Relay For Life 2013

This was the second year my family decided to form a team for Relay For Life.  While it was "fun," and I'm glad we did it, I'm glad it's over. Two weekends of garage sales, various fund raisers and a sleepless night later...I think the consensus is that next year we just want to go visit for a couple hours. :)  Holy moly are we tired.  But, hopefully our tiredness and effort has helped a family somewhere that is struggling while dealing with cancer.

umm...this was the best we could do in getting the three of us in.  Asking someone to take a picture for us probably would have been smart.

It was bright outside

 Can you tell I thought Aiden was adorable in his little hat?

Flashback to when Patrick wore this hat:

He was 4 months when this picture was taken

I didn't get pictures of everyone but I did better than my zero from last year(sorry Derek and Kami).

Patrick thought it was the greatest thing ever to run around a track for a couple hours straight.  Nap time has been good today.  I think he's a little tired...

Until next year...

Aiden,

Last week you turned 3 months old.  It was a hard week.  You turned 3 months but it was also the one year mark from the time we lost your Grandpa Clifford...which happened to fall on Father's Day this year.  It'd be so easy for me to get lost in the angry feelings over everything that has happened but instead I want to focus on how grateful we are for you.  The grandchild named after your sweet grandpa.  You bring more joy into our lives than I could have ever asked for and we all feel like when you came to this earth, you brought a little piece of your grandpa with you.  You even smell like him.  The day your grandfather left this world was also the exact day we started counting down the 40 weeks until your arrival. You are easy going, you love to talk, you're quick to smile, quick to adapt and overall the easiest baby I could have ever asked for.  Those are traits you got from your grandpa.  I know Patrick came at a time we all needed him most and I know that you also came for a specific purpose.  You've helped all of us, little man, and we love you more than I think you'll ever understand.  I hope you always know who your grandfather is and that you take pride in the fact that you remind us so much of him.  I am so blessed to be your mother.

Love,
Mom

P.S. Your little smiles and giggles...I cannot get enough.
P.P.S  Thank you for being such a good sleeper.  It's nice being the one to wake you up after you've already been sleeping for 12 hours.

...

Sometimes I just really don't know what to call a post.  Most of the time when I start a post, my first thought to call it is, "Randomness."  Actually, my last post was called that...I'm just super creative.

Anyway, since Patrick and Aiden are pretty close in age, I still have all of Patrick's clothes and now Aiden is wearing them.  It's been nice not having to buy much the second time around since we're still poor college students...for now.  I'm probably weird and get more enjoyment out of this than I should, but I like taking pictures of Aiden that are similar to what I did with Patrick.  Like these pictures, for example:

Patrick around 2 months

Aiden almost 3 months

Me with Aiden-just so I can be matchy matchy to the first picture and have a picture with both boys in the same outfit. I know, weird.

And then there's the boppy pictures.  I really mean it when I say Aiden is a happy little boy.  His giggles...I can't get enough.  After 30 minutes of me pulling stupid faces and talking in annoying baby talk, Patrick will come up to me and say, "swing, mom, swing!" Meaning, "mom, you should pay attention to me now and put Aiden in his swing."

Patrick was a much more serious baby although you'd never guess that because he's a goofball now.

Aside from taking pictures of my kids and talking in baby talk all day, I have decided to follow the current trend where people have decided running is the cool thing to do.  I don't particularly love running unless a race is involved so I've decided to sign up for the Color in Motion 5k in July and the Rush Triathlon in August.  It feels good having goals to work for...even if it takes me 10 hours to run the 10k in the triathlon.

Jon wants to train with me...he says...but he stays busy with school and working on the weekends. ;)   Although, he just got offered his dream job(besides working for Apple or developing his own apps), so the  weekend night job will be done in a little while.  The boss even took him out to lunch today and everything.  Very businesslike.  The whole job situation was a little...complicated, since Jon left Broulims but we're hoping he's done trading for awhile and we're really excited about this company.  He even gets to work from home so we'll go from never seeing each other, to seeing each other all the time.  I know that doesn't work for every couple but for us it's the ideal situation.  We don't need our space. ;)  I say this all the time but July cannot come soon enough.

And lastly, our family is participating in the Relay for Life again at the end of June.  June 21-22 to be exact.  So if anyone wants to come join Dad's Team 2.0, we would love to have you all come walk with us.  We're also raising money for the American Cancer Society so if you'd like to donate to that, you can do that here:  

https://secure.acsevents.org/site/Donation2?idb=284233639&df_id=1010547&1010547.donation=form1&FR_ID=50757&PROXY_ID=1412255&PROXY_TYPE=22

Randomness

Sometimes my blog posts have no theme because I just take a lot of pictures and want to add them on here but they're just random things that happen from day to day.  

Like this picture for example: I think this was last Sunday and Patrick is just cute.  He always pretends he's embarrassed when he does something funny so he'll cover his mouth like this.

And just a few more pictures of Aiden smiling because that's really what he does all. the. time.

I forgot to add this picture to my last post but this was with Jon's parents.  Patrick adores Ada and she's sweet enough to let him tag along with her everywhere.

Patrick's lego creation.  He's not even two!  I was impressed. After playing with his legos for awhile, Patrick brought this to me and said, "truck!"  I didn't help him at all.  I can see legos in future birthday/christmas gifts because this kid loves them.  Loves them.