2008: A Year in Review

So, I've seen a lot of blogs that have been doing a Picture Review of 2008 and I thought it was super cute. Thanks for the brilliant idea! Of course I decided to do one of my own:

January 2008

Oh my Goodness!! He was still a Baby then!!


Maybe short hair isn't so bad after all... I think he's a cutie either way !

February 2008

He wasn't much into art at that time!


March 2008

A busy, busy month at work and school...

Me in My Lab


April 2008

The First Time Grandpa (My dad) Babysat for Aiden!

May 2008

Matt's Graduation Celebration. Yeah, I realize he's not in the picture! LOL

I completed the first year of my Masters program and got my lab coat. Yeah... I'm a Nerd!!!

A Trip to the Beach

Aiden's Birthday

June 2008

Father's Day

Meeting Thomas the Train!

Another Trip to the Beach

July 2008

My 25th birthday. The hardest one yet!

My uncle thought it would be a normal thing to tell my dad, "Melissa looks really good for 25." I guess I'm ancient now!!!


August 2008

Aiden's First Big Wheel!


My Cutie!!!


September 2008

Aiden's First Day of Preschool!

October 2008

My first trip to Washington DC (my soon to be new home!)

Aiden loved Trick-or-Treating!

My Little Pirate



November 2008

A Trip to Dollywood

December 2008

We had a Wonderful 2008! And here's to an Even Better 2009!

(I'm sorry about all the extra spaces, but I kept deleting pictures while trying to fix it and having to upload them again. So, I guess this is it until 2009!)

Happy New Year!!!!

Lovely Blog Award!!

I am so honored to have received an award from my bloggy friend, Kristen, over at Something about Nothin. What a fun way to end the year!!!




So here are 7 blogs that I love:

• Kati Sue* at Backwoods Homemaker Barbie
• Tara at Too Much Information
• Tiffany at Eat at Home
• Queenie Jeannie at Jeannie's Happy World
• Meaghan at Meg and the Boys
• QM at My Flip Flap Tales
• Mommy of M's

All of the above blogs are well worth a visit, so please go check them out!
The lucky awardees may now follow these simple rules:

1. Add the logo to your blog
2. Link to the person from whom you've received the award
3. Nominate seven blogs of your choice
4. Leave a message on the nominees blogs

Just for A Smile

We have all kinds books that have photographs of animals in them and Aiden really likes them. But for some reason, he has been obsessed with looking at them lately and finding animals that might eat him. He pointed at a picture last night and said, "That tiger might eat me when we go to the zoo." I said, "No. It can't get out of its cage and Mommy will protect you." His response, "It might eat Mommy first." Well... So I attempted to find some less threatening animals to show him and we found this clip. We both thought it was so funny (Remember I have the sense of humor of a 2 year old though!).




Sneezing Panda - Awesome video clips here

The clip obviously didn't have much of an effect on his "they might eat me" phase because this morning he showed me a picture of a gorilla and said, "This one might bite my head off." I think he watches too much Discovery Channel at his great grandama's house... Please tell me this phase won't last long!

Enjoying his book of toddler-eating animals!

Boys with Long Hair

I have to start out by saying, I have always liked boys with long hair. All my boyfriends in high school had long (not super girly past the shoulders long) hair. Matt had long hair when we started dating as well. Until he went into the Air Force actually. I think long hair on guys can be really cute. And I think it's cute when little boys have long hair too. I LOVE Aiden's hair long. Yes, sometimes he gets mistaken for a girl and I've gotten much unwanted advice from strangers telling me that he needs a hair cut, but I don't care, I think he looks cute.

Aiden loves his long hair. If you tell him that it's time to get a hair cut, he starts crying. A wailing panicky cry and he holds on to his hair and shrieks, "I want to keep it long!" Well, at my in-laws Christmas party someone said something to Aiden about his hair and he said that he wanted to "keep it long like Mommy's." Ever since then Matt has been pestering me about getting Aiden's hair cut. He thinks that Aiden might start thinking that he's a girl. UGH! I completely disagree!

So here are some pictures. Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks it's OK for boys to have long hair!

My Long Haired Boy!

Gavin & Gwen's son Kingston:

Kate Hudson's son Ryder:

Elle McPherson's son Aurelius:

Cindy Crawford's son Presley:

Celine Dion's son Rene:

So, to be completely honest, I don't really care for hair this long.

I really love Aiden's hair and don't want to get it cut! Trimmed? Sure, but not short! That being said, if Aiden told me tomorrow that he wanted to get his hair cut, I would be OK with it. I would have to hide my tears, but it would be OK.

My Bloggy Makeover!

I have seen so many cute blogs out there and since I spend so much time on mine, I wanted it specially designed to match my personality. First, I attempted to make a design of my own. While I was able to figure out how to make 3 columns, that was the extent of it. I can't understand blogger code! I had to take a computer science course as an undergraduate and that was the longest semester of my life! So I looked around until I found Lindsey at Lindsey Joy Design and I asked her to design my blog. I filled out a questionnaire and this is what she came up with. I have my own button now and a favicon (the little icon on the address bar)! I LOVE it!!! Aiden does too. He said, "A Mommy hoo-hoo and an Aiden hoo-hoo."

The story behind the owls: Aiden is obsessed with owls ("hoo-hoos") right now (We talk about them on a daily basis!). I think it's really cute because I had a ton of owl stuffed animals when I was little too (What are the chances of that? Owls?! How random!) I found my box of owls at my parent's house recently and gave them to Aiden. He was so excited!

My Final 2008 Christmas Post

Today was our last Christmas Party. Finally! We went to four in all! It was a lot of fun spending time with our families, but it gets exhausting running around from place to place all the time. I can't even imagine what next Christmas will be like since we will have to travel from Washington DC! I'm just happy to have a couple of days to rest!

Here are some pictures from Christmas morning. I didn't take very many this year.





Aiden LOVED this penguin. He's been playing with it for two years now! They had a ton of them at the mall, but this was the last one so I bought it at the last minute.

He Really was excited~ you just can't tell from these pictures!

(I got Guitar Hero! So exciting! How old am I again? I just can't ask for grown up things. What fun is that?!)

This is the only one of Aiden and me on Christmas morning. LOL But I'm not complaining~ who likes having their picture taken first thing in the morning?!

This was one of the best Christmases ever! I loved watching Aiden tear into his presents! He wanted to take everything out of its box before going to the next one. He got WAY too many presents. He was completely overwhelmed. I put some of his toys away for now. I may give them to him for his birthday! How awful is that?!

Christmas Eve Party

Every Christmas Eve, our family meets at my parent's house to eat and exchange presents. It's always a lot of fun. This year I was even more excited because my parents got Aiden a train table and I knew that he was going to love it!

As soon as we walked into the door, Aiden saw this Huge present. I asked him who it belonged to. He didn't think that it could possibly be for him even though he was hoping that it was. Once he found out that it was his present, I asked him what he thought it could be. He said, "A book." A really big book!

The appetizers

My Papaw

Aiden and my Mom

Some of our Family

Yes, my 9 year old sister and I got an identical gift (Parents and matching outfits...)

My Grandmother's First Stocking Ever (Seriously)

The "Choo-choo" Table

He had to take off evey tiny piece of paper and hand it to someone to throw in the trash!

Me adoring my baby!