Happy Birthday Baby Jesus

Here i sit...waiting patiently to attend midnight Mass with my family! i am so so excited to go this year! We haven't gotten to go for the past 3 years for multiple reasons, so this year when i found out we would be back in our home town--this was my number 1 request! The first year military man and i attended midnight mass together was the year we got engaged (on Christmas eve right before Mass) and now we are going to go and be able to take booderbean!
I'm sure booderbean will sleep through it (as he should, it's midnight right!) but still...he will be with us!
I wish everyone has a very merry Christmas tomorrow! And i wish that we all remember the reason we are celebrating this season!

on a funny note...booderbean and i made a birthday cake for baby Jesus today and i didn't realize that by talking about making Him a cake it would spark funny questions. "I want to watch baby Jesus blow out candles", "i want baby Jesus to come to the party", "I want to see baby Jesus", and finally "momma sing birthday song to baby Jesus".
What a sweet and innocent boy i have!

Merry Christmas everyone!

i spoke too soon!

NEVER MIND!!!!!!!!! forget the post below...last night was NIGHT FROM HELL at the Krout house!!!!
Booderbean ate maybe 3 bites of stew, did not want a bath, then did not want to get out and would only let me touch him, then only wanted daddy to brush his teeth with him, then freaked out because i closed the door to his bedroom and didn't let him do it, then i only read 2 books and he insisted on 3, then outa nowhere he pops up from cozy rocking and runs in to the living room and demands to stay "in dare wif daddy"!!!! so i throw my hands up, military man--it's your turn! finally they both fall asleep in our bed (FABULOUS we're freaking back in "mommy daddy bed")
So i wake military man up and he takes booderbean to his own bed. Then poor poor military man gets called out at 10pm for an "emergency" at work and has to drive his tired self 30 miles away and then back! Needless to say, he was exhausted when he got home! Then 1:45am rolls around, and booderbean is up and yes...of course...he's back in our bed!!! CRAP! Where did our nice nights of sleep go???
Of course the kicking, flopping around, crazy sleepy talk, and flat out AWFUL night is back!!! Military man goes to the couch and booderbean and i sleep soundly till the morning!

UGH!!!!!!!! I'm tired, I'm frustrated, i can't get enough coffee, and I'm just plain DONE :) anyone want to trade kiddos for a few nights??

sleepy time

HOT DOG!!! This cute little boy below has slept in his OWN bed ALL night long for the past 3 nights!!!! I wake up every morning at 5:30 and am so elated that he's still in his own bed sound asleep--and not in ours with his feet in my back!

Bed time has now become my favorite part of the evening, it's mommy and booderbean time! Military man does the bath and then brings the cute little boy to me all wrapped in his monkey towel, we talk softly and get dressed for bed. We read 2 books, always Goodnight Moon as the finisher. Then I sing our good night song and place him in his bed! He puts himself to sleep and then STAYS put all night long!

ok ok ok....we're still in a baby bed!!!!! i know i know this doesn't seem like a big deal now huh! but let me tell you--IT IS :)

wooooah momma!

Ok first off i cannot believe i am about to post this photo of MYSELF!!! and i know that when those few of you that actually read my blog see the photo..you will be thinking the same thing "what in the world did she post this for?". But i have reasoning behind it...

When we left my office Christmas party last Friday night THIS is what i left looking like...

GROSS huh!!! my lips had randomly swollen to at least 5 times their normal size!!

And the really crappy part is, we have no idea why!

Talk about frustrating!!!

For those of you readers that worked with me at GELB, you may remember a few times when this happened. It sure looks like an allergic reaction to some food i ate huh? well nope! we have no clue what triggers the swollen fat face! it just appears out of nowhere! I have seen the best allergist in the state, i have had all sorts of needles poked in me, i have had all kinds of tests ran but nothing shows to be highly elevated! Military man is convinced it is something in the air.

All that i can really do is get a steroid shot and pray!

Or take a crap load of benadryl and sleep for 20 hours!

well now that we've all had a good laugh...enjoy the rest of your day!

oh and pray for me that this never happens again at an embarrassing moment...like an office Christmas party, or the time before this when i had a HUGE presentation to give in front of the college (yeah that was NO fun!!)

fun family time

I can't believe i forgot to blog about this....we had Military Man's National Guard Christmas party last weekend and booderbean got to see Santa!!! He's been so excited to see Santa, and he talks about Santa all the time, but when we got in line...he just wanted his daddy :)

Military man and one of his best buddies whom was deployed with him, and their boys!

tried this picture more than once and could never get them all 4 to look at me! not gonna get too close to Santa!



Showing mommy what he got form Santa

The next day my sister and i and military man took all our boys (well boy #4 is still in sisters tummy) to Bass Pro Shops to have pictures taken with Santa and play on all the fun outdoor toys!

Her are some fun pictures:

CLASSIC!! i love that nephew Jacob is crying, it's perfect!!

uncle military man teaching Carter to shoot!

military man and booderbean shooting

me and my funny funny nephew Jacob!!!

I love my nephews!! and nephew #3 will be here in jsut a few weeks!!

christmas questions...

Because GreyGill did it...so am I! i LOVE these things!!

Wrapping paper or gift bags? oh wrapping paper for sure! i love to wrap and have even thought of doing it on the side for extra holiday cash! i have a country cowboy theme to the gift wrapping this year and i'm loving it...black, red, khaki, and red toole!!
Real tree or Artificial? artificial, if we had a real one my mom could never come visit! allergic!
When do you put up the tree? depends on our Thanksgiving plans...usually we are out of town most of the Thanksgiving holiday so as soon as we get home we get it up...this year however it just got completed this week!!!! i hate that!
Hardest person to buy for? In-Laws..hands down!
Easiest person to buy for? my sister...she's so much like me i know she'll love anything i love!
Mail or email Christmas cards? mail mail mail!!! it's the highlight of my day to come home and see the pretty cards waiting for me to open! so send them my way!
Worst gift you ever received? i really don't know....oh wait, not "worst" just "most embarrassing" was when Nana (if you know her, you know she would give something like this) gave me some peach colored lingerie!! yeah, i was 20, in college, opening that in front of everyone! haha!
Favorite Christmas Movie? i'm really into the Charlie Brown one and all those old cartoon ones, ya know the snowman one and all those.
Lights on the tree? of course, white only please
Favorite Christmas song? Little Drummer Boy
Travel at Christmas or stay home? not sure...we are still in discussion about this one. we'll probably travel still since little man is still young. but when he's older we'll stop that and see family another day. or just move to them :)
Can you name all of Santa's 9 reindeer's? sure can...only because of the song though
Angel on the tree top or a star? neither, we have a big bow streaming down it
Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Christmas morning, if we ever move back to a town that has midnight mass then we'll go to that and then open stockings when we get home.
Most annoying thing about this time of year? when people get frustrated at the traffic or amounts of people, and you can see them yelling in their cars..i just want to say "you are out here too buddy!!!"
Favorite ornament theme or color? i don't think i have a favorite, i try to do a different theme every year.
What do you want for Christmas this year? to figure a few things out about our future and location and such. oh yeah--and twins sometime in my future would be fabulous!!! i think the original poster and i are thinking alike on the baby thing!

Dear Santa,

Will you please stop off at my house this year!

I've been a very good boy!

Booderbean is so funny lately...he loves to talk about Santa Clause and points him out every time he sees him (even on the Coke can of daddy's!), he loves to look at Christmas lights and i can't wait to take him to the light parks in Yukon!

NOT that we are planning or even remotely hinting at anything--but when we ask him if he wants a brother or sister for Christmas he looks at us like that is the craziest thing we could say and says in a funny voice "noooooooooooo".

But after much coaching from military man,
booderbean will tell you he needs a puppy for Christmas!

such a fun time of year...

Before it gets too cold i wanted to take some cute photos of booderbean playing in the leaves...the little STINKER wouldn't hold still long enough to get a good front shot!

But i still think he's the cutest little man.

belated--thanksgiving photos

oooooooooooh i just love love love the holidays!!! maybe i loved loved loved being off work and being surrounded by wonderful family and friends for the past 5 days!!! This year we spent Wednesday-Friday with the Krouts, and then did Friday-Sunday with the Bridges. We had such a great time and such a great Thanksgiving day. We had lots of food, lots of family, lots of black Friday shopping, and lots of funny booderbean moments! Here are just a few photos from the weekend, the rest will be uploaded to our shutterfly page, so go there and check them all out.

Hope you and yours had a blessed Thanksgiving!

Now my mission is to get military man up in the attic to get my Christmas decor down :)

booderbean loved washing dishes at Aunt Tonya's house!

he loved to help her cook as well!

military man was tired after an early morning of hunting!

we must have been praying for an OSU win! We didn't pray hard enough though.

me and my hubby on Thanksgiving! we never got that family photo though!!!

booder bean wanted to be a photographer!

can i get a NAP?

SERIOUSLY i don't know if i can be more tired than i am today!!! I think i even got more sleep when booderbean was a newborn than he is giving us now!!! Yeah, so the no ray ray thing is going great, we don't have it, we threw them out, he goes to sleep so so so great with out it!! BUT the boy doesn't' STAAAAAAAAAAY asleep!! here is a break down of last night (and the past few nights as well!!):

8:00pm--bath time, read books with mom while rocking, rock and sing
8:20pm--sound asleep with no pacifier and clutching blankie
anywhere between 11:45pm and 12:30am--STANDING in bed, awake, will NOT lay back down in own bed
12:30am--sound asleep in mom and dads bed with feet and arms kicking and punching all over the flippin place, AND having what i would assume is a nightmare b/c he's asleep but screaming and whining till military man talks him back to sleep--all in our bed
12:35am--military man gets called out to work, booder bean and mommy stretch out and sleep soundly
2:30am--military man home, well sleep good
3:37am--booderbean is whining and upset and demands to sleep on the floor with military man..WHAT??? this kid is nuts, i think he's sleep talking?
5:20am--military man moves booderbean back to our bed and we are all sleeping soundly
5:40am--my alarm clock goes off and i of coures hit snooze
6:07am--i jump up and get my day going (27 minutes behind schedule!!) booderbean and military man sleep soundly
6:25am--booderbean walks out to living room, dragging blankie like Linus from the Peanuts, and is up for the day

LORD HELP US....we have the ray ray gone but the sleep thing is literally going to drive me off the edge!!!
you all better believe some wine will be had tonight!!!

OH HAPPY DAY!!!

Like my good friend and fellow blogger KJ, i have been so excited for this day to write up this post--yet at the same time i was very leery to post too soon as not to jinx myself!

BUT LADIES AND GENTLEMEN....WE ARE A PACIFIER FREE HOUSE!!!

i know this may not seem like a big deal to many of you but oooooooooooh my lord i am about to jump out of my skin i am so so so excited!!!! Not that the ray ray (this is what booderbean has named his pacifier since the day he could talk) has been a problem at all. He actually hasn't been THAT attached to it at all, for the past year it has only been at nap time and at bed time (ok and the occasional trip home from school when he's fussy) but that was it, he wasn't one of those kids walking around w/ a ray ray hangin' out of his mouth! No way!!!

Military man and i have been ready to kick this thing and just get rid of it but i wasn't looking forward to the nights of no sleep (i had it built up in my head that i would go a week with a screaming 2 year old all night). So we decided that over Christmas break we would do it, I get a wonderful 2 weeks off work and decided we would do it then so we could nap during the day.

But the good Lord had something different in mind when we left Friday morning for work/school. We went to Ponca City for the weekend and since booderbean has only been using the ray ray for bedtime for the past month i didn't pack it b/c he wouldn't' need it during the day anymore for naps. On our way to PC Friday evening i called military man and asked if he grabbed it before he left to meet us in PC. And nope, we didn't have a ray ray!!! So we decided that there was nothing else to do but tough it out and try, we were not going to buy another one because that would defeat the purpose!

And you know what....all my fears were set aside because it was not a battle at all!!!! Booderbean did so well! of course the first night was a little rough but after a few minutes of crying he was out, and second and third night it's been so wonderful!

As booderbean would say "Momma Happy? Momma Happy?"

Yes, baby boy...i am happy!!!!

the band-aid

we have a bit of a problem at our house,

you see, we have a 2 year old who is addicted to BAND-AIDS!

it's quite funny, if he bumps his knee or scratches his arm (even in just the tinest way) we need a band-aid on it quick. i'm sure many of you moms and dads out there are laughing right now because i'm sure this is a common thing for a 2 year old.

but the problem is...this particular boo boo is on his head, meaning the band-aid is in his HAIR!!! and this is day two of the band-aid being in the hair, and he is showing absolutely no signs that it will be coming out anytime soon! in fact, we've tried, oooooooooo how we've tried! and each time it's "no, band-aid stay in mine hair".

here's a visual for you...it's not the best picture but i had to snap something!

this was taken this morning on our way to school.

booderbean, i don't want to have to shave your head (oh LORD no!!!)

but this thing HAS to come out :)

the dog did it...

ok...i had to calm myself before i could even post this! it's been awhile since i posted and mainly it's because i wanted to capture evidence of the destruction our family dog has done! I'm sure none of you really knew we even have a dog, that's because Gunner is more military man's hunting dog than a family pet. Or at least that's how he started out.

A little history first...

While military man was deployed this most recent time his best buddy told him he found the perfect hunting' dog for us and he was just a pup. He graciously offered buy the pup and give him a home and begin training him so that when military man returned from duty he'd be ready to go. All he asked in return was a few souvenirs from Afghanistan. Sounded like a good deal to us! Gunner is a full bread German short-hair and he has now reached the status of "family member". He's a great dog and we love him dearly and he is so great with booderbean, and booderbean is pretty much attached to him too.

BUT--like every dog...they have their days!!!

below is a photo of what we found in our backyard last week...apparently Gunner has become a digger AND A CHEWER!!!!!!! Let me tell you all now, if he digs up my rose garden he'll be finding himself a new family!!! I guess this is what i get for leaving my tennis shoes outside for one night!

The part that really ticks me off is he's NEVER been a digger or chewer! even when he was a little pup!!!

my monkey man

Opps...i just realized i didn't post Halloween pictures!! I won't blog much, but I wanted to show how cute our little monkey turned out! Also a few pictures from his first school party!!

brown eyeshaddow

Today i applieda new shade of brown eyeshadow...well i put it on rather heavily to cover up what i just know is going to turn into a BLACK EYE by the middle of the day! You see, booderbean has been getting in to our bed about 1/2 way through the night for the past 3 weeks, and ladies and gentlemen, he is not a calm sleeper until he is completely out! Usually he tosses and turns and wiggles his way into the warmest crook of the bed right smack between me and military man--fine by us, we love the snuggles! Although last night was like there was a circus in the bed, that boy was all over the place...and mind you, he's 1/2 asleep when he's doing this and says' some of THE weirdest stuff!!! Booderbean was kicking me in the face...yes, kicking me in the face!!! So I'd shove him over to military man and roll over, just for him to kick me again and say in the sleepiest sweet voice "i kick momma face, i kick momma face". I would gently say (ok maybe not so gently, remember it's like 3 in the morning and I've been beat up for the past at least hour!) "no sir, we do not kick momma's face, now go to sleep or your going to your bed". Finally military man knew what he needed to do....he grabbed a pillow and headed to the couch! WHAT??? how does this help me??

So I roll on over and try and get at least an hour of sleep before the alarm goes off...and booder bean, sprawled out and feel into a deep sleep for the rest of the night.

Military man was right, booderbean needed some space i guess :)

So, if my eye turned black today you'll all know know.

are you kidding me???

#1 reason you should check your children's candy before they dive in!
That's right, look closely.......your eyes are not messed up...you are seeing correctly...
the above picture is our stash of candy that booderbean collected Halloween night.
and YES that is a COUGH DROP in there!!!

we seriously came home and dumped out the candy and found that!!!

only in Oklahoma folks :)

the sweetest thing...

The sweetest thing is a BIG KISS from Coleman!

On my birthday evening we were getting him ready for bed and he was fresh out of the tub and was giving mommy nite nite birthday kisses, he just wrapped his little hands around my neck and gave me BIG KISSES! Best birthday present ever baby boy!

halloween confusion for a 2 year old

Halloween seems to already be a bit overwhelming for booderbean. We went to our Church's Fall Festival last night and really had a lot of fun...though i'm not quite sure he got the concept of wearing a costume and trick-or-treating. Now he's only two, but i still thought he'd get all excited to get candy in his Elmo bucket. Yes...he has an Elmo Halloween bucket this year. It most definitely wasn't one of my favorite ideas for Halloween, and it most certainly doesn't' go with his monkey costume but...i need to pick my battles, and he does love Elmo so much :) We got the fabulous bucket about a month ago, and it's since become his favorite thing to put cars and tractors in to carry around the house. I'll admit, it is pretty darn cute.

OK, I've gotten side tracked here...

So anyway, we went to the Fall Festival at church. The overwhelming part was walking into the party and seeing the sea of kids, parents, games, food, ect. Kids running everywhere, parents trying to snap photos, music playing, candy throwing, LOUD! Booderbean stayed sandwiched between my legs for the first oooooooooh, hour! We tried the bean bag throw, no luck. We tried the basketball shoot, no luck. We tried the fish pond, no luck. Then we tried the cake walk...SUCCESS! Booderbean won the first round of cake walk (humm maybe a little help from the Deacon) and got to pick out any homemade goodie he wanted....he was in Heaven (pardon the pun here), he found a plate with a Halloween cupcake and an ELMO JUICE. and i say that in all caps because that's exactly what i heard, screaming excitement from booderbean when he saw and Elmo juice on the table. Don't' know what an Elmo juice is??? well it's our special treat at our house, simply it's a juice box with Elmo on the front. but you would think these things are plated in gold the way he gets excited over them! i love it, it's so cute how excited they get over little things!
So we were on a roll now, we went outside to the football shoot then we went to roast a marshmallow. Once outside, he was running all over the place excited! not sure if it was the sugar in him or what! Then it came time for Trunk-or Treating. To me this was kind of a mess and a little scary for the kiddos, but still, they had such a blast!
Booderbean isn't a big fan of sweets or candy or cake (hence why he didn't take a bite of his birthday cake!) so he didn't really care what was put in his bucket, he was just excited to be in on the action. It was hilarious to see him take out every piece and examine it then put it back in, he just wanted to see what was being put in his bag!

With all the confusion and chaos last night we didn't get many good photos at all, poor military man was trying so hard to get "the perfect shot" but it was just way too crowded to get them.

Tomorrow is his class's Halloween party and I'm so excited to go to his first school party! Trust me I'll go overboard with the photo taking. Then Friday night we'll be going trick-or-treating with some friends in town so I'm sure I'll get some good ones then. And I've already made it known that we'll be having a little photo session with my fall displays in front of our house. My poor boys, the put up with my constant photo attacks so well :)

happy Halloween everyone! more pics to follow next week!

my cowboy

To my cowboy:

I love you so much, thank you for everything you are to me and everything you have made me become. I am a better person because you are in my life and because you love me for me. Thank you for being an amazing daddy and an amazing husband.

Now i know you will most likely not be reading this because the blog just isn't "your thing", but on the off chance that you do, I thought that maybe you needed a reminder of how important you are to me.

I love this picture of us, it shows how much fun we have together
and how happy you truly make me.



Photo by: GreygillFish

phenomenal photography

I must brag...we recently had some fall photos taken of our family in honor of booderbeans 2nd birthday and they turned out GREAT! A wonderful photographer, awesome mommy, and new great friend took our photos. She did a great job and of course it was so hard to narrow down our favorites...we ended up with 13 "must haves". Here are just 3 of them, the rest will be posted to our shutterfly page, feel free to check them all out!

Thank you so much GreygillFish, we had a blast!

thanks for capturing my beautiful family, i love how you got military man watching his boy.

thanks for getting a great one of me and my baby, i love how he was holding my hands in the shot, i hope he never lets go!

thanks for capturing sweet booderbean kisses to daddy--he loves him so much

and thank you lastly so much, for capturing my 2 favorite booderbean faces! this boy melts my heart and cracks me up all at the same time!

booderbeans birthday PARTY

My baby boy is TWO!!! REALLY???

We had booderbeans 2nd birthday party at our house this past weekend! it was an overwhelming, chaotic, busy, FUN, exciting, mess of a party!! i don't know why i had in my mind that i would be able to sit back and relax and just hang out with my baby at his party...what was i thinking? The party was amazing though, we had so much fun, Coleman and his little friends and cousins had so much fun, the grandparents and aunts and uncles had so much fun...but man oh man, when everyone left and we looked around our house--we were just plum EXHAUSTED!

It was so great though to see him interacting more with the kids and to see him get excited about opening gifts..much more exciting for him than his 1st birthday party.

We had a tractor themed party, thanks to my fabulous friend and owner of KJane Designs, the invites turned out perfect and really set the mood for the party! I baked and decorated the tractor cake (i think i have really found myself a new hobby, it was so much fun!) with lots of help from military man! Funny thing though, booderbean never ate even one bit of his cake!! we even offered it again after dinner (hence the dirty face picture below) and let him blow out candles again, but nope..he didn't want cake! Grandpa Krout brought down the tractor and took kiddos (and us adults) on hay rides and we had yummy Carmel apples. I'm pretty sure booderbean received every tractor and every John Deere item that is made! This boy is set i tell ya :)

Here are a few of my favorite (and not so favorite b/c i made funny faces in all the pics for some reason!!) shots from the party. I'll be posting the rest to our shutterfly page so you can check them out there.

booderbeans birthDAY

So, booderbean turned 2 last Thursday and i am just now posting pics! the reason for my delayed blogging is LACK OF SLEEP!! this little 2 year old, turned 2 and apparently decided he didn't need to sleep in his own bed anymore!


readers...this will be another post, i'd rather focus right now on the birthday boy!


Military man and i snuck into booderbeans room the night before he turned 2 and covered his room in balloons (his favorite) and hung up Happy Birthday banners. He was so excited to wake up and see a room filled with balloons just for him! The minute i heard him waking up i grabbed the camera and headed in to get a wake up shot! He quickly wanted the "boons" in his bed with him. Military man had to work that day till 1pm so i made booderbean a yummy breakfast (which he proudly got to eat on his new Elmo plate) and we played till daddy got home. Then we woke booderbean up from his nap and headed to the zoo for the day!


We had decided to buy him his own bike and helmet (melmet as he referes to it) since he is just in love with the one at mimi and papas. Of course my camera battery died and i have no pictures of him seeing it for the first time!!!! He's still getting the hang of the whole bike thing so as he practices ill get some pictures up. It's hard livin in teh country with no sidewalks...i think we'll be laying some concrete in the near future :)



he kept saying "weeee" as he threw them!

this was birthday breakfast on Elmo plate

he got an Elmo tattoo and it pretty much made his day

right after i told him we were going to the zoo to see the monkeys! his and daddy's favorite.

silly monkey boy

who had more fun with the monkeys???