has never been a physical touch person, but Beau needs constant physical contact.  He is so cuddly and funny.  His personality is so charismatic and he fills all of our lives with sunshine.  He calls us Mom and Dad (and has since he started talking) even though Sawyer calls us Mommy and Daddy as we also call ourselves.  It makes me a little sad we missed the Mama to Mommy to Mom progression with him, but on the other hand it is stinkin' hilarious.  His attitude can change in an instant.  The good thing is if he is upset we know he will be happy again in mere seconds.  He gives the "Beau brow" which is super intimidating, even for a 2 year old.  He also is still the loudest crier I have ever heard.  He really wants everyone to understand him.  He is incredibly verbal for his age and talks often.  He listens really well and for the most part is exceptionally rational for a two year old.  You can just see his little brain processing as he decides to be naughty or not.  He is so crazy about his Daddy.  If Daddy is home, he pretty much cries if I do something for him.  He only wants his Daddy then.  When Daddy is gone though, all his love gets directed back to me.  He loves his brother, his paci, his OSU blankie, eating any unhealthy food in large quantities, bubble baths, books, airplanes, doing whatever his brother is doing, singing, iron baby costume, going anywhere and four wheelers.

New Neices

I got two new nieces this fall.  Yeah for more girl power!  Julianna Joy Faught was born October 10th.  She is beautiful and perfect.  The morning she was born, Ali and I had all the boys and we went up to the hospital to say hi and let Shepherd and Summit see their parents.  Julie looked great and seemed like nothing was happening.  We drug the crew out to go get lunch and we get a text 30 minutes later that Julianna was born.  Either Julie was really good at faking her discomfort or Julianna was a super easy delivery.

Dana and Jay adopted Catherine Olivia Graves on December 19th.  She has been a foster child since August 2011 with their family.  We gladly welcome her to our forever family!