When I first got my crackberry I loved how easy it was to snap a picture and email it out to whoever I wanted, so I used to do these "Daily Clayton Pics". I'd snap a picture of whatever cute thing Clayton was doing that day and send it to Ben, Grandma, Grandpa.. whoever I thought might like to see a picture of him everyday. Well.. like most things I do, it didn't last long. Right now, however, I'm feeling particularly enamored with my kid. He's just getting so stinkin cute, I'm loving him more and more every day.. So even though this won't be daily, here's a cute thing my kid did today:
Because the Yankee hat wasn't enough. We had to get a picker too, to make sure that we're JUST exactly like Dad.
Don't mind the ketchup all over his face. We just finished tasty burgers at JC's. YUMMO!!

It was back to reality for us yesterday. We had a great week in Utah. We came home and spent a week home together.. sick, but still all home together, and yesterday it was finally time to get back to reality. I was pretty nervous since Clayton prefers Ben over me BIG TIME lately, but it turned out to be a great day. Clayton slept in until 8:00, which is a rare treat, and he was super sweet to me all day long. He even gave me a few squeezes throughout the day. Lucky me.

Clayton started grinding his teeth yesterday. It's terrible. The kid only has 4 teeth, and he's had them for a while now, I don't know why he's started this all of a sudden. Either way, I hate hate hate it! It creeps me out all the way to my bones! The worst part of it all is that we're trying to break the binky habit right now. I hate that grinding noise so much that after two or three times of telling him to stop I'll pop that plug right back in his mouth just to get him to stop. I hear its a common thing, but I sure wish he'd hurry up and get over it.

Speaking of the binky. My boy loves his binkies. He's often seen with multiple binkies because when you love something that much, one is never enough, right? Well, this morning we were snuggling on the couch watching Mickey Mouse and I kept coughing. (I just can't get over this sinus crap..) Anyway, every time I coughed he looked up at me and tried to give me one of his binkies! Like, "Here Mom, this will make you feel better." What a sweetheart!

And because every post should have a picture.. Here's our favorite Yankee fan. Love it when he wears that hat backwards!

Since 14 months is too young to start golf lessons, we started Clayton out on Tiger Woods golf. He basically rocks. Hopefully he'll make us rich someday.

Sayonara 2009

As 2009 draws to a close, I can't help but look back on the past year and take a minute to reevaluate things. 2009 kicked my trash to be honest. It was the year of whine. I spent entirely too much time this year feeling sorry for myself and saying things like "it's too hard". It was definitely a tough adjustment from working full time, loving my job, and feeling like I was good at it, to staying home all day with a baby that I felt like I couldn't figure out to save my life. I still don't know what the heck I'm doing.. but I'm growing more and more confident that he'll survive, even if he doesn't get enough vegetables, or if he has to skip a nap every now and then.
I've never been big on resolutions, but I feel like this is a good time to make a few changes and try to set a few goals. So here's what I hope 2010 will bring for me and my family:
I want 2010 will be the year of "Man Up". I'm going to try to be more proactive with Clayton. Instead of just surviving the days when Ben is on shift, I'm going to try to treasure those days and enjoy my alone time with him. Just be a better mother. That's something I'm going to work at this year. Also, I'm going to try to be a better wife. With the year of whining and self pity, I lost the fun flirty side of myself that used to have so much fun with Ben. I miss that part of myself. I'm sure Ben does too. It's time to suck it up and be that fun girl again.
That's it. Those are my only two resolutions. I'm basically perfect in every other aspect of my life.. so yeah.. bring on the new year!

Dear blog readers,

Much has transpired since our last post. And boy, oh boy, oh boy, do we have some catching up to do! I hope everyone had a merry Christmas. I know we sure did. We totally dropped the ball this year on Christmas cards. Last year was the first year we did it, since it was the first year we were really a "family", and I love, love, loved sending one out. This year.. well, we just didn't get around to it. Maybe I'll get around and make a Christmas card post, but really.. if you've been reading our blog, you already know what we've been up to this year.

So, lets get on with it! Christmas was fan-freakin-tastic this year. Due to Ben's work schedule, it's super rare that he would ever have Christmas Eve AND Christmas Day off, well.. this year he did. This will happen once every thousand years, so we had to take advantage of it and fly to Utah to spend the holidays with his family. His mom knows how rare it is that Ben will have the holidays off, so she has a hard time this time of year with Ben being in Texas. Knowing that, we decided to make this trip a surprise! We made our travel arrangements in August, kept Leslie as our inside informant, and pulled it all off. It was so fun! We rang the door bell and Greg answered. Ben started singing "I'll be home for Christmas" and Greg just stood there and looked at us. Ben had time to almost finish the whole song and Greg still couldn't figure out who we were. Finally Vickie poked her head around to see who was singing at the door and as soon as she saw Ben she screamed and bee lined it straight to him! It was so fun! Greg finally figured out it was us.. lol. All in all, it was a great trip.. more on that later.

Before we flew out Utah, we had my family up to celebrate Christmas with them early. I loved that! It was such a fun night!! It's not often that my family comes up, and it's even more rare that the whole family comes. It was so nice to have them all out.

Clayton loved every part of Christmas. He's still not quite old enough to understand that he's getting presents, but he sure did love opening them. He opened every one he could get his paws on and spent the whole night saying "OOOHHHH... WWOOOOOWW!!" It was so stinkin cute! In this video you'll mostly hear all of us saying it, trying to get him to do it again, but he says it a couple of times. I think that was my favorite Christmas present of all!

Here's Randi and baby Michelin. I just thought it was too cute the way that Michelle will sit and read with Randi.

Here's the whole fam-damily. I can't remember the last time we got a picture with all of us in there. I know it's super out of focus, but my camera is just about dead. Until I get a new one, my pictures are going to suck. Blurry or not, I love this picture.

Now.. usually when we're visiting with Ben's family I don't get a single picture. Remember Vickie and Leslie came to stay with us in October and I didn't get a single shot. This time, we still didn't get many, but we did get a few. Clayton loves his girl cousins! He doesn't spend much time around other kids, so to suddenly be surrounded by so many of them, he was a little overwhelmed. He spent most of bingo night just standing in the middle of the room watching the other kids run around. He eventually warmed up to Kacie and Cortney and spent some time just walking back and forth between the two of them giving them hugs.
It took him a little while to warm up to Grandma, but he eventually did. Anytime he was being nice when Grandma was around we had to snap a picture, just for proof that he actually does love his Grandma Jones.

Jake was soooo good with Clayton. He would sit and play and play and play with him forever. It was so helpful since Clayton was so clingy all week, and Clayton really enjoyed playing with him.

I think we snapped this picture on day 6. Clayton FINALLY let Grandma pick him up. This was the first time he let anyone besides me or Ben hold him without throwing a fit. Again with the crappy picture.. I know..

Aren't these two boys yummy? I feel like we left for Utah with my baby and came home with a little boy. His hair is so much darker in this picture, and he's walking SO much more now.. Ugh.. I just love them.

Did I mention Clayton was clingy our entire trip?? Why, you ask? Well, in true Clayton fashion we spent the holiday sick! Christmas eve he was super grouchy all day, then wouldn't sleep AT ALL that night. Christmas day he had a pretty warm fever, but we thought maybe he was just teething. Then that night his fever got pretty bad and he threw up. All over me, thank you very much. Since it was Christmas everything was closed so the next morning we took him to a doc-in-a-box in Spanish Fork (if anyone reads this from Utah, there is a Dr. there named Beth something.. she's fantastic!) and it turns out that Clayton not only has an ear infection, but he also has RSV. I had never heard of it before, but I guess it's big there in Utah. It's like bronchitis for kids. So we did a couple of breathing treatments and got him on some antibiotics. That explains why he was so grouchy and clingy all week. Luckily we got it figured out before we had to fly home. I swear, if there is something to be had, Clayton will get it, and just in time to ruin whatever fun plans we have... Stinker. He sure is a pitiful sick kid huh? And yes, he has 3 binkies. He loves them.

We finally got Clayton feeling better and FINALLY sleeping more than an hour at a time just in time to wake him up at 3am to catch our 6am flight. I was pretty nervous for the flight since Clayton hadn't been on the antibiotics for his ear infection very long, but lucky for us this is how he spent the entire flight. It couldn't have worked out better.

All in all it was a great trip. We had a ton of fun visiting with the family. We didn't get to do all the things we wanted to do, or see everyone we wanted to see thanks to the good 'ol RSV, but we still had a blast. I loved having a mini Christmas with my whole family at my house. Ben took a few more videos that night that I think I've watched about 6 million times. We really have so much to be grateful for. I think this year might go down in the books as our best Christmas yet.

Oh Christmas Tree

My Grinch's heart grew 3 sizes this year. Not only do we have a Christmas tree (thank you Barb!).. but it's finally completely up AND decorated! I love it. It's 10' tall, so it's huge in our living room! We had to do some crafty arranging to be able to put the top on, but we figured it out and it's gorgeous! On top of that Ben actually told me to go buy Christmas decorations! So I did some shopping yesterday, but not too much. I just can't justify paying $20 for something today that will be $5 in 2 weeks. Anyway, here it is!!
p.s... I love love love those $1 sparkly ornaments from Wal-mart. $1?! Can't beat that, and they're so cute!! So what if you have glitter stuck to your face for two days after you touch them.. Totally worth it.

Talk to the Moose!

I can't get enough of this commercial!!