Weekend in Review

We had such a fun weekend this weekend! Friday was my birthday, and Drew surprised me with tickets to the Razorback baseball game! We ate dinner at a local mexican restaurant (B ate a WHOLE child's plate-- it's getting more expensive to go out to eat these days!) and then headed to the game. It was B's first real Razorback experience, and he loved it. Well, love is a strong word, but I know he enjoyed all of the people watching. Here's B with Ribby the Razorback.

He wasn't too sure about Ribby. He wasn't scared of him, but a bit perplexed at this larger than life Hog standing there waving at him. He touched his nose, and then smiled.

Before the game started he kept pointing down to the field. It was SO cute!

Drew was trying to get him to call the Hogs (he'll do it for us every now and again), but clearly he wasn't all that interested.

OK, I know I cut Drew's face off in this picture, but i just had to post it. Isn't he SO cute with his spiky/mohawk hair and Hog uniform?

A self-taken family portrait

Brayden would NOT smile, so this was the best we could do.

I had walked down closer to the field to show B all of the players and umpires. Ribby came up behind us and started waving at Brayden. He just sat there and stared. It was pretty comical.

Doesn't he look so enthralled?! Ha! His attention span quickly diminished after the game started.

Just some pics of the game festivities

I love this picture, even though it focused on the nets. I LOVE baseball!

"How long to baseball games last Mommy?" (this was taken during the 2nd inning!)

"I am ready to go night-night! Bring me HOME!"

Saturday Drew and I had a wedding to attend so some dear friends watched Brayden while we attended the wedding. After the wedding we made a date of it and went out to eat and then finished the night off with Cold Stone. I sadly took no pictures, but it was SO nice to be able to get out with Drew (all dressed up I might add) and have some adult conversation that had nothing to do with poopy diapers and formula!

Today after church we went to a friends house for lunch. Brayden had a grand time romping around with our friends 15 month old little boy. They were both into EVERYTHING. Partners in crime!

We are looking forward to a warm week with clear skies! Be on the lookout for lots of pictures from the park :) Have a great week!

The Naked Carpenter

Doesn't the post title sound like some weird reality show? It's the first thing I thought of when I was editing these pics of B. I got this little carpenter table for $12 at the consignment sale I went to recently, and we were going to wait to give it to him for his birthday. But after a few days of him being bored with the toys he has  and SCREAMING all day, (alot of them are rattles and stuff he's outgrown) I decided to pull this out. He LOVES it and will literally hammer away for 30 minutes straight! Still noise, but a lot better than the screaming I was dealing with, so I'll take it. I had let him play in his diaper on this particular afternoon... he loves being naked and it's finally warm enough where I don't worry about him getting cold without clothes on :) He also danced it for me on this particular afternoon, but he's still camera shy when it comes to dancin'. Doesn't want anyone stealing his moves :)

PRE. SHUSH. LOVE.


Doesn't he look guilty in this picture? Total guilty face here.


"See mom, if you lift this up, there's a secret box for all of my things!"

A Very Merry UnBirthday

OK. I admit it. Today is my birthday. Growing up mom always made our birthdays the biggest deals. Like, even bigger than Christmas. We got to pick out breakfast, go on a special lunch date with mom and dad, and then pick out dinner, complete with the "You are Special" Plate at our setting. The first birthday I was away from home was my 18th. I was in Florida with my friends, and I remember laying on the floor in the condo in a sleeping bag crying because I wanted my mom's lasagna instead of FudPucker's. Ha! Anyway, as I've gotten older and been "on my own," birthdays have become more like every other day. That is, until this year. I seriously think I have the greatest friends in the world! We all got together for dinner to celebrate, which was great in and of itself. Then, after I'd stuffed myself silly, they brought out this awesome cake (my friend Meredith also celebrated her birthday this week so we comboed),

AND the restaurant brought us dessert!

taking pictures of each other with our cake :) Yeah, we're dorks.

I'm pretty sure Meredith's wish is to give birth. She's due any day and is ready to get that baby OUT!

They all wrote me sweet notes in an awesome birthday card, and got me a gift card to Sonic. I love these girls SO much!

Thanks for making my day special girls-- yall are the best!

Ball Bustin' Experience

This is another one of those B moments that some may find no humor or entertainment in, so if that's you, you can just go ahead and jump to a different blog. And quite frankly, I may get killed for posting this later on in life, you know, if B decides to actually read the blog book I am creating for him. But what good is a blog book without the good stories, the bad stories, and ofcourse, the embarassing ones too! Trust me B, you'll thank me later!

Last night I was bathing Brayden and I was in our usual battle. He splashes, looks at me, stands all the way up and I (in a kind but firm mamma voice) say "No no. We need to sit on our bottom." After about 4 times of doing this I usually give a gentle swat on the behinny and he quickly sits back down. No harm done, and he goes about his night as normal. Generally he doesn't even cry. But last night was different, because laying underneath him was a plastic bath scoop that he uses to play with. He didn't know that the scoop was there, so when he quickly let go of the side of the tub and careened down on his tushy, he hit the plastic. At an angle. An upwards angle. So much was the angle upwards that it didn't hit his bottom, but his, um, how shall I say this... it hit his jewels. Poor guy was shrieking. For like 5 minutes. Drew was there with me, so we quickly wrapped him in a towel and consoled. Drew let him know it wouldn't be the last time the family treasures got knocked. They had a man consoling moment and then B was fine. If you're a mom of a girl, be glad you don't have this problem to worry about. I had never once thought about this happening, because, well, because I'm a girl. Here's to many more boy moments in my future......

Up and Running

Yesterday I had a baaaaaad case of the Mondays. I don't know why, but I was just dragging. My poor family suffered too, but thankfully I have a gracious husband who recognizes that we can't all be on our A game every day. Today I am certain I will be more productive... well, atleast I am trying to get the laundry finished.

One thing I was productive with yesterday was finally getting my blog design website up and running! 

I've recently had several people ask about who designed my blog or have asked how to do certain coding things. I am a nerd at heart, and I love learning new things. Keeps my mind fresh in this crazy toddler world I now live in as a SAHM. So, I decided to step out on a limb and offer blog design as a service. I'm not expecting to make it big, although if I did I'd be OK with that :) It's really just another outlet to keep my mind sharp. Doing HTML coding and layouts is actually therapeutic for me, and I honestly can say that I could waste an entire day doing it, so this just made sense. SOOOOO... if you need a blog makeover, be sure to think of me ;o)

I now need some parenting advice (who doesn't need parenting advice?!). Brayden is your typical boy-- SUPER active, gets into everything and already throws all out fits (you know, the ones where they throw themselves on the floor in anguish because you won't let them dip their hands in the toilet?). This causes us to have a few battles more than I would like. I am trying to pick my battles, really I am. But the kid will literally get to a point in the day that I feel like he's so frustrated with everything he can't get into that he just screams. and screams. and screams. It's enough to make me want to go insane (Side note: I've decided that instead of putting people in prison, we should just put them in rooms that have the sounds of babies screaming and pipe in a good dose of poopy diaper smell at 30 second intervals (kind of like the airwick scent things but with a nasty smell). We would never have to kill our inmates again for the terrible crimes they commit, for I feel after about 30 days of that constant smell and sound they'd kill themselves.)Sorry for chasing that rabbit, but it seems pretty ingenious don't you think? Anyway, back to my dilemma. I really don't know what to do. The problem is that we are fine if we're out and about, so lately I've been out of the house from 3-5:30 EVERY afternoon. Now, I love to get out, but I also love to stay at home. Especially when there's clothes piled up and dishes that need to be cleaned. Clearly I can't continue our extravaganzas of Target afternoons EVERY day. They'd start to think I worked there or something. So what do I do? Is this just a phase he'll get out of soon enough and I just need to deal with the screaming? We play with his toys, but I feel like after 30 minutes he's just bored and doesn't want them anymore. He was the trash, the toilet and the grocery sacks in the laundry room. For obvious reasons, those are not allowed. Neither is the TV buttons & TV player. Suggestions anyone?

i {heart} faces: Angles

I'm really bad about not thinking outside of the box when it comes to shooting pics. I am really trying to get better at it though. This is about the best I could come up with as far as an angle. I stood to the side of my brother in law Nathan, and then turned my camera at an odd angle and clicked the shutter. I really like the way the pic turned out-- totally captures the grunge/rocker/senior look I was going for. Be sure to check out the other cool angles by clicking on the i {heart} faces logo.

Weekend in Review: aka blizzard #2 2010

I swear, the weather here in Arkansas has multiple personalities! Friday Brayden and I enjoyed a warm afternoon playing outside. Saturday started out fairly mild, but quickly dipped to freezing and the nasty rain changed to snow. It was a snow SHOWER. The HUGE chunky kind, just POURING from the sky. I actually got video and hopefully will upload it later tonight. It snowed from Saturday afternoon till Sunday afternoon, and then switched over to rain. We got a total of about 8 inches; there are places in our yard where the snow drifts are much more than that. Quite a bizarre way to start our Spring. We tried to get B interested in it, but after he plunged both of his hands into the deep snow, he was done! I've decided he hates the cold. Good thing it will start warming up later this week :o) Due to the snow  we really didn't get out much or do anything fun and exciting. But it was kind of nice enjoying a nice lazy weekend together as a family, especially in light of Drew not having homework due to spring break this next week. Here are some of the shots I took of the snow today.

What is this stuff?

Toby trying to teach B how to eat the snow

caught him blinking



After 5 minutes, he was through

(this pic was taken with my point and shoot so the quality is subpar, but I think it's hilarious that I got Toby in action. He was literally hopping through the snow like a rabbit because it was so high. He LOVES the snow, so he was in HEAVEN!)

(another point and shoot pic, but isn't the snow just SO pretty?)

the snowman Drew helped me make


Hope everyone has a great week!

It's Spring... No, It's Winter...

Yesterday, the weather was a comfortable 65 degrees with not a cloud in the sky. Today the temperature is scheduled to plummet throughout the day until it changes this nasty rain to snow. LOTS of snow. In March. After the trees have bloomed and the sun has arrived. It's SO utterly frustrating, especially when I have a little boy who LOVES to be outside. But rather than sit inside and pout about it, I edited pictures of our fun afternoon yesterday in the playscape he got for Christmas from my parents. I tried to get my good camera out to take these pictures, but alas, the childproof lock on our computer cabinet is also adult proof. Or idiot proof. Sadly, probably the latter.

I love the perspective of this picture, and it was completely unintentional.

My furry baby is pretty darn happy that Spring is on it's way here. He LOVES to lay outside in the grass.

B loves the tunnel, but hasn't quite figured out that he can't sit up in it. He gets SO mad when he tries to sit up and bangs his head on the top. It's actually pretty funny, so usually he starts crying/screaming and I start laughing. He'll learn soon enough.

Love,love, love this picture. he's all dirty and grimy, and just ALL boy.





Hope you're having a lazy Saturday like we are!

War Wounds, Rambo & the Easter Bunny

When I married Drew, I knew that I was in for kids who were fearless. I mean, even my DOG takes after Drew, jumping cliffs, careening boulders and running till his paws bleed. So it comes as no surprise that my little man will bonk his head, slam his fingers tumble across the floor and not let out so much as a whimper. I knew it was only a matter of time however, that we got our first real wound. A war wound as I call it. One of those things that leaves a mark and has a good story to go along with it. Brayden has officially been knighted into the war wound, Rambo baby club. He was playing with our new computer armoire in the living room. There's nothing really in it yet as we're still transitioning, so we haven't rushed to get latches to lock the doors. The doors are the kind that swing all the way open and lay flat against the side of the armoire. As B swung the door around, he lost his balance and in a second it happened. He lost his balance, leaned his body to the right to brace the fall but it was too late. His head hit the edge of the door and BAM. I knew it was a hard hit so I went to console, as he was pretty upset about the whole ordeal. When I got his head off my shoulders I realized that it had broken the skin and was bleeding. Not bad, but bleeding nonetheless. So we cleaned it off with hydrogen peroxide, cotton balls and lots of mommy kisses, then got our blankie and we were off to our next adventure. I did pretty well all in all. I don't do well with blood. Or trauma. So this mix of adventuresome children and husband throws me for a complete 180 off of my safe, secure, take no risks and bring everyone along kind of attitude. The proof is in the pudding, so here's some pictures to chronicle our first real boo-boo:

Earlier that day we took some pictures of the cutest Easter Bunny's I've ever seen. Notice the tag is still on the ears. That's because I am being forced to return said ears. Here's what happened; The other day we went to Target (surprise! ha!) and in the dollar section they have these bunny ears. I laughingly put them on Brayden's head and he didn't flinch. So I left them on. For like 30 minutes we meandered around the store mucnhing on popcorn and showing off the bunny ears.  I got lots of smiles and laughs, and when he finally decided to take them off I just threw them in the buggy because I really wanted to get a picture of him with them on for Easter. Later that night as Drew came into the kitchen after putting B to bed he noticed the ears. "What are these?" He asked. I told him how we went to Target and B wore them and it was the cutest thing ever. I should have taken a picture of the moment, as Drew's face immediately fell and he got serious. this serious look in his eye. I got the whole "I can't believe you put bunny ears on our son in public" speech, the heavy sighs and the "you can't dress our son girly" lecture. So I kept the tags on, took pictures the next day, and they're now waiting in a bag on in the kitchen to be returned. Oh well. Pictures chronicled, and no one is worse off after this traumatizing event.

Wordless Wednesday: Celebrating Brayden months 4-6

(A wee bit late to post for Wordless Wednesday, but better late than never!)