Life lately

In the morning while Brody is at school, Trevor and I spend lots of time hanging out around the house.  He's seen me doing some DIY project which involved painting so he wanted to take a spin on it as well.  He was so cute - yes still in his pj's which he loves to wear.

The weather has been so nice around here lately and so when Brody comes home around 11:00, we are trying to take advantage of the great weather and enjoy our lunch outside on our patio.  The boys are having a blast on the playground and trampoline.

For some reason one day this past week, they wanted to play with their umbrellas they received from Santa even though it wasn't raining - but of course it was a picture moment.

My planner or OCD child

When Brody started VPK in September I started a habit of putting all Brody's clothes for the week in a basket so all he had to do each morning was pull out the next set of clothes.  This makes things easier and hopefully hassle free every morning so Brody can get ready all by himself.

Well, one day last week after he got dressed he laid out the next weeks shirts he wanted to wear and was so proud of what he had done.

Also, he started out the first 2 days of the week making his bed all by himself.   Monday morning when he woke up he immediately made his bed, ate breakfast, got dressed and brushed his teeth all before Jason    had to tell him to do anything.  We were pretty excited and could only hope that it would last.

I love when he gets in this type of mood - a mother's dream!!

Game Night

Last Friday night we finally were able to get our game night back up and running.  There were 4 couples and 6 kids - thank goodness for the playroom because the kids stay in there while we adults have our fun in the main room.  There are times when we wished the playroom was sound proof and I'm sure the kids wished it as well because we got pretty loud with our laughing.

Ava and Trevor hanging out.

After some pizza for dinner we were off to play games.  We started out with Scene It Squabble which is kind of like a guys vs girls game.  I have to admit that the guys won that one even though the girls were way ahead.

Tracy and Marshall decided to sit on the "love seat" while Tara and John sat on the other side of the room.

Then we played Battle of the Sexes, which Jason and I have determined is a very long game and can be a little slow so I don't think we will play it again but we did have some laughs.

I hope for us to be able to do this every month because we had a great time.  Maybe John won't be so tired next time.

Potty Training Boot Camp - take 2

Last Friday Trevor and I started Potty Training Boot Camp again.  We tried back when he was about 18 months old because he showed lots of interest, well he did pretty good for a few days but then it just didn't stick.  I knew not to get stressed about it and not to push it too much so he has been in pull ups since then - yeah I know this is a LONG time but I found it easier to take him to the bathroom whenever we went off because he would do really well with that.  Thankfully I found the pull ups pretty cheap off diapers.com.

Anyway, back to boot camp - this is a all out 3 day potty training method that worked great for Brody.  You don't go anywhere for 3 days and you are CONSTANTLY telling your child "Don't peepee in your pants" and "Make sure you tell me if you need to go" and of course he wears big boy pants (padded though for that extra protection).  Well, this method wasn't working so great for Trevor in the beginning, so I had to resort to just taking him every 30-45 minutes and he did great with that.

We did go a couple of places during the 3 days but I still had him wear the big boys (except to church, thought the nursery workers would appreciate the pull ups).  The first step of the process is to have the child throw all of his diapers/pull ups away.

Don't worry I had a brand new trash bag in there so I could still use the pull ups for naps and bedtime.  Trevor has done really well with this new freedom.  So, after a week of potty training, tonight Trevor went running through the house to the bathroom saying "I gotta go pee".  Maybe he finally has it and is able to tell me when he has to go - not that I'm going to stop reminding him.

A little randomness

Of course having boys I miss out on on dressing them in really cute clothes because let's face it there are such cute girl clothes out there and the boys clothes exist of pants and a shirt and 1 of 4 pairs of shoes (black, brown, tennis shoes or flip flops).  I do look at this as blessing because I don't have to be tempted to spend lots of money on a different pair of shoes and accessories for each outfit.  However, I do try hard to make sure my boys look their best and another blessing is they will wear whatever we tell them too - no attitudes (yet).  Thankfully, Brody enjoys having his clothes match Trevor so I take full advantage of this when I can.  A couple of Sunday's ago was one of those times.

I just love Trevor's hat.

Brody even likes for he and Trevor's pj's to be similar.  He will usually find out what Trevor is wearing before he picks out his pj's for the night.  So, no surprise that for almost 2 Sunday afternoon's in a row, Brody has wanted he, Jason and Trevor to all wear their Spiderman shirts.  So cute I must say.

It was a cold Sunday so we were enjoying the fireplace.

Superbowl Sunday

Our church youth group held a huge Superbowl party in our gym.  There were tons of contest going on and a obstacle course bouncy house and what's a Superbowl party without food - pizza, wings and subs.  The kids had blast of course.  Here are some of the pics from our fun event.

Of course our kids were able to enjoy the bouncy house.  We did make them wait until most of the kids were finished with it and were getting ready to go home.  You would have thought it was the worst thing ever to make them wait, but they were troopers.  Once they got on they had so much fun.  You would have never thought Trevor was only 2 because he kept up with the big kids and thank goodness Sara Lynn, Tyler, and Jenny Beth were there to make sure they made it through the course.  Needless to say the boys went to sleep pretty quick that night and I bet the SL, T & JB did too.

Happy Valentine's Day - WOW!!

This year's Valentine of choice for Brody to give out to his friends at school was a SuperHero lollipop - well, it was the choice I made for him.  For the past several years I have tried to find cute Valentine's to make.  Yeah, I know I could just buy the box of valentine's but for some reason I like the extra work :)

Well, while Jason and I were at work, Mrs. Gail had craft day with Brody and Trevor.  She told me that Brody LOVED it and just continued making stuff so I would probably find things all over the house.  So true,  Brody was so excited to show me everything he had done that day as well as all of his valentine's he had received at school.  Here's what he had for Jason and I

On the fridge

This Valentine's was a little different than our past because Jason had a basketball game so no at home fancy dinner this year, but instead here is where we sat for an hour.

The boys had a blast playing with Ava and Bella.  Jason's team won, but most of my time was spent watching the boys and constantly saying NO, don't do that, don't do this, etc.

Once we got home I made a wonderful gourmet dinner with dessert

Baths and then time for their valentine presents

Boy, did they get a lot of stuff

The boys sent me on a scavenger hunt to find part of my present.  Of course Brody was so excited for me to find it and couldn't keep a secret that it was in his room.

Jason is such a practical gift giver which I love.  He bought me a new cartridge for my cricut and a clip on  light for my side of the bed.  I loved how he remembered when we were in NY last year the hotel had these small bed clip on lights that were awesome and I loved that the lights could be off and I could have my personal light to turn off when I wanted to.  Love this 

14 days of Love Day

I am so very blessed to have a wonderful husband "valentine" so I thought I would show him how much I love him over the first 14 days of February.  I left him a little present every morning - here's a few of them.

Conversation hearts

I was so excited to do this and was felt like a little kid every morning when I left for work putting out his gift.  The first day reaction was great - "what's this for?".  After day 2 I think he realized something was going on and hopefully looked forward to getting something.  Brody asked lots of questions as well as to why is daddy getting all of these presents.  With so many separated families these days, this was a great way for us to show Brody that we love each other.  Jason would explain to him that "mommy was giving him presents because she loved him".  His response was that one day his wife will give him presents.

He also got some "love potion" which was a cold bottle of Dr. Pepper - his favorite drink, some fortune cookies with personal fortunes inside, a Crush drink, and 10 reasons why I love him.

On Valentine's day here was his last present.

It is a picture from when we went to the US Open tennis tournament last year in NY.  He has mentioned several times that he loves this picture and would like it blown up bigger, so I listened.  I tried to be creative and modge podged it to a canvas that I had painted blue.  This was the first time I had used modge podge but I think it turned out really great and he was very happy with it.  The plan is to hang it in our office.

These past 14 days were so fun to give him something every day - I better start thinking now to prepare for next year.

Upward's and Granny's 82nd

Last Saturday Brody played against Baylie in his Upwards game.  They already had it planned that they would guard each other so they would have the same color arm bands.

Well, at the beginning it didn't work out that way and Baylie wasn't too happy about it but she got ok and they both played great.  Brody had a boy sticking him that was constantly in his face so watching the 2 of them was like watching a cat and mouse show.  Brody was running all around the court to just try and get away from the little guy - I was laughing so hard.

In the last quarter they changed colors and Brody and Baylie finally got to guard each other.  They looked like they were dancing on the court at times.  When Brody was supposed to be playing offense, he was still playing defense guarding Baylie.  Quite a funny game.

Here's their "dancing"

After the game, we drove out to Aunt Joyce's for Granny's 82nd birthday party.  Boy, is her house far - it took about 1 1/2 hours to get there.  Here's where a little communications would have worked numbers on our getting ready - I was thinking we wouldn't leave until 1:00, but Jason thought differently.  So, at 12:20 he saw I still had cooked whole potatoes sitting on the counter and bacon wasn't fried yet.  When he came in and said he thought we would be leaving at 12:30, talk about a whirlwind of 30 minutes.  Needless to say we didn't leave until a little after 1:00 and all I forgot was Trevor's shoes so we had to make a quick stop to buy a new pair.

The boys had a blast running all around outside with 2 of their cousins - Cale & Connor.  They played baseball, played on the playground and just ran around enjoying being boys.

We had a great time helping Granny celebrate her birthday.  She is such a sweet Godly lady.