First Birthday!!!

I think it is safe to say that first birthday's are more for the parent's than for the baby. It's a day of reminiscing and a celebration for the fact that you made it through a whole crazy year! I have been thinking back a lot today about the events that took place a year ago. Some memories I try to forget and some make my heart melt all over again. It's fun to think that this time last year I was in newborn bliss! That time when your still in the hospital with this brand new tiny newborn is SO special to me. I get a little bit jealous every time someone I know is getting to go through this.

We are doing a celebration with my family on Sunday (It is also my Daddy's birthday today!) so we just did a few little things with just us. We learned from Ayden that presents really aren't that important to a 1 year old, so we just got her one thing, some princess Lego's. 

We found this costume for Ayden, that he likes to wear 24/7. It's Spiderman complete with muscles!

Charlie digging into her first cake. Brian had to wrestle the cupcake liner away from her!

I can't believe how fast this year has passed by! I am so grateful for my little Charlie bear and the sweet spirit she brought into our lives. We love her so much and are so grateful we were chosen as this sweet little girl's parent's.

From the mouth of Ayden

Ayden has been saying the funniest things lately and I thought it wise to record some of them. He is starting to talk so much more and has the sweetest, most innocent voice (most of the time :)).

When I got after Ayden for taking a sip of my soda he yelled back, "we share here, Mom!"

He has been doing a lot of miming these day's. He'll say "I want to eat cookies", then continue to eat an imaginary cookie. My favorite is when we play Halo. He kept saying he wants this, and would hold both hands out with one hand clenched. He said it all the time and I had no idea what he was talking about until one day I picked up the sword, the Halo man was holding his hands the same way Ayden had. Ayden cheered and said "good job!" and held his hands out that way. I laughed for a very long time!

When I hit my brakes a little harder than normal, "gosh, watch it! Be careful!"

This one is embarrassing to admit but almost every time we use a public bathroom Ayden say's in a loud voice, "you going poopoo Momma? You need to poop?" Don't know what's up with that, but SO embarrassing!

Will now only allow me to buy Pillsbury cake mix because it has the "spooky ghost" on it.

Always reminds me to buckle his "seat belps"

If I get after Charlie for something he say's, "hey, be nice to Charlie!"

Takes after me with singing. Sings TERRIBLY and makes up different words for the song.

There are so many more that I can't think of right now, He is just cracking me up with all the funny things he say's!

Today is such a weird day. I remember my mother telling me when I was young about how she remembered the day JFK was killed. She remembered where she was and what she was doing. I remember thinking that it was sort of cool to be able to have a day like that, where your whole generation remembers exactly what they were doing at that moment on that specific day. It's not cool. It's not cool that for our generation to have a day like that thousand's of people would have loved one's lost and families tragically torn apart.

On the morning of September 11, 2001 I rode the bus to school. It was a long bus ride (about a half an hour) and I remember falling asleep on the way to school. I had stayed up late the night before studying for a test that day and was exhausted when I got to school. It wasn't until my second period ceramics class that the news of the first tower being hit broke. My friends had already heard about it and were trying to explain to me what was going on. But they didn't really know much yet and my friends over excited descriptions of what was happening left me just confused and not realizing the magnitude of what was happening. By third period (chemistry), my teacher had a television set up in her room, and we all sat quietly that whole hour and watched in horror as the second plane hit the tower and being replayed over and over again. Every class that day was the same, a television set up and the entire class silently watching the news coverage. In my Intermediate Algebra class my teacher had a loved one working in the north tower. They were able to contact this person and confirm their safety. Then the towers collapsed. That teacher's loved one did not make it, along with SO many other's. I remember bursting out in tears as the tower's collapsed, knowing that all those ten's of thousands of people were gone in an instant. When I finally made it home from what seemed like the longest and most emotionally draining day of my life, the television was on. my dad was in the living room watching and I joined him. That's all we did for day's, just watched re-watched the news.

There was something a little bit cool about that day (actually a lot a bit). It was what happened afterwards. People changed, and for the better. People were kinder, more helpful, patriotic. Of course this didn't last forever and people who were so patriotic for week's following the event's went on to bash and ridicule the president of our country. The president who served during this terrible event, and spent the rest of his presidency trying to make sure nothing like this would happen again.

Now ten years later (how has it been that long?!) people are once again patriotic. This day will always bring that out in people, I think. It makes me happy to see people like this, all joined for one cause. I hope that it last's!

I just wanted to take a minute to remember this day and to thank all the people who risk their lives to make sure that it doesn't happen again.

Things I Want to Remember

Things I want to remember about Charlie:

Her growly demon/ gremlin voice

Loves to be held. Don't, however, confuse this with cuddling!

Claps whenever you say yay!

Loves to pull dvd's off the shelf

Will eat literally ANYTHING!

How I love to kiss on those chubby cheeks

Her new adorable toothy smily

Things I want to remember about Ayden

How he spiderman webs me at stores after I get after him for something (sound effects included)

When I do his hair he says, "watch it! Be nice to Ayden!"

How much energy he has

His love for junk food and how he is CONSTANTLY asking for something

How he KNOWS when I'm not feeling well and pats my back and say's "it's okay mom"

How obsessed he is with his toys. He loves them all and wants them ALL to go every where with him

How much he laughs. He LOVES to be tickled

I love my little kiddos!

First Day of Preschool

Today was Ayden's first day of preschool. This is his second year of preschool, he benefited so much from it last year that I am SO glad he was able to go another year. He is in a new school this year so Brian and I took him to his school's open house last week so he would be familiar with his classroom and teacher. When I went to drop him off he assumed I was staying with him like at the open house, when I went to leave his face dropped and he started crying. The thing about Ayden is that he doesn't cry much. He is a pretty tough little guy so when he does cry, it's especially heart breaking. Having worked in a preschool I knew the best thing to do is leave ASAP! He will get over it and the sooner the parent leaves the better. But seeing MY baby with that devastated face is awful! I wanted so badly to go down to him and comfort him. But I left, so I wouldn't make it worse. Of course when I went back to pick him up his teacher said he cried for about a minute longer and was then distracted by toy's (not sure how I was supposed to feel about that!) :) He was so excited when I picked him up and said he wanted to go back to school and have snack!

About a week ago we were bored, and the kids had already had a massive overload of TV watching for the day so we decided to do some face painting. Ayden was HILARIOUS with his spider man face! Why, you'd have thought spider man himself was in our house. It was HOURS of entertainment for him! Webbing, running around (sound effects included), and smirking every time he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror (which was by no coincidence a LOT!). Needless to say, it was a great idea! Ayden has been making us laugh non stop with all the funny things he is saying. He say's the funniest things and has such a sense of humor!

I could just die over this sweet little face! Charlie is just the sweetest little girl! She has been cruising furniture for quite some time now and is OH SO CLOSE to walking. She get's into EVERYTHING! Every time you look at this baby she has got something she's not supposed to. A common occurrance around here is someone yelling CHARLIE! and hearing the the slaps from the tile of her crawling away at super speed away. She is a handful, but a lovely little handful! She is always making us laugh with her little tricks; dancing, clapping, doing little somersaults (without actually flipping over). We love our little Charlie bug!

Perspective

A friend on facebook posted a link to a friend of their's blog a couple of weeks ago asking people to pray for this family. Their little baby had been dealing with a rare condition since she was only a few month's old. I got completely absorbed in their story reading through her blog. It is amazing this day in age how you can feel connected to complete strangers because of the internet. I was heartbroken to hear a few day's later that Ruby had passed away. Her mother, Ani, has a very beautiful way with words and I loved reading some of her posts. Just week's before Ruby passed she wrote this post which deeply touched me as a mother. I am totally the old me! Not anymore! I need to look at my life in a new way. I LOVE my children more than anything, but I do tend to try to rush through life. Why? What am I rushing for? I want to savor my kids in the moment, instead of trying to just get through each day. My heart is broken for this family and I hope that the spirit is comforting them right now! Because of Ruby, I took some time to cuddle and love on my sleeping baby last night. I won't forget that moment and I hope to have many more!

No Daddy Vacay!

So I knew it had been a long time since I last posted but when I was on a friends blog and it said that the Cluff blog was last updated 2 months ago! Yikes! I guess I figure it's probably about time for updating it.

The summer just does something to me that makes me want to do absolutely nothing. It has been a LONG, hot, humid summer over here and I can't wait for fall to come! Ayden is going stir crazy being out of school for so long which in turn is making me go crazy! I really don't like these long summers. Ayden was doing so well in school and then it just stops for months. I'm a huge fan of year round school and hope to get Ayden in a school district with that schedule for Kindergarten.

Right now Brian is on a camping trip in Colorodo with some friends. They have been planning it for a long time and I really hope they are having a great time! The down side to this trip is that they won't have cell phone reception the whole time (OR they just told us that so they wouldn't have to talk to their wives the whole trip :)). I haven't ever gone that long without talking to Brian and I find myself wanting to talk to him all the time. Every time Charlie does something super cute or Ayden say's something funny. On our way to Chandler our 2 month old windshield got a chip in it from a rock. I vaguely remember Brian saying something about it having a warranty with free chip repairs but I had no idea where Brian got the windshield. I wanted to get it taken care of right away before the chip spread so I had to do a lot of work to figure out where he went, something that otherwise would have been a quick phone call. So frustrating!!! I know it probably sounds lame but I also HATE sleeping alone. I end up staying up late to avoid going to bed and when I finally do I'm terrified. I usually have Ayden sleep in bed with me, just so I'm not alone. But I generally just don't sleep well while Brian's away, lame I know!

(kids getting ready to leave)

Since Brian was going on his fun camping trip I decided to go on a little trip of my own. I got a hotel in Chandler and left early Thursday morning. Once we got there we still had a few hours before check in so we went to Ikea. Ikea is AWESOME! They have a really fun play place that you can leave your kids at while you shop and Ayden just made the height limit. I felt weird about leaving him but after watching him for a couple of minutes doing cannon balls into their giant ball pit, I figured he was fine :) Oh what I would give for a $1,000 to go crazy at this store! I would have NO problem spending that much and then some here. I wanted EVERYTHING! I'm not gonna say how much I did spend (just in case Brian actually reads my blog) but I put a LOT of stuff back. I'm just thrilled with everything I got, and still wish I got a few things I put back! You can only leave your child for an hour so once I picked Ayden up we went to go eat at their restaurant. The food was really good and the kids meals this month were free (score!).

Do you like sea-food? I didn't "get" this joke for an embarrassingly LONG time as a kid!

We spent the rest of the day in the swimming pool and just relaxing. It was SO unbearably hot up there! I cannot believe that I survived being very pregnant this same time a year ago. It was almost 10 degree's hotter than Tucson! The heat was just awful, it made everybody miserable and in bad moods any time we went anywhere so we mainly hung out at the hotel (plus I had already blown any spending money at Ikea). Charlotte was definitely the stinker of this trip! She screamed most of the car ride, she spilled a 42 oz. soda into my purse (like she dragged a soda from one end of the cart over to my purse and dumped it in), she would just start screaming randomly stressing me out at hotel, she had an awful time sleeping in the room with us which meant we didn't get much sleep either! She was quite the handful this trip. Ayden has always been great at entertaining himself and it has been a big adjustment getting use to a child that constantly needs attention! She was, however, pretty cute most of the time. We were watching t.v. at night and she fell asleep in my arms, which she never does! It was so sweet and I just kissed and cuddled her for over an hour! Sort of makes up for any previously stinky behavior :)

The next morning we hung out at the hotel until around 10. We checked out and went back to Ikea. There was a big shelf I was getting that I didn't want to pick up till the end. As soon as we pulled up Ayden got super excited and wanted to go play! :) I utilized their babysitting and free kids meals before heading home. I had originally planned on going to a bunch more stores but after Ikea the kids were hot and cranky and ready to go home. Note to self, next time I want go on a relaxing shopping trip to Mesa, leave the kids with a babysitter! But we did have a good time, and I was glad that Ayden got to have one last fun vacation before school starts!

I know this has been a long post so I'll just talk quickly about our Patagonia trip. A few weeks ago we bought a Kayak! Brian has been wanting one since I have known him and I happened to come across one that was marked down at Costco. We were so excited that we planned a trip to the lake for the next day. My sister and her family joined us and it was a lot of fun. The drive was beautiful and overcast. We couldn't have asked for a nicer day. It was overcast and stormy but the storm didn't come until after we left. We had a great time having a picnic and playing on the beach. We definitely want to go back in the fall!

I have so many more things to blog about and will try to do so asap. Including some work we have done around the house, like tiling! Yay! :)