The Park

Pictures of park visits are some of my favorites, in the sense that just looking at the pictures allows me to easily visualize how much our boys have grown up in the past couple years. When we first started taking Braedyn to the park, he spent most of his time on the swings, with us pushing him. I often wondered how he would possibly ever learn to do advanced things, such as going down the slide by himself...

... or climb that wobbly metal ladder to get up to the slide platform...

... and forget those monkey bar things, surely he'll never figure out how to climb those by himself...

And with the second child, you don't even have time to worry about when or if he'll ever figure out this-or-that. Because before you know it, they are slinging themselves down the slide, shouting "Wee!!"

All this, while you silently think to yourself, "how did he learn how to do that, I never taught him that"? And then one day, you upload some camera pictures, and get the answer...

It's one of the hidden treasures of having kids close in age. Braedyn became a teacher, and Chase was his little student, eager and willing to learn everything so that he could be just like his Big Brother.

It's funny, because parenting small kids can be very trying at times. They need you all the time, for anything and everything. And you never realize how nice it is to be needed, until they don't need you anymore for certain things. Tell me again, when exactly did my little ones turn into big boys?

2010: In Review

That's right, your very own recap of our lives from the past year. No need to thank me...

One year ago seems like a distant memory, thank goodness I have pictures to remind me of the past year. It went something like this...

January 1, 2009, I made resolutions.

January 15, 2009, I promptly broke them.

Exactly one month after Christmas 2009, Braedyn completely understood the Santa/Presents/Christmas connection. Exactly One. Month. Too. Late.

We put our house on the market in early February, had highs and lows during this process, and just recently took it back off the market.

Is it just me, or is this post starting to sound really depressing?

Shortly after that, Braedyn's love affair with all-things-animals was in full effect. We made multiple trips to Animal Kingdom and the zoo.

The Easter Bunny came for a visit, and Braedyn was super excited since he finally got it, and was excited and anxious and constantly asked questions about the Easter Bunny and the impending visit. Chase was basically along for the ride, and if Braedyn was excited, then he was excited.

Lost track of time between then and summer, realized that I really needed to start blogging again, as it truly represented my mental journal of events I wanted to remember.

Somewhere in here, we fit in more trips to Magic Kingdom, Sea World, and Animal Kingdom. And then, before you knew it, the Florida Heatwave was upon us. Chase followed in his big brother's footsteps, and embraced the pool and his floaties this summer, and became very comfortable with the water.

The boys began playing really well together, entertaining each other as Ben and I were finally able to just sit and relax and watch them from the couch. It was almost as if we had won the lottery. Almost. But not quite.

Sweet Mother of Miracles - Braedyn is potty trained!!

Chase had his second birthday, and loved anything with wheels. He didn't say a whole lot of words, and we often wondered, "Will he ever speak in a sentence?", much in the same way we used to wonder, "Will Braedyn ever get potty trained?" (By the end of the year, he's having conversations with Braedyn!)

Somewhere around this time, I began to feel more in control as a working mom of two kids, rather than just flat out overwhelmed. There was more free time to myself, it was much easier to leave the boys with Ben if I needed to go somewhere, and I started to see a major turning point in my chaotic life as a mommy.

Family from out of town comes to visit, and fun was had by all.


Braedyn goes to his first movie at the theaters - Toy Story 3. Later, I take him to see Disney on Ice: Toy Story. The show recaps moments from all three movies, including Zurg, the bad guy from TS2.

Braedyn is suddenly scared of monsters named Zurg, and makes his way to mommy's room every night. Surely you know how this story ends.

Halloween!! Drove to the nice neighborhood in town, and watched in awe as my boys trick-or-treated all by themselves, and got lots of good candy for me.

November was a big month... my wonderful husband gave me an iPad for my birthday. I love my iPad; however, I can't seem to pry it out of my boys' hands long enough for me to actually enjoy it! (Note to Self: Stop downloading preschool apps for their enjoyment!!)

The County Fair came to town, and this was a defining moment for us, as we stood on the sidelines and watch both boys go on the rides all by themselves.

Ben and I went on our first vacation, sans kids, in 4 years. We went on a short cruise, and this picture of Ben below is the epitome of what our time was like... pure relaxation, the perfect escape to our hectic lives. Thanks Grammy Wormeck for taking good care of our boys while we were gone!!

The boys' cousin, Montana, introduced them to the 4Wheeler. This was the moment when I realized that Braedyn could drive better than half the senior citizens on the road today. Sorry, but it had to be said.

My first-born turns 4 years old, a bittersweet moment for me. His love for animals is still going strong, as you can tell by his cake.

Then came the Christmas Program at school. Braedyn was so excited about it, Chase was very excited too, until he actually got on stage. This was an extremely proud moment for us, as parents.

I had stress and anxiety over creating a fabulous Christmas card as I just couldn't get any great pictures...

Christmas came, and I loved every single moment of it. These are the golden years for Christmas, the years when Christmas truly is magical for the boys. I am already thoroughly looking forward to this time next year.

A small miracle happened on New Year's Eve... for the first time in five years, I was able to stay awake until midnight.

And was fast asleep by 12:10 a.m.

No resolutions, at least, not any that I'm putting in writing. Because honestly, why bother?

Welcome to 2011, it looks to be a promising year!!

Christmas Edition

A wonderful thing happened when Chase turned two this past summer... he suddenly began fighting germs like a champ, and went a solid 4 months without really being sick. As a result, I finally had enough vacation time saved up to take a whole week off with the boys during the holidays. If that's not a Christmas miracle, then I don't know what is.

To prepare, I took a trip to Michael's to load up on all sorts of crafts. Among the boys' favorite projects were the ones that involved candy, of course. This is the first year we did a gingerbread house, and this is definitely a must-do project every year.

Braedyn absolutely loved decorating the gingerbread house with candy. And Chase, well, Chase absolutely loved the candy that was supposed to go on the gingerbread house.

Here are the boys proudly showing off their finished product, giving me their best "Cheese" pose.

It turned out pretty good. And I was somehow able to let go of the perfectionist part of me, and let the kids decorate it all by themselves, however they wanted.

Except for the icing on the roof.

And the door.

And the candy beads that outline the door.



But other than that, it's completely their own creation. My goal next year is to get some windows on this bad boy. Not quite sure what went wrong this year.

On Christmas Eve, we decorated gingerbread cookies for Santa. Braedyn did quite well with decorating the cookies.


And Chase did quite well with stuffing his mouth with the cookies. Do you see a pattern forming here?

And then, they both thought it would be funny to throw the candy everywhere. Yeah, umm, not so funny.

I was the only one not laughing at this moment. So right after I snapped a few pictures (priorities, ya know), this was the precise time that cookie decorating ended, and movie time began.

Later that evening, Braedyn was hypnotized with watching Santa's travels on Google Earth, which is a very nifty, little feature. Even I was watching with anticipation for when he finally flew over our house and came down the chimney. You know, the umm, chimney that we don't have.

We then tried the line of, "Santa is on his way, you have to go to sleep so he can come visit". But that only excited the boys more. Which resulted in excessive jumping and yelling and screams of, "Santa is Coming Now, Santa's Almost Here!" (Note to Self: Nix the whole Google Earth thing next year. Maybe that crap isn't so nifty after all!)

Here is Braedyn completely excited about leaving food for Santa and his reindeer.

And then finally, about 30 minutes later, the kids were all snuggled up in their beds, while visions of toy trains danced in their heads. Or uhh, however that line goes.

Christmas is truly my favorite holiday of the year, and I love it even more now that the boys are believers of Santa Claus. So just like past years, I excitedly arranged all the presents under the tree, while Ben sat in the rocking chair and mumbled something to the effect of, "... bought too much, blah blah, over budget, blah blah ..." I'm pretty sure what he was trying to say was, "Thank you for all you do", so I just went with that translation, and continued stacking the loot under the tree.

This was a fun Christmas with the boys, they are at a really good age. Chase didn't fully understand the Santa connection, but he definitely knew about Santa Claus, if that makes any sense. On Christmas morning, I told the boys to go see if the food we left for Santa and his reindeer is all gone. Braedyn went straight to the plate with Chase in tow, looked at the leftover crumbs in awe, and just stared at it for what seemed like forever. We got good video footage of it, but still working on editing all that up. So for now, here are a few pics of the boys on Christmas morning.

As you can tell, they loved opening presents and all the toys that Santa left them. Especially their bikes. And don't worry, I finally figured out how to put the helmet on the right way, so Braedyn no longer has half his forehead sticking out. =)~

As another year closes, I'm somewhat in disbelief that I have a 4 and 2.5 year old. I know it's so cliche' to say, but time really does fly by. We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and enjoyed it as much as we did!

Braedyn's 4th Birthday

So my baby boy is a big kid now, which is still a little tough to cope with! We celebrated Braedyn's 4th Birthday this past weekend. We decided to get a bounce house this year, which prompted Ben's bright idea of inviting Braedyn's classmates. You know, so we could "get our $100 worth out of the bounce house rental". I reluctantly agreed as more kids equals more stress for the hosts. And when I say "HOSTS", I really mean just me. However, Ben did reassure me that "only 1 or 2 kids max (out of 11) will show up".

Seven RSVP's later, plus siblings, plus parents, plus any neighborhood kids that got picked up along the way, plus our normal guests, resulted in a total of 43 people. As opposed to our normal group of 15. So just to recap... in an effort to get our $100 worth from the bounce house, we tripled our guests, and doubled the cost of the cake, food, drinks, gift bags, wine needed for the aftermath, etc. Did I also mention that both Ben and I are CPA's? Yeah, umm, you probably shouldn't seek our advice for financial planning. Just saying...

But in all seriousness, everything turned out great, and Braedyn LOVED seeing all of his friends at his party. I think it made him feel really special. And as I found out, the best way to entertain a bunch of little kids is with a bounce house.

Luckily, we escaped the party with no broken bones or lawsuits (that we know of yet). After a ton of bouncing, the kids took a swing at the monkey pinata. And would you look at that... our "For Sale" sign finally came in handy for something. It's about time we got some use out of that thing!

Braedyn recently discovered Madagascar, which fits right in with his love of animals. So that was the theme for his party. As always, Publix produced a fabulous Madagascar/animal-themed cake.

And after 4 long months of Braedyn asking for his birthday so that he could get birthday presents (I have no idea where he learns this stuff from), the moment finally came for him to rip into his stack of gifts. He oohed and ahhed over Every. Single. Gift.

(I bet you've never seen three people this interested in a plastic pig spaceship before!)

A cute picture of Braedyn and Daddy checking out his new farm animal figurines in the gift box.

---

The best part of the entire party was not the bounce house, or the pinata, or the gifts, but rather the moment that Chase was caught on camera sneaking candy out of someone else's pinata candy bag.

And here is Chase thoroughly enjoying the stolen loot.

Every time I happened to look at Chase, he was putting another piece of candy in his mouth. I wasn't quite sure how he was able to open each piece so quickly. But things started to make more sense after I came across this picture on my camera...

And I can only assume that this next picture is Chase and Grammy scrolling through her pictures, trying to get rid of any potentially incriminating photos. (Take note of the candy in Grammy's hand, which was most likely in Chase's mouth 15 seconds later. Just saying...)

So a big ole' THANK YOU to Joy, for being my party photographer, and for catching all these incriminating photos!! And of course, thanks to everyone who came over to celebrate Braedyn's 4th Birthday!

The bag Chase was sneaking candy out of belonged to our friends' daughter, Mackenna. I later found her bag still here after all the guests left. I would like to believe that Mackenna and Mommy accidentally left it behind, but let's be real here, we all know Chase had something to do with her bag getting misplaced. But don't worry, Chase was kind enough to eat all the starburst for Mackenna. And the smarties. And all but two lollipops. He's such a helpful child, isn't he?