It feels like a big step for me . I am officially getting rid of the baby stuff . I posted ads on Craigslist . Today someone came and picked up the swing . No more babies for us . I hope that in the next week or so , I can get rid of all of it . I 'm ready to move on to the toddler and school age part of mommy - hood . I don 't have it in me to have any more kids . We are a family of four and it works . . . for me . Its almost January . And on January 16th , my brother leaves . He will be headed to Afghanistan for a year . He is supposed to be able to come home for 2 weeks in the middle of his deployment , but that could change . I don 't know what I should say or do , I don 't know if there are things that I shouldn 't say or do . I don 't want to make things harder for him , but at the same time , I don 't want him to think I don 't care . Mom will be a wreck . She will constantly be worrying about him . How could she not . Its what mothers do . I will do what I can to be here for her . I can 't imagine what could be going through his head as he prepares to leave for such a scary place . He will never tell anyone if he is scared . He isn 't like that . I am scared for him . How could I not be ? All I can do is offer any support to him , give him a hug and an " I love you " as he leaves . Then , pray . For his safety , and for the safety of the ones he is with . I don 't want him to know how worried I am or how helpless I feel . I guess part of me feels like I should be doing more . I just don 't know what else there is to do . If I were in his shoes , I would be scared , but I wouldn 't let anyone know . Maybe that 's what he is doing . He isn 't sure of the types of communication he will have access to . I hope something is available to him , and I hope it is easy for him to do . Being able to talk to people from home would help me . Maybe that 's not true for everyone . I don 't know . Like I said , I kind of feel like there is something I could do . But there probably isn 't . Is there ? I cannot believe that this year is almost over . I don 't know why it has flown by so fast . Ethan is soon to be a year old . Soon he will be walking . Which , honestly , I am not ready for him to do . He is into enough stuff as it is . Both boys have changed so much this year . Dylan is now 4 , somehow . I can 't imagine how this next year will play out . This time last year I was very pregnant , and anxiously waiting to meet Ethan . Although , at that time , we hadn 't picked out a name . We didn 't decide on the name until he was born . We had 2 names in mind , and Ethan won . In less than a month we will be celebrating his first birthday . Part of me is happy to get away from the baby days , but the other part of me isn 't . I do miss holding a tiny infant . I don 't miss the sleeplessness though . As Ethan gets older though , the 2 can start to play together . Once Ethan starts walking and talking , a whole new chapter will open with us all . So this next year will be interesting . For Ryan , spring work will start , then wheat . In August we are taking a family vacation , that I cannot wait for ! Once we get back from vacation , Dylan will start preschool . He is growing so fast . Then the fall work will start up for Ryan . After that , we will be back to where we are now . I wonder if next year will go by as fast as this one did . . . Ok , here are a few pictures from Christmas . Of course there are more , but other people are in them , so I didn 't want to post those . Here 's Dylan with his Chia Pet from Santa Posted by Well we had one busy weekend . Friday started out on a bad note . I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed , and things snowballed that morning . I just had so much stuff to do , things got to me more than they should have . Anyway , it evened out later in the day . No big deal . Most of it was me . But I finally got through my " to do list " for the day . Saturday was nice . We woke up , I fed Ethan , and we got ready to get Dylan up . I thought he would be excited to see the gifts under the tree , but it was more of a " whatever " reaction . So we ate breakfast , then did gifts . I made cinnamon rolls from scratch for all of us to enjoy that morning . We let Dylan open his gifts first , and kept Ethan separate . Dylan got a truck / livestock trailer combo , a kids digital camera , animals for the truck , and a bath toy from us . Then Santa brought him exactly what he wanted . . . a Chia pet . A Spongebob Chia pet . He was extremely excited to get it . Then we tried to have Ethan open his gift . He wasn 't interested . We only got him one toy , and then a bath toy like Dylans , because we really didn 't know what else to get . Between the 2 of them there is enough for Ethan to play with . Anyway , he wasn 't all that interested . That held true for the rest of the weekend too . After the boys were done , Ryan and I opened ours . After gifts , Ethan went down for a nap , and Dylan was able to play with all of his toys . He loved the camera , once Daddy showed him how to use it . Once Ethan woke from his nap , we all left to go to Ryan 's parents . We had a nice lunch and received nice gifts . It was nice to sit and talk with everyone too . Again , Ethan didn 't care about the gifts . Dylan loved the Thomas the Train toys he got . That evening we were all pretty tired . Ryan helped me get a few things done before Sunday . Sunday morning I got up early to stick the ham in the oven , then laid down on the couch in hopes of getting a couple more hours of sleep . Once the boys woke up , I started working on the rest of the meal for lunch that day . Mom came over to help , thankfully . We gotPosted by I was playing around with my camera today . I don 't get to practice as much as I 'd like to . So while Ethan was napping , I decided to practice with some of the ornaments on the tree . I just did a basic edit on most of them . Played with some of the colors too ! This last picture is my favorite for some reason ! I like the edit I did on it , but couldn 't repeat it on the others for some reason ! Lots of stuff to get done around here . I will post on Monday telling how our weekend went , and hopefully have some pictures of the boys from Christmas too ! Until then . . . MERRY CHRISTMAS ! We had a decent weekend . Friday night we went to a birthday party for Ryan 's nephew . As soon as we got to the city , Ethan started crying in the car . He didn 't stop until we got him out . I 'm assuming he was bored . He got up from his nap , I fed him and we left . So I imagine he just had a lot of energy and didn 't want to sit there any more . He just isn 't all that great at riding in car . He has always been that way . Saturday we stayed home for most of the day . We had to go to the Christmas dinner at the firehouse that evening . Ryan and Dylan left before Ethan and I . The dinner went well . The boys did good . Both nights we got home after their bedtime , and we were all exhausted . Sunday Ryan had to work , so the boys and I went to moms for a little while . I have a lot of things to get done this week . I didn 't get anything done but getting groceries today . Ethan was having one of his days . He only slept 1 hour the whole day . So he was tired and clingy . I hope to have a better day tomorrow , so I can get started . I want to get things around here straightened a bit , and move some toys around , before I start baking and prep cooking later in the week . I 've got a couple of things I want to make for Christmas dinner at Ryan 's parents and then I want to get a few things done ahead of time before the big meal I cook on Sunday . Supposedly on Friday we are getting a decent amount of snow . Right now they are calling for 3 to 5 inches of snow . I am hoping they are wrong and we don 't get near that much . I want the weekend to go as planned . I am looking forward to it all so much . I have been looking forward to the Christmas dinners . We haven 't done much this week . I didn 't take Dylan down to school on Monday because we got a few inches of snow . The schools were all closed and the roads were horrible . Just not worth making the drive down there . Last night I took the boys up to the firehouse so they could see Santa . I thought Ethan would cry , but he didnt ! Dylan asked Santa for a Chia pet . Anyway , getting out the door was a nightmare . I laid Dylan 's clothes out and told him to get dressed . He was fine until it came to putting on his socks . Something didn 't go right , and he had a meltdown . Tears and all . So I helped him with that and went back to getting Ethan ready . Handed Dylan his shoes and told him to put them on . One shoe went on fine , but the other one didn 't I guess , and he cried again ! Meanwhile , Ethan is fighting me with all he has while I am trying to bundle him up . So I get Dylan 's shoes on , get Ethan dressed . Told Dylan to get his jacket and put it on , while I try putting Ethan 's on . Ethan hates it when I put his jacket on . He always throws a fit . I just expect it . Well this time Dylan had a fit , because he couldnt get his arm in his jacket for some reason . At this point , I almost said forget it we aren 't going . But I knew that Ryan wanted us to go up there , so I took a few deep breaths and finished dressing them and we were out the door . Once we were there everything was fine . We stayed up there with Ryan for a bit and then came home and I finally got everyone to bed . Friday we have a birthday party to go to , and Saturday the Christmas dinner at the firehouse . Sunday Ryan works . Here are a few pictures from the Santa visit ! Posted by It feels like it has been a long week for some reason . We haven 't done much , but still . Dylan got in trouble at school on Monday . Occasionally he does act out . I 'm sure he isn 't the only one from time to time . I talked to him about it . The weather has been so cold this week . Luckily we are staying warm here in the house ! Today the boys and I went to town to get a few things . I needed to get some stuff for Ryan , and get a few things from Walmart . Before we left I took a strap that is supposed to go to Dylan 's booster seat in the kitchen . I figured that since Walmart doesn 't offer a cart with room for 2 kids , I needed to do something . Dylan would need to be in the cart , because going into walmart is never quick , and I didn 't want to set myself up for a fight trying to keep him close while getting through the crowded store quickly . So anyway , I took that strap and set him in the basket of the cart , and used that strap to keep him sat down . With the strap around his waist , there was no way for him to stand up ! So he was in the basket and Ethan was in the seat . It worked well . If I had to get a bunch of stuff , it probably wouldn 't have worked so well , but since I wasn 't getting a lot , it worked fine . I 'm so proud of myself . No huge plans for the weekend . Grandparents are coming to see the boys . And I think on Sunday we are supposed to get a bunch of snow . Although I guess they aren 't sure whats going to happen yet . We 'll see ! It was a nice weekend . Ryan was home early on Friday , so Dylan and I ran to town and got a few things at Walmart then picked up dinner . The store was packed , so I didn 't get half of what I wanted to get . We had to park way out in the middle of nowhere , and Dylan kept getting distracted by anything and everything , that it seemed to take us forever to actually get inside the store . There were just way too many people there . The rest of the weekend we just sat at home . Ryan had a meeting at the fire department Saturday morning . While Ethan was taking his first nap that day , Dylan and I were on the computer looking at anything and everything that had to do with Santa . For some reason Dylan had Santa on the brain . I asked Dylan if he knew where Santa lived and he said " Yeah , at the firehouse . " The local fire department always has Santa one night in December for all of the kids to come and see . So that is the only place ( other than tv and books ) that Dylan has seen Santa . It was just so funny . I asked him what he was going to ask Santa for and he said " A new bear and a big rock . " He is so funny ! Saturday night we did get our Christmas tree up . I bugged Ryan all day , and he finally brought it up that evening and put it up for me . I think I have the branches where I want them , so I went ahead and put all of the decorations on it . I think I am happy with it . We also have baby gates surrounding it so that Ethan doesn 't pull on it . Honestly though , Dylan is just as bad . He knows he isn 't supposed to , but that doesn 't mean that he wont touch it . He knows when I am distracted , and that 's when he does things he isn 't supposed to . Ryan worked today , so the boys and I just stayed here . I dread getting up and dragging the boys out in the morning to take Dylan to school and get groceries . It is so cold right now and I can 't imagine how cold it will feel in the morning . I shudder just thinking about it ! Winter is here . Its not supposed to get out of the 20s all week I don 't think . And stay in the teens at night . Yuck ! No plans this weePosted by I can 't believe that it is December already . It feels like his year has flown by . I 'm sure December will do the same . And around here December came in like a lion . I know that is only supposed to apply to March , but oh well . Its been snowing here all morning . Yesterday the high was in the mid 50s , and now we will be lucky to get to the mid 30s . If the ground were colder , than all of this snow would have stuck . But most of it is melting away . There is a light dusting in most places though . Its pretty . And I am so glad that I do not have to go out and drive in it . Ryan is out working , hauling beans with the semi , and he said he has seen so many accidents around the county . People get stupid around here when it snows a bit . The whole week is supposed to be cold . I think winter has decided to stick around . I don 't care so much for the winter . I 'm a warm weather person . Not a hot weather person , but warm weather . Now that December is here , I swear a switch flipped inside of me . I want my tree up now ! If it weren 't in a box in the basement , I would be setting it up right now . Its a bit heavy , and awkward for me to push or drag it up the steps from the basement . So our tree process will probably go like this . . . I will pester the crap out of Ryan for a few days before he finally gives in and drags the tree out of the basement . He will probably do this while I am cooking dinner . So he will leave the box in the dining room . It will sit there for 2 or 3 days before I pester him more to drag it in the living room and help me put it up . I need help with the top part . I 'm not tall enough . And the bottom is too wide for me to get close enough with a chair to stick the top on . Then it will sit un - decorated for almost a week before I get tired of looking at it and moving the branches around . I will decorate it one day while the boys are napping , then obsess about the way it looks for a couple of days before I finally leave it alone . That 's how it goes every year . Boys are good . Ethan is extra cranky this week . Its getting a bit tirPosted by Thanksgiving was good . It was a bit loud with all of the kids , but that is to be expected . Ethan only napped for 30 minutes before we left for the day . I was really hoping he would sleep an hour , but no such luck . Anyway , Dylan ate so much food . I was so proud of him . And he really wanted some pie , so I made sure he got some . Ethan barely ate anything . Honestly , I kind of thought he would eat more than he did . I don 't know what to do with that kid . I got him to take a nap after lunch , but it still wasn 't a long nap . The poor baby was so tired ! It was a nice day though . We went up to Ryan 's parents house . I am so glad that it was close by . We were all pretty tired that evening . I didn 't go out and do any shopping on Black Friday . There just wasn 't anything that I wanted that day I guess . Today I got up early and went out with a friend of mine . There was a door buster I wanted to buy , so we had to go early . I was so surprised at the lack of people that were out ! I expected crowds everywhere and there just weren 't any ! We hit so many stores , but I got most of my shopping done . There are still a few people I need stuff for , but it won 't take long once I get it all figured out . It was a good day . Ryan stayed home with the boys . Tonight Ryan 's mom and dad came and got Dylan . They planned on going to the local parade that was this evening but its so cold out , I don 't know if they ended up going or not . They did take him to dinner and are keeping him all night . That is so good for Dylan to get some one on one attention . I was so thrilled that they wanted to do that with him . Ethan is something else . Its always something with this kid . I think he is a drama king ! He loves to pull up and stand , but he cant seem to get himself back down . So he tends to stand there and scream . Then once you set him back down , it makes him mad , and he cries . He makes me nervous when he is up on his feet . He is so wobbly , but he just keeps going . He holds onto things , and cruises around all of the furniture . I swear he just wants to walk and get Posted by Dylan must be going through some sort of growth spurt , or something ? He has been incredibly whiny all week . He normally is not like that . He had a good day at school . No problems when I picked him up thankfully . Most days he tolerates Ethan well . He plays well with him , but you have to watch him , because he doesn 't understand how rough he can be . He doesn 't do things on purpose . In the evenings while I am making dinner I stick Ethan in his walker , and he usually ventures in to Dylan 's room . Dylan doesn 't seem to mind most of the time . It helps me get dinner on the table at least . Ethan will zoom back and forth between Dylan 's room and the kitchen . Christmas is a month away , and I don 't have much figured out . I have an idea for Dylan . I keep hoping they will mark it down a bit though . I have NO idea what to get for Ethan . None . He plays with Dylan 's stuff . There is a lot that he cant play with though . I keep hoping to come across some baby toy that looks appealing , but nothing so far . I have one thing for Ryan , but I still need something else in case he doesn 't like what I have already . So I have NO Christmas shopping done at all . Ethan is doing well . He pulls up on everything . It makes me so nervous though . He isn 't very coordinated , so when he is standing in front of something I am holding my breath , hoping he doesn 't fall and hurt himself . He is back to drooling again . More teeth must be on their way . His eating is hit and miss . As soon as I think he is getting better about it , he starts to refuse . I 'm hoping with all of the food tomorrow that he will at least eat well then . Keep trying is all I can do ! Alright . . . got a crying baby . Happy Thanksgiving ! Ethan is finally becoming more open to food . He won 't eat much , but he has been better about trying new foods . We can usually get him to eat some things off of our fork . Slowly the variety of foods he will eat is increasing . He 's just not a big eater I guess . That is so different from what Dylan was . As a baby , he was a great eater . He still is too . But he would eat whatever we would give him and eat so much of it , we would have to cut him off ! The difference in these 2 boys is amazing . Keeps me busy , that 's for sure ! Dylan is so laid back and easy going and Ethan is well , high maintenance I guess you could say . At least its not boring around here ! I got out our video camera yesterday , and there was still a tape in there . I do not video nearly as much as I should . Shame on me . It was all Dylan . So I sat down and watched the tape and it was so much fun . In just over 60 minutes I got to see Dylan grow up . It started when he was around 15 months old , and the last thing I had taped was Christmas when he was 3 . It is so sad that I forget what his little voice sounded like , his limited vocabulary and how he used what he knew to tell you what he wanted . Anyway , I really enjoyed watching it . I need to record them more often . I need to get more tapes ! The other day I made breakfast for dinner . I made pancakes , and made them in small batches . Wait , when I say batches it makes it sound like I am making huge amounts . I 'm not . I only get 2 or 3 in the pan at a time . So I did 3 batches . The last batch is what Dylan and I ate . The pan temp got away from me a little bit , so in the middle of the pancakes was a bit of burnt . They tasted fine , and it wasn 't much so we ate them . But when Dylan saw the burnt on his pancake , we had a conversation . Here it is : Dylan : I can 't eat this pancake . It has dirt on it . Me : Its fine , just eat it . Its not dirt . Dylan : What is it then ? Me : Nothing , just eat . Dylan : But what is it ? Me : Its flavor . Dylan : Oh ! Flavor ? Whats flavor ? Me : It makes it taste good . Dylan : Oh Ok ! He then looks through the rest of his Posted by Not much to say so I am just posting a few pictures . I am using the laptop computer so I didn 't get to lighten some of these pictures as much as I wanted to . They are a little dark , so I apologise . I should be so much better at using my camera than I am , but sometimes its a bit difficult . I hate the flash that is on the camera , so I try not to use it too much . I really want a better flash . So bear with my while I learn ! It may take a while . I 'm not sure what Dylan was doing . He was just acting silly . Dylan and his cat , Max . That boy can carry the dumb cat however he wants to and the cat does not care . Posted by I feel so " off " today . I really have no idea why . I had just written this long post that only ended up being a play by play of my morning , so I deleted it . I can 't seem to focus on much . Physically I feel fine . Mentally , I think Im losing it ! Like I said , I started out with a longer post , but this is it . Kind of pointless . What 's been going on . Well Ethan crawls now . Finally . I 'm still not sure if that 's a good thing or a bad thing ! He can finally do what he wants , but what he wants to do isn 't always safe , or what I want him to do . He annoys Dylan now and I hear a lot of complaining from Dylan about being touched , or grabbed by Ethan or being to close to Ethan . He even gets after the dog , who seems a bit annoyed by this new talent . Almost immediately after learning to crawl , Ethan was beginning to pull up on everything . He loves to stand , tries all the time to stand . He is so far away from being able to walk , but not because of the lack of trying on his part . He also has another tooth coming in . So that has been fun . I 'm so done with teething ! This week I also realized that Ethan has outgrown his infant seat in the car . Actually he has probably been too big for it for at least 2 or 3 months . At his 9 month appointment , he was 29 . 5 inches tall . He will be 10 months in a week . The limit for his seat is 29 inches . Bad mommy ! Very very bad ! So he will move into Dylan 's car seat ( rear facing of course ) and I ordered Dylan a new seat that will hopefully be the last one we ever buy for him . Eventually it transitions into just a booster seat . Dylan had a good day at school on Monday . He was happy to go , and left without any trouble . Not much is going on with him . We don 't have much planned for the weekend as usual . Ryan has to work on Sunday . Saturday I hope to go out for the day with a friend . Ryan is supposed to stay home with the boys , so I hope that all holds up . I don 't remember the last time I was out with a friend . That sounds so pathetic ! A few weeks ago I got a nice new camera . Its a big ole fancy camera . It is capable of so much , and I love that I can learn with this camera . I do wish there was a photography class around here to help me learn , but oh well . I 'm not really good at learning on my own , so this will be a slow process . I am reading one book now , and will move on to others eventually . I don 't have as much time as I would like to devote to learning . Anyway , apparently part of getting a good picture is the post processing of that picture . So I have that to work on also . First you have to be able to take a good picture , otherwise , no amount of post processing will help . I have never done anything with my pictures after taking them except getting prints made . So now I am working on a basic touch up on the pictures before I get them developed . All of the pictures on this blog are all untouched . They are straight out of the camera . Look at these 2 pictures below . The fist one is straight from the camera . Now look at the second . It has a basic touch up done to it to enhance color and tones . The second one is so much better . So much to learn ! Ethan has started crawling . He just figured it all out on Sunday morning . Now I have to figure out how to keep him out of everything . He is also getting another tooth . His last front tooth is finally coming in . He is a bear too . The weekend was ok . At least Ryan was home for most of it . We ran some errands on Sunday . Saturday we didn 't do anything . It was just nice having Ryan home . Last night I had a little trouble falling asleep . So of course my mind starts to wonder . I was thinking about Christmas coming up . Then from there , I realized that shortly after that , Ethan will be a year old . I have a hard time picturing it , and really , I have a hard time believing it . It certainly hasn 't been easy with him , but at the same time , it has gone fast . I now have a 4 year old , and soon , I will have a 4 year old , and a 1 year old . Its hard to imagine what life will be like with the 2 of them around here . The fights , the laughs , the crying . Even now , a few times a day I hear Dylan say " Mommy ! Ethan is touching me . " or " mommy , Ethan is getting my pants . " " Mommy Ethan is touching my toys . " Ethan is getting quicker at getting where he wants to go . And sometimes where he wants to go is right to Dylan . Once he reaches him , Ethan ( being Ethan ) wants to stick Dylan foot in his mouth , or an article of clothing of Dylan 's that he can reach . I 'm sure once Ethan gets older , Dylan will be a little more open to Ethan being close to him . At least I hope ! Yesterday at the grocery , I remembered to grab a box of generic Cheerios in hopes of Ethan eating them . As of now he seems to like them . I read somewhere online to try giving a soft fruit or veggie to them , coated in crushed cheerios , because they may not like the soft or wet feeling of a mushy food . So I will try to give that a shot today . I 'm wondering if Ethan has developed some sort of issue with textures . He eats those cheerios , he eats the Gerber puffs , Gerber dried fruit , and the Gerber freeze dried yogurt bites . All are dry and crunchy . Anything soft , and mushy ( and good for him ) he wont eat . Anyway , we will see how the cheerio coated food works out . The weather has turned cool . My opinion is that it is just cold . Not winter cold , but cold . Its been windy too , which makes it feel cooler . My nose is cold right now ! The living room just doesn 't warm well . By the evening its not too bad , thanks to a day of full sun , but the mornings in here are quite cool . I likePosted by Thursday evening I took Dylan trick or treating . Ryan was still working , so he missed it unfortunately . Dylan dressed as a tiger . He loved it . Everyday he asks if he can have a trick or treat . So I give him one peice of his candy after lunch . Its enough to keep him happy . We walked a couple of small blocks . It was chilly out that evening . 2 blocks is enough candy for him anyway . Saturday we had some family down for a late birthday party for Dylan . It all went well . Somehow Ryan missed out on opening the gifts . The fire department was busy that afternoon . But he managed to make it back before everyone left . Overall I think things were good , and Dylan enjoyed himself . Ryan and I were both tired that evening though . We didnt do anything on Sunday , which was nice . We were all home all day together ! Ethan 's new tooth is finally all the way through . Top front tooth . We made it through all that . Now our latest issue is that he won 't eat any normal food . He wont let me spoon feed him anymore . He also doesnt like anything so whatever I give him to feed himself he hates . Ive tried apples , carrots , broccoli , peas , white bread , wheat bread , and bananas . I have no idea why he won 't eat anything . He just takes his bottles and thats it . I thought that his new tooth was causing pain and thats why he was refusing . But now that it is through , he still wont eat , so I really dont know whats going on with him . The only thing I can do is keep trying I guess . Posted by It 's been a long week . One of Ethan 's top front teeth are coming in . Part of it has poked through the gum . I am guessing that is why he has been so unbearable this week . I 'm not sure what Dylan 's reason is though . Ryan has been working a lot . And I mean A LOT . Gone by 6 am on most days , and not home till after 7 . Like I said , its been a long week . He 's been working like that since last Wednesday or Thursday . I don 't remember , but its been a while . I need a vacation . Ethan is getting closer to crawling . He can get up on his hands and knees whenever he wants , but he hasn 't figured out that he can move from that position . I am really not ready for him to crawl though ! He is so fast at rolling and army crawling , that I can 't imagine how much he will get into when he can really move . I used to keep all of the boys ' books on the bottom of the coffee table . I had to move them this week , because I got tired of constantly peeling Ethan away from them , and taking pieces of those books out of his hands , and of course his mouth . So I cleaned out a side table , and stuck the books in there . At least now they are a little more challenging to get to . Although , he can still get to them . He shows that everyday . He is in to everything ! Already . I want to get rid of that coffee table . At least for now . I may want it back at a later date , but it has really been annoying me lately . Ryan seems to disagree . I would like to put it in one of the rooms in the barn , but he says it will get ruined . I disagree . Oh well . We 'll see what happens . I cleaned out the drawers in Ethan 's dresser . Most of his clothes in there were too small for him . He is tall for his age . All of his clothes up to the 9 month size are gone . He is wearing the 12 month sleepers . So I washed up all of Dylan 's old 12 month clothes and put them out for Ethan to wear . Right now though , most of their clothes are not matching up as far as the seasons go . Ethan has enough , but some stuff of Dylan 's we will probably never wear , just because it is the wrong season . No plans for thPosted by I took the boys for their check - ups yesterday . Both are fine . Dylan is 3ft , 3 . 5in tall and 34 pounds . He is in the 50th percentile for everything . He has been consistant like that . He got 2 vaccines , including the flu shot . He did good . He only cried for a minute . Ethan is 18 pounds and only in the 3oth percentile , and 29 . 5 inches , and in the 70th percentile . He has a large noggin too . Basically he is tall and skinny . Thats how he has been since he was born . He grew 2 inches since his last checkup 3 months ago ! He got the flu shot too . Ethan got a little cranky in the office , but Dylan did great . He answered all of the doctor 's questions . I was very proud of him . After the doctor we ran a few errands and then I took Dylan to pick out a pumpkin for him and one for Ethan . We got a couple of small ones also . When we got home , I took a bunch of pictures of the boys and the pumpkins . Here are a few . Posted by Our weekend was ok . Nothing went as planned though . Ryan ended up working on Saturday . So Friday night when he got home , we asked Dylan what he wanted for dinner . We gave him a couple of choices , and we ended up with Pizza Hut pizza . Good choice Dylan ! I was thrilled . So daddy and Dylan went to town to get pizza . I had made cupcakes and after dinner , we gave Dylan a cupcake with a candle in it . So Saturday we didn 't do anything . Sunday we went to that party I mentioned the other day . It turned out to be a really nice day . The weather was great . Dylan enjoyed playing with the kids . It was nice seeing everyone again . We didn 't get to stay as long as I would have liked but Ethan started getting cranky because he was sleepy . So we packed up and left . But it was a nice day . We were all pretty tired when we got home . We finally gave Dylan his birthday gift too . He got a lot of nice things . He loves everything . Posted by Well I spoke up and did my best to handle things . I stand firm on my position . Honestly , where it goes from here will depend on others . I guess I just wait and see . I was floored by the conversation I had . A few things came out that I didn 't expect . So even now , a couple of days later , I don 't know what to think about it all . Saturday is Dylan 's birthday . I am making cupcakes today for tomorrow . We aren 't doing anything big , but we want to acknowledge his birthday on the actual day . So I will do cupcakes , which he is excited about , we are going to take him to McDonalds . He doesn 't eat there very often , so it really excites him when we do . Ryan is going to an opening of a new hog barn locally , and he is going to take Dylan . That will thrill the crap out of Dylan . So he should have a good day . We got him 2 gifts for his birthday . We will give him one tomorrow and keep the other until we get together with some family later . I think I am going to give him his wheelbarrow tomorrow , which means that I will have to put it together sometime today during his nap or after he goes to bed tonight . I have been fighting with my sinuses these last couple of days . Headache that comes and goes and congestion in my nose that comes and goes . When the congestion goes away , it leaves me with a sore throat . Blah . The weather changed a bit in the last few days , so that 's what I am blaming it on . Sunday we are going to meet up with my mom 's side of the family for a combo birthday party . My cousins little girl , and Dylan . Their birthdays are fairly close , so it will work out well . The boys and I ran to town yesterday to get some things I needed and to get a gift for my cousin 's little girl . We hit Kmart first . Ethan cried near the whole time . He was fine when we first got there , but it didn 't last long . He cried and cried , for no apparent reason really . But I just went on with my shopping . I had to get it done , and he wasn 't hurt or hungry , so I let him go . Once we got in the car he stopped . I still had a list of things to get , so we went onPosted by I don 't like confrontation . I keep things inside more often than not to avoid confrontation . Sometimes though , I can 't keep it inside . Sometimes things bother me a little too much to just keep it inside . If I bring it up , then that means that it is important to me . There are a few things that will cause resentment if I just keep it inside . With those few things , if I don 't address it , keeping it to myself will eventually make the entire situation worse in the long run . I understand that there are times when my actions and decisions affect many many others . I am aware of that and I am sorry for that . Like I said though , somethings can 't be tossed aside . Everyone has their things that they choose to take a stand on . I have mine . I can handle things calmly . I do get fired up , trust me , but I can also keep myself calm as long as the other person can do the same . I 'm sure that I can handle what I need to in a calm manner . Sadly , I have gotten used to walking on eggshells for some people . I hate doing it , and I really don 't think I should have to . Life is hard , sometimes life sucks , and people don 't always get along . But to attempt civil living , I can walk on eggshells . One of these days I may get tired of it , and throw my hands in the air in frustration and stop . But for now , I will keep going . There has been many times through the years when I have wanted to turn away and never look back , in hopes of stopping all of the stress , putting an end to the tears , and sadness . If I were strong enough for that , I could have avoided so much pain . But I can 't seem to do that . Guess I am not that strong of a person . At the same time , I can 't just let some things go . Sorry . I am thankful to be married to someone who stands beside me , and supports me when I need it the most . I am thankful that I am married to someone who I can talk to about anything , who I love spending time with , and hate being away from . We can laugh together and hurt together . We can also stand up to one another if we need to knowing that we are safe to disagree , Posted by The weather around here lately has been wonderful . We could use a lot of rain though . Its warm out , not humid , nice and breezy . I love days that this . Boys are well . Dylan had a good day at school on Monday . The local fire department brought their truck down to them , so Dylan was excited about that . Since it was a nice evening last night , I took Dylan for a ride on the four wheeler back through the fields . He loves that stuff . Nothing really exciting to report . This weekend Dylan turns 4 . Time flies . I 'm not sure what we are going to do that day . Sunday we are going to my Aunts and have a get together for both Dylan 's birthday and my cousin 's daughter . Getting 2 birds with one stone ! The weather is supposed to be nice . Other than that we don 't have much going on . I haven 't really felt like posting much lately . Sorry about that . Boring weekend . Saturday was rough . I was exhausted , and then I had a headache from hell . And then that afternoon Ethan decided he wasn 't going to nap . Blah . So yeah . Crappy day . Sunday was better . Ran to the store with Dylan . I had to go to Walmart . I do not enjoy going there at all . Of course everybody and their brother was there , so we had to park out in BFE . Once we got into the store , I swear that every isle that I needed to go into , there were either 4 - 5 people with carts in the isle , or one inconsiderate moron in the middle of the isle . So of course I didn 't get everything I wanted to get . After , Dylan and I went to pick up dinner for all of us . At least I didn 't have to make dinner that evening ! Dylan had a nice day at school . No problems at all . When I picked him up and got him in the car , he told me that someone peed on the floor . I wondered why one teacher was trying to get the kids outside in a hurry . Guess that 's why , haha ! At least it wasn 't Dylan who peed on the floor ! Afterwards , I had an issue with the pharmacy down there . People tick me off . Someone didn 't do their job right , and then someone else didn 't do their job quickly enough . They told me to come back in 20 minutes , so I did . At that point it still wasn 't ready , and they told me to give them another 10 minutes or so . I said fine , and just came home . Dylan was whining because he was hungry and Ethan was fussing , because he was getting hungry as well . So now I have to go back down there sometime this week . I am still really ticked about the whole situation . Not much to talk about . The guys are finally getting back into the fields after the 3 day ( or so . . . don 't really remember ) rain delay . The boys are good . Ethan has had a snotty nose off and on for a few days . Some days it runs , others it doesn 't . Who knows . He is doing fine with it though . Dylan is ok . He had a decent day at school . They said that a boy bit him in the arm . There was no mark , and honestly , I don 't see it as a big deal . Kids will be kids , and like I said , there was no mark , so it happens . He said he didn 't cry . Last week at school , he pushed a kid down and tossed a toy and hit someone , so its almost like Karma getting him . What goes around , comes around . Dylan 's birthday gifts arrived this week . We got him a little John Deere wheelbarrow , and a little LeapFrog writing toy . I have yet to get either one out of the box yet to look at it . I don 't want to show him what they are before his birthday . From the looks of the wheelbarrow box it looks like I have to put it together . I can 't tell how big it actually is either . That should be fun . Here are a few pictures from harvest last week : Posted by Christina and Ryan ! We are parents to an active and wonderful little boy , Dylan and a sweet toddler , Ethan . I am home each day with them . Ryan is a volunteer firefighter / emt for our local department as well as an emt for a transport company . More importantly we have a small farm . Together with his dad , Ryan manages about 1000 acres of land . All of that keeps the family pretty busy !