My Little Boy

Five years ago today I was just getting to my hospital room wondering why it was taking so long to get Ian through the nursery and back to me.

Back then I didn't think this day would come so fast yet here we are. I have a big boy who walks, talks, dresses himself (sometimes), and sleeps in his bed all night long. It just doesn't seem possible that this teeny tiny little boy



could be this big (little) boy



Happy Birthday I-man I love you more than words can describe!

I have a new name....

... and it is Aunt Jessie! On Monday at 6:39pm Cayden Elizabeth Jurden was born. Cayden is the first born of my brother Nick and his wife Alicia. She is also the first baby to born that isn't one of mine.

I have wanted to be an Aunt since before Ian was born. At that time my sister and brothers were no where near the baby point in their lives. When Nick and Alicia got married I knew they weren't ready but I was even more ready. I had prepared myself to wait another five years because Nick was saying it would be 10 (I knew he wouldn't hold out that long). I was really surprised this past spring when Nick and Alicia sprung the news on me that they were going to have a baby, but I was so excited.

It's been a long nine months but I waited patiently for my niece to arrive and she finally did this week. I knew I already loved that little girl but I was not prepared for how strong that love would be the instant I saw her for the first time. Everyone talks about how you will have those instant feelings as a parent but no one mentioned them as an Aunt. I think Emma and Ian have those feelings to. They got to hold their cousin last night and each of them were beaming.

I'm so proud of my Nick and Alicia and I can't wait to watch Cayden grow up!

I can't help myself

I come from a long line of ABC soap watchers. I've been told that I was watching All My Children, One Life to Live, and General Hospital since before my birth. I can't say I remember much of them before my middle school years but from middle school thru college I was a faithful watcher of All My Kids and GH. If I caught One Life fine but I didn't have to see that one.

After college I worked in retail for a while which limited how much of my shows I was able to watch but I made sure more days than not I saw GH one way or another. General Hospital has always been my favorite and for me the best days for it were when Brenda Barrett was around. I loved her with Sonny, then I loved her with Jax. Of course I loved Robin and Stone and then Robin and Jason. When Luke and Laura returned to the show with their very cute son Lucky I was in heaven. As with any Soap Opera the characters come and go or the actors playing them change. I was devastated when Brenda left Port Charles and I hated when Lucky changed but I remained faithful for years after.

By the time I started working for the Attorney Generals Office Dave and I had the soap network and they played the current days episode of General Hospital every evening so I never missed anything. Around the time Ian was turning 6 months things at home were crazy and busy and by some miracle I was able to ween myself from watching any of my shows.

Ian will be five in 21 days and for these past 4 1/2 years I have not stopped to watch a single episode. I knew if I ever did I would go right back into that craving to watch every day. You could probably say General Hospital is my crack.

Two weeks ago I called in sick to work on a Monday due to a very sore back. I was flipping through channels and our cable box locked up on ABC during General Hospital. It took only one second of me seeing that Brenda had returned to Port Charles and I was hooked. As soon as the cable box unfroze itself I set the DVR to record everyday. After a day of watching my recordings I find out that the original Lucky is back and that was like the nail in the coffin. I am without a doubt hooked again and I can't help myself.

My First Thanksgiving

This year I hosted my first Thanksgiving. I've done Christmas for the past 5 years, and I have more parties than I can count where I have prepared the food, some of which I have even made Turkey's. This time it was different though, this was for Dave's family who I've never cooked for before. To add to that nervousness I have never cooked so many different dishes for 19 people before.

Wednesday when I got home from work I did as much prep work as I possible could as well as some last minute cleaning. I tired to get to bed early but i just could fall asleep, my mind would not stop running. I finally fell asleep around 1am and my alarm went off about 5am.

I reluctantly got up and started the Turkey. Once I got in the over I was too awake to go back to sleep so I got myself ready for the day. Sometime around 8 Dave got up and it wasn't until 9 for the kids. I think it was around 10 when I started peeling the potatoes that I finally relaxed and realized everything was going to be great. I must say it really was, I made the best Turkey yet, the potatoes, stuffing, and my Swiss cheese green bean casserole were a huge hit.

Besides preparing the food I was nervous about how the 9 kids were going to be. We set a table up in our basement for them in case there were any spills. We figured a concrete floor would be easy to clean up. We also had a TV and DVD player down there for them. They played down there all day with only one fight when Ian hit one of his cousins because she wouldn't stop kissing him.

Dave says that his family all had a great time and enjoyed the food so I would say Our First Thanksgiving was perfect. How was yours?

It's Offical

Well this coming Monday my little girl will be a 2nd grader. The principal, Emma's current teacher, and the second grade teachers all agreed they think the best action is to move Emma to second grade.

Dave and I haven't met her new teacher yet but we are hoping to early in the week next week. She did send home the supply list and it looks like we will be doing some back to school shopping this weekend instead of Christmas shopping. I hope the office supplies will be on sale because we have allot to get. It's amazing how much more they need from first to second grade.

There will be allot of work to do in the next month or so but hopefully we can get Emma up to speed quickly and I wont feel as anxious about all of this. One great thing right now is seeing Emma excited about school again, I didn't realize how much I missed that in her.