{satisfied}

What a great weekend I had. Okay, at most it was an okay weekend. It wasn't overly exciting or packed full of things to do, but it wasn't horrible either. Ayden and I were able to spend the second weekend in a row together without Jay and this weekend went a lot better than last weekend, although I can't say that last weekend was horrible either. I do know that on Saturday of last weekend Ayden and I were at each other's throats early in the day and it wasn't shaping up to be a good weekend. This weekend was the complete opposite and I think I maybe raised my voice once (or twice), but it really wasn't that bad.

I picked Ayden up from school on Friday and we went to the library right away. We got a few books to read and then we went out for pizza for supper. It was an early supper Friday night, but it was SO worth it. The pizza was delish and we had some cinnamon knots for dessert and they were SO yummy! Oh just to die for! We were supposed to go to the holiday parade for Cub Scouts, but it was cold out and I really didn't want to go so after our early supper we headed home for a relaxing night at home. It was a great start to the weekend and a much different night than the previous one.

Thursday night was Ayden's parent teacher conference and although the conference went really well, we had a rough time with Ayden and his reading before we left for the conference that night. I didn't really hear anything at the conference that surprised me. He is behind where he should be for his grade for reading. His teacher marked him on the bubble, but let's face it... he's behind. I'm not ashamed to right that my son is not up to par with the peers for reading and he is in second grade. No one is perfect and I love him just the same. Although Ayden hasn't been formally tested for it, I have a suspicion that he might have a small reading disability and our lack of helping him learn reading at home has only hindered him. He does receive extra help for reading at school each day and he is progressing, but he is still behind. Where he is behind in reading, he excels in at math. He is his father's son when it comes to math. I was never particulary bad at math, but it definitely wasn't my super strong suit either. I was happy to hear that he is doing well in that area. He is also doing well in speech therapy. I am sad that we will be moving after this school year and he will be getting a new speech therapist next year (because lets face it, he will still probably be in speech in third grade too, but alas, I still love him just the same). Overall, there wasn't any talk of Ayden needing to repeat the second grade at this point. We are going to try extra hard through the coure of the rest of the year to help him along so that doesn't happen, but if it does... we'll roll with the punches!

But back to our weekend... Saturday was pretty laid back. Ayden and I didn't do much of anything yesterday. We played a few games, I read to him, we watched a lot of TV, I worked out and ate too much, and we just relaxed. Such is life, haha! Actually, Ayden was really well behaved and it was a very peaceful day. While I was in the basement working out last night apparently the doorbell rang (I didn't hear it and usually we can in the basement) and my lovely son decided to answer the door without even checking with me. This after we had just talked about safety in his last Cub Scouts meeting and what to do if something like that happened. I guess there was a guy at the door and he asked if Jay was home, although I don't know if he asked for Jay by name or if he just asked if Ayden's dad was home. My super awesome son gave the worst answer possible. He said that Jay was out of town! I couldn't believe it. After the guy left (Ayden never let him inside), Ayden came down to tell me and I just about lost it. Numero uno time that I kind of yelled at Ayden this weekend. I mean seriously, we have had numerous talks at home about proper answer the door technique. It scared me, honestly! I don't know who this person was. I asked Ayden if it was our neighbors and he didn't think so. So, I don't know if it was just some stranger or what! Needless to say I was a little paranoid for the rest of the night. I made sure the doors were locked... double and triple checked him and then stayed up late with the lights on. Originally I had said that Ayden could sleep in the living room that night, but after that instance I told him he had to sleep in his bedroom. All I could think about was some psycho breaking in and Ayden being right there in the living room farther away from me. I mean seriously, this person could have literally just kidnapped Ayden while I was downstairs working out and I would have never known! We keep our doors locked about 95% of the time, when we are home so if someone would have tried to get in last night, it would have been harder for them, but when Ayden opens the door for them, oops, he could be gone! It really just freaked me out. After my initial freak out on Ayden (I think I was just super scared something could have happened to him), I calmed down and sat down with him and we went over safe answering the door techniques and I explained that even though we hope the people that are coming to our door are nice, we don't always know and want to make sure we are being safe. I don't think he'll think about answering the door alone anytime soon! That aside, our Saturday was pretty low key.

Our Sunday wasn't much more exciting... I had two photoshoots this morning and they both went really well. Ayden came along and he was very well behaved until the end and I don't blame him because it was pretty cold out and even I was ready to be done. I couldn't feel my fingers anymore, hehe! After that, Ayden and I went to get a few groceries and I got my eyebrows waxed... they needed it, haha! We had Subway for lunch, man we've been eating out WAY too much lately, and then went bowling! We had the whole bowling alley to ourselves which was pretty awesome and it was pretty cheap for two games for both of us. I did some data entering for my capstone project this weekend and a little bit of homework, but nothing overwhelming. And now I am going to watching a little more TV before falling asleep for the night!

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{day with mommy}

Ayden didn't have school today. Instead of going to school (well no one was there anyways), he spent the day with me. Normally on days when he doesn't have school he attends the YMCA Great Escape Days Off Program and he should have gone there today, but he didn't. Here's the thing... when I signed him up at the end of last school year for this school year's days off I was given a piece of paper that indicated the dates I had signed Ayden up for. Silly me, I 'misplaced' that sheet sometime between last May and now. I know, how I could I lose such an important sheet of paper within the last six months, haha! Normally when there are days off from school and the Y is holding their program you get a reminder in the mail (and or email) reminding you that your child is signed up for the day off. Well with no mail coming last Friday I was thinking that if Ayden was signed up, we'd probably get the reminder on Saturday or Monday when it was too late. Worse comes to worse and I would just call the Y on Monday morning to see if he's signed up or not. I don't have class until 10:30am on Mondays so it wouldn't have been a big deal had I needed to call.

The weekend comes and goes and no reminder comes. Jay doesn't get any emails (they send emails to his address) and so I began to assume that we had probably not signed Ayden up for the day off. And then I began to think that maybe we didn't sign him up for any days off. I went through his school calendar and most of his days off are on Fridays and I don't have class on Fridays so he wouldn't need to attend the Y program. In any case, I ended up calling the Y at 8:00am when the child development office opened and left a message asking them to call me back and let me know. 8:30 comes and goes and still no call back. By this time I pretty much assumed that Ayden wasn't signed up for today's day off and told me him that he could come to school with me. He really wanted to come with me anyways and was excited about that. I did end up getting a call around 9:00am letting me know that in fact Ayden was signed up for today. I let them know that he wasn't going to be there and Ayden and I headed off to school shortly there after.

Having him come to school (and work) with me wasn't really that big of a deal. I only have one class on Mondays and it is just an hour and a half. There are only two students in my class, myself and Katie, and the professor is in Madison. I set Ayden up at the end of the table and he wasn't even on camerea so I don't know that anyone in the Madison class even knew that he was there. I brought along a bunch of things to keep Ayden busy with and he was an absolute angel during class that I almost forgot he was even there! He didn't bother me or interupt at all. After class I needed to go to work for a little bit. My job is awesome in the fact that if I show up for a few hours Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and stay on top of what my boss needs done, she doesn't really care if I leave early here or there or if I have a visitor with me. I was able to get the majority of what I needed to done today at work and Ayden had a great time helping me. Once again, he was an angel!

After work we went through the little museum that is in our campus library before walking back to my car and coming home. It was a good day for the most part. Would I have preferred not to bring Ayden with me... yeah, probably, but he was so well behaved that it didn't really make my day any harder and everyone liked to see him. Turns out I had him signed up for two other days for the Y days off program as well. I wrote those down so I wouldn't forget them. I also treated Ayden with a Redbox Wii game rental for the night for being so good while we were out and about today. He deserved it.

I booked a mini family vacation for myself, Jay, Ayden, my mom, brother, sister, and her boyfriend to the Dells shortly after Christmas today. It was my sister's idea and actually she had originally suggested just a mother/daughter thing, but since a trip to the Dells can be rather pricey I thought a whole family trip would be fun and this way if there are any water slides that Ayden cannot go down and Jay and I want to try, we will have someone to watch him. I think my sister might be a little apprehensive about her boyfriend coming along and having to share a room with her whole family at the same time... especially since it will be probably only the second time we are meeting him (and that's if he can make it to our cousin's wedding in two weeks). But I think it will be a lot fun! We haven't been on any family getaways with my mom in years and despite the fact that it is just going to the Dells, I am excited about it. I mean, we are going to the Wilderness afterall... the Wilderness is fun no matter what! How can it not be fun with three huge indoor water parks?! Yeah, I thought so! And the price is pretty reasonable for all of us as well. Ended up being $99/person total for the two nights. Pray for decent driving weather there and back please! And I think we are headed to the Dells the weekend after for Jay's family Christmas, only I think the plan is to stay at the resort we stay at for sturgeon fishing which doesn't have any indoor waterparks. In any case, I'm sure that that will be lots of fun as well!

I am five and a half weeks into my Turbo Fire program at this point and let me tell you, it is harder for me to maintain weight than it is to lose it. I've been trying to be good with working out and still eating in moderation to maintain my weight, but it's harder than I thought. I've been snacking on the good stuff a little too much lately and the scale is not my friend. I have worked so hard these last six months to make my goal weight and I don't want to start heading backwards at this point in time, that would suck! I told Jay that he should probably start his P90X program again. He will most likely be done working this week and I can totally see him sitting at home all winter just eating and gaining all of the weight back that he worked so hard to lose as well. It WILL happen to him if he doesn't watch himself. I can already see him starting to eat more in just the last few days that he has been home with the bad weather. I don't want to seem critical of him about his weight, but I don't want him to travel backwards either and it will happen. But he is his own person and he needs to want it for himself just as much as I want it for him. And who knows if he does at this point in time.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{you know, this and that}

I haven't been as ambitious lately as I probably could have been. The days are blurring together and before I know it I've started Monday morning and it is already Friday night. I remember driving to clinic on Tuesday morning and wishing for the day to be over already and now here I am on Sunday afternoon and the whole rest of the week has just flown by. Sometimes I cannot believe how fast time goes and other times it just seems to drag on and on. When I sit down and think about it, we are almost already half way through November and that means just a few more weeks of class for the semester. Quite honestly I remember starting it and thinking it was going to drag on and here I am almost finished and sort of wishing it would slow down a little bit.

I had advising for my classes in the spring this past week (wait, I think it was probably last week)... anyways, it wasn't really advising. At this point in the game we already know the classes that we need/have to take. It really is just meeting with our so called advisor to write the classes down on a sheet of paper for her. Turns out this spring I will only be taking two classes. I am pretty excited about that prospect because that is even less time I need to be on campus. The classes are School Methods and Pediatric Amplification. I am unsure who is going to be teaching the School Methods class as the professor who used to teach it left at the beginning of this semester. The other class is taught by at least two professors from the Stevens Point campus and that I am kind of excited about because it will be easier for me to pay attention. This semester it has been SO hard to pay attention in class when all of my professors are broadcasting from the Madison campus.

I had my phone interview for my other externship placement this past Friday and it went really well. Actually, the audiologist pretty much offered me a position with them for my externship so if Green Bay doesn't work out I know for sure that I will have a back up placement; however, after my interview, I am kind of torn about where I want to do my placement. I really enjoyed my time at Green Bay and the audiologists there were really cool, but I really liked the sound of the Sheboygan placement too and the audiologist is very seasoned and I know that I would learn a lot, as well as gain quite a bit of experience in a private practice. So... now I am torn about where I want to go (pending the Green Bay placement thinks I am a better fit than Katie). Ugh! Decisions decisions! But I am really excited about it all and should know by the first of the year where I am going and then the real excitement begins!

Jay and I get new phones in a few weeks and I am super excited about it. Our current phone contract expires in about three weeks and it cannot come soon enough! Jay and I have been researching the best phone companies and plans to go with and what kind of phones we want. Got to do our research, hehe! New phones... I've been counting down for the last year to when we could switch our phone company. For at least this event time cannot go fast enough, ha!

Speaking of my lover boy... he left for the weekend to go do some hunting. Just me and little man at home and we are having a good time. We made some puppy chow on Friday, went to go see Puss in Boots yesterday afternoon and went ice skating for a little while today.

I had no photo shoots this weekend and have finished editing the ones I did last weekend. This weekend was dedicated to doing laundry, cleaning a few things, and getting productive with some homework and my capstone project.

We got this freak snow storm this past week and got WAY more snow that I am comfortable with this past week. I could have cried. Okay, so it really wasn't that much of a freak storm because it is perfectly logical for us to get snow this time of the year, but I am not ready for snow just yet and the fact that the majority of it probably won't melt until spring sometime is really kind of depressing... but I am trying not to let it get me down.

Here are a few photos from the last week or so that I have been meaning to post, but haven’t… since I have been such a bad blogger. My little man definitely needs a haircut sometime soon. Probably before my cousin’s upcoming wedding in two weeks.If you haven’t heard of the website Pinterest, I don’t know where you have been. I found this super cool supper idea on it a few weeks ago and really wanted to try it out. It looked easy enough and fun and something that I know Ayden would definitely eat. You basically skewer cut up hotdogs with uncooked spaghetti noodles and then cook the noodles. Looks grosser (is that a word?) than it actually is!Here is the finished product! We actually put some alfredo sauce on top of our noodles to add some flavor, but I wanted the picture to show the end product without the sauce. And of course you cannot forget the huge honey crisp apple in the background or the can of Dr. Pepper 10 either! I had to admit that Jay has converted me to a Dr. Pepper fan, despite the fact that I don’t drink a whole lot of soda anymore.And then because I cannot get enough of this lovely face I just had to post some more pictures of him working on some homework after school (and play around with my flash some more). He doesn’t actually get a lot of homework yet in second grade, but we have a few things that we work on each day after school and we have been pretty good at keeping up with it each week so far. Other than life moving at warp speed these days, things have been going pretty good lately. I’ve had a few instances occur in the last couple of weeks that I’m working through and trying not to let get the best of me, but I’d rather not go into them. I need to realize that I am my own person and everyone else in the world is their own persons and get over it… it has been hard, I’ll admit it, harder than I know it should be. I normally don’t let things as trivial as these ones bother me, but this time I have and I am regretting it. But as I stated, I am working through it as best as I can.

CIAO! LOVE ME!

{cave point in a flash}

*I have been drafting this post for over a week now and haven’t had the time to finish it and post it, so I am going to attempt to do that right now as my cat is in my lap trying to get some attention and Ayden is right next to me wanting me to play beyblades with him. Wish me luck!*

I was able to visit one of my favorite places in Wisconsin this past weekend (which is now last weekend) and I got some gorgeous (in my opinion anyways) photographs. That place… Cave Point County Park up just past Sturgeon Bay, WI! I am literally in LOVE with that place and have promised myself that I WILL get to spend a whole day there sometime this summer. I told Jay that we needed to spend a weekend up in that area sometime this summer. The Whitefish Dunes State Park that is right next to it is pretty awesome as well, but I didn’t visit that this weekend.

Why was I able to visit a park that is about three hours from my house you ask? Oh wait, you didn’t ask… haha! I’m going to tell you anyways. I was able to visit this lovely site……because I had my first externship interview over in Green Bay and I spent the rest of the afternoon with my bestie who lives over in that area. We both wanted to get outside and take some pictures with our cameras and so we decided that it would be fun to drive up there and take some pictures. It is only about a half hour drive from her house so we thought why not!If you are wondering about my interview (and not just interested in looking at my beautiful pictures, okay yes, I am being highly biased here), it went well. At least I think it went well. I’m hoping it went well. It was the most lax interview that I’ve ever been on and I don’t know that you can even call it an interview because the audiologists didn’t really even drill me about anything. It was pretty great! I really enjoyed the facility and think that I would fit in really well there. The thing that sucks is that my classmate is ‘interviewing’ there as well While I was gone this weekend (which as I stated before is now last weekend), I also picked up a new flash for my camera. I have wanted an off camera flash for my camera for sometime and I finally took the plunge. The one that I got was not as expensive as I could have gone, but obviously, I cannot afford a hugely expensive flash at this point in time either and I don’t think that I really need one for the kind of work that I am doing.

I have to say that I am already in love with the flash and I haven’t even used it all that much. I played around with it some this weekend and I am SO happy with the results. Just a simple off camera flash has improved my indoor pictures a million times over. I totally get the forums that I read now with statements saying that the on camera flash is rarely, if ever, your friend. I’ve grown to not enjoy using my on camera flash and prefer natural light above anything else, but the problem is that my house has nil for natural light! Like NOTHING! And it sucks! So this flash is awesome already!

Here are just a few examples of what I’ve taken so far with it! My really like this picture of my pretty kitty, Diesel! So often when I take pictures of him the background is SO dark and I lose the detail in him because he is all black, but when I bounced the flash off of the ceiling it allowed the background to be more properly exposed yet also get the detail in Diesel’s fur. I really just love this picture of my pretty kitty!I then took some picture of my adorable little guy last night after his shower and right before he went to bed. I LOVE LOVE LOVE that in this picture I used the flash and bounced it off the ceiling and there is NO shadow behind him! LOVE it! And I LOVE the little guy in the picture too. Isn’t he too cute!In this last picture, I bounced the flash off of the wall to the side and I got some more dramatic lighting on one side of his face. Oh the new things that I can do! I’m SO excited and IN LOVE! Do you want to hear it again… I am IN LOVE with my new flash! It is going to do wonders for my indoor pictures. Mostly just the candid ones that I take inside because I don’t really do indoor photography.Okay, so I didn’t really add anything to this post other than the beginning. I had intentions of writing more, but what I want to say is a whole new blog post in and of itself, so I will stop here and start drafting that one in the hopes that it doesn’t take me another two weeks to finish it up and post it. I have been a pretty bad blogger as of late. What can I say… time just gets away from me!

CIAO! LOVE ME!