Sunday, September 30, 2012

Razorback Parties, Trails and Pictures | Weekend in Review.

What a fun weekend we have had this weekend!

Saturday morning I had a photoshoot. I was nervous all week because the weather forecast had called for rain, but luckily it was just really overcast, which is actually great for pictures. I took pictures of some really dear friends of ours... they turned out awesome! Isn't this family the cutest???
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this was the setting that I had to work with. Love this little gem hidden within the city!

Later Saturday morning I met up with Drew, and together our family met up for a Razorback watch party/Birthday party for a friend. The Hogs season has gone down the toilet, so I wasn't that sad about not getting to watch much of the game (that's what happens when you have TONS of kids to watch). The kids decorated Razorback sugar cookies, and seemed to enjoy it ;)
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with a little help from mom, my children wisely chose white icing ;)
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Brayden really surprised me and iced everything without getting too much icing :)
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I thought Connor wouldn't care about icing cookies. Oh contrare! The boy threw a fit until he could be seated at the table with the big kids.
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stealing a little bite of icing. He is my son ;)
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oh how I love him so!
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apparently the red icing was a hit too! Avery liked to wear it
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Sophie rocking the red icing too
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Brayden and his buddy Jack. I love that they are becoming good friends!

The boys took really good naps Saturday afternoon, and when they woke up we decided to hit the trails since the weather was still pretty nice. Brayden and Drew rode bikes, and I pulled Connor in the wagon.
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he loves riding the trails, and went on his first official mountain bike trail yesterday. Drew was MIGHTY proud of him!

Today has been a typical Sunday-- church (we had family church today, so Brayden got to come with us. Always an adventure trying to brave church with a 3 year old :) ), then back home for lunch and naps. We've got a low key evening planned too, which I am appreciative of after our busy Saturday. Hope everyone has a great week!

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Bikes, Blues & BBQ.

My boys, like most boys, are motorcycle fanatics. Especially my Connor. He can spot a motorcycle from a mile away. Last year we brought the boys to the local bike festival, Bikes Blues and BBQ, and figured we'd start making a tradition out of it with them. So we packed up last night and headed down to Dickson Street.

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Connor and Brayden were SO excited about it. I had told Brayden earlier in the day we would go when Drew got home from work. Several times throughout the afternoon B would come up to me and dramatically say "WHY is it taking Dad SOOO long to get home?!?!" haha.
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This is about the best I can get at getting them to both look at the camera at the same time. It made me so sad when I looked at last year's trip to BBB and realized how much they have grown :(
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As we neared Dickson Street Brayden said "look at that huge cup up there!" Drew and I both laughed. Then Brayden continued "hey mom! When I am 5, I can drink out of a cup just like that!" haha!
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No idea why he does that with his teeth when he smiles
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At one point we just set up so the boys could watch the motorcycles go up and down Dickson. They were both mesmerized.
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pretty sure he would have sat there all night
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this picture makes me want to jump up and down. There is a photography technique called 'panning'. It involves focusing on a moving object and taking pictures with your camera moving with the object. I've tried it several times before and failed. Last night I took this picture completely unintentionally and it turned out pretty good for not trying. Especially considering it's a handheld shot with the shutter speed down to 1/50s.
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not gonna lie. This freaked me out a bit (it's the storefront of a local business that makes custom bath stuff)
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we've officially hit the age where Brayden understands food vendors. So we got a lot of "can I have that" while we were there. Thankfully funnel cakes are mommy's favorite, so we stuck with tradition and shared a giant funnel cake as a family.
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waiting with me for our funnel cake. This particular vendor had all kinds of different flavors. We wisely picked out chocolate :)
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look how ginormous that thing was! We all ate a ton of it and still had to throw some away because it was just too much! Also, please notice Connor's shorts are soaking wet. He found a puddle and decided to play in it. Oh the joys of parenting boys!

I love making memories with my kids like this... we spent $6 on the funnel cake and that was it, and the boys LOVED every second of it. I asked Brayden what his favorite part was and he thought for a second, then replied "the motorcycles were loud. And the chocolate." He's my son, that's for sure!

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Playin' Trains.

One of Connor's favorite things to do is play with his "choo-choo's".
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I love sitting in the playroom watching him play. He'll just sit there and talk to himself as he pushes and pulls the engines across the tracks. (these are obviously taken before his finger injury. It kind of makes me sad seeing his finger all healthy in this picture).
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I love how meticulous he plays. He's SO different than Brayden in that regard, and I love it. I love that he is his own little person.
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his favorite part of the track is the tunnel. He'll literally sit for close to 30 minutes making the trains go in and out of the tunnel, saying over and over "choo chooo"
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I love little hands
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saying "choo choo!"
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Monday, September 24, 2012

22 Months.

This post is a little late thanks to our eventful week last week. But I wanted to take some time to document Connor at 22 months (he also gets the honor of being my 1000th post!)
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Connor weighs about 30 pounds. He wears size 2T or 3T tops, and size 2T bottoms. We have to roll his pants up a lot because his legs are a lot shorter than how big his waist is ;)

He's starting to show some interest in the potty. I'm not pushing things, just like I didn't with Brayden.

He LOVES LOVES LOVES Brayden. In the mornings when we go to get him out of his crib, he will ask for his breakfast (usually waffles or an egg), and his brother. I love seeing their relationship grow. They play together so well, and have even started having conversations together. I hope they will always be friends
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A few of Connor's favorite things right now are: trains, cars, motorcycles, airplanes (basically anything that has an engine). He loves his Little People farm. He loves to swing, slide and jump (he always says "real high!" when he jumps. He also loves super heroes, and will pretend to be batman a lot. He also has a shirt that says "super brother" on it. He LOVES it and asks to wear it a lot. If he's wearing it, he'll point to the chest and say "SUPER BROTHER! TO SAVE THE DAY!"

His favorite movies are Nemo (which he calls Memo), Toy Story and Lion King. If he wants Lion King he'll run up to me and say "Zazuuuu.... ROAR!" haha!

He has never met a stranger, and will talk to anyone he sees. If he sees someone come into the room, or if we're in the same vicinity of someone at the store, he'll say (in a really high pitched, sweet as sugar voice) "hiiiiggghhhh!" and wave at us. It's the cutest thing!
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if you ask him about his cast, he will say "ouchie! don't touch!" I guess we've been telling him not to touch his bandages a bit too much :)
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He's starting to get a little attitude. I think the terrible twos are creeping up on us. Thankfully he seems to do really well with a small amount of discipline... even time out works well with him (it never has with Brayden).
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He has a crush on a little girl at school. Her name is Ava, and he talks about her a lot. His teacher said that they play together all the time, and if he sees her in the hallway he just lights up and goes and rubs her back and gives her a great big hug. haha! I asked him about her and he got all shy, hiding his face in his shoulder. SO cute!

22 months ago when people would stop me in the grocery store and tell me I would love having kids this close in age, I doubted what they said. But now that I see Connor and Brayden playing together, I wonder why I doubted those people at all. It's clear that this age gap, while sometimes hard, is so, so rewarding to see your children become best friends.

Connor Andrew: I can't believe you're almost 2! I grow more in love with you every day. You bring so much joy to our days, with your little laugh and contagious smile. Thank you for being our little sunshine buddy! We love you so much!

Sunday, September 23, 2012

Ella's Carnival Party.

Well, I meant to blog about Ella's birthday party this week, but the loss of a finger tip kind of bumped it down the priority list :/ We didn't do much this weekend that was very blog worthy, so instead of my typical weekend in review post, I'm going back to last weekend to one of the biggest highlights for us: our little friend Ella turning 3!

We went to Ella's birthday party last week and it was a BLAST! Her mom, Rebekah, and I are friends, and they just moved back to NWA... we couldn't be more excited about them being closer to us! Rebekah did a Carnival party theme and it was SO SO SO cute. The boys absolutely LOVED all of the carnival games, especially the ones that required you to throw :)
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Connor's favorite game was this one where you throw the balls at paint cans to knock them down
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There was a little photo booth set up, and Brayden was all about it, which surprised me. I went with it, and we spent a few minutes laughing and snapping pictures. He seriously cracks me up.
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oh my word. I die.
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This was Brayden's favorite game. He played there the entire time almost.
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it didn't take Connor long to find the food tables
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Brayden and the birthday girl, Ella.
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at one point during the party, I asked Drew if he knew where Connor was. We both kind of looked at each other and I started frantically looking around the backyard for him. I found him wandering around in the front yard. Scare me to death.
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sweet boy.
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happy birthday Ella!
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Brayden and his buddy, Jack. Please note the cotton candy Brayden has in his hand. This was after he ate 5, yes 5, fun dips. Sugar high doesn't even describe it yall.
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what's a birthday party without a little pinata action?>br /> carnivalbirthday_38
Connor wouldn't do the photo booth, but he walked around with these glasses on for a while. I couldn't stop laughing.... SO funny.

We have another busy week this week, including another trip to the orthopaedic surgeon. Connor's finger is actually healing really well, and no bone has broken through yet, so we're hoping that this means that he will need the least bit of surgery necessary. I'll update after the appointment for sure! Have a great week!
 

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