Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

it's been pretty crazy around here-probably why i have't blogged in so long. josh has been remodeling the kitchen and for about two weeks our refrigerator was in the dining room and that was about the only thing i had access to. it was awesome, well not really but the kitchen is awesome now. so much more space and the new cabinets look amazing. its hard to believe its the same kitchen. since that was so time consuming, josh wanted to get away last weekend so he booked us a little cabin in the mountains (luray, va) by the river. we even got 6 inches of snow. we all had a great time just spending time with each other.

Horseee

Gotta watch this video-Brant is pretending to be a horse. We were cracking up.

Adventures in pumpkin carving

I wanted to go with the easy level design-Josh wanted the more challenging so he ended up doing most of it. It turned out pretty good (the pictures doesn't do it justice). We have had a pumpkin sunday, carved pumpkins, made pumpkin cookies, and am also going to roast the pumpkin seeds. Brant will be having a halloween party at school Thurs and I volunteered Josh to help out. He is going to be a Dinosaur, figured that would work well since he roars at people all the time.

Its a pirate ship, duh!

Pumpkin Pickin'

Brant and I went to the pumpkin patch last sunday. the weather was perfect and we had a really nice time. he loved riding the hay ride. He was enjoying feeding the goats until one bite him! we picked out a huge pumpking to carve in a couple weeks and he picked out a couple small ones. He just went to his 3 yr check up and everything is a-o-k. his speech is also really starting to pick up. he talks a lot more and you can only make out a few words but he getting there. i think preschool has really helped.

No more ZZZZZZZs

so josh gets this wild hair up his butt and decides that he is going to remove the Z things off our cabinets, which is something we have talked about doing for a while. He practically disappeared into the shed for a couple weeks, sanding, staining, whatever. Below are some pics of the final product and I must say it makes a huge difference. He next project-because he can never seem to sit still-is to build cabinets to add to what we already have which would be great because we have noooooo cabinet space for all the cooking equipment that i rarely use. then add new counter tops, sink, and light fixtures. maybe even paint! i also wanted to add a picture of our new grass. this is the same area that had the big pile of dirt on it for brants party. i am suprised how nice it has came up but it is not as thick as it looks. heard that takes time.

A birthday to remember

Its hard to believe that Brant's 3 and since there are only two things he really, really gets excited about is big trucks and digs we thought it would be great to do a construction party. Josh hauled us in a mound of dirt-complete with hidden dinosaurs (Brants other love). It seemed like the kids had a great time playing, digging, and we even painted the inside of his playset.

This had to be the easiest cake I've ever made (dirt cake) and it actually didn't taste that bad either.

Brant really liked the icing. He got a ton of cool gifts, too many to play with. Almost glad to say I'm happy its over. It took a lot of work-next year he's not having a birthday!

First Day of School

Proud mama-sending her baby off to school. He didn't seemed bothered by it all. Went right in and took to playing. Had I sat there and thought about I probably could have cried a little. We were scared to leave, felt like he might get lost in the all the excitement. So far, he has done very well. He has had NO potty accidents and they haven't to come pick him up yet because he is misbehaving.
This is his teacher, Mrs. Smith. Brant actually took this picture. He is getting better-he usually only gets from the waist down!

Got to be the cutest backpack ever. Ordered from Dante Beatrix (if anyone cares). They have a ton of cute designs. He picked the dinosaur-no suprise there since he acts like one most of the time. Getting ready for his big birthday party this weekend. Should be a blast-diggin the dirt, painting, getting dirty.

Just some pics

Stealing cookies!

Cleaning up!

Straight Gangster Yo?!?

As the summer winds down, I try to think back to all the things that I accomplished. Well...that didn't take long. Can't believe its almost over. Guess we did do a lot of stuff, I just never take pictures of anything. We spent the morning at the Childrens Museum in Richmond, which Brant had a blast. We've been spending a lot of time at the pool which has been nice and he is doing pretty well in swim lessons. If he would use his arms he could probably swim. He will have his last lesson today, then things start getting busier around here. By the looks of the video-already crazy around here! This is our ninja in training.

Lions, Tigers, and Bears Oh My!

My mom and I took Brant to the Richmond Zoo. He really enjoyed growling at the lion and talking to the rhinos. I thought the giraffes were the best. You could feed them and they have the longest tongues. It would reach all the way into the food cup-it was wild, literally!!

These turtles were HUGE and slow.

So, you might be thinking-Geez, it's been a month since you blogged and you are not even working. I think-what have I been doing? Napping! But I was just thinking to myself today that maybe I should do some cleaning, like real empty out the cabinets and clean, but then again a nap is so much more appealing. Maybe I will do it in August. Brant has been doing Tumble Tots this summer which he has loved, loved, loved. He gets to run, jump, swing, roll, all this favorite things. Also have him in swim lessons which is hilarious. He loves the water but freaks when she wants him to swim but he is improving. And I have decided that speech therapy has been a complete waste of time. So that's been our month.

Some videos

Check him out-too funny!

SO MUCH TO SEE! TOO MUCH TO SAY!

Well, you would think that now that I am out of school I would have a ton of time on my hands-yea, not so much. The week after school ended, Brant and myself joined mom at my nonna's house to "babysit" her. Brant totally enjoyed the chickens (I think he would have camped out all day in the chicken coup if I would have let him). He also enjoyed stealing nonna's cane-as usual-but now he uses it like a gun. As you can see, he also likes riding the broom around, not quite sure that might mean for his future!

After a few days at nonna's. we all packed up and then headed to Strasburg, PA to visit Thomas the Train. Now this is a very long, eventful story so I won't get into it, the important thing is that we made it, in the nick of time, to see Thomas. This was Brant's first train and you can see the rain on the window. We were all soaked for a while but it eventually cleared up.

Once we left Thomas, we headed back to wild and wonderful West Virginia. Brant LOVES "fishing" in my parents pond. yes, that is the one he fell into a month ago! He scare the heck out of the fish in there, at least he feeds them though.

Josh then joins us in WVA and we (me and him) decide to float the river. The two of us, in a canoe, by ourselves, hand drawn map to watch out for rocks (did I mention its a river with rocks), no helmets (did have life vests), not much experience and I am nervous, like really nervous, like poops nervous. It starts out easy enough although we do run the canoe onto some rocks we got out it okay. But then we get to a point that was drawn on the map to get out walk or be VERY careful. So as we approach this area there are other canoers standing on the bank of the river telling us to watch out cause there is a big rock down there. Well that send me into a tissy. I stop paddling and start yelling "I don't wanna go that way" which makes us go backwards that way! Then I see the rock, we are going towards I am yelling "What do I do, What do I do" all the while I am doing nothing. Thank god Josh is soooooooooooooo strong because he was able to keep us away from the rock, or maybe I should say boulder. So anyhow, we survived it and got a good laugh out of it.

The next day, we took a real steam engine up 45 min. into the mountains to an old logging village. That was really cool and Brant loved it although it put him to sleep on his daddy for a about 30 mins. of it. Mom would say its the good mountain air. You can see why they call it "God's Country". My brother and my nephew, Seven, were driving up to meet us for the train ride and we are waiting and waiting and they haven't shown up yet. Train leaves at 12, its 11:56, no one has cell service (remember, we're in God's Country) so we can't call him and then he comes screaming in the parking lot. We are hanging out of the train car yelling at him to hurry up. He has to get Sev and all the stuff that goes along with a toddler, who managed to throw up on himself in the car seat twice (we are sure its because of Jon's driving on those WVA rodes). He is running threw the parking lot and are whole train car is clapping and cheering for him! Its was hilarious. It was a great family outing.

And of course we had to buy Brant some new toys. He loves guns, like L-O-V-E-S them. Has to sleep with them! Check out his shooting stance, with only one sock on. Sorry, didn't rotate pic.

After all that-he's pooped!

Since we will not be doing much of anything for the rest of the summer, I should be able to keep up a little better.

Its been a while!

Can't believe its been almost a month since I last blogged. Seems like a lot has been going on this past few weeks-I will try not to leave out anything exciting. Brant and I took a trip to Wild and Wonderful West Virginia and boy was it ever. We decided to go "fishing" in a stocked pond, which was literally in the middle of nowhere. I was humming the song from Deliverance down the mile and half long. windy. rickety bridge dirt road. Mom caught two fish, I caught two fish, and dad caught the bucket! Brant had such a good time playing with fishing pole that dad was trying to fix that we decided we needed to get Brant his own fishing pole at Walmart. So we found a cool Spiderman rod complete with a little play fish attached to the end. Brant and I decided to go do some "fishing" in my parents landscaped fish pond/waterfall thing in their front yard. Brant was having a blast scaring the crap out the real fish in the pond! The line started to get tangled so we thought he should pull on one end and i would pull on the other, but Brant went a little too far-like all the way into the pond too far! Head first, feet last, totally submerged, I had to jump in knee deep to pull him out-thank god for the lifeguard certification. He's coughing and crying, I'm laughing, mom's running to get towels and forgets to put ALL the melted butter in the cake but dfidn't realize it until it was baked. It was great. Only real problem-no camera to capture it all.

He passed his hearing test-which we figured he would-now we can't blame his lacking of listening on hard of hearing, just hard headed. Wonder how it gets that from? We should start speech services soon. Can't believe how long this whole process takes, hopefully it helps. Wednesday he came down with Strep throat, but couldn't tell. We stayed home together Thurs., he seemed to feel great and got the house cleaned. We are looking forward to spending the long weekend with my parents in myrtle beach, sc. Hope everyone has some time their friends and family this Memorial Day weekend and don't forget to thank a soldier.

OH, almost forgot-I gotta do a little bragging. I ran an 8 mile race this morning at Fort Lee for Armed Forces Day and I won my age group! Got a nice size trophy. The highlight of my weekend. Check out the video-he's eating his green beans in ketchup. Does that count as two servings of veggies?

Can you say P-O-T-T-Y?

Well, I guess you can say Brant is successfully potty trained. I started this past Tues. since I was on Spring Break and didn't have anything at all to do. So I started at 8am but had quit by 10am. Seemed like it just wasn't going to work and of course he wasn't working with me. Threw him back into a diaper and had a 30 min. pitty party for myself. Then I realized that I was letting a toddler defeat me so I then put my "big girl pants" on and Brant put his big boy pants on and we tried it again (with much better success). He seemed to take to it after a couple days and has only had a little accident wed. (if you don't count nap times!) Oh-and the major soaking he gave himself while in the stroller at the marina, but I will take part blame for that one because I didn't take him to the toilet (eventhough he didn't ask). The picture is of his "potty tree". He would get a sticker everytime he would go to put on the tree, along with the potty dance, jelly beans, cookies, or whatever else he wanted. Tomorrow will be the true test as he will be going back to the babysitter and me back to work, ugh. oh well, only 30some days to go!

Eggs Everywhere

Brant had a blast coloring eggs and now he can say egg-yeah. For someone who freaks out when food get stuck on his hands, he surely didn't mind dye on his hands or anywhere else. I caught him painting his legs a few times.

Check out those SuperMan pjs. He loves them-thanks, nonna and nonno. Josh hid the eggs he had colored Easter morning. He really liked hunting them but was a litttle disappointed when he realized he couldn't open these and get candy.

Since Easter sunday, Brant has had a steady diet of jelly beans and chocolate.

Runnin' Wild

Amie, my college roommate from Radford, came up for a visit from Florida this past weekend. I suckered her into running the Monument Ave 10K with me. The weekend started with a very eventful trip to FoodLion which included busting open fruit cups, knocking over a display of Solo cups, and running into the back of an old lady with the shopping cart that looks like a car. Great fun. Felt like old times when we would take late night trips to WalMart. The rest of the weekend was pretty tame compared to all that! The rain held off for most of Sat. for the run, although Amie was so cold you would have thought we were running in Alaska-Floridians, huh! We even made shirts (see below). There was more on the back but wasn't sure if appropriate to show on the blog, oh but wait, we ran around 35,000 people with those shirts on!!!! Too late. It took us a little over an hour to finish and I was really impressed with Amie, being a first timer and all.



Marsha, Me, Amie, and Courtney

The weather did clear up on Sunday so we could hang out outside. We also just cut Brant's hair-he pitched a fit. I think when he saw the hair falling on him it freaked him out.

A little fun on St. Patricks Day!

Its looks like it is going to be another week of not being able to breathe, taste my food, or sleep without waking up with my tongue dried up and stuck. Doc says it my allergies, I think its a sinus infection at this point. Wait and see how this Nasonex works. Maybe this is what I get for being a rotten, bratty, little sister-Jon gave me his bad allergies. Well, I'm off to shoot nasal spray and pass out on NyQuil. Josh thinks I am going to need an intervention soon. Pray for me.

Birthday Party, Chef Santa, and first co-ed bath!

We went to Newport News Sat. for Preston's first birthday party. They had hired a lady to make balloon creations and do face painting. Brant got a monkey blowing bubbles because that was the one thing he liked the most-bubbles.

The birthday boy with his cake.

We then went to the Boyce's to spend the night. Not too sure about this Chef Santa outfit. If you look hard, yes those are scissors. The Boyce's girls have a full salon station that Brant really enjoyed playing with including the fake scissors.

I finally got Tori, Baileigh, and Brant to stand still long enough to get a picture. They had all taken a bath together the night before and Baileigh was smacking his butt. They are all so funny together.