Holidays are getting closer

Here is a picture Chris sent me from his phone, he managed to get the car seats in his new jeep (had to buy some seatbelts, for some reason it didn't have any when he bought it, seems crazy to me since he bought it from a police officer, hmmm.) This picture doesn't show it, but they love Daddy's new jeep, he had just picked them up from school, Chris said they both fell asleep shortly after he took this picture.

Here is a picture of Chris's new jeep.

I can't believe its almost time for Thanksgiving and then Christmas will be here before you know it. Jenn put a wish list for Carter on his blog, so I thought I would do the same for Aidan and Emma in case any family members wanted some ideas. Check out their wishlist here: http://www.toysandco.com/wishlist.htm just enter my email address to access the list (designsbydonna@gmail.com). Of course, by no means do you have to stick to this list, this is just for ideas as I know you can probably find similar items at other stores.
We had an interesting weekend this past weekend. On Saturday, I took Emma with me to meet my Mom and go shopping while Chris took Aidan out to eat lunch and play at the park. Emma did pretty well shopping and we ate at Panera and let her sit in the booth with us and she really enjoyed being a "big girl" and getting to stand up and sit down and say hello to people around us. It was such a pretty day it was nice to get out and walk around outside, I love weekends like this. My Saturday afternoon was a little hectic though, couldn't really get them to nap, when I almost get one to nap the other one wakes them up on purpose, so needless to say in turned into two grumpy toddlers by the end of the day. My plan for Sunday was to get up and go get their pictures made, not necessarily for Christmas, but we didn't end up buying their school pictures so we wanted some replacements. The pictures turned out good, but our experience at Portrait Innovations was so bad that I don't plan on ever going back there - EVER. I was trying to save a little money by going there, my first mistake was making an appt. on Sunday Morning. They are so unorganized there and booked like 8 other families at the same time, it was so chaotic that I had to go off them! ha ha, me go off on someone, well I didn't do that, but here is what happened. They have 2 different rooms they take your photos in, one is usually set up Christmas this time of the year and the other is a plain backdrop of your choice. They do this to try to get numerous shots of your children so you have a hard time narrowing down your choices and end up buying a huge package from them. Whatever, not this gal! Well, after we had to wait 20 minutes to get started we were taken to the Christmas room and I had to chuckle at my kids b/c they were not very good subjects, Aidan was listening and doing what they said for the most part, but Emma had her own agenda and just kept giving them her "look" and pretty much doing anything but smiling or posing for them, it was pretty comical. I was surprised that they actually got a few of her smiling. Back to what happened...after they finished with the first room they told us we will now go to the second room but have to wait for it to open. No problem, we go over there and see there is a family just about to finish up, they finished and we started going in the room. Well, right behind us a family of 8 adults comes in and a different person tells us we have to wait until this family is done. Okay....we waited for about 10 minutes (by now Chris is really had it and kept having to take the kids outside to entertain them), so I go up front and tell them the situation and they tell me once again "it shouldn't take too much longer". Well, by now I've had enough, my kids were done and starting to get cranky, ugh! So, I went into one of the rooms tapped the photographer on the shoulder and said I need to talk to you. She looked surprised and came out of the room, I told her in a loudish voice so others could hear, we had to wait 20 minutes to get started and now you think my 1 and 3 year old can wait another 20 or 30 minutes, get real! You can't expect toddlers to wait like this, making them wait a little while before you get started is fine, but you can't take some pictures and expect them to wait and take more pictures later! I just want to see the pictures we have taken so far b/c I'm Not waiting any longer. She responded with well, that's not how we normally do things here. Me: Well, thats how your going to do it today. UGH!! So, I picked out my pictures, bought the smallest package I could and was done. Ridiculous! That's what I get for not going to my regular photographer, the Vanderveens. Love them, what was I thinking! anyways, got that done and went on to play at my Mom's house for a while in the afternoon and Aidan had a ball playing in the leaves that Papa Rick had gotten in a huge pile for him. Emma didn't really understand what the fuss was about. We threw her in a few times only to have her hold her hands up like she was touching something gross, such a diva! Here are some pics of Aidan:

Having fun jumping in the leaves!

Having a ball! What a cute smile!


Where's Aidan?? Loving that he could hide in the leaves, but I think he thought he was totally hidden here! hee hee!

Completely under the leaves here! Can you find him?

Ahh, the joy of jumping in leaves!