A day in the life of the Whisler family!
Daddy and Ayden awake this morning and get ready to head downstairs for breakfast and playtime. Patrick is putting socks on:
Ayden: Why are you putting on socks, Daddy?
Patrick: Cuz we’re gonna head downstairs, Bud. The floor is really cold so I wanna put my socks on.
Ayden: Ohhhhh, I don’t need socks.
Patrick: Well, you’re a bigger man than I.
Ayden: No, I not a bigger man. I’m a little small man!
~Have a happy Thursday everyone!
Sometimes this kid really cracks me up! Patrick was busy at the kitchen counter preparing Ayden’s english muffin. Ayden comes up beside him:
Ayden: What are you doing to the muffin, Daddy?
Daddy: I’m gonna put some cheese on it, Bud.
Ayden: Ohhhhhhhh, that’s clever!
Patrick and I just looked at each other in disbelief and then started cracking up!!! 
Enjoy the family pics in the newly uploaded gallery!
Mommy: Hi Sweet! Is that a big blue bear you’re carrying around?
Ayden: Yes, Mommy. He’s all jacked up.
Mommy: Jacked up?
Ayden: Yes… he needs to go to the doctor.
These are just too cute and funny not to share with you all…
Mommy sits in Ayden’s room playing toys with him and takes advantage of an educational opportunity, as all good parents should. I do a sing-song version of counting from one to ten.
Mommy: “One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, teeeeeeeeeen! Come on Ayden, count with me! One, two, three, four, five - ”
Ayden: “NO MOMMY! STOP IT! STOP IT! NO SINGING!!!”
Mommy: “Why don’t you want me to sing, Sweet?”
Ayden: “It’s gross.”
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Overheard… whenever Ayden talks on his pretend cell phone. He says the following in one long string of words, with hardly any pauses.
“Hi! What’s your name? Charlotte’s Web? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh……”
Wow! We’ve just returned, sun-soaked and weary, after a long afternoon at Antique Powerland in Brooks, OR (about 40 minutes from home). This turned out to be an extremely fun and interesting exhibit/fair of tractors and farm equipment both old and new. Ayden (and Patrick) was in heaven going from one huge tractor to another, climbing on some, fawning over others! He had a GREAT time and I think we’ll be making it an annual event for our family! It was nice to have Grandma Kelly, Grandpa Guy, Auntie Korrisa and cousin Deontay along for the fun too! We tooks tons of photos and I’ve shared some of them in the new gallery. Check out the Antique Powerland website if you’re interested in the details. Their website really doesn’t do the event justice. It was many, many acres of tractors, well displayed with entertaining demonstrations going on constantly. There was never a dull moment, and certainly no lack of noise or exhaust fumes! Plus, it keeps us in touch with a little piece of Americana! Enjoy!
So Owen is in his 7th week, during which the date 7/7/7 happened to fall. Coincidence? I think not! 
He’s seriously pushing 16 pounds now! I don’t what to do with the boy?!?! We’ll see if the docs think everything is oky-doky next week when he goes to his 2 month checkup. Owen is now really smiling, however I’ve yet to get a good photo! And we also think he was intentionally whacking at the toys hanging in his swing and bouncy seat. He had his eyes locked on the toys and kept raising his wobbly little arm to make contact with the toy. I think he’s a little young for that yet… but he continues to surprise us! Owen lived through his first Independence Day last week. We went down to the Boisvert’s for the late afternoon and evening for a nice hangout, bbq, and some small-scale fireworks. There are lots of cute pics in the new gallery. We also had our first visit from Auntie Sarah (Patrick’s sister living in San Diego) since Owen was born. It was nice for Patrick to have his mom and both of his sisters over for a family visit - it doesn’t happen very often anymore. That’s the latest over the past week and a half! Hope all’s well with all of you! Until next time… enjoy!
Now I fear that I’m going to give Owen a complex, always reporting on the mass of the boy! Anyway, I’m actually quite happy with how healthy he is, and what a good eater he has turned out to be. Much better than the alternative! Owen reached the 5-week point this past Wednesday… the weeks are flying by! I have uploaded quite a few new pics (broken into gallery A & gallery B) for your viewing pleasure. I also have a funny Ayden tid-bit to report. He often plays with a decommissioned cell phone of my mom’s. When the phone first powers on, it displays a picture of a rose. Yesterday, Ayden finally recognized what the picture was, and he pressed it to his nose saying, “Flower - smell!”. Very cute and very funny. He then wanted both Patrick and I to smell the picture on the cell phone - which of course we did!
This pregnancy is FLYING past! We had another of our “getting to know you” visits with one of the midwives in the group that we had yet to meet this past Thursday. It is SO hard for me to believe that our second son will be here in just 5 or 6 weeks. I guess we have been so involved with (and amused by) Ayden in the recent weeks and months, that we’ve hardly had the chance to recognize how soon we’ll have another beautiful boy in our lives?!?!? Having a house move on one’s horizon can also keep the mind occupied! As soon as baby #2 arrives, our house becomes instantly short a bedroom, so we’re frantically finishing do-it-yourself projects around our home in anticipation of listing it for sale. And of course, listing our house for sale means we have to be searching for a replacement one! No wonder I haven’t had time to think about our pending arrival! And to top it all off, Patrick and I are currently trying to come to grips with the fact that “our baby”… well, isn’t, anymore. Ayden is becoming quite the little B-O-Y, in every sense of the word. His vocabulary is blossoming, he’s growing like a weed (and much into the proportions of a boy, rather than a baby - yes, he’s finally growing into his HEAD!), his crazy personality and independence are shining through, and he tells us that he wants to do things like a “big boy” now. That’s heartbreak for a mother!!! At least I take some comfort knowing that I have baby-boy-round-two right around the corner to look forward to! We can’t wait to meet him!
Welcome all to 2007! Is it just me, or is this decade flying by? Speaking of time flying by, Ayden is already past the 18 month mark… He’s closer to 2 than 1! 
I know you hear it all the time (accompanied by an eye roll), but they really do grow up so fast! I took Ayden to his 18 month checkup yesterday (the first one daddy ever had to miss). No shots needed which was a huge relief for me being there alone with him (since his daddy is the one that has held him still and then comforted him after every shot he’s ever had). He checked out just fine and is progressing nicely. Here are the pertinent numbers:
Weight: 24lb 4oz (25th percentile)
Height: 32in. (40th percentile)
Head: 50cm (95th percentile)
So after a year and a half of life, wouldn’t you think he’d at least begin to grow into his consistently-in-the-90th-percentile head??? I would! But he’s stayed very true to his own growth pattern from the get go - below average weight and height, above average cranium. The pediatrician just keeps assuring us that there must be lots of brains in there! Let’s hope he’s right!
I’ve been fortunate enough to spend a good deal of time with my Boisvert kiddos the past few days. Emery and Ayden were in rare form yesterday afternoon, and I managed to snap a few shots of them. You can check them out in the newly posted September 2006 gallery. When I see the looks, the personalities, the IDEAS, that these two boys already come up with, I shudder to think of them as teenagers. I’m sure we have all kinds of fun to look forward to!!! :) 