Vocab deveolpment

Yesterday was a major breakthrough for Kaden's vocabulary and comprihension skills.  We had been given Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers season 1 on dvd from my parents for Christmas and yesterday I let Kaden watch it all day long.  That is a huge treat for him since normally the tv is off for most of the day.  Jay had duty so we had nothing better to do than to break out the dvds and just have some fun.  Well that fun turned into complete amazement when Kaden suddenly started describing what was going on in the episodes he watched and then could recall them later at dinner.  I sat there stuned to see just how much he understood and could tell me.  We love it when the little light bulb moments happen since they show improvement in his development, but this one was more on the huge moment side.  I can't wait to see how much else he improves now.

Goals for 2009

I try to make some goals at the start of each year, and most of the time I don't get them accomplished.  Though, this last year one did get accomplished and I was extreemly excited about it.  So this year I'm keeping my goals simple and realistic.

1. Get rid of the 30 pounds left over from Annabelle.  (I gained about 50 while I was pregnant with her)
2. Make it through Jay's long deployment without a breakdown
3. Get my deployment projects completed on time. (This was the one that I accomplished last year)
4. Get my writing projects started again.
5. Get Kaden potty trained before Jay returns from his deployment at the end of the year.  (He doesn't leave until this summer for the deployment)

A great book

I got a great gift for Christmas. This book is incredible. I am a huge Glenn Beck fan, listen to his daily radio show and once his show on Fox News starts later in Jan. that too. This is his latest book and it is amazing. I've only just started this book and already it is great. It is the story of how a simple Christmas sweater changed his life. When I ended up purchasing it I also bought a copy for my MIL for Christmas and at the time of my purchase a copy was also sent to a soldier serving over in Iraq or Afghanistan. I would highly recommend this book to any one!

Play Time

My parents had bought this big fleece blankets for the kids.  Yesterday Kaden asked me to help him to lay them on the floor so he could play on them.  The kids had a blast.  They chased each other all over the floor.

Annabelle is getting so close to walking and she loves to chase after Kaden.  She was having so much fun chasing him all over the blankets and both of them were laughing hard.

Christmas Day

I'm finally having some time and ability to post about our Chirstmas Day.  We didn't travel this year and that made things so nice.  We just had a simple morning and enjoyed the day.

This is what our tree looked like before the attacking of the presents began.  Most of what is under that tree was for Kaden, my parents had a little too much fun shopping for him.  We got the kids matching pjs for them to wear for Christmas eve and Christmas morning.  They say "What Santa wont bring me Grandma will" (this is because my parents are in the spoil the kids mode)The kids had a blast at opening their gifts, especially Kaden.  Our living room looked like a war zone after we were finished.  Most of what is on the floor was Kaden's.  Some of the toys were Annabelle's.  We bought her a cube that plays music on all sides.  She loves it.  Kaden got more cars than he knows what to do with.  My MIL made aprons for all of the girls in the family.  Annabelle looks way better in hers than I do in mine.  So my total of aprons is now 3.  Jay and I stayed simple for each other, but Jay did manage to give me an amazing gift.  He got me a new watch.  After years of not wearing one since I have an allergy to metal on my skin he found me a nice one with a leather band and I love it.  I got Jay some computer equipment for his laptop for when he goes out on deployments.  Kaden destroyed his thumb drive earlier this summer and so I got him an new one as well as a new wireless mouse and another memory card for his camera for when he is out on deployments.  This Christmas was a much better Christmas for us than last year and for Kaden it was ten times more fun.

Kaden spent most of the day running around the house saying "Santa came down the chimney and brought Christmas Presents." And for Kaden that is a major step in vocabulary.  He still doesn't say a lot, but when he does talk now, it is becoming clearer and more words are attached to what he is saying.  I just hope it will keep up.

Problems fixed

We got out computer fixed!  We had to contact Norton Antivirus and have their techs fix the issue and remove the spyware from our computer.  It took almost an hour and a half.  But it was well worth it.  Our computer had been severly infected by the SpyGuard 2008 virus.  There was no way we could have solved the problem on our own.  But our computer is fixed and working better than ever before, so Christmas post will come tomorrow when I am able to sit down and spend all the time it will take to put the photos on the computer and then post them.  I'm just happy that my computer is now fixed.  I really hope no one else has to ever go through something like this, it was one major headache.

End of the Year

Well I was going to post about our Christmas last night, however we somehow got a nasty trogan virus called SpyGuard 2008 on our computer and now I have to wait until Jay is home today to get it fixed.  Sadly we don't even know how we got it, but it means that I can't put photos on the computer or the blog.  Jay was on duty at the ship when the lovely little beast downloaded itself repediately to our computer.  I'm just really greatful to have the laptop to at least do my basic computer needs.  Hopefully we wont have to do a mass reformat of the computer which would put our system down for a few days.  Sadly we wont know until Jay gets into the system and sees what he can do about it.  Thankfully this happened while he was home and not on a deployment.  That would have been awful.  So our Christmas post is on the way once my computer is up and running again.  At least this gives me some time to work on my new project for this next year, a family cookbook for Jay's side!  Yea deployment project already in the works and his deployment is still many months away!