I fixed it!

I guess they are back. I just needed to post a new comment with the changes I made! YEAH!!!! See, I am not as dumb as I look.

No more comments????

I changed my blog template and my comments went away. I really love the way it looks, so I will be sad if I have to change it again, but I may have to. I have tried everything I can think of to get them to appear again. Any help from my fellow blogger experts would be great!

Christmas

My sister Amanda and her husband Jeremy were here from Salt Lake. Jeremy is a photographer so he took our family pictures this year! I love them so much. I know that two of the subjects in the pictures aren't the greatest, but I am so happy with the way they turned out! Tiffany actually has a new boyfriend and we got to meet him over Christmas, too!

Hayden wanted to give us a surprise gift on Christmas morning, so he found a roll of toilet paper, and gave us this. Thanks monkey!

After the toilet paper incident, we started the morning out with having breakfast with Mike's mom and step-dad. We then went to my parents house to open presents. Hayden got so many toys that I am not sure what to do with all of them. We then went to my grandparents house and had Christmas pizza. A little different kind of meal for Christmas, but it was yummy. We played our traditional game of bingo, with Grandpa Forrey, and we all won lots of fun prizes. We also got to talk to Grandpa Barbour in Kentucky, which was nice. It was a really fun Christmas.

Finally!

It is finally starting to feel like Christmas. I wrapped Christmas gifts last night and today, we handed out goodies, and it SNOWED! I can't believe that I got excited over snow, because I usually don't like the snow and cold, but tonight I liked it. I was so excited, that we took Hayden out to play in it. He had so much fun in the sled going up and down the street. He had a permanent smile on his face and every once and a while we would hear the cutest little giggle come out. He was so sad when we had to come in. He sat at the door for a while and just looked at us with such a sad face. It makes me so happy to see him have fun!

Cookies and Prison

A couple of weeks ago my Uncle Wayne asked our entire family if we would be willing to help make cookies to give to the inmates at the local minimum security prison. He does church services every Sunday at the Prison and has handed out cookies during Christmas for a couple of years. After I accepted to help make cookies, I was given the amount to make. I was in charge of 18 dozen cookies. Wow, I thought, that was a lot of cookies. So, I started baking, and baking. It actually didn't take me as long as I thought it would. It was also fun making it for this purpose. My Aunt Tami told us a funny story about her cookie baking experience. My cousin Nic was asking his mom and dad to take him to Walmart to spend some money he had. His dad told him that he couldn't because he had other things he was doing, so he went to his mom and asked her. She told him no because she was making cookies. He was very angry at this and replied "This is just great, now I am second to prisoners in this family!" And he was serious my Aunt Tami said. I thought that was cute. Hayden didn't mind licking the mixers either! Mike, my Uncle Wayne, my Aunt Tami, and I got the privilege to take the cookies to the prison and hand them out to the inmates. I had been to the prison before in my previous life as a Social Worker before Hayden came along, so I was familiar with the culture of it a little bit, but it was the first time for Mike, so I am glad he was able to come along. I can't even tell you how many cookies we had. My Uncle estimated 6000 cookies. There was box after box of cookies. I tried to snap a few pictures of us loading the cookies into the Prison, but it was such a whirlwind once we got there because there were people waiting for us and once past the gates I was not allowed to bring my camera. I wish I could have because I would have been able to get some great pictures. We gave the cookies to the inmates after they had eaten their dinner. We were in the mess hall while they were eating, so that was interesting. All of the inmates were very grateful for the cookies. Over all it was an awesome experience that I was glad to be a part of. We even were treated to a prison meal after we were all done. It wasn't a gourmet meal by any means but it wasn't too bad. The best part of the meal was watching my Aunt Tami eat it, because she wasn't too excited at the aspect of eating at the prison. I know I wasn't in charge of this, but I wanted to thank all of the family members who made cookies for this because your hard work in making the cookies really made the inmates day... and mine!

Just like Mommy

Hayden fell asleep this morning in the lid of my gift wrap box. It didn't look very comfortable to me, but he was out! I was thinking of how hard this box must feel on his head and it made me think of a time when I was spending the night at a friends house and I told everyone at the sleepover that I didn't like to sleep on a pillow, but that I slept on books. If I remember right I was in first grade. I guess I thought the girls would think I was cool. I slept on books that night to prove my point. Do you have any funny things you remember making up as a kid to make people think you were cool?

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree

I am an awful mom. I wasn't going to put up a Christmas tree this year because I didn't want to deal with Hayden getting into it all of the time. To be honest, I haven't gotten out any Christmas decorations. I know, that's bad. I have never been like this. I just had too much other stuff on my plate this year I guess,and it hasn't felt like Christmas for some reason. Well, we started feeling really guilty, so we got out my three little fake alpine trees and decorated them with Hayden. Normally I would gasp at the thought of having a fake tree (I am all for the real thing)! He had so much fun, and he loves having the lights inside the house. We also got to have an early Christmas with Mike's family. His mom made yummy clam chowder. She even made a big pot with no clams because she thought Mike's sister, Rainey, and I didn't like clams...well we both do! Hayden had fun opening his gifts and stealing his cousin Robbie's flashlights he got for Christmas.

Bunko

Mike and I went to a Bunko party last night. It is a dice game. Sorry, but that is as detailed that I am going to get, so if you want more details on how to play ask me! We have a group of friends that we play with every once and a while. It was fun. The most fun part of it was that Hayden had his first sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa Barbour's. I was a little worried because he doesn't usually sleep great while he is away from home, but he did really good. I love my little monkey so much, but it was really nice to not have to drive last night to pick him up and them put him to bed and get him up this morning. Hayden loves to be outside and I am anti cold weather, so his Grandpa spoiled him by playing outside with him all morning. He loved it! There will for sure be more sleepovers in the future...uh, hi mom...hope that's ok!

NO MORE!

Hayden had a check-up at the doctor today. He weighs 23 pounds and is 31 inches tall. He looks happy in this picture, but he was not happy after getting four shots! When I think about it I can't blame him. There were three nurses, one holding his legs, two giving shots, and then me holding his arms down... how would we like that! He was a trooper, poor little guy!

Trip to Poky...

We took a short trip to Pocatello this weekend to visit Mike's Grandparents. It was fun to see them and relax a little. Mike's Grandma is such a good cook. I can tell you for certain that we were never hungry on this trip! Hayden really liked their Christmas tree ornaments and their T.V. He had to touch them all weekend long. Troublemaker! Their house backs up to a horse pasture and Hayden thought the horses were pretty neat! He even touched them, which was surprising to us. I got my hair cut! Chelsea used to cut my hair, but she moved, so I had to take the opportunity while I was there because I haven't found anyone I really like yet to do my hair. On our way home we went to visit Hayden's Great-Great Grandma. She is so cute!

Our Adventures this week

Hayden has been infatuated with looking at Christmas lights this year. It is so cute when he sees them (hopefully my description of what he does will do justice!). He makes an "o" shape with his mouth and sucks air in really fast and points. It is funny. So, since he likes the lights so much we decided to take him to the night light parade on Saturday night. It was so cold and Hayden didn't react quite like we thought he would. He just sat there on my lap and hardly moved an inch! In hindsight I think it was because he was frozen. It was really fun though to take him. On Monday I woke up and I could hardly open my eyes because they hurt so bad! To preface this, I have been having problems with my eyes for a couple of months now. They have been irritated and blood-shot red. I have been wearing contacts since I was about 14 years old, but lately if I wear them for even a little while my eyes are crazy. I have gotten two styes in the last few months too. It has all been very weird! So I wake up and can't handle it anymore. I could barely see, both eyes were weeping and swollen. I called the eye doctor and got an appointment that morning. I drive to the eye doctor and hopefully nobody saw me because I looked like the nerd of all nerds. I had my regular eye glasses on and then I had to put my sunglasses on over my eye-glasses because the light was hurting so bad. If anyone has ever tried to do this it doesn't work that well, but I had to make it work, I was desperate. I get to the eye doc and pretty much he does nothing for me. I don't know if he is used to just doing vision exams and not this, but it was frustrating! He saw Hayden in the waiting room and asked if I was nursing him. I told him no, but then at the end of the appointment he told me that he wasn't sure exactly what it was and he didn't want to prescribe me anything that was going to hurt Hayden. Uh, hello....I told you I wasn't nursing. How is anything going to affect Hayden? So, he said I need to go see my regular doctor. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Eye doctor = eye help - not in this case. So, thankfully I was able to get into my regular doctor a few hours later. He prescribed me some antibiotic drops. But he said it could also be environmental. Great. I am going to have crazy eyes for the rest of my life. Poor Mike had to be gone from work for several hours to help me with my problem. Thanks Mike.Then to top the day off our garbage disposal went out. Mike and I went to Home Depot (twice!) first time to buy a new one, second time to get more supplies that we didn't know we needed, and then we attempted to put it in. And yes, all we did was attempt. It is Tuesday morning and as I type this I cannot turn water on in my kitchen sink, or my dishwasher. I will be making my third trip to Home Depot because the stinkin' disposal doesn't come with a power cord to plug in. It would have been nice for the company to at least put that on the box so one would know this! Oh well. What do you do.