Top 11 in 11

Our year was filled with so much love, happiness, and memories! Here are my top 11 memories of 2011!

11.  My dad fulfilled one of his dreams, going oryx hunting and actually getting one! Seeing him and my brother so excited was amazing!

10. My mom and I got to spend a lot of time together shopping, eating, and just laughing. She helped me so much with Tanner and he loved spending so much time with her!

9.  Tanner and I joined a mommy group over the summer and both made some really great friends! These ladies have been such a godsend and it has been so nice getting out of the house!

8.  Over the summer me and my mommy group friends started running to shed the left over baby weight! We decided to train for a 5k run and in September Brittany and I completed our first competitive run post babies! Times weren't the greatest, but it felt so good!

7. I went back to work for a while teaching 1st grade. At first I hated being away from Tan full time (only for 6 wks), but it showed me that I do miss teaching and that I think I am ready to find a part time job in 2012!

6.  Our family was blessed with a brand new, beautiful baby girl named Gemma Vonn! I am a proud auntie, Morgan a proud uncle, and Tanner loves his baby "Emma".  

5.  My cousin Renee and her Morgan (haha how did we both manage to find guys named Morgan) moved back to NM from Cali and got their own beautiful house! It is so nice having everyone back home!

4. Morgan and I celebrated our 2nd Anniversary in October with an amazing dinner!  He is the best hubby anyone could ask for!

3. We celebrated Tanner's first birthday party in July! He had a blast and LOVED his cake!

2. Tanner started walking and talking and has not stopped or shut up since! I've loved every age, but this is by far my favorite! He's a cool kid!

1. The best part of 2011 was being able to spend every day with these two!  I love my family so much and am so blessed to have them! They are by far the best things that have ever happened to me!

This year will be hard to beat, but I am looking forward to 2012!  Happy New Year everyone! Hope the new year brings you happiness and joy!

A December to Remember

December is always a time of family, stress (which sometimes go hand in hand), food, LOTS of food, and the most important the celebration of our Lord.  This December started out very stressful for me. I stressed about how we were going to afford presents on one income, stressed with the fact that my car was minding its own business in my driveway and was hit by the neighbors runaway jeep and the fact that the neighbor is pretty much a douche bag, enough said there. Then there was the camera incident of 2011. Even with all the stress I was shown the true meaning of Christmas. This year was Morgan's year to see his family. We switch off each year and his family lives in Northern NM. It was hard being away from mine, but we had an awesome time in good old Espanola!  We started our Christmas Eve off at the outlets in Santa Fe where my hubby surprised me with a trip to the Coach store. He told me he wanted me to have something nice and let me pick out whatever I wanted! The sales were so good that we left with not one, but two beautiful purses for less than we would have paid for one at Dillards! SCORE! Then we headed to  his Dad and Stepmom's house. We ate, watched Tan open tons of presents, and had the best eggnog ever! One glass had me pretty tipsy!  Then we went to Morgan's Aunt's house and spent the rest of the evening with cousins, aunts, uncles, and his grandma! Tanner thought he was a big boy and wanted to keep up with all the big kids!

Christmas day brought lots of Santa presents for Tanner. He was obviously a good boy! His favorite by far was his Green Bay Packers chair and the wrapping paper roll!  We enjoyed, or tried  to enjoy mass, but church with a one year old is hard. Tanner loves clocks, but can't quite say the word, so all through mass we screamed "cock"! I was about 10 shades of red, but all you can really do is laugh. Finally, it was my families turn. We had lunch with my familia at my aunts house. This year the adults decided to do a white elephant gift thingy and let me tell you I have not laughed that hard in so long! I think this may be a new traditions! I also got my baby fix, or should maybe caught the fever, because I met my brand new baby cousin Jaxon. He is a doll!  We ended the night at my inlaws where we had a feast of tamales, beans and cookies.  We enjoyed the football game and I got to see my Bears lose, again!

All in all our holidays were amazing. Seeing Christmas through Tanner's eyes was the most amazing thing. He was so excited and next year will be even better! Sometimes having such big families is hard, especially trying to fit everything in, but then again it is amazing to have so much love and support around us! The gifts were great, but honestly just being around those that I love was the best gift of all and the memories made will never be forgotten!

Here are a few pictures from the big day!

This makes a nice seat!

Are these all for me?

sitting in his "crackers" chair!

fun with grandpa Doug!

Christmas is tiring, but auntie Diana is pretty comfy and doesn't even mind my hand down her shirt! Told everyone I was a boob man!

One of Those Weeks

This has been a rough week for this tired mama.  The Christmas hustle and bustle is a little too much to handle. I have so much to do and am running out of time and patience. Tanner is first off amazing, but this amazing kid seems to be into everything lately! He likes to climb and play with things that could possible kill him. The huge toybox is lame ya know!  He is also cutting two molars and is a snot and droll machine (most of that ends up on his dear old mama).  Along with teething comes Mr. Clingy who needs to be attached to me at ALL times.  If I have to pee, the wee ones world crashes around him. Showering? What's that?  My hair is a grease ball and I'm pretty sure my husband would rather sleep on the couch than have to catch a whiff of my ever so pleasant, actually BO ridden self. Okay, I'm exaggerating, I don't smell that bad, Febreze is a god send!

This morning was the kicker though. Last night I baked beautiful cookies (more on that next blog) and decided to document the process with the awesome camera I got 2 Christmas's ago. Well stupid me left camera on counter, where I thought the mini me couldn't reach it. Boy was I wrong. As I'm getting his yogurt out of the fridge I hear a bam! And low and behold my prized possession is on the floor. I'm horrified to admit this, but I yelled. He cried. Then I cried for yelling at my baby.  My lens was crushed and dented and my heart was broken. Mom of the year right? I picked up both of my babies and just cried, called hubby and admitted I'm overwhelmed and then decided to just cuddle my love and hope that he forgave me (which he did and I'm not even sure he remembers the incident).  Soon after he went down for a nap and I sat and stared at him and cried some more.  I realized that yeah it sucks that my camera may be broken, but who cares it can be replaced, my kid cannot. Then I start thinking about all of those you wish to be parents and cannot for various reasons and I felt like a total ungrateful biotch for making a big deal out of something so small and taking my son for granted (if you haven't noticed I tend to over analyze EVERYTHING).  Hard days are a part of parenthood and I need to learn to embrace them.   A good friend of mine told me to "just keep smiling, because these are the moments we will look back on and smile the most about".   So with that said, I'm gonna keep on smiling and enjoying every moment (even the my claim to fame is breaking stuff, teething and boogers) with the greatest son anyone could ask for!

Love you, Tan Man!!

How can you stay mad at this face?

Hives

Well my poor baby boy had some type of weird allergic reaction to, well we aren't exactly sure. It started Monday night with a few bumps on his arm. I wasn't alarmed and thought maybe his shirt was rubbing weird. The next day he had them on his butt and legs, but they faded fast. Well, Tuesday after his afternoon bottle the poor boys face was covered in mosquito like bumps from under his eyes to his neck! I freaked, ran for the benadryl and called the nurse hot-line. After my hubby calmed me (basically calling me crazy) I gave him a bath and he seemed fine. Well then this morning came along and his poor booty was covered again and his face looked swollen. I decided to bite the dust and pay the $40 copay and make a visit to good old Dr. Walsh. She seems to think that changing brands of milk or eating goldfish crackers (wheat?) could be the culprit. So now we are going to go back to our old stand by Creamland milk and will be using my new best friend Benadryl for the next few days. I should have taken some pics, but I'm sure little man would hate me for it when he's a moody teenager!  Hoping I have a welty free kid tomorrow!