Spring pics of my boy(s)!

My beautifully talented cousin, Alicia, was in town and asked if she could snap some pictures of Arlen.. uh of course!  :)   

Absolutely precious!!  Alicia does such a good job!

And we definitely had a play around with "the bump"....

 Having  a conversation with little brother.  :)

 

  Kisses and hugs!

Love it.

I am 18 weeks pregnant here, so not too big yet, but it's still cute!  :)

Props to Alicia Petty Photography     https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alicia-Petty-Photography/107148769358305

The past 5 months in one blog...

Crumb.  I have been a bad blogger.  Now let's see if I can cram it all in one and get caught up!

APRIL

Easter morning!

We got all spiffed up Easter morning and went to church to celebrate the reason for the season.

Afterwards we stopped by to visit papal and grandma. They are always so happy to see us. (and by us, I mean Arlen - ha!)

Then we left there and went to a family get together and did an Easter egg hunt!

The night before Easter, Oma and Opa came over and we decorated eggs.

I made these cupcakes for Arlen's MDO class.

And he also did an egg hunt at MDO!

The week before Easter, our playgroup met and did an egg hunt too.

  

Arlen and his best bud Casen.  They are in the same class at MDO and in playgroup together.  Arlen just loves his "Case"!  :)

I was blessed to go on my first Falls Creek Ladie's Retreat.  I had such a blast and learned so much. Can't wait for the next one!

What a great group of ladies!

MAY

We participated in March of Dime's walk this year, called March for Babies.  It was a great experience and our team raised over $600 for the cause!

We did a bake sale one day during mother's day out.

 

My parents joined us for the walk

Arlen was carried most of the mile...

My little preemie baby is such a big boy!

The whole Team Arlen team!  We have some awesome family and friends that are such a blessing to us.  :)

Memorial Day we went over to Hollie and Zack's for a cookout.  It was a great time with friends and where we committed to starting a women's ministry at our church! 

I'm so glad God put these two girls in my life!  Very very blessed.

My lovely flag creation.  Memorial Day can't be celebrated without a flag food.  ;)

Ice cream cupcakes!  Very easy, but I had a smallish meltdown when transporting them...  Hot sun and icing does NOT mix.

And Arlen got to play with Gage!

In May, we also went to visit April, Ryan, and Cooper in Chicago.  We had so much fun and ate way too much!  We went to the Shedd Aquarium, a huge indoor waterpark, shopped, and ate some great Chicago food. 

We drove, and it wasn't terrible, but let's just say I won't be doing that again for a long, long time!  Arlen did ok (the phone and ipad helped a lot!), but during the night he was so tired and couldn't sleep sitting up, so we stopped at 4 in the morning and got a hotel room.  We slept for a few hours then got back on the road.  On the way back home we drove straight through but it was all during the day, which was much better.  :)

JUNE

Not a whole lot happened in June, except for our big Alaska trip at the end of June, but that's going to be a whole other post or this one will be the longest one in history.

I did make these cute Sonic cupcakes for my mom's work...

 And Arlen got a new slide

We also went to the Chisholm Trail Festival in Yukon.  My parents went with us and Arlen got to ride a train and pet a camel and see/hear a canon go off.... which he did not like.  =(  

JULY

We celebrated my great aunt's 90th birthday, which is my grandma's twin sister.  I really miss my grandma a lot, I wish she could have seen me "grow up" and meet Arlen, but I know we will be together again and for eternity too!  :)  I love being able to be around Aunt Nelma though, she is so much like my grandma, it comforts me a bit.

I didn't get many pictures because we were in the pool most of the time.  Arlen discovered jumping in and loves it!

July also was Ashlee's baby's 1st birthday!  It was a super cute Hawaiian party and we had to dress up.  I went to Goodwill and found all 3 of our outfits, under $10 for everything!

Dallas and Arlen got Hawaiian shirts and I am wearing a Hawaiian print skirt (which you can't see in this picture...)  Arlen would not cooperate so this is the best family picture we got!

Arlen playing with the birthday boy, Brooks!

My little Hawaiian boy and the ukulele.  (I also got these Gymboree hawaiian swim shorts at Goodwill for a $1!) 

We also went to Yukon's annual touch a truck.  Arlen just loves it, plus this year we went with Casen -his best bud.

 He loves the "big trucks". (Last year we called them "we-o we-o's"...)

This was fun!

Plus, there was a train there.. so Arlen pretty much was in heaven.  ;)

He and Casen rode by themselves like that... I was super nervous, because they went pretty far away, but they did great.  Can you tell Arlen was excited?!

Touch a Truck is such a great experience for him, he gets to climb all through different kinds of trucks and emergency vehicles, and this year the Schwans truck was there handing out free ice cream, and the Lays truck was there giving out free chips and drinks!  Love me some free stuff!  :)

AUGUST

Whew!  Finally in August, where not too much has happened.  We had summer break from MDO which meant... potty training!  UGH.  It's been a rough couple weeks, but I know it takes time.  We made a potty chart (train of course) and he is in big boy undies!  Lots of accidents but we are getting there.

We got back from Alaska the first part of August, then Lindsay and her kids were here for a few weeks, then we had April, Ryan, and Cooper stay with us for a week.  It was almost of a month of getting to spend lots of time with my family, and I just loved it.

Arlen also "moved" into his big boy bed a few days ago and that's going really well.  He stays in bed at nighttime, but nap time is not too great. For the past month he has just not wanted to take a nap.  He plays in his bed and completely takes off all his clothes... which is not great since he's not potty trained.  But I have recently started something different at nap time, instead of making him try to sleep, we just have a "rest time".  He can read books or even lay down in the dark guestroom and watch a movie.  Anything to where he is laying down and resting.  It has been working so far, he lays there for a couple hours and gets some quiet time (and so do I!).  :)  I'm hoping he will fall asleep but it hasn't happened yet.

He loves his big boy bed!

 

Arlen playing with Kylie and Korbin

Playing in the mud with Cooper

This is after Cooper dumped mud on Arlen's head... haha!

We also celebrated Papal Arlen's 75th birthday!

 4 generations of Tennyson men.  3 Arlens and a Dallas  :)

Arlen and Shirley with the awesome cake Lindsay made. It's a mattress and Arlen absolutely loved it! - Papal Arlen, my Arlen just wanted to lay down on it. :)

In August, we had our kick-off event for our new women's ministry, Ladies of Love.  Hollie, Whitney and I have started this ministry and so far it's going great!  We have several women who want to be a part in serving in different areas of the ministry so I am super pumped.  With God on our side, I know it will be a huge success! 
Our first big event was Mugs and Muffins, and thankfully, Whitney keeps a blog going for the ministry so here ya go....  http://fbcywomensministry.blogspot.com/2011/08/mugs-muffins-2011.html

Oh yeah, and our house has still not sold... I'm sure we will end up taking it off the market and moving on... by not moving.  ha, oh well!  Maybe next summer.

Alright that's done!  Now hopefully I can keep up with this blogging thing a little better.  And I still have to post about Alaska...  Oh boy.... 

Til next time!  ;)

Baby #2

Oh baby fever... the day after Arlen turned two, it hit.  I know I'm not totally ready for another baby yet, but it's definitely on my mind.  Arlen HAS to be potty trained - no doubt - before a baby comes along, and I'd like him to be a bit older.  He still gets a little jealous and isn't super great around babies.  For me, the age he is at (with the temper tantrums and stuff) would be extremely hard to be pregnant or have a newborn, I know a lot of people do it, but it just sounds tough!  My ideal scenario would be, to get pregnant October or November this year, putting the due date in June or July.  Arlen would have turned 3 in that time and I think he (we) could handle it by then.  ;)

That's my "ideal, perfect world" plan, and as we know, God has His own plans.  Arlen being born premature changed everything I knew (and didn't know) about pregnancies, labor, babies, everything...  I am in a situation where I didn't have a normal pregnancy and that makes my whole "birthin' babies" future questionable.  Should we even try?  Can I even carry a baby full term?  What if the baby comes early again?  What if they are even earlier and have problems?  Could I live with myself if I put my baby's life in jeopardy? .... So hard.  It's something I will never know ahead of time, I just have to trust God that if He blesses me with the gift of another baby, He will take care of us.


Hardly a day goes by that I don't think of Arlen coming early and what we had to endure.  It was hard, the hardest thing I have ever been through.  I blamed myself for "doing' that to him and not giving him a "normal" start of life.  I know there wasn't anything I could have done different or changed, but the guilt was/is there.  That being said, I don't want to go through that again.  Especially having a child at home already.  


But God was my rock and strength and peace during that tough time, and He is the reason we made it through.  I have total faith and trust that He will always take care of us, no matter what happens.  I leave our future baby birthin' in His hands.  What better place?!  :)


Now, for fun, when I get that crazy, gotta have a baby right now! feeling...  I watch this at 3 in the morning...

Such a cute and tiny, little guy!  He was just a few weeks old here, probably around 5 pounds.  I like to try and video everything, the good and the... not so good.  ;)

So, for now, I will relish my wonderful sleep at night, love on my amazing son and husband, and wait for God's perfect timing!

The terrible, teething, two year old tot

That title sounds like a nightmarish Dr. Seuss book... and I know all about Dr. Seuss books, I read "Hop on Pop" (or pop pop pop! like Arlen says) about 18 times a day.

I have heard about the "terrible two's" many times in my life, and THOUGHT I knew what that meant... I had no idea.  A few weeks after Arlen turned two, I started figuring out that idea.  I love that little boy more than anything, but Oh. My. Goodness. what a turkey!  One minute he is sweet as can be, then boom! the world ends because he doesn't get his way or his train won't stay on the tracks and it's all craziness from there. 

I read in a parenting magazine a couple weeks ago about toddler tantrums.  It really put a lot in perspective for me.  Kids about 4 and under still haven't developed the part of their brain that controls reasoning, frustration, and stubbornness.  Not that they don't know right from wrong, but their brain just can't handle certain things at their age.  Which makes sense if you witness a huge, fit throwing, tantrum then 3 minutes later they are absolutely calm and perfect.  When adults are still reeling from it hours later, kids don't remember or care.

So when Arlen throws a fit, I just have to remember, he's just being two, he isn't doing this to hurt me, and very likely he will be fine in a few minutes.  It is extremely stressful though and makes going out in public a "please God, don't make me regret taking him out of the house!" thing. 

When he turned two, we started time outs.  He does pretty good with them.  Cries a lot, but stays in the spot for the total two minutes.  Some days he goes to time out every 5 minutes... but some days zero! 

Oh yeah, and the other part of the title... he still has two teeth that have to come in.  Teething with a baby is bad, teething with a toddler is REALLY bad.  They can express their emotions a lot more, they are a lot more irritable, and it's harder to comfort them.  One of the two is pushing through now.  I woke up to a crib full of throw up this morning.  He didn't have a fever, so I am almost certain it's because of the tooth.  He has done that before when he got his first tooth.  He won't eat and it extremely fussy.  I know he's in a lot of pain.  I have heard that if adults were to "teeth", we would have to be put under!  Hopefully they will come in quickly and we will be over the teething process.

My patience has been tested a lot this past couple of months, but I try to keep calm and stay in control.  Consistent discipline is important and praying for God to get me through it, is vital!  ;)

Because I always post sweet, smiling pictures of Arlen, here's one after a full blown tantrum.  That's life! 

(and he's still a cutie pa tootie!) 

Arlen's first professional haircut

I now know, and sympathize, with moms everywhere that have emotional break downs when it comes to cutting their baby boy's hair.  Arlen's hair has always been really fine and thin, so we haven't really had to cut it that much, my sister has just trimmed it up a few times.

I like the shaggy, Justin Bieber look, but Dallas does not.  We had a problem.  Plus, my sister moved to Alaska and took her hair cutting expertise with her.  I had to get his hair cut or trimmed or something, it was a little out of control.  So we went to Snip-Its.

Waiting for his turn.

He has no idea what's about to happen...

Doing good so far, and watching the tv right in front of him.

Uh oh!

Poor guy!  =(

Suckers!  Where were they at the beginning??

All done!

So handsome.

And such a big boy!

Getting his prize, Snip-Its is fun!

Overall, it went good.  A little crying (from Arlen AND mommy), but much better than me chasing him around the house with a pair of scissors trying to cut his hair!  

It's much shorter than I wanted, but he looks so cute and such like a little boy now.  My baby is growing up! =(

And I have noticed his hair does grow pretty fast, so maybe Bieber fever will come back soon (or another $22 trip to Snip-Its...).