Spring Break

Spring break finally arrived. A much needed week off work. Couldn't have asked for better weather. The best part is - there is only 47 days of school left. Brant and I traveled to WVA for Easter and from there we all took a trip to DC to check out the Cherry Blossoms and the dinosaurs at the museum of Natural History. We all had a great time - expect for the crazy long lines to get on a ticket to get on the metro. It was insane, never seen a crowd like that at the metro before. Brant racked up on candy and money (that's what Nonna hids in her eggs). He is now saving his money to take it to the grocery store to buy food (his words).

Brant's new moves!

After watching Big Boats and Busy Harbors for the umpteenth time Brant has decided to imitate the break dancing moves that he see on the video. Although not a bad attempt, still hilarious. The air guitar at the end is nice also.

Happy Heart Day

This being are 12th Valentines Day together we decided to keep it simple. Brant and I made homemade cards for Josh and the grandparents. I made some cupcakes and took a picture of them. (Got the idea from my sister-in-law Susan although my cupcakes don't look anything as wonderful as the stuff she makes). Mainly just hung out and told each other how much we love each other-okay not really! I think the pink eye has returned, or maybe it just never went away. My students think I've been hitten the bottle since I come school everyday with my eyes bloodshot. thinking i should go back to the doc.

Brant really loved the cupcakes!

Goin' sledding

Most of our snow is gone-finally. But while it was here we went over to "Aunt Shawn's" house for a some snow sledding and down home cookin'. The first time down the slopes, Brant rode with me and got a little freaked out. The next time he found his courage and went by himself. He made it about half way down when he went off the side of the slope, flipped his sled, threw him into the air, and then the sled landed on him. We all thought it was hilarious-Brant didn't. So that was it for his sleigh riding adventures. He REFUSED to get back on the thing. Not even to just sit, with any of us. He decided to would be the "pusher" and helped us down the hill. I admit, I was also a little scared at first. You would really fly down and have noooooo control.

The Fire Truck Bed

Josh finished up Brant's fire truck bed. He absolutely loves it. He loves to drive it to the fire, get out, and put the fire out. He thinks its the best thing ever. During all this, I have been suffering from the worst case of pink eye EVER. It is goopy, swollen, red, leaky, and down right disgusting. It was in the right eye, got it cleared up, and then it showed up in the left eye, even though i was treating both eyes. So far, Josh and Brant haven't gotten it. I have been called Pink eye monster and Captain Red Eye. its been great. Decided not to take any time off though, trying to infect as many kids as I can!! Plus its exam week-three half days, can't complain. Also, we are supposed to get a major snow storm this weekend. Maybe 10 inches! Crazy! Looks like i will be joining all the other crazy fools at the grocery store tonight to get provisions.

Christmas comes and goes

Seem like just a blur. All the preparation, shopping, and baking and its over so fast. We did Christmas at our house early-Josh was up at 5 am and getting mad because we didn't get up. After opening gifts-everything that has to do with firefighting (fire hat, fire coat, fire hose, fire truck, etc.)-we headed up to WVA for the weekend. Once in WVA, brant actually thought he was a firefighter and was always blowing out the candles.

Our family tradition was for our dad to read us the Night Before Christmas before going to bed so we thought he would try it with the grandkids. Hilarious-they won't sit still for nothing. All we could do was laugh. Once one would get up the other one would get up-check out their matching pajamas. I think my parents think they are twins-this isn't the only matching outfit they got.

S-A-N-T-A

apparently my usb connect in my home computer is messed up and since i know soooo little about computers i had to wait until i got back to school to use my laptop to do any blogging. The video is not very good quality. Brant is in the very middle of the front row. He is wearing khaki pants and blue plaid shirt. Listen for him in the first clip. He is the one screaming out the wrong letters in the S-A-N-T-A song.

This clip is kinda long but if you foward to about 2 minutes he will begin his air guitar performance. Josh and I were cracking up the whole time. We had no idea he was such a ham. Several people told us he stole the show. His teachers said he was so surprised because during the practices he would just stand there and not say a word.

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.