Getting Ready for Christmas

So what happens at our house when we get ready for Christmas? Eggnog is purchased. Aaron and I can drink eggnog if it's watered down a bit with some regular milk, and in small portions. But it's something that's a must need in the home this time of year. Tatton has been introduced to this beverage and is now addicted. He can tank down eggnog like no other. I thought it might be wise to buy him the low-fat version because he literally asks for eggnog all day. Now I've had to just tell him it's all gone even though we have some in the fridge so that he has it just every once in awhile.

Secondly we got our tree up. Thanks to Tatton most of the ornaments along the bottom half of the tree are rearranged daily, but I suppose that's what Christmas is when you have a toddler in the home. He loves turning the lights on. Our neighbors probably think we're weird because Tatton will go push the button to turn on the lights all throughout the day.. it's a constant battle.

Thirdly, we've been playing in the snow. Tatton has his own little toddler sled that's just his size and you can buckle him in. I keep forgetting to take the camera outside with me so there aren't any pictures of that action. And fourthly, last night we went to see Santa at the Newgate Mall. But what we encountered there was surprisingly something Tatton loved much more than Santa. They have a train that you can ride. So the first go around, I rode the little kid train with Tatton and he loved it. Best $2 spent at the mall. So we continued our shopping and were making our way to the other end of the mall to see Santa but all Tatton could talk about was either "choo-choo again" or "back to choo-choo". And I mean this was all he said over and over again. He was getting pretty desperate realizing that neither mom or dad were going to take him back anytime soon so then he started asking if papa or mama (grandma) would take him. So we finally got to Santa and he was so excited until we tried to put him on his lap. Santa told Aaron and I to come sit with him. Hence the whole Gold Family sitting on Santa's lap. Tatton warmed up a little but still kept on insisting we go back to the choo-choo. We decided that Tatton could probably handle the train by himself this time. He walked right in, went to the same red car that we rode in the first time, waited patiently for Aaron to open the door and sat right down with his hands on his lap. He LOVED it the second time, riding all by himself. He threw a rather good fit when it was over and Aaron was trying to get him to come out. All the way home he talked about the choo-choo and even this morning in his sleep he keeps mumbling choo-choo. So needless to say, I think we will be venturing back to the Newgate Mall quite a bit before the train is gone. Merry Christmas Tatton...

busy, busy, busy...

Well, it's been a busy month since last time I posted anything on here. For a baby update... I've got the belly which is already uncomfortable. The little guy is doing good though, he's moving around like crazy and he weighs over a pound now. We have few names that we like but nothing for sure yet.

Aaron and I celebrated our 4th Anniversary! We must be getting old, or the fact that I'm pregnant... I don't know. Usually we have some elaborate plan, take a little get away... but this year we just stayed home, Aaron made a yummy dinner and we watched Up! with Tatton. It doesn't sound like anything fantastic but it was a perfect day for me. 4 years and I love just being home with my little family, snuggling with Aaron and playing with Tatton. The next day or night I should say, we went to the New Moon premiere. It was great... even lthough Aaron decided to become the line-butting Nazi at the theatre. We went to Layton and it was very unorganized and Aaron was determined that a group of teenagers in front of us were not going to let their 15 friends cut in line. Needless to say I was mortified and embarrassed that evening, but we got great seats in the end to watch our movie so I suppose Aaron deserves a pat on the back.

Thanksgiving was a great holiday as usual, good food and lots of it. We're lucky that our parents live so close and we can hit up both family parties on the same day. December has finally come and we're extrememly excited for Christmas. We have to get our ward christmas party out of the way that Aaron and I are in charge of which is on Saturday, and then we can have time to celebrate the countdown a little better... stress free! Tatton has become obsessed with The Polar Express, because of the "choo-choo" and Frosty the Snowman. Aaron and I have had to print off the words to the Frosty song (which is really long by the way) because Tatton requests that song to be sung at bedtime. And he tries to sing it too, it's pretty cute.

Oh, and speaking of bedtime... Tatton has moved into his big boy bed which is a little toddler bed. He's sleeping just fine it now, yay! It was a rough two weeks but we've made it. I wanted the crib to not be an issue at all when the baby came so that was one less traumatizing thing for Tatton. It seems so early for him to be in a big bed but it's working out just fine for him. I guess our little guy is growing up. I don't have a whole lot of pictures lately, I've been a slacker. The Tatton clan had family pictures taken though in November so hopefully I can snag one of those to put on here.

Halloween

Alright, finally getting around to putting Halloween on here, yikes! This is our little Haunted House that we put together. Tatton helped with the sprinkles and ate a lot of the candies, he enjoyed himself. On Halloween night, we went over the Gold's for a bit, Tatton was Dumbo. Then we headed up to North Ogden for more festivities. We ate and trick-or-treated from Ryan and Racquel's house. Tatton was still Dumbo since is was quite frigid outside. Tatton ate his donut and Aaron got him candy. He had a pretty sweet set up, I don't think he had a clue what was going on. After trick-or-treating we went over to my Grandpa Creamer's house. We put Tatton in his Nacho Libre outfit since that house is a warm 80 degress all year round.

IT'S A BOY!!

So it's official. The little guy was quite proud of his manhood and as soon as we started the ultrasound... there it was. I guess he felt the need to show it off so we'd quit toying with the idea of him being a girl. At our last ultrasound he was just kind of a blob, I can't believe how much he's grown since then. Today we were able to see a defined little body, it's pretty amazing. He weighs in at a whopping 6 ounces, no wonder I haven't felt him kick yet. I feel him squirming around, but no definite kick. We've been able to get Tatton to say "brother" tonight. It'll be a lot of fun for him to have a little buddy!

All Sorts of Stuff

So firstly, we still cannot decide what Tatton should be for Halloween. I don't know why it's so difficult? We still really like the Nacho idea, he has the perfect little belly and chubby legs to be in tights. But we were going through some patterns that my Mom has, she always makes the grandkids' costumes, and she has a really cute pattern for a skunk. So we like that idea too. Ugh, we'll see.

Secondly we have FINALLY finished the canning projects for this year. We finished doing our pears at 3 am this morning. We are exhausted, we have been having canning marathons for the past 3 weekends. I'm not kidding, we have canned stewed tomatoes, salsa, apple sauce, apple pie filling, peaches, grape juice, grape jelly, strawberry jam, raspberry jam, apple-cinnamon jelly, pickled beats and pears. So take that food storage! We are so happy to be done, for this year. Last night Tatton was trying so hard to help us with the pears. He took a pear at a time out of the bucket and set it on the table for me to peel and took a bite out of a few of them, lil stinker. So we put in Dumbo to keep him a little entertained because it has a "choo-choo" in it and animals. He was hooked. Here is a little picture of him glued to the movie. And that's one of my blankets by the way... not Tatton's.

And thirdly, we've had yet again a little mishap with the flour. This time it was with my bread flour which is in a bucket but he was "helping" me make bread. I usually try and make bread when he is asleep but that's not always possible. So I had a helper and I knew when I had to get my 2 cups of flour out, he'd be all over it. As I was putting the first cup in the mixer, he ran to the kitchen utinsel drawer, pulled out a bunch of different tools, and started digging. Good times! It wasn't as bad as before, and he looked pretty darn cute so what can you do?

And yes, he is eating/licking the flour off the floor. Also, for those of you who know my brother Rusty, I think Tatton looks a lot like him in this picture, well atleast Rusty's baby pictures.

And fourthly... those of you who are anxiously awaiting to find out if we are having a boy or girl, we hopefully will find out on Monday, yay!

Random Things

I know this is really pathetic since this is my second post in one day, but I figured since I had the time I might as well. So Tatton and I were driving down to Ogden when we ran into this on the way.Yup, only in Morgan will you get delayed in your travels due to cows crossing the road. Gotta love this little town. Tatton was in heaven though, he was "mooing" uncontrollably ad was so excited that cows were walking by his window.

On a different note, we cannot decide what Tatton should be for Halloween. We have a few ideas but cannot narrow it down. Here are the contenders in numerical order of my favorite:

1. Nacho Libre

2. Lil' Golfer

3. Monkey

4. Lion

5. Scarecrow

I couldn't fnd a toddler Nacho Libre picture, sorry.

Sleep Adventures

So this is what happens when you are extremely prego tired and happen to doze off on the couch and your 20 month old son has free reign of the house for 15 minutes...

I think the pictures are self explanatory. He had a good run while it lasted! And although it was a blast cleaning up, it could have been a LOT worse. Needless to say the flour has now been put into a bucket...

Relay for Life and Other Shenanigans

Tatton with his stunner shades on... I think it's just me but he looks so grown up in this picture. And the next picture would be Tatton glued to one of his Backyardigans movies. He's always liked that show but recently he will sit down and literally watch the whole movie (4 episodes in a row). It's nice sometimes when I need to get some things done, but I don't want to make too much of a habit with it...

Last weekend we got to go to Relay for Life. It's an event set up to support and raise money for the American Cancer Society. Aaron's Grandpa had cancer, Aaron's Mom has cancer and has battling it for 44 years, and Aaron' brother has had cancer. Each team runs their own booth and does an activity or sells items and all that money donated goes to the American Cancer Society. And someone from each team has to be walking around the track at all times, switching off throughout the night. This is our second year doing it with Aaron's family. Our team, who was named by his nephews... is TNT Dynamite. This year we sold big pots of flowers and lots of yummy treats! They also have a lot of auctions throughout the night with some really good, cute stuff. It was a lot of fun. Jace, one of our nephews, I think put in the most laps. Tatton put in a few laps of actually walking and running, and then a bunch of laps in the stroller while being pushed by all of us. We're glad we're able to participate and can't wait for next year. We're grateful that Mary Sue is such a trooper and fighter.

We had a BBQ on Sunday with some of Aaron's family. This is one of Jen's dogs and Tatton would not leave it alone. Up until Sunday, Tatton has been scared of dogs, upclose. But I don't know what happened, all the sudden he is now hugging and petting and giving loves to dogs. He sat on this poor dog most of the afternoon and tried to ride it. He's such a crazy kid, but atleast we're happy to see him not afraid of dogs anymore.

This is Ty, one of Tatton's favorite cousins. When I'm home with Tatton, "Ty" usually comes out of Tatton's mouth atleast once a day if not more. He loves playing with Ty and gets so excited when he sees him. It's really cute. We're glad that Ty likes playing with Tatton too, they are fun little boys.

Pictures of Our Summer

Good Grief!

So it appears as though I can't keep up on our blog. I have lately been trying to spend my time more wisely playing with Tatton, cleaning the house more, keeping up on laundry, cooking good dinners... the usual... so my computer time has been lacking. To briefly update you on our summer, here are a few pics from our events. I might be ambitious one of these days and do a slideshow because after having to choose just one picture from some things we've been doing I realized how much I'm having to leave out! Enjoy... (oh and our computer is being slow and snobby so the pictures are in a backwards order, most recent to oldest, fyi)

We went camping in Yellowstone last week with some of my family, the brave ones. We stayed in Grant Village and yes I think we were all a little worried about bears entering our tents. Tatton on the otherhand, played in the dirt 24/7.

The Clan...Rusty, Jayden, Challise, Talon, Andrea, Rhett, Grandpa Roy, JT, Grandma Kathy, Tatton, Hannah, Me and Aaron!

Our little walk around West Thumb Geyser.

Tatton, happy on the boat at Jenny Lake. For some crazy reason, we took the boat ride across Jenny Lake and then hiked back. It said it was only 2.7 miles, but we all think it was much longer. It was awful, pretty views, but awful... luckily Aaron had the shmoe on his back, yikes!

Just a day at home. Tatton putting pots on his head and then hitting the pot and making himself laugh...

So this would be the kid pool at Aaron's family reunion which is always held at his Grandma's house. It was ridiculously warm and we didn't bring Tatton's swimsuit. But we figured that with his hot little bod it didn't matter, he needed to cool off. He ended up marking his territory, a few times, in the pool so he had it all to himself.

Tatton and his best friend "B" the Beaver. We went camping in the Uintah's over the 4th of July and at the Bear River Ranger Station, my Mom bought him a beaver stuffed animal and it has been his little pal ever since. He doesn't go anywhere without it, he sleeps with it, and takes it for rides with him on the "choo choo."

My big 25th Birthday...party.

Aaron gave Tatton the hose and he played with it forever. He drenched himself and managed to get Mom and Dad a little wet too.

Aaron's sister Sharon gave us this little recliner and we love it. It does recline but Tatton's feet don't even reach the foot rest yet. He sits on it all the time to watch movies and read books. I think it just looks so funny, like a little old man in his chair.

Tatton reading again. This is when we were camping in the Uintah's. Of all the things he could be doing, he's sitting outside the tent reading a book.

Visiting at Grandma's house. I have no idea what he was doing but I'm glad I caught it.

This is Aaron and I during one of our late night wall paper demolition and painting marathons until 3 am on the house. Obviously to the painting stage...

The Zoo, there were so many pictures from that day but Tatton's face at this moment was classic. He rode the monkey on the merry-go-round and he was SO excited. He had a lot of fun.