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.

SNOW DAYS

Some pics from our snow days. We ended up with about 7 inches of snow and three days off. Brant had on so much clothing that he could barely move. When he fell down, he couldn't get up. He was too sure about the snow. Mostly wanted to play with the shovel.

Yes, he wanted to swing. So of course, I have to swing with him.

Fiery Red Head

OMG-look what i did to my hair. Guess I was looking for something different. Josh suggested red so I thought - why not? Sooooooooooo, this is what is looks like. Mostly gotten good responses, but I got a feeling that those same people will be the ones who tell me after I go back to blond that it looked horrible. I haven't gotten use to it yet and I am realizing that nothing in my closet looks good on a red head-today I thought that I looked like the ELF. Got some length taken off of it as well. Don't worry mom and dad, I will be blond again by summer.

Brant and I were home sick most of the week which although we didn't feel well it was nice just to hang out. We watched a lot of movies (well, just the same movies over and over again). Not sure where Brant got the idea for this stunt in the video but I couldn't help but share. Looks like we might actually get some snow tonight. Funny thing is now, I wouldn't mind going back to work since I was off last week.