The Mann's-Party of Five

Soldier Ride

2011-11-16T23:19:00.005-05:00

Last weekend my dad and I rode in the Soldier Ride which is a bike ride to support the Wounded Warrior Project. My mom works for Geico and Geico is the main sponsor for the ride and she told me I should look into it. I thought it would be a great short term goal to get me back onto my bike. They had 2 routes, a 25 mile and a 55 mile and of course we chose the 55 mile route-couldn't take the easy way out! After my dad, Tim and I had committed to doing the ride I remembered it was on the same day as Brady's last soccer game. I wasn't going to do the ride but my wonderful hubby said don't worry about the game, he'd take him and dad and I should do the ride. So we did and had a great time. There were a few glitches in the ride though. First, there was the wind. Fortunately the route was a loop, and on the way out the wind was in our face. I hate riding into the wind! It made it super tough! But then we turned around and the wind was at our backs and we flew back in. And secondly the route was poorly marked and we ended up missing 2 turns and went about 10 miles out of our way. And one of the wrong turns put us right back into the wind. Grrrr!!! But we finished and made fairly good time. We finished in 3 hours 45 minutes and averaged 16 miles per hour. Pretty proud of myself for it being my first post baby ride at 8 weeks post partum. I immediately came home and started planning out my triathlon season and cycling season. I've got the bug! Wahhoooo!!!!

Wounded warriors coming across the finish line. Such and insperation!

Here we come!

Crossing the finish line. Brady and Grayson were standing at the finish line cheering for us. Love it!

We rode under this big flag on the way out. So cool!

We parked right next to this cool old fire truck. The driver was nice enough to let them hop in and play. The boys were lovin it!

Kennedy's new trick

2011-11-10T14:34:00.002-05:00

The other day Kennedy was being a little fussy; she had a full belly and a dry diaper so what in the world did she have to complain about, right? But, she wasn't happy in her jungle gym, wasn't happy in the swing or the bouncer, so I thought maybe she's just tired of laying down. She's only 7 wks though and I thought that was too soon for the bumbo seat, but Tim wanted to try it out and see. Turns out, she loved it! We put her in and she did a great job holding her head up and giggled and grinned the whole time. Way to go baby girl!

Our social butterfly. She just wanted to be part of the conversation.

She is such a chubby little lady and this picture just showcases it. I love it!

Pumpkin Patch & Halloween

2011-11-06T18:30:00.017-05:00

Fall is my favorite time of year...except in San Antonio and then I get all bummed out. We went to the pumpkin patch which was just a big bust. I mean, the boys had a blast-they had the big blow up jumper, a corn maze, a tractor for the kids to climb out and a hay ride and best of all delicious kettle corn. But first of all it was about 85 degrees with hot sun which made it feel even hotter. We were all sweating to death and downing bottles of water. Second of all the "patch" is no where near an actual patch nor is it even close. You go out to a big open field with a bunch of pumpkins thrown in the middle of it which are all now rotten or just days away from being rotten because it is still so hot and we've had such little rain. So, needless to say, we went, we got our pumpkins and we left a hot, sweaty mess!

The boys had a great time carving pumpkins. Brady is doing more and more on his own every year-he's such a big boy now! And Grayson would have nothing to do with the carving last year, but this year he was a little more into it. Him and Pa Pa did his together. Grayson was funny though-he kept looking in at the guts and going Ewwwww! You do it!

Trick or treating was a great success! Brady was Woody this year and Grayson was a turtle. Grayson actually walked around the whole neighborhood this year. Last year he had to be carried after about 5 houses. Then we went home, dumped out all the candy and after sorting through it I let them eat as much as they wanted. I new it was time to call it quits when Grayson looked at me with a mouth full of tootsie roll with smarties stuck in there as well, eyes completely glazed over asking me to open another piece of candy. They both went to bed drunk on candy and sugar!

Grayson said, you want me to put my hand in there?!

Ewwwwww!!!!!

All carved and he's having so much fun with it.

He kept talking to it.

Our little punkin

Hayride at the pumpkin patch

Popcorn popper!

Big spider web

Running on the hay bails

Annual How big am I picture

I thought these scarecrows were funny!

Woody, a turtle and a skeleton

And they're off!

Sunday's best

2011-10-30T16:47:00.002-04:00

Kennedy is 6 weeks and is now starting to smile and coo at us. It totally melts my heart! She got a new dress from Mimi yesterday so I couldn't resist snapping some pictures of our pretty little lady. And believe it or not I have taken pictures of the boys since Kennedy has been born. We went to the pumpkin patch last week and took plenty of pictures of the boys there. I will hopefully get to posting those soon.

Precious Baby Girl

2011-10-11T16:29:00.004-04:00

Kennedy is now 3 1/2 weeks old! She is doing well and adjusting to life with 2 big brothers! She is a VERY sleepy baby and sleeps through all the ruckus of 2 boys and sleeps through the night from 11:30 pm-6 am-ish. This is a blessing, but on the other hand it makes feeding times very frustrating. She's not very good at staying awake for her feedings either. I have to work very hard at getting a full feeding in her. It usually takes about 45 min to an hour just to get her to eat for 10-20 min. And with Brady and Grayson and a busy schedule it is very frustrating. But we're working through it-she is only 3 1/2 weeks after all! And she is obviously getting what she needs because she is continuing to gain weight. At her 2 week appointment she was up to 8 lbs 8 oz from 8 obs 4 oz and had grown a little in length too. And when she is awake she is a sweet baby! We can't get enough of cuddling with her and watching all her cute faces!

First bath

Kennedy's first photo shoot

2011-09-23T21:48:00.005-04:00

Last Monday, when Kennedy was only 3 days old, we went and had her pictures taken. I think they turned out pretty dang cute.

Welcome Kennedy Faith!

2011-09-23T17:44:00.011-04:00

Baby Girl has finally arrived! Her name is Kennedy Faith. She was born on September 16th at 1 pm, weighed 8 lbs 4 oz and was 20.25 in long. This pregnancy has been very long and uncomfortable as you all know-I whined an awful lot! It was very different from my pregnancies with the boys and her labor and delivery was no different. With Brady I had a slow trickle with my water and contractions started at the same time. Total labor time was about 9 hours. With Grayson my water broke movie style in a big splash but my contractions didn't start for another 6 hours or so. Total labor time was 13 hours. But with Kennedy my Braxton hicks started around month 8. I'm pretty sure I was in labor for about 3 months! I started dilating 6 weeks before she actually came and had 2 different due dates and 2 different Dr's even though for this pregnancy we actually didn't move in the middle of it. So I joke that I was 40 weeks pregnant for 2 weeks! Haha! So needless to say since I had so many false contractions throughout the pregnancy I couldn't really tell if I was in labor or not.

So Friday morning I woke up feeling a little "off" and had frequent contractions all through the night. So I got up and as I sat at the table contemplating weather or not I was in labor I had contractions about 5-8 min. apart for 1 hour. So I thought maybe I'll wait until Brady gets home from school at 12 then go over to the Dr. Then I thought no, maybe I should call the Dr, take Brady to school and go over to the Dr. I took a shower and when I got done with that the contractions were a little more intense and I thought, no, we all just need to go. So we packed up the boys and my mother in law and headed to the hospital. Since my water hadn't broken and I wasn't positive I was in labor, they just had me come into the office to get checked. By this point contractions were about 3-4 min. apart and they had me wait for an eternity in the office waiting room! I guess I was only in there for about 15 min., but I was in labor waiting in a waiting room for the love of pete! I was so annoyed! When I got in to see the doc I was 5 cm and 90% effaced. Yes indeed I am in labor! I was admitted to labor and delivery at 11 am, by 12:40 pm I was 7 cm and 20 minutes later after one big push Kennedy Faith was born! And I am proud to say that she is my 3rd baby completely natural-no drugs and no interventions. And I am done-no more babies for me!

Super annoyed in the Dr's office.

This is Tim's job during my labors-my arm cannot be on my body and he has to hold it level. I know, it's weird! I have a picture of him doing this for all 3 of my children now.

Here she is! 8 lbs 4 oz. The biggest of the 3!

Proud Grandmas. Mimi (my mom) and Nana (Tim's mom). They were both there to see her birth.

She is in fact a girl!

Hello World!

Our first meeting. I'm in love!

Our new family of 5!

Brady was so excited to meet his new sister.

Mimi and her first grand-daughter.

Kennedy and her bros.

Nana and her first grand-daughter.

Proud daddy!

Hospital visitors-Ron & Barb

Pa Pa's favorite thing to do with the grand kids.

Heading home from the hospital after 2 days. The blanket is the one that my mom went home from the hospital in.

Finally home!

Brady and Mimi made Kennedy a birthday cake. Brady helped to "clean" off the utensils!

40 weeks of belly!

2011-09-08T18:22:00.008-04:00

In the beginning I wasn't so excited about showing my belly, but now it is unmistakeably a 40 week baby bump! We took these photos at our "in home photo studio". I think they came out pretty well other than the fact that Grayson does not pose well for pictures these days. He is just too busy! So, we did what we could.

I was just goofin around for this one, testing the back drop, flash, positioning of me and such and it turned out to be one of my favorite shots.

Baby Shower

2011-09-06T17:12:00.008-04:00

A few weeks ago I had my Baby Shower that my mom threw for me. It was lovely! It was fun to have a shower for a baby girl. Everything was pink or flowered or ruffled! We had some delicious food, played some silly games and ooooed and awwwed over lots of fun gifts! Thank you to all who could come and to those of who weren't there but sent gifts and well wishes anyway. You were there in my heart! This baby girl is so blessed to have so many people anxiously awaiting her arrival. I cannot wait to meet her and dress her up in all the cute clothes I've been recieving!

Adorable little outfit-Thank you Aunt Nancy & Uncle John!

Another one from Aunt Nancy-it says, "Does this diaper make my butt look big?" Too funny!
Yay! The bath tub! Thank you Kitty & Roger! Now she doesn't have dodge the boys in the tub!

Awwwww!!! Cute little hair bows! Thank you Monica!

Thank you everyone!Pretty cake from my favorite place-The Cake Shop. Yummy! The tablecloth underneath is the same material as the curtain and bedskirt (made by my mom) in baby girls room.

Oh so pretty! We used the bassinet my mom used when we were babies as the gift table.

Brady helped my mom pick out all the decorations and he insisted I needed this crown that says Mom to Be.

First Day of School!

2011-09-06T16:45:00.004-04:00

Brady had his first day of Pre-kindergarten on August 29th. We enrolled him this year into the program at the public school. It's a brand new school about 2 minutes from our house and will be the same school he will go to next year for Kindergarten. He now goes every day from 11:30 am-2:45. He did great on his first day-no tears. Just gave a big wave and a see ya later Ma! My big boy! Sniffle sniffle!

Brady's 5th Birthday Party

2011-08-19T23:28:00.007-04:00

We had Brady's birthday very early this year. His birthday is September 5th and my due date is September 11th. However, I delivered Grayson at 38 weeks, so if baby girl comes at 38 weeks as well that would be August 28th. Plus the kids go back to school on August 22nd, then theres Labor Day weekend and Brady's real birthday falls on Labor Day this year. So needless to say trying to plan Brady's birthday around all of this was challenging to say the least. Not to mention I am 9 months pregnant and don't have the energy or stamina to do my usual elaborate cake and have it at the house with fun decorations and games. So, I found a great place that provided the entertainment-nothing but bounce houses with slides and obstical courses and things to climb! and they did all the decorating for me. Brady requested cupcakes-bless his little heart, and wanted his 3 best buddies from school to be there. The party was a great success! The boys jumped and ran and climbed for a full hour then had 30 minutes to scarf down cupcakes and juice, tear into birthday presents and unload the contents of thier goody bags. It was great fun! We're so glad James, Nicco (and little brother) and Robbie (and little brother) could all come and celebrate! Thanks for making a great birthday!

Grayson, my resident daredevil, would have nothing to do with any of the bounce houses! He found this little riding toy that you rode down a ramp and just had a blast! He made Pa Pa push him down it for at least 20 minutes! Thank the Lord for Pa Pa!

Brady and his buddies.
Brady flying down one of the slides

Party room

I couldn't have just plain cupakes, so I found these little toppers online to print out and taped them to a lollipop stick. Simple, but adds a little more flare to his Kung Fu Panda party.

The other side of the party room-all decorated by the staff there at Pump it Up. I got to come in and approve 5 minutes before the party-so great!

The boys all ready for cupcakes-Brady said party hats were a must! Love it!

As soon as we got to Pump it Up they gave him an inflatable crown and sceptor, then they had this inflatable thrown for him to sit in and blow out his candles and open presents.

Grayson really enjoyed the cupcakes!

Opening presents. Present time at kids birthday party's always crack me up. All the kids have to be in the middle of it helping. It's a big group effort!

Then of course they all wanted to be in the chair!

The Men.

Pa Pa had the day off and was able to come help out, and Tim was able to leave work early and speed across town to make it there just in time for cake. Phew! The moms were on the other side of the room gabbin away!

36 weeks

2011-08-13T16:05:00.003-04:00

I had my 36 week appt. yesterday. 36 weeks-that means I am 9 months pregnant, 4 weeks away from my due date, but 2 weeks away from when I delivered Grayson. I have gained exactly 25 lbs, so that means it is time for her to arrive. My blood pressure and pulse remain normal and low and I still don't have any swelling. At this appt. the Dr. did check my cervix and I am already 50% effaced (thinned out) and a good 1 cm (almost 2 cm) dilated and my belly is measuring at 37 cm, which is about a cm bigger than where I should be at this point. I have been having A LOT of braxton hicks with this pregnancy, so it seems some of them have been productive contractions. Hopefully they continue to be productive and she will be here in the next two and a half weeks. She has to hold off for 2 1/2 more weeks because my thoughtful husband got me mother's rings for mothers day with all my babies birthstones-including baby girls! So, if she is born in August I have to return the sapphire (Sept. birthstone which I LOVE!) and get the peridot (August birthstone, which is also my birthstone, which I don't think it the prettiest-bleck!). Therefor she must be born Sept. 1st. But no later than, because as we all know I am SOOOOOO ready to have this baby!!!!!!!! Here are my latest belly shots.

Holy Moley this belly is huge!!

Boys new room

2011-08-12T17:40:00.004-04:00

Since we moved in to this house the boys have had their own room. But with Baby Girl on the way, I wanted to move Grayson and Brady into the same room and make Graysons old room Baby Girls room. Re-decorating the boys room and decorating Baby Girls room have been my latest obsession and it's finally complete! The boys sports room turned out great! Brady told me his new room is so cool-even with the addition of a little brother! And if you can believe it, since moving his brother into his room, Brady is now staying in bed all night. What a relief! When I was picking out new nightstands, Tim kept saying he could build them for way cheaper. So I said ok, give it a whirl. He just got all these fun new tools from my Grandpa when we were in MI, so why not give em a whirl! Well, it turns out they were way more labor intensive and did not end up any cheaper! But they did turn out really nicely! These things are like mini bookshelves! They look great though-and Daddy built them-way cool! Here are pictures of their new sports room!

Walking in the doorway to their room

Brady's nightstand-handmade by dad

Graysons nightstand-handmade by dad

This is out in the playroom. I have been wanting to hang this turtle quilt we got in Hawaii since we moved in and I finally got my dad to make me a shelf. It turned out great! Thank you Pa Pa! He also made a shelf for Baby Girls room to hold the quilt being made by Great Granny Dee. Pictures of her room are coming soon!

It's my birthday!

2011-08-07T17:00:00.002-04:00

Today is my 31st birthday. I didn't really have a desire to do much of anything so it's been a pretty low key birthday. My wonderful family is doing a great job taking care of me and I've managed to stretch my birthday out over the whole weekend. My Granny sent me a pedicure for my birthday and my mom gave me some fun new "yellow box" flip flops. My mom says yellow box flip flops are the best and I just had to have a pair. So yesterday afternoon I put on my new fancy flip flops and we went and got our toes done. It was wonderful! Thank you Mom and Granny! Then later that evening Mimi and Pa Pa took the kids for the evening and Tim and I went on a date. We went to dinner and a movie. Then this morning we got up, went to church and out to IHOP for breakfast. De-lish! Now I've had my nap and a quiet afternoon. All in all it's been a good birthday for being 35 weeks pregnant.

My beauti-ful toes and new flip flops.

33 weeks preggo

2011-07-25T17:50:00.004-04:00

During this pregnancy I have not wanted to take any belly shots like I did with the previous 2. But at this point, it is now all baby and don't feel so bad about taking them and sharing them. So here's my big ol belly at 32 weeks:

I am feeling ginormous and miserable! I technically have 7 more weeks to go, but I had Grayson at 38 weeks, so I'm thinking I might go a little early with this baby as well. I am thinking the 1st of September sounds good (hopefully baby girl agrees) and in that case I have about 5 weeks left. Either way, her arrival cannot get here soon enough! Medically, this pregnancy has been perfect-no gestational diabetes, blood pressure stayed normal, I don't have any swelling, I have gained 23 lbs thus far (which is right on par), babies heart rate is normal (140-144 bpm) and my belly/uterus measurements are right on track. The baby should weigh about 4 1/2 lbs by now and these last couple weeks she is just gaining weight and her lungs continue to mature. But like I said in the beginning of this post, I am just miserable! I don't know if it's the heat (100 degrees is just too dang hot for a pregnant lady!), or the fact that I have 2 busy boys to chase after, or just the fact that I am not a young whipper snapper any more, but none the less I am miserable and cannot wait for this baby girl to get here! I complain all the time, I can't bend over, I teach one baby boot camp class, or go to the commissary or run one errand and have to come home and take a nap and am exhausted for the rest of the day. I mean it's just ridiculous! I am already having some lovely daily braxton hicks and she is very active in there and is running out of room for her in-utero polkas! I am counting down the days!

Yard work

2011-07-06T13:56:00.005-04:00

Last summer I had Tim dig up some grass and create a flower bed. This summer, I noticed the neighbor had put these cool rings around his trees out of wood timbers. I thought it would look cool if we did the same-we had those ugly plastic borders around the tree and it was just looking bad. But of course we couldn't stop there. I thought it would look nice too if we extended our flower bed a bit and put the timbers around it as a border too. So, my handy hubby got out his saw and went to work constructing my vision. I think he did a great job and it turned out lovely!

Final Product-there is also another tree with a ring on the other side of the yard.

When we moved in the whole yard was grass.

Grayson's 2nd Birthday

2011-07-02T11:46:00.006-04:00

On May 13th, my baby turned 2! It's hard to imagine he is already 2! He is an amazing little boy full of personality! He is still my laid back, mellow happy baby. He is on the go non stop doing anything and everything that brother is doing. He is now talking in full sentences and repeats everything! I call him and Brady "Pete and Repeat"! He did a year of The Little Gym and absolutely loved all the climbing, running, jumping, ball play, bubble play and of course the animal crackers at the end! He is now in swimming for the summer and is having a ball with that as well. Not a fan of floating on his back, but he'll get there. He is now into trains and cars and everything boy! He is all rough and tumble! The kid gets a new bruise on his face or leg or arm daily and sheds very few tears over them. He usually rubs the spot, says "Owww!", then keeps on going. At his 2 year well baby he weighed in at 28.8 lbs putting him in the 59th percentile and 34 in tall putting him in the 66th percentile. Pretty average/normal little guy. And as he quickly as he turned 2, he turned right into the "terrible" two's! He has his own opinion, wants to do everything HIS way and throws a great temper tantrum! As a result, it made my potty training in one day a little difficult. It was NOT as successful as it was with Brady. After a torturous weekend for us all, I decided to give it a break for a while and come back to it in a few months. Since I am now so pregnant and my one day method is a lot of work, I think we will just wait until after baby sister arrives to try it again. We'll see. But, potty trained or not, my Grayson is a joyous little boy! I can't imagine our life without him!

Thomas the train cake made by mom from scratch.

Make a wish!

I let Grayson lick the candle, and he took a bite right out of it! This boy LOVES his sweets!

Reading a Thomas the train book to Grayson and his birthday guests while they blew thier train whistles they got as party favors. All the moms were very pleased I sent those home with the kids! Haha!!!
Grayson opening his Quiet book made by Great Granny Dee on her Cricket. The book is very neat!

We tried potty training the following weekend, so for his birthday, he got lots of cute little undies. He had to put them on only to pee in them 10 minutes later!

Potty training attempts.

It's a girl!

2011-07-01T00:13:00.003-04:00

It has been quite a few months since we have found out we are having a girl, but it has also been quite a few months since I have updated my blog! Ugh, how busy life gets....and with the arrival of our little girl it will only get busier! So yes, we are having a girl! Wahooooo!!!!!!!!!!! Brady is so excited to be having a baby sister and Grayson is finally starting to acknowledge the fact that there just might be a baby in mommies tummy. Here is the gift that Tim and I gave to the boys and my parents at the same time that we texted the picture to Tim's mom, so everyone found out all at once. Everyone erupted in screams, claps and hoorays!

Daily Deals for moms by moms

2011-06-21T12:15:00.003-04:00

Have I got a deal for you! I am running a deal on a site similar to Groupon called Juice in the City. The site features daily deals for moms by moms and is your daily kick in the pants to go and have some fun! All deals are for your particular local area. I am running a deal for Baby Boot Camp Northwest today, Tuesday, June 21st for 4 classes for $29! To take advantage of this deal click on the link below:

http://juiceinthecity.com/markets/san-antonio/deals/29-for-4-baby-boot-camp-classes-at-san-antonio-northwest-locations?referrer=93aag2ka1g

Happy Easter!

2011-05-15T11:25:00.009-04:00

We had a lovely Easter. We went to the early mass (9 am-yes, getting 2 little ones out the door and to an event by 9 am is early!) then went back to Mimi and Pa Pa's for Easter baskets, egg hunting and supper. Last year Grayson was almost 1 and wasn't really into Easter yet, but this year being almost 2, he was totally into it! Both boys had a blast dyeing Easter eggs then discovering that the Easter bunny had hidden them! They thought their Easter baskets filled with candy and presents were pretty cool too.
This Easter season has filled me with joy and has humbled me of all the blessings I have in my life all because our God was so unselfish to give up his only son to save us. Hallelujah! Jesus Christ has risen today!

My 20 week belly shot.

Angelic little boys! Haha!

Easter boys

Goof ball!

Easter baskets!

Grasyon got the egg hunt Thomas the train.

And Brady got a sea diver mask he had been wanting.

Egg hunt!

Daddy and Papa got a little creative with their hidding spots!

Accounting for all the eggs.

I told the boys they could eat as much candy as they wanted all day-and Grayson was never without a piece of candy in his mouth!

And of course we had to end the day with the Mexican tradition of cascarone's! They are confetti filled egg shells that you crack over peoples heads. Good stuff!

Dyeing Easter eggs!

Grayson kept tossing the eggs into the dye-we had mostly cracked eggs!

Fiesta Float Parade

2011-04-28T21:13:00.005-04:00

Here in San Antonio we celebrate Fiesta which is a week long celebration held every year in April. It started in 1891 as the Battle of Flowers parade to honor the heroes of the Alamo and Battle of San Jacinto. Now there are tons of events throughout the week and it all culminates on a Friday with the Battle of Flowers Parade. So, in celebration of Fiesta, Brady's pre-school had their annual parent child hot dog lunch followed by their own parade. Each child had to decorate a riding toy of some sort then they had a parade in the parking lot for the parents to watch. I thought Brady's little trike (complete with brother in the trailer) was pretty dang cute. But holy cow, you should have seen some of these "floats"! Some of them were good enough to be put in the real parade!

Brady and his buds all lined up ready for the parade.

Brady's buds-James, Nicco & Robbie

Brady and his float

Heading home after a good day of parading
Brady and buds from his class-Nicco & James

Brady & Nicco with their little bros

The last of Spring Break

2011-04-25T15:09:00.008-04:00

Man oh man, this pregnancy is kicking my butt! I cannot make it through a day without a nap and these two little boys are wearing me out! I can only imagine life with a 3rd! There will never be a dull moment, that's for sure! So anyhow, here is the conclusion (finally!) of our Spring Break. Thursday Mimi was able to come with us to the Children's Museum and on Friday, Pa Pa was able to come to the zoo with us. Both places were very crowded because it was Spring Break so it made things a little less enjoyable. But, all in all the boys had fun-it was something different from the normal weekly routine.

Bubble tables! Grayson hadn't quite figured out how to blow yet-he kept sucking in.

They had a separate section just for 3 years and under with lots of hands on things for tiny tots to experiment with. Grayson loved it!

Car/train table he could have played at all afternoon.

An airplane the kids could get in and out of with seats in the main cabin, and a cockpit they could fly the plane in. This is where Brady wanted to play the whole day.

Brady is back there milking the cow.

Pint sized grocery store. There were cash registers and things too for the kids to check out at and buy their groceries.

They had a science experiment/presentation called Elephant toothpaste. She mixed some chemicals together and when they reacted together they made a bunch of this foamy stuff.

She asked the kids if they were ready and Brady clapped and giggled. He was so excited! Too cute!
And here is the final product. Elephant toothpaste.

San Antonio Zoo. Not the greatest zoo (especially just after having lived in DC and visiting the National Zoo), but we were able to see a few animals up close and in person. It was very hot and crowded and we only had a few hours to play. By the time we got there it was after noon and the bears and lions and tigers were all inside keeping cool and napping. We were bummed.

Crocodile

All Brady said he wanted to do was see the elephants. We stood and watched them do nothing for a good 15 minuets.

Rhinoceros

Zebra and ostrich

And of course, we had to finish the day with ICE CREAM!!!!

Kiddos gone wild!

2011-03-23T22:46:00.011-04:00

Wooooo! Spring break! Last week was Spring Break. It's so funny how much spring break for me has changed since I've grown up and had kids. I have fond memories of my springs breaks from college. My junior year my friend Sara and I took the train from Ball State in Muncie, IN up to New York City and my senior year me and 5 other girls drove down to Miami's port and went for a week long cruise. Ah good times! So now, 10 years later (holy cow, 10 years???!!!!), this week was spring break and it seemed like the entire city closed up shop and went on vacation. Brady didn't have school for the week, he didn't have a soccer game over the weekend, Grayson didn't have Little Gym and I didn't have my Thursday night meeting for my upcoming retreat. So, I said, heck, let's do it up right, let's do Spring break! Tim still had to work of course, so I planned a different fun activity here in San Antonio for me and the boys to do each day of the week. We started off the week by going to see a play at the Magik Children's theater. We saw "If you give a Pig a Party" by Laura Numeroff. The boys loved it! It was about 45 minutes long and they stayed captivated the entire time. We will definitely be going back! I forgot my camera though, so no pictures from that. Our next outing was to Sea World on Wednesday. Big mistake! Everyone took spring break and went to Sea World! We've been so spoiled with our seasons passes and have been able to go quite a bit in the off season when it is very empty. They just built a new section called the Bay of Play that features the Sesame Street gang and lots of fun rides for the little kids and fun things for the kids to climb. There was also a water park, but we'll try that out another day. So, we just took it slow and did a lot of playing and dolphin watching. It was a great day!

I always want to take the boys picture here, but no one will ever let me. There's always people waiting to pose in front of Shamu and it's such a production to get the boys to both smile at the same time. So, since I was by myself I did it! I should put the series of pictures here-it is quite the gag reel. This is the last picture. Brady put his arm around Grayson and I got a nice smiling pose then came this one-the head lock! Haha!

Not so sure why he is doing this lately, but it is his latest thing to show his tummy to you. Maybe he new it was spring break and he wanted to get crazy! Grayson gone wild! And you gotta love the crooked hat! What a goof!
Picnic lunch with my boys.

This is Brady climbing on the nets at the Bay of Play. I am standing below him in the tot spot with Grayson.

Hey look, there's brother!

Grayson playing in the tot spot.

Brady running down the giant net mountain.

This was a net tunnel that led over to another net. These were like 20 feet off the ground. Brady got half way through and turned around because he was scared. Maybe next time.

Cute little sea otter.

The boys looking at the seals and sea lions. Brady got to feed them this time.

Cute little seal.

Nemo!

And of course we had to end the day with ice cream! Every day now ends with ice cream-hey, I'm pregnant!

And poor Grayson fell asleep on the way to ice cream. Poor fella-no ice cream this time.

Baby's 1st Pictures

2011-03-19T23:43:00.003-04:00

I had my first official ultrasound last Friday to date the pregnancy. I was the radiologists last patient for the day, so she wasn't in a hurry, and we got to see lots of the baby. Our little peanut was squirming around all over the place! We were able to see and hear a nice strong heart beat and we got a nice clear view of the femur and the arms and feet and the facial features. It's amazing how teeny tiny the baby still is (about the size of a peach), but how completely formed and how much like a person it looks! The baby squirmed around so much the radiologist had a tough time getting the measurements, but after a while she was finally able to get it to hold still and she dated the pregnancy at 13 weeks 5 days which was 1 week and 2 days further than the dates said. I haven't seen my doctor since the ultrasound, so I'm not sure if they'll change my due date or not, but none the less, I am now 14/15 weeks. My current due date is September 20th, so this baby might actually come a lot closer to Brady's birthday (September 5th) than we thought! Nice birthday present for Brady eh?!

This shot cracks me up! The baby looks like it's kicked back chillin in a hammock! All my chub must be providing a nice comfy cushion! haha!!

Here is a nice profile shot. The head is pointing to the the left and you can see baby's abdomen and I think a little hand poking out.

This one is a little tough to make out, but here you can see baby's face pointing to the right. You can a better view of the eyes, nose and chin and a bit of baby's abdomen.

Lunch with Shamu

2011-02-28T18:05:00.008-05:00

For Valentines Day Tim's mom (Nanna) made us reservations to have lunch with Shamu this past Sunday. Since we have had our seasons passes to sea world, the boys LOVE whales, so I knew Grayson especially would love this. We did this a few years ago when I was actually pregnant with Grayson and Brady had a great time then and this time was no different. They have a buffet set up and tables right next to the whales practice tanks. From the moment we sat down Grayson's eyes were glued to Shamu. He just stared and pointed and kept saying, "whale!", "there he is", and "Shamu!". He sat there the whole time with a piece of watermelon in each hand and he took a bite of each and that was it, so needless to say the little bear was very hungry later that evening. So we got to eat yummy food and watch Shamu swim around and the trainers did a few fun things with him and they gave us lots of fun facts about the whales. After lunch was over we enjoyed the rest of the afternoon playing at sea world. Good stuff! Thank you Nanna!

Grayson's view from the table.

When they started the presentation they told everyone they could come up to the fence if they wanted to get a better look. Tim and I weren't finished eating yet, so we just pushed Grayson up there in his high chair since he wasn't eating anyway, and he was pleased as punch!

And here are Tim and I, enjoying our cheesecake! :)

The boys taking in the sites.Shamu, up close and personal.
Shamu and her baby who was born here in January. They are teaching her all the tricks but don't expect too much out of her yet since she's so young. So they allow her to just follow along her momma and do some tricks if and when she feels like it. This show she did quite a bit. Too cute!
One of Brady's favorite things-feeding the dolphins.Every other time we have done this Grayson has been very tentative and wouldn't lay on his belly, but this time he did! He still didn't want to feed them, but at least he was willing to get a little closer.

The penguins! Tim got some great shots of these guys.

Spring Garden

2011-02-28T16:58:00.003-05:00

I haven't been successful with my tomatoes here in Texas yet, so for my spring garden I made sure I got my plants started on February 1st. And boy did they take off! I started cherry & Roma tomatoes, green beans, zucchini, peppers, basil, cilantro and parsley. I was thinking I would wait until March 15th or so to put them in the ground to make sure we wouldn't have any more freezes, but the weather here has been so nice and warm that I went ahead and put them in the ground today. So hopefully by the end of April we should have some lovely vegetables! I also put in some strawberries this year and started a raspberry and blueberry bush last year, so hopefully they should produce some fruit for us this spring. I just realized my blueberry bush needed to be cross pollinated, so we got him a mate this season-mate away little blueberry bushes!

Here are my veggie starts. The bean plant is trying to reach the sky!

And here it is after I planted them in my garden today. Not much to look at now, but very soon they'll be blooming away!

Small sigh of relief

2011-02-25T16:33:00.002-05:00

I had a prescription that I needed to be renewed and since I am pregnant my primary care Dr. wouldn't do it and the Ob clinic wouldn't do it over the phone. And since my 1st appointment isn't until next Thursday, I had to go in today for a quick acute care appointment just so they could renew my prescription. I was feeling super annoyed about this, but when I got there they checked my weight (bleck!), and vitals then the nurse said ok, now we're going to listen to the baby then I'll go get the Dr. I haven't heard the heart beat yet and totally wasn't expecting them to do this. So she started searching with the doppler, but since it's still pretty early (10 weeks + 5 days), we didn't expect to find it. After a while of searching we found it for about 5 seconds, so she went and got the ultrasound machine! So not only did I get to hear the heartbeat, I got to see the baby too! It was a nice strong heart beat of 157 bpm and our little peanut was in there just a wiggling away! It was such a beautiful site and wonderful sound! I feel ten times better now. I know the baby is still there and there is a heart beat. Phew!

Baby Bump

2011-02-17T00:06:00.004-05:00

Ok, I can't take it any more (I was trying to wait until the end of the first trimester, but I've never been known to keep a pregnancy under wraps), I have to put it out there-I'm preggo! Yay! Since the day we found out I have been a ball of nerves! With the boys I wasn't nervous at all, I continued to work out like normal and didn't really feel all that different. But with this one I have been so nervous something will go wrong. And with our wonderful military health care, I can't get in for my first appointment until March 3rd! I'll be 12 weeks by that point for crying out loud! I mean I did drag my feet before I called to schedule my appointment because I didn't want to "get ahead of myself" or anything, but still! So needless to say I still haven't heard the heart beat or anything and it's driving me nuts! I did go get blood work done and at least confirm the pregnancy, so at least I've got that going for me. But aside from being nervous I have been exhausted and nauseous. I had to completely give up coffee-I tried to switch to decaf, but it just made me feel like I was going to barf. Then pretty much all day I feel like I'm going to barf. I mean, it hasn't really affected my appetite, strangely enough. I'm always hungry! So, if I go too long without eating, I feel sick, then about 30 minutes after I eat, I feel sick. It's a no win situation. However, after sending out my email to all of you wonderful friends and family I received some great words of encouragement that makes all this bleckiness worth it-you all say these are signs this will be a girl. :) Let's hope! I will update my blog with my progress. Belly shots may have to wait a bit though. With both boys I made sure I started out the pregnancy in really good shape and at my pre-preggo weight-well, not so much with this one. I'm feeling a little chubby, so I will NOT be posting any early belly shots!

Let's Rodeo San Antonio!

2011-02-15T12:03:00.007-05:00

This past weekend we went to the annual San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo. The Rodeo was about an hour and a half and both boys sat through the whole thing. They got to see bull riding, saddle bronc riding, bareback riding, tie-down roping, steer wrestling, team roping, barrel racing and of course mutton bustin' where little tikes ride sheep as long as they can hold on (I love this part! The kids are so dang cute!). After the rodeo, we went out to the grounds and went to the petting zoo (another highlight) and checked out the livestock and horses. All in all-good times at the rodeo!

Brady at the rodeo

This was in the dairy barn-Grayson was suckin down my milk shake!

Grandpa Cooper-take a look at this old John Deere!

Grayson stood there and said "Moooooooo!" and "Cow!"

Cute little cowboys

Grayson was terrified at first and was clinging to Tim, but once he got warmed up he LOVED all the animals!

A Llama!

The animals in the petting zoo were VERY pushy! I think this one was preggo and she kept pushing her way into everyones food.

Brady wasn't so sure about putting the feed in his hand. He was more comfortable to just watch and pet.

Snow in San Antone!

2011-02-04T20:01:00.004-05:00

So, it did indeed snow here in San Antonio! My dad had today already scheduled off, so my mom picked Brady up from school yesterday and he spent the night with Mimi and Pa Pa. They were so excited to get up in the morning and go for a walk in the woods in the snow. Tim got up this morning to go to work, looked outside and noticed that our street was a sheet of ice! So, he watched the news covering the jack-knifed truck on the high way, the now closed highways and spoke to a few co-workers who were stuck on the highway not moving at all. Needless to stay he did not go to work.
Because this doesn't happen very often in San Antonio they didn't have the appropriate equipment or knowledge to salt the streets last night and with temperatures below freezing the whole city was a sheet of ice! They shut down all the highways and most of the businesses were closed. The whole city was shut down due to a little ice and 0.4 inches of snow! Too funny! Here are some pictures from our San Antonio snow day.

Brady on his walk in the woods with Pa Pa.

The street at our house. Our neighbor across the street has a jet ski and a tube-you can see him on the left pulling his kid down the street.

Our backyard-look at all the snow!!

I thought I was in Texas!

2011-02-03T18:17:00.002-05:00

This weather is crazy! Brrrr! It has been freezing here in San Antonio for about the past week. I mean, I know it doesn't compare to the feet of snow being dumped on most of you who read this blog, but still! It's not supposed to be THIS cold! It's 21 degrees here for crying out loud. And now, they are forecasting snow! I highly doubt we will get any, but they are forecasting a dusting to 1 inch of snow. Nuts! I hope all of you are surviving the cold and the snow!

Tim's promotion

2011-01-26T17:33:00.007-05:00

In December Tim was finally promoted to E6-Staff Seargent. Wahooo! Congrats Tim! He worked very hard to get this promotion and it is well deserved!

Staff Seargent MannTim asked me to "pin" (The new uniforms are all velcro) on his rank.

Maj. Heinman-one of Tim's bosses, she thinks he's pretty great. (I think he was distracted by the kids hence the askewed look )

Funny story-this Sgt. Major of the hospital just randomly popped in to the promotion ceremony (Tim has never talked to the fellow) and did this "old tradition" of wetting his rank. Tim and his buddies were a bit perplexed.

Christmas Program

2011-01-24T13:53:00.003-05:00

This was Brady's Christmas Program at school. They sang for us then we had cookies and juice. Yum! His Daddy couldn't be there for the program so he gave us a sneak peak the night before at dinner. It always amazes me how many songs he knows.

Grayson's 1st haircut

2011-01-24T00:18:00.007-05:00

Before

He looks like he might fall asleep!

Should we leave it this way?!

All done and lookin so cute.

Just chillin-no rush to get up.

All done and so daper!

Grayson's Baptism

2011-01-23T23:24:00.006-05:00

Even though Grayson was older than the norm for an infant baptism, I still wanted him neked and to be dunked. Well, there was a miscommunication, I wanted him held and dunked and my dad just sat him in the font then baptised him by pouring the water over his head. Well, I forgot that he hates that and with the first pour he stood up and tried to make a break for it, therefor all of our pictures of the actual baptism came out a tad inappropriate to post! :) This picture is just after the pouring of the water.

This sequence of pictures cracks me up! All I wanted was a nice picture of him in his precious little baptismal outfit, but he was being such a stinker and wouldn't sit still for any pictures, so I thought I might get some better ones outside with him standing and this is what I got.

My mom offered to make the cake and I gave in and said ok. She did a beautiful job!

Godmothers are such a blessing!

Brady's Soccer

2011-01-23T14:26:00.008-05:00

Super Star!

He gave me a thumbs up after every goal he scored. Too cute!

So serious-ready to play!

The Lil' Kickers

Some videos of our little kicker

Brady's insights

2011-01-23T13:33:00.002-05:00

We asked Brady what came first, the chicken or the egg. This is how the conversation went:

Daddy: Hey Brady, which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Brady: The chicken of course.

Daddy: But if a chicken hatches from an egg, how did the chicken get here?

(without hesitation he replies)

Brady: Because God created the chicken.

And Daddy was done playing stump the kid. haha! This conversation made me smile! Happy Sunday.

Halloween & Pumpkin patch pics

2011-01-22T17:06:00.009-05:00

Trick or Treating in our neighborhood

Buzz Light Year and a Monkey

Brady with his buds from school at the school trick or treat event

Grayson enjoying the fruits of his labor-a sucker!

Each kid had to bring in a decorated uncarved pumpkin for the school pumpkin patch. This was Brady's.

Family Halloween pic-Tim dressed up too! Haha! Nope, just came straight from work.

I like this Halloween thing!

Vampire teeth!

Sorting through all their candy.

Pumpkins!

Ok Grayson, let's carve this pumpkin!

You want me to stick my hand in where?!

How bout I use a shovel! He kept pointing at the insides and saying Eeeewwww!!!
Brady sawing away

Pony ride

My beautiful boys

Riding the barrel train.

Photo op along the hay ride-kinda strange, but oh well.

How tall is my punkin this year!

Overdue update

2011-01-21T00:26:00.003-05:00

Well, I have managed to accomplish 2 things already on my list of resolutions for the year 2012....wait, no 2011! I caught my mistake and tried to fix it but the dang computer wouldn't let me do it! How embarrassing! Anyway, so I managed to put in place a budget for the year. Phew! That was not easy, but it feels good to have it in place. I was also able to get the boys playroom re-organized. I spent quite a few hours at container store trying to decide on just the right bins. All their baby toys are put away, and their new/age appropriate toys are all in bins complete with pictures on the front of what goes in the bin! Genius I tell you! Now, the hard part will be to get the boys to actually follow the pictures and put their toys away!

Tim is trying to get into PA school in March and so he has to take a few required classes now. He started the semester this week with Algebra and a wellness course. They are both online and are going to require quite a bit of work. He is realizing he's got his work cut out for him! So, he is in the office working on his math homework, so I thought I would get caught up on my blogging since I have him out of my hair now-haha!!

I seem to have skipped a few fun events from the fall when updating my blog, so I thought I'd go back and do a quick re-cap.

The kids had a great Halloween-Brady dressed up as Buzz Lightyear ( a compromise, he wanted to be Iron Man, I sad no!) and Grayson was the cutest little monkey! We taught him to make the monkey sound, so the whole time he trick or treated he said Ooo ooo ah ah. Very cute! Grayson made it down the street before needing to be carried, and Brady made it all the way around the neighborhood.They both got tons of candy! We also had lots of fun visiting all the pumpkin patches in town. Well, just 2, but still. The boys enjoyed all the corn mazes, hay bails, tractor rides, pony rides and petting zoos, and pumpkin picking. Grayson carved his first pumpkin, but wasn't very interested in the whole process. We got him to clean out a few handfuls of the guts, but that was about it. Brady did a great job though and we even let him do the tracing of the pattern and the sawing! Such a big boy!

Brady spent the fall playing soccer. They practiced twice a week and had games on Saturdays. Brady was one of the oldest in the group and had the most experience playing, so he pretty much dominated the field. We had to work with him on sharing the ball and trying to get his teammates to play. Brady would go out there and score like 10 goals and the other kids would be playing in the dirt, just standing there or sitting on the side with mom and dad. It was pretty funny to watch. I found a league that has better coaching and the kids on his team will hopefully be closer to his age and skill level. That starts in February and he cant wait for soccer to start again!

In November, Grayson was finally baptised! My Dad who is a Deacon did the dunking and my good friend Jen Glaser flew in from VA to be the Godmother and my brother Doug flew in from North Carolina to be the Godfather. They were both only here for the weekend, but we had a wonderful visit! Grayson is now officially a baptised catholic!

Later that month I finally gave in and took Grayson for his first haircut. The only place his hair was really long was in the back. And I don't know what it was, but I did not want to get it cut! It was so soft and he loved me to play with his hair and maybe it just meant that he was still a baby. But when we gave him a bath one night his hair went down to his shoulders when it got wet, so I thought, ok, it's time. And he did great! Brady screamed through his entire first hair cut. Grayson on the other hand sat up in the chair like a big boy, sucked his lollipop and watched sports while the stylist did her thing. That's my laid back Grayson.

On November 20th, Tim and I celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary. My parents watched the boys and we had a lovely dinner out alone at the Melting Pot. He was wonderful! And still so hard to believe that we had been married for 7 years! What an incredible journey it has been!

Then there was Thanksgiving. We hosted the big day at our house and there were 9 adults and 3 children. I worked all week making sure everything was done ahead of time and had everything scheduled and planned out to the minute. It was great! I was even able to go for a run in the morning then come home and watch the parade! We had great food and great company. It was a very blessed Thanksgiving.

December was another super busy month. I am a part of a Moms Club and hosted the Christmas Party the first weekend, then hosted a Pampered Chef party the following weekend, then had a weekend off, then Tim's mom and dad came down for Christmas. The nice thing about hosting so many events and guests was it made me keep my house clean! Haha!!

So that is a recap of what we've been up to. I will post pictures of it all soon.

New Years Resolution

2010-12-29T22:51:00.008-05:00

It appears I have some followers on this here blog and I received quite a bit of heckling over the holidays for not updated it. So, here is a quick update on some of my thoughts and maybe once I get this post finished I will post a new Christmas picture or two. I am sitting here typing on my new fancy laptop watching the Alamo bowl while I search the web for some inspirational organizational ideas. Since we moved here to SA and bought my Baby Boot Camp franchise I haven't been able to fall into a groove. I just feel so unorganized in all aspects of my life. My goal for this new year of 2012 is to get organized. More specifically I want to organize this toy store the kids got for Christmas; I want to plan out a years worth of budget; I want to plan out Tim and I's entire race schedule for the year to coincide with some overdue visits to our out of state families; I want to create a marketing plan for baby boot camp and get the word out there; I want a minimum of 10 moms who are regulars; I want to better organize my days; I want to make exercise a priority again and lose about 20 lbs of "baby weight" (haha!!!). The reason behind all of these goals is to be able to relax and spend a little more time enjoying my family. I decided to be a stay at home mom for a reason-and that reason was to be with my children, enjoy my children, teach my children and be the sole influence on them. Right now I don't feel like I am doing this well enough and the time I have with them before they are off to school is so short that I want to take more advantage of the opportunity and live in the moment with my beautiful boys.

And here is a toast to all those resolutions out there. May they all be achieved with ease and grace. May you all be blessed with happiness, health and lots of laughter! Happy New Year!

Brady checking out his Gingerbread family from Great Granny Dee

The Mann fam with Grandpa Mann (visiting from IN) and Nana (visiting from KS)

Papa and Brady listening to the Christmas Bears reading of Twas the night before Christmas

Grayson and Mimi on Christmas morning. Grayson is stuffing his face with the half eatin cookie left from Santa. That boy has a sweet tooth!

Busy Days

2010-10-15T10:34:00.004-04:00

Wow, what a busy month we have had! I started off the month at a conference for Baby Boot Camp in Sarasota Florida. We originally were going to go as a family and make it a vacation, but we couldn't make the finances work, so only I went. Tim kept saying have fun on vacation, to which I scoffed, I'm not going on vacation, I'm going to a work conference! However, after flying on an airplane, checking in to the hotel and heading out to the cafe by the pool to have a sandwich and a beer and doing all of this quickly/smoothly and stress free without having to lug around 2 car seats, a stroller, worry about snacks, potty breaks, diaper changes and who's about to melt down...as I sat there in the lovely breeze soaking in the sun halfway bored, I thought, ok, maybe I am on vacation! It turned out to be a fantastic weekend! I was feeling really down about the business not taking off and was struggling with my time management now that I have 2 kiddos and trying to still provide them the educational and emotional interaction they need each day and still get the work done that I need to to make the business successful. We had 3 days full of really informative presentations-in a conference room that looked out over the beach-and 3 days of exercise workshops to refresh my classes-all these workshops/exercise classes were done at 7 am on the beach-it was beautiful! And to top it all off my fellow Baby Boot Camp owners are a great group of women who had nothing but encouraging words and great ideas to share with everyone. I came home feeling totally rejuvenated and hit the ground running! I have already made leaps and bounds in improvements. Plus, it was nice to get away from the kids and all my home/mom responsibilities for a few days!
Then the following weekend we had our "last" bike event of the season. I say "last", because Tim just volunteered to be a bike medic for the Livestrong 90 mile ride in Austin on the 24th. He just signed up for this a few days ago. Hmmm....me and the boys might volunteer to help out at a break point or start line stuff. We'll see. I would love to ride in it, but it is another fund raising ride and we agreed to only do one of those per season and last weekend we did the MS 150. But, since he is a volunteer he doesn't have to pay or raise funds, he is donating his time instead. Yeah, rough gig! So anyway, last weekend we did the MS 150 which is a bike ride starting at the Alamo Dome downtown San Antonio and riding 70 miles (with a 100 mile Century option-which of course we took!) out to New Braunfels on Day 1, then a 60 mile ride back to San Antonio on Day 2. Last year my dad and I rode it and it poured the entire first day! It rained so much that there was flooding in New Braunfels and they closed the century option, then canceled Day 2! It was absolutely miserable! But this year was wonderful! We had perfect weather and the ride was organized very well. Since it was a charity ride there weren't any timing chips and places weren't awarded. But we rode very well and finished day 1 in about 5 hours ride time. Unfortunately my Dad had to fly out to a conference on Sunday morning so it was just Tim and I riding on Day 2. We did even better though on Day 2! It was an awesome ride! We averaged 18 miles/hour and were done by 11:30 am! It was great! It was a great ride to finish out the season on...I am getting ready to run a 5 miler though the end of October, so the race season is completely finished. Just the big ones for now. Hopefully a baby bump will be getting in my way soon! :)

Team "Mannhandlers"

The Wurst Tri Ever

2010-09-28T11:53:00.005-04:00

In the pool, ready for the swim!

Heading out of Transition #1 and off to the 14 mile bike ride.

Tim in Transition #2 after the bike getting ready for the run.Tim heading out for the 3.4 mile run.Me heading out for the run.

Yay, almost done! Time to run!

Tim coming across the finish line. Yay Tim!

This was pretty tricky here-this looks like it's the end, the finish line is to my left, but no, there was still a 1/2 mile loop around the finish!

First time triathletes-in our "super suits". We got one piece tri suits for the big day. They are not very appealing and chubsters like me, but they sure do work well!

We did it! Tim and I completed our first ever Triathlon! And it was not the "worst" tri ever as the title would lead you to believe-it was great! The tri was held in New Braunfels which is home to the annual German Wurst Fest where beer flows like water and kiolbassa and kraut are on every corner and that is why it was named the Wurst tri ever. We started off the day arriving in New Braunfels at 6 am to get our transition area set up and our bodies marked with our numbers. The boys spent the night with my folks, but got to the race site a little bit before it started so that we could give hugs and kisses and the boys could see the big start! The swim was a 400 meter swim which we swam in a 50 meter pool, so they had to do a time trial start, starting an athlete every 10 sec. There was about 300 participants and the idea was you were supposed to start according to your number, but that didn't really happen, people just kinda bunched together and started when they wanted to. I convinced Tim to shuffle up towards the front, so we got started relatively quickly. The swim was a little chaotic to me and I kept getting kicked by breast strokers and lollygagers and the end of each lane, so it really threw off my rhythm and made me a bit slower on the swim. Once he remembered to put on his goggles (about 25 meters into the swim!! He was a nervous wreck!), Tim did well on his swim, finishing in 10:34 and I finished in 11:26. Then we had a little jog over to the transition area and it was time for the bike. I was psyched for the bike ride! We had ridden the course the weekend before, so I knew what to expect and of the 3 disciplines, riding is my thing. They also were giving out the King and Queen of the hill distinction for the fastest one to climb the very first hill of the ride-about an 11% incline! People were strugglin! Me on the other hand danced right up it! I wanted that Queen of the hill so bad! Plus Tim has had us riding so many hills this summer, that this was pretty normal! Unfortunately I didn't get Queen of the hill, but I did come in 3rd for the females! Waahhhooo! I cruised thru the 14 mile ride and it felt great! I finished up in about 48:19 (average speed of 18.6 mph) and Tim finished up the ride in 49:28 (average speed of 18.1 mph), which means I beat Tim in the ride! Heehee!!! We then made it thru the transition pretty quickly and then on to the 3.4 mile run. The run went well. I wanted to walk many times, but didn't let myself. I even made it up the one killer hill while running-although it probably didn't look much like I was running though, more like shuffling up the hill! Haha! I finished up the run in 30:34 and Tim finished up in 24:11. Not too shabby for our first tri! I ended up placing 4th in my age group and 18th overall for the females. Tim finished 10th for his age group and 56th overall for the men. We can't wait to do another one! Unfortunately we waited to do our first one at the end of the season, so we will have to wait until next season to do another. Fortunately though living in Texas, the season starts a bit earlier. Next up though is the MS 150 October 9th and 10th-150 mile bike ride!

Brady's 4th Birthday

2010-09-15T15:27:00.015-04:00

On September 5th Brady turned 4! It is till hard to imagine my baby is 4! He attended the summer program at his school all summer and made a really good little friend named Jackson. They are BFF! It is so cute! Unfortunately they are not in the same class now this fall, but they still get to see each other at recess and play together on the playground. For Brady's birthday we had a little party and invited all the kids in his class. Only two were able to come, Robbie and Jackson. But that was perfectly fine with me and Brady had a blast with his two buddies. They played games, made a disaster area of the playroom upstairs, opened presents, drank juice, ate cake and played with the presents he got from his friends. It was a great birthday!

The theme for his party was Cars, but they didn't have a pin the tail on the car. Brady and Jackson play ironman on the playground every day and he seems to like the idea of transformers (which I think is hilarious! The kid has never even seen the movies or cartoons, so I'm not sure how he knows what Ironman and transformers are. I guess its that boy instict!), so I asked if he wanted the old fashioned pin the tail on the donkey, or if he wanted the transformers version and of course he started jumping up and down excitedly saying transformers!!!!

Then we played hot potato which was super cute! Grayson even played!

The last game was a water balloon toss. I actually saved it for after cake and presents thinking they would get soaked, but they didn't. Harumph!

After they tossed with their partner and determined a winner the boys grabbed the left over balloons and went after Brady! Haha!

Presents! Thank you friends!

This is a special present from his Great Granny Dee (my moms mom). She is a wonderful quilter, we all have at least one of her quilts, and she made this napping mat and pillow for Brady.He loved it! As did both of his friends!

This is what inspired the design of Brady's napping mat. Brady and I riding Gramps' John Deer when we up to Michigan for a visit. Brady was about 23 months here. He had a blast riding on the tractor!

This past summer my parents went up to Michigan for a visit and took Grayson with them. Grayson also got to drive the tractor and insisted on his hands being on the wheel and doing the driving! So Granny made him a napping mat too. Too cute!

The boys out playing with one of the new presents-The Cars color changing car wash-Thank you Jackson!

Lightning McQueen Cake-my handy work. It didn't come out quite as well as I wanted. I used whipped frosting instead of buttercream and it just didn't seem to set up like I wanted. Plus I was rushed-I went for a run the morning of the party then had to go run errands and didn't allot enough time to take my time-I should know better by now! But, non the less it was a huge hit at the party, it tasted good and most importantly Brady loved it!Happy Birthday to you!

All 3 boys getting ready to be all sugared up! Jackson, Brady and Robbie.

Brady loves animals, so for his big gift Mimi and Pa Pa got him a hermit crab and it's crabitat. We asked him what he wanted to name it and he said Hermie, so Hermie it is. We ended up getting another one and it's name is Hermie #2. Very creative!Thank you Mimi and Pa Pa!

He is so gentle with it. You have to be very quiet and still for it to come out of its shell.

Hermie? Are you in there?
Hermie!

TV debut!

2010-09-14T13:47:00.003-04:00

The stroller fitness business I own called Baby Boot Camp made it to the big screen! Ok, maybe not the big screen...more like small scale local morning show, but hey, call it what you will my business was on TV! I pay for advertising on a local mom resource website called Moms Around SA and the creator of the website has a regular spot on our local morning show, San Antonio Living. I mentioned that I wanted to be on the show a few months ago, and a few weeks ago I got a call asking if I wanted to do a segment on the show. Wahhoo!!! It was a really quick piece and I don't feel like I promoted the local classes enough, but from the big picture view it went great. It gave me exposure and put the Baby Boot Camp name out there. So, if you'd like to take a peek at our big TV debut just click on the link below.

http://www.woai.com/entertainment/story/Baby-boot-camp-helping-moms-lose-the-baby-weight/YpGDrk1My0aZYNo3DNsL9A.cspx

Hotter-N-Hell Hundred

2010-09-14T11:29:00.003-04:00

The last weekend in August my dad, Tim and I completed the first of our 3 races for the season. The Hotter-n-hell hundred is a 100 mile bike ride in Wichita Falls where the high temperature hits 100 degrees at this point in the summer. We drove the 5 hours up there on Friday so that we could pick up our packets and go to the expo. The HHH is known for having a really great expo-and this year they did not disappoint. The first time I rode the HHH was in 2004 when Tim was already in Ft. Hood training to deploy, so he couldn't ride with dad and I, and it was right before our "church/2nd" wedding. At the expo I found an amazing deal on a wheel set which I ended up buying for Tim as his wedding gift! This year we didn't get anything quite as snazzy as that, but we did get some cycling shorts and jerseys for about 50% off. Sa-weet! So then the next morning we had to get up at O'dark thirty-a.k.a 4:30 am to drive the hour back up to Wichita Falls from where we were staying. With 13,000 riders, hotel rooms were a little tough to come by. At the start line they line you up according to what distance you are riding then, how fast you say you will ride. Well unfortunately I think we got started in the back of our group so we had to work our way through a lot of riders and couldn't find any good pace lines to join. But none the less, we had a really great ride. The boys were out to set a land speed record and stop at as few rest stops for as short of rests as possible. I did not get the memo. I thought we were stopping at one rest stop but we didn't and I was out of water and then I think I missed a "meal" (aka-power bar or gel), plus there was a mean head/cross wind and I don't ride well in wind, so I ran out of steam a bit at about the 60 mile point. This unfortunately slowed us down from about 20 mph to 16 mph. The boys were doing awesome, so I felt like a huge wimp! Grrrr! But we still finished up in 6 hours 17 minutes total time and not including our rest stops our ride time was 5 hours 39 minutes with an average speed of 18 mph. There were 13,000 total riders, but not all of them wore a timing chip-you had to pay extra for it-which of course Tim insisted we get one. There were 1,197 100 milers who wore the chip and we came in 417th, 418th and 420th (some dude snuck in between us claiming 419th-the nerve!). So I think we did pretty dang well. But here's the real shocker, I ended up coming in 4th out of 17 in my age group and 19th out of 149 overall females! It looks like trying to keep up with the boys has done me some good! Tim came in 31st in his age group and dad came in 27th in his age group. So although we didn't get into a super speedy pace line and zip along at an average of 23 mph like we planned, we still did a great job in our own 3 man pace line-Go Team Mann-handlers!

Team Mann-handlers before the 100 miler.

Early birthday with Nana

2010-08-25T23:43:00.007-04:00

Nana drove down from Kansas last week to celebrate Brady's birthday a little early. She works at The Boys and Girls Club and with school starting she wouldn't be able to take any time off in early September. She came and stayed for about a week and the boys had a wonderful visit with Nana! She spoiled us and got us all early birthday presents of Sea World seasons passes. Thank you Nana! Brady loves Sea World and Shamu right now. We read the 2 same whale books every night and he plays whale with his stuffed shamu splashing and jumping all over the house. We have already been back for another visit since...it was so nice, parking is free for season pass holders, so we drove right in, parked relatively close, went and fed the dolphins, looked at the sharks, saw the penguins and the sea lions and headed home. Brady said, but I want to see Shamu again, and we said, don't worry, we can come back any time! He was thrilled!

Brady and Nana at the entrance. Grayson so excited for the days events-and the heat! It was 103 degrees this day! HOT!

Taking in the dolphin show on daddy's shoulders.

My beautiful boys.

Shamu

Early this year one of their whales gave birth to a calf. The momma was performing in the show, so the baby whale just followed her around wherever she went and tried to do some tricks every now and then. It was super cute!

Over the Hill

2010-08-19T06:59:00.007-04:00

Well, it happened, I turned the Big 3-0 on August 7th. When Tim turned 30 he had a tough time with it, and I of course gave him a hard time for it, not really seeing the big deal. Well, now that it was my turn, it turned out I was not a big fan of turning 30 either. I don't really feel 30 though, I still feel like a kid. I always thought of 30 not as being old, but as being a grown up. I'm a believer in the saying your only as old as you feel/act. But as I reflect on this monumental birthday I must admit that I have accomplished quite a bit by this ripe old age of 30. I have completed a Bachelors and a Masters degree, I am married to a wonderful man who supports me and loves me very much, I have 2 of the most adorable children, we own our own home and I own my own business doing what I love while being able to still be a stay at home mom. In the grand scheme of things, what more could I want on this 30th birthday?

My mom and Tim worked so hard to put together a fabulous surprise birthday party for me, but it turned out no one could attend! So sad. But I wore my princess crown anyway! :)

Yummy, cheesecake factory cheesecake! I didn't have to make it this year! And of course cupcakes from The Cake Shop in the background. My favorite cake place EVER!
I have been looking at these dishes for months now and my mom and Tim got me 12 place settings plus 2 of each of the serving pieces. Yay! Since I have all of it I don't have to worry about them being discontinued like my last dishes. My Tuscan kitchen is now complete!Opening my present from the boys-2 new shirts from Eddie Bauer. Brady was so excited!Kisses!Thank you boys! Their card had 2 basset hounds on the front and on the inside said from the funny one and the cute one. I asked Brady which one he was and he said he was the cute one! Haha!

Grayson loves to put things on his head. He is boy enough to own his pink!

And well, we were all laughing at Grayson and saying how cute he was putting on the crown, so Brady wanted in on the action. Why wouldn't you put a garbage bag box on your head?!

Lordy Lordy-look who's nuts!

2010-08-09T07:42:00.004-04:00

Ok, I'm going to put it out there. Tim and I are going to do a TRIATHLON!!!! Maybe if I post it on my blog it will help to hold me accountable and actually follow through with it. We have been wanting to do one for about 5 years and have just been putting it off or gotten busy doing other things. After we lost the baby we decided to wait to try again until October so I could ride hard in our 2 cycling events for the season. So since we are waiting until October to get pregnant, and I'm not getting any younger (now that I'm 30!!!) now is the best time to do one unless we want to wait another 2 years to try a tri. We haven't registered yet, but it is on our calender and we have started training. Since we already have a pretty sturdy bike and run foundation we have started with "brick" workouts which are a bike ride followed by a run. Fortunately my parents are here and my mom so graciously watches the boys on the weekends while Tim and I get in our training for the tri plus our training with my pops for our long rides. But during the week I am going to have to get my training in at 5 am. Bleck! But, it's either drag myself out of bed and run in the dark in a cool 80 degree temp. versus getting my runs in during the day with the blistering hot sun in 97 degree temps PLUS pushing the stroller with about 65 lbs of kids in it. So I suppose 5 am is the lesser of the two evils. Today was my first 5 am run and I have to say I am very proud of myself. I actually peeled myself out of bed and got my run in just in time for Tim to head off to work. I just hope I can keep the motivation! Just 4 short weeks of prep and then it will be over and I'll have my first tri under my belt! Oh the anticipation!

Davids Summer visit to Texas

2010-08-07T15:37:00.014-04:00

As I mentioned before David, my nephew, came to Texas for a visit and stayed with us for about 3 weeks. My brother and my dad each drove 12 hours and met up in Alabama to avoid David having to fly by himself. During the week David stayed at my house and on the weekends he and Brady stayed with Mimi and Pa Pa. It was great practice for life with 3 kiddos! Wow, that was a lot of work! But after having all three of them together, I really enjoyed it...I am sold on having 3 kids! But no more! :) We had a wonderful visit with David and look forward to the next visit-maybe he'll get his mom and dad to tag along next time!

The boys (and by the boys-I mean ALL the boys-Grayson and Tim included!) had so much fun putting these hot wheels racing tracks together. They were having so much fun with them I went and got them a couple new additions to the race course.

We discovered the boys had the same shirt and David asked if they could wear them on the same day and be twins. Too cute!

This is how Brady fell asleep! The had been playing hard so I turned on a movie for them and when I went to check on them this is what I found! Haha!

David's Toy Story birthday cake-made by Tee Tee (that's what he calls me).

Birthday fun!

Look at all those presents!

Can I open them yet??

He was super excited about this slip-n-slide! Thank you Mr. Ron and Ms. Barbara!

While he was here he had asked for a bear to sleep with. So this is a bear for him to sleep with and we all hugged it that night so that he can have hugs from all of us whenever he hugs this bear.

Uncle Tim was crackin the boys up with this bear! He was making the bear "talk" to Brady and Brady was talking back to the bear like it was the bear who was actually talking and not his Daddy. Too cute!

Happy Birthday to you! Davids birthday is August 6th and we celebrated it early while he was here.

Make a wish and blow!

Yummy cake!

No "Fia" Boy!

2010-08-05T12:57:00.002-04:00

I like to call Brady my "practice/experiment" child, which is probably what most first borns are. I remember with Brady I read every pregnancy book and made sure I was an expert on pregnancy and child birth. And I was. My pregnancy went smooth and I was able to go through natural child birth without hysterics or freaking out. It was wonderful. From there I just figured the whole being a mom thing and taking care of a baby would come natural so I hadn't read any books or done any research on what to do with an infant. That right there was my first mommy mistake. And as we all know, Brady was not the easiest of babies. He was colic-cried all the time! In order to go to sleep I had to swaddle him tight and give him his pacifier which is now called his Fia. I swaddled him until he was 8 months old! But we finally got out of doing that, but never really got rid of the Fia. There just always seemed to be some big event coming up that I just didn't feel like he could handle it. His Fia has always ben like his blankie or his "lovie" as some folks call them. I just could not bring myself to rock his boat. I'm not sure why-I mean, the kid switched from a bottle to a sippy cup on his 1st birthday with ease, no problems, he was potty trained in 1 day by his 2nd birthday, he listened well, sat in time out well and all of these things were a big effort on my part, but I was up for it. I was willing to stick to my guns and do it even though it was hard. But taking away the Fia just seemed insurmountable. So, for about a year now I have been getting pressure from the fam and now from the dentist that it is time to give up the Fia. Brady has always done well with time lines. With every new big event coming up I tell him whats coming up and when and we talk about it for months, i.e.-the birth of baby brother, moving 3 times, starting school, family coming to visit. So I had told him on his 4th birthday it would be time to give it up. However, with his cousin David coming up I had an idea. Since he and David would be sharing a room, I told Brady that David was a big boy and he doesn't use a Fia at night and wouldn't want to sleep with a baby who uses a Fia still. I suggested he give it up when David got here and they could be "The No Fia Boys"! Well, Brady just thought that was the greatest plan ever! So, the night that David arrived Brady gave up his Fia and hasn't looked back since! Yay! No more Fia! Way to go Brady (and mamma)!

Business Mama

2010-07-28T17:34:00.003-04:00

Well, I've done it again-I opened another Baby Boot Camp franchise. This time in San Antonio! This city is proving to be a bit more challenging than Washington state. I am off to a very slow start. I held my first class on July 7th and disappointingly had no one show up. :( I had a hand full of people who had RSVP'd for the first class but didn't have anyone show. I didn't expect them all to show up, but I hoped for at least 1! Since then I have had 2 moms come to a class. So frustrating! So anyhow, that is my current endeavor. Even though the progress is slow, I'm excited about owning the franchise again. I really enjoyed my group of moms back in WA and look forward to getting another group going here. The camaraderie and common goals and values of the other moms is just so nice to have.

Dog Days of summer!

2010-07-28T13:29:00.009-04:00

I can't believe we are more than half way through summer! 4th of July has come and gone and now all the back to school stuff is out! What the heck! But, I won't fret, because summer in San Antonio seems to last until November and Brady is already in summer camp which is the same days and hours that he will be going to school in the fall, so it feels like school has already started. It has been a good summer thus far. It has been HOT! We have been eating a lot of popsicles and have been doing a lot of swimming. If you ask Brady what the summer is all about, he will say "Popsicles and going to the pool!". Such a good little parrot! Heehee!! He took two sessions of swim lessons after t-ball season was over and he can now swim all by himself! I love to watch him swim-it is so cute and so exciting! He is so proud of himself.

Our month of July was super busy with a visit from my nephew David. Most of you probably remember him as the ring bearer in my wedding when he was about a year old-he is 7 years old now!! Can you believe it?! I can't! He stayed with us for 3 weeks and we had a great visit. During his visit we took the boys to a Missions game (minor league baseball) and to see Toy Story 3 (which all 3 of them LOVED-even Grayson who I was a little nervous about if he would sit through the whole show, but he did) and had an early birthday party for David before he went back home. It was a wonderful visit and the 3 boys had a blast playing together.

Mimi, Pa Pa and the grand-boys. Brady and David at our 4th of July "picnic"-way too hot to sit outside!

I gave him his food but he kept crying and pointing to my corn. So I gave him the cob and he gobbled it right up! This boy can eat some corn on the cob! Talk about an All American baby!

My pretty flag cake-this one's for you Granny!

The boys in their matching 4th of July duds. Brady has the same shirt as Grayson, but I think Brady got his dirty or something.

It was really tough to get these 2 busy little boys to pose for a picture.

David

My boys. We are at the field waiting for Brady's last t-ball game to start.

Grayson climbed up on the couch all by himself and crawled over to sit in front of brother. He was so proud of himself! It was so cute!

Grayson was climbing in and out of the drawer below the stove-I have a picture of me doing this at about this age. Must be the thing to do!

Yup, this is definitely my boy-licking his ice cream bowl trying to get every drop of his chocolate ice cream!

Do I have something on my face?

Yay chocolate ice cream!!!!!!!!!!

It's cycling season!

2010-07-15T14:35:00.002-04:00

The cycling season is upon us and we are in full training mode! We've actually been riding hard for a few months now, hence the reason for the lack of blogging. Every free moment I have seems to be spent on my bike. We have registered for 2 rides this season-The Hotter-N-Hell 100 and the MS 150. We are officially committed! Plus, the Tour de France started on July 3rd, so since the start of the tour we've been hooked on watching the stages and are participating in a virtual Tour put on by Map my Ride. Since the start of the tour, I have logged about 250 miles. Holy shnikes, that's a lot of miles! The tour on map my ride has been a lot of fun though! If anyone is interested in playing with us, it is free to join at mapmyride.com. You can join our team, we are team Share the Road, and start logging miles with us! I have actually won a yellow jersey by being the stage winner in the women's category on day 1-wahhoo! Then I won a fancy bike seat in one of the weekly drawings! Fun stuff!

My pops, Tim and I going out for a 40 miler on the 4th of July.I wiped the floor with those boys on this ride! Heehee!!!

The Wonder of One

2010-06-11T11:18:00.003-04:00

My mom and dad (Mimi & Pa Pa) were going on vacation to MI for my dads high school reunion and to visit both of their families who live in the same town of New Lothrop, MI. They thought it would be fun to take one of the boys and we decided, oddly enough, that Grayson would be the easier of the two. Reluctantly I said ok-12 days is a long time to be away from my baby, but at the same time I wanted the rest of the family to meet our newest addition before he's 12! Haha! So, I did what all moms do and planned and packed for a week to make sure Mimi and Pa Pa were well prepared to travel with an infant. I'm pretty sure they both forgot how much "stuff" it takes to travel with an infant. As I made my list for my big trip to babies r us to get stuff for the trip, I asked my mom if there was anything she could think of that she might need for Grayson for the trip and she responds with, "A towel, I don't have a baby towel." Oh silly grandparents, how quickly they forget. So I go to babies r us, get the towel, and everything else under the sun that she might need for the 12 days including 2 days of driving up there and back. Then I spend a day preparing 12 days worth of meals for Grayson; I have been making all of his baby food, so when we try to go to jarred baby food (even the organic stuff) his stomach and bowels don't tolerate it too well. So I figured this would help to make the trip easier. So I prepare a cooler stocked with 12 days worth of pureed lasagna, steamed and diced pears and carrots, organic milk and yogurt and cheese. Then of course I wrote up a Grayson instruction manual and packed up his clothes, some toys for the car and Great Granny and Grandpa's house, snacks for the car ride, the pack and play and other odds and ends and sent him on his way. Eeeek! He has been gone now since Saturday and I really miss the little fella!

However, I have to say, I forgot how easy it is with just one child! Ah the wonder of one! Especially now that he is 3 1/2 and insists on doing everything his self. It has been wonderful! I have gotten so much done. It has really given me a chance to take a deep breath and re-boot. It has given me the opportunity to re-connect with Brady a little bit. We've been playing lots of board games, games on the computer, he's been helping me cook and take care of the garden and he has gotten in lots of bike rides. I have a 3 mile loop around our neighborhood that I jog and Brady rides his bike next to me. I have to push him up most of the hills which has been 10 times easier without having to steer and push the double jogger at the same time. So the other day during our 5 minute stop at the playground in the middle of our bike ride/jog I looked at Brady and realized how grown up he is! Suddenly I thought how did this happen?! Just yesterday he was my baby! Just yesterday he was that little toddler toddling around not able to form full sentences. Now he is climbing up rock walls and climbing over the top, going on 3 mile bike rides and rambling on in the back seat of car rides asking why do we need clouds? Why do we need trees? Why do fish live in the ocean? Why do dinosaurs eat other dinosaurs? He went from the kid who I couldn't get to eat anything to the kid who now loves hot sauce on everything! The kid who ate a whole fajita with chicken, green and red peppers and cheese on it! He is now the kid who can use the mouse to play games on the computer who can trace letters and goodness, the list could go on for miles. It just amazes me that they really do grow up so fast right before your eyes. My first born is no longer a baby or a toddler, he is now a little boy. Simply amazing.

Brady helping me cook supper.

Look at all our cucumbers and zucchinis from our garden!

By the way-anybody have any ideas of what to do with a plethora of cucumbers??

Home Sweet Home

2010-05-24T23:38:00.006-04:00

We have now been in our new house for almost 3 months and I am finally getting pictures and our address posted! A few weeks ago we finally got the garage finished and we can park both cars in the garage-waaahhoo! Tim put up shelves and lots of hooks to hold my thousand and one strollers and our many bikes and other garden/lawn tools and such. Now that that is done I finally feel like we are all moved in. Big sigh of relief! We all (even the dog, Wilson!) are loving our house! It is so nice to have so much space as compared to our cramped apartment. And it is even nicer not to have to yell at Brady to walk lightly as to not disturb the grouchy lady downstairs. This house has 4 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a loft upstairs. We have a fenced in backyard so we can let Wilson out whenever he wants and he can run around, and when Brady gets too rambunctious I send him outside too! It is wonderful! And not to mention we are about 15 minutes away from my parents, so the boys get to see Mimi and Pa Pa very often which has been great as well.

Our new address is:

131 Palma Noce

San Antonio, TX 78253

No, we did not get a mini-van! Tim's mom was here visiting when I took this picture and that is her van. :)

Our patio that we had poured soon after we moved in. The patio furniture was my mother's day present-Thanks boys!

Our house was built on a sheet of limestone, so digging into the ground wasn't really a possibility. Tim built this raised garden for me and it has just flourished! I planted zucchini (which is in the back left corner and has completely taken over), cucumbers (they are right in front of the zucchini and are coming in a close 2nd to taking over, tomatoes, carrots, green beans, bell peppers, basil, parsley and cilantro.

I was able to designate a Grayson cupboard where we keep all our Tupperware, sippy cups and plastic bowls and plates. His new favorite thing to do is to get in the cupboard and clear out the contents and suck on each and every one of the sippy cups!

What's up mom?!

Here is the loft/playroom. Tim put these shelves up for me for all their toys-it looks like toys-r-us doesn't it?!

Here is the other side of the loft. The 2 doors that you can see are the boys bedrooms.

We have a baby gate at the top of the stairs, so sometimes I will close all the other doors and let both boys play up there while I'm busy doing other stuff downstairs. Well this particular day, I went up to check on them and this is what I found. They cleared all the shelves and had piled all their toys around them. They were pleased as punch with themselves! The little turkeys!

Bittersweet

2010-05-19T11:13:00.002-04:00

When we got back from our Mexico trip Tim and I started trying to get pregnant again. Yay! We got pregnant with both the boys on the first try, so we figured this time would be pretty easy again. And wouldn't ya know, this time around did not disappoint. We tried and we got pregnant! We were super excited, but something felt a little off. I had a lot of cramping from the get go which I didn't have with the other two pregnancies. I didn't have any bleeding, so the nurse at my orientation appointment last Tuesday said everything was probably fine. But sadly on Saturday, during Grayson's birthday party, I started bleeding. Fortunately my parents and Tim's mom were there so we left the boys with them and Tim and I headed out to the ER. They took blood to test my hcg (Pregnancy hormone) levels and did an ultrasound. My hcg levels were still elevated at 1470, but in pregnancy they like to see that number between 1500-3000 then it should increase daily as the pregnancy progresses. So my low number suggested something was wrong but wasn't conclusive because they didn't have prior hcg level to compare it to. But when they did the ultrasound they didn't see a fetus and at 6 1/2 weeks we should have been able to see the baby. So they sent me home and said I needed to come back on Monday morning for a blood draw to test my hcg levels. And sure enough on Monday morning my hcg levels had dropped down to 147. The Dr determined that it was a miscarriage. We aren't sure why it happened and there is no way of knowing. These things sometimes just happen. All the Dr's and my family have repeatedly told me it wasn't my fault and there wasn't anything that I did that caused this. And I know this. I have read enough books on pregnancy and I know that a miscarriage is a possibility with every pregnancy. But it doesn't make it any easier. It still doesn't keep me from saying it's not fair. Why did it have to happen to us?! My brain knows that the pregnancy terminated itself because something was wrong, but I can't help but think why didn't this baby want me? The only way I keep coming up with to describe this whole situation is, this sucks! All the way around. Not only does it suck emotionally, but it hurts physically. This sucks. And this is one of those things that people don't talk about it, but is statistically pretty common, and that's why I'm writing about it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has gone through this. And the way I see it, when we try again and have a successful pregnancy it will be that much sweeter and that much more exciting. We'll take a few months off then try again. Please say a prayer for the little one that didn't make it.

Happy Birthday Grayson!

2010-05-18T12:45:00.010-04:00

It's hard to believe that Grayson is a year old! It seems like just yesterday that I was walking into the hospital with water trickling down my leg making my flip flops squeak and Brady saying, "Mommy, you're dripping!". It has been a wonderful year and every day Grayson does something to make me smile. He went to the doctor for his 12 month well baby on his birthday, May 13th and checked out just fine and had to get 4 shots and a finger stick. Poor baby! He weighed in at 19 lbs 13 oz putting him in the 8th percentile, and is 29 3/4 inches tall putting him in the 42nd percentile and his head is 46.2 cm putting him in the 42nd percentile as well. I was really surprised at where he was weight wise! The Dr wasn't concerned though. She said he doesn't look underweight and is eating well, so this is just how he will be-tall and skinny just like brother. He has hit all but one milestone which is using 1 or 2 words specifically. The milestones that he has reached are:

follows one step commands
plays peek-a-boo
shakes his head no
imitates speech sounds like da, ma and makes a car driving sound while playing with his cars-such a boy already!
picks up small objects with index finger and thumb
uses a sippy cup only-he is completely off the bottle!
he is on whole milk and not formula anymore
and most notably is WALKING!!!!! He is walking everywhere now and is going up and down the stairs. He took his first real stroll across the family room on April 20th (11 months).

For his birthday his Nana came down to visit from Kansas and we had a couple parties and cakes for him. We did a small celebration on his birthday day which was Thursday. I made him a cupcake and we sang happy birthday and he had his first bite of cake and frosting. Then on Saturday we had his party, which went horribly awry (more on that to come), and was then continued on Sunday which is when he opened presents and had his Winnie the Pooh cake. We also went and had his 1 year old pictures taken which I had made him a little cake to eat for the pictures. So, needless to say between Thursday and Sunday the kid had so much cake he was beginning to think he got cake at every meal! And Grayson thoroughly enjoyed all of his cakes. He was really cute about it too. He was very slow and deliberate about eating it. He would dip his fingers in the frosting and lick them and was perfectly content eating it that way, so we had to help him get into his cake a bit. But once he got into it, he ate that cake right up! Good celebrating!

Homemade cake by Momma. This is the same cake I made for Brady's 1st birthday.

One of his favorite things to do right now is to try and kneel or stand on top of his fire truck. He works so hard at it and gets so excited when he finally gets on top.

Our little walker!

Birthday Boy!

Texas Bluebonnets

2010-05-12T12:26:00.010-04:00

San Antonio has had a pretty wet spring, so the bluebonnets were just beautiful this year! The bluebonnet is the state flower and pops up in random open fields or on the side of the highway. We found a great big field of them and went out and took pictures-along with the rest of San Antonio! If you live in Texas, it is a requirement to have your picture taken surrounded by bluebonnets. Haha! The flowers were beautiful, but getting the boys to cooperate was not! To get both of them to smile and look the same direction at the same time was like herding cats! Brady decided he didn't want to smile at the camera on this particular day and we couldn't keep the bluebonnets out of Graysons mouth! But in the end out of about 300 pictures, we got 5 good shots. Exhausting!

Happy Easter!

2010-05-11T14:41:00.003-04:00

We had a lovely Easter at home. We went to the Easter vigil on Saturday night, and surprisingly the boys did very well! Mass started at 7 pm and it was about 3 hours long, so we were a bit nervous about how the boys would handle it. Then in the morning I think (this is horrible I can't remember!) we went for a bike ride, then we had a lovely dinner at my parents house. And of course we did an Easter Egg hunt for the boys. While Brady ran around the yard hunting for his eggs, we sat Grayson in the middle of the yard and put an egg in front of him for him to find. He spied it, picked it up and immediately went to put it in his mouth as he does everything right now. And that was the end of his hunt. He was pretty entertained with the whole thing. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the boys in their new duds. They were super cute though-I had them matching again with little ties and everything. Too cute!

Got all my eggs!

Oooo, here's another one!

Happy Easter eggs!

Look at all these eggs!

Graysons Easter egg hunt.

Grasyon was cracking me up here! Tim was stirring up his baby food and he was just on the edge of his seat so intensely watching.

T-Ball Days

2010-05-10T18:42:00.006-04:00

Brady started his first season of t-ball in April. It is a non-competitive team for 3 & 4 year olds. All teams are coached by a parent and all the other parents help out as well during practices and games. They don't count runs or outs and each team goes through their batting order then they switch. It is super cute! Brady is loving it! The day of his first practice I'm not sure who was more excited, Brady or his daddy! I called the coach and asked what Brady needed and he said he needed a glove and some cleats. So I thought I would run over to Target and get just that. Well this particular day Tim got off work a little early and I asked if he wanted to stop at Target with us. He suggested we go over to Dick's sporting goods because they would have a better selection. I thought, sure ok, you're probably right. Had I known what this trip was going to hold I wouldn't have invited Tim along! :) So we go in and Tim dissects the gloves for a good 15 minutes. Then he says he needs pants. Ok, fine. So I get a pair that are elastic waist banded for easy on and off. That would have been great, but then Tim says he has to have a belt-so much for easy on and off! Then we go over towards the sliding shorts-these apparently are so that you don't scrape up your leg when you slide into a base-I say, I'm not sure he's gonna do much sliding honey, he's only 3. Then he insists on this specific pair that has none other than a protective cup! I say really?! But he insists! We stand there and debate about this for a good 10 minutes. Finally I give in and say fine, I've gotta get home to get supper ready, so whatever will get us out of here. So then we go over to the cleats and uneventfully get a lovely pair of under armor cleats for a mere $24.99! Good gracious! Ok, good lets go. But no, Tim says oh yeah, he needs some baseballs and goes over "quickly" to get some. He finally emerges again with not only baseballs, but baseball socks and he just had to have a 3/4 sleeve baseball shirt. So finally $130 later Brady is ready for his first day of t-ball practice. But if you looked at him, you would have thought he was on his way to the major league try outs! But the funniest part was this cup. So he's out on the field practicing fielding the ball, but while he waits his turn he is adjusting his cup every chance he got! Lucky for him I got a great picture which of course I included in this blog down below. It was hilarious! Thank goodness after that practice Tim decided that maybe the cup was a bit over kill. Hmmm.....ya think?! Gotta love Dads and sons and their sports!

Gimme 5! Good play!

Dad helping him to stay focused during the game.

Tuff Stuff is their team name.

In the field at his first game.

Fielding the ball, getting some pointers from dad.

Adjusting his cup! Too funny!

He did a really good job hitting the ball-he would just forget to run.

Getting dressed for his first t-ball practice.

Playa del Carmen

2010-05-09T16:16:00.007-04:00

Just before closing on our new house, we left the boys in good hands with Mimi and Pa Pa and headed off to Mexico for my friend Erin's wedding. The wedding was in Playa del Carmen which is just south of Cancun at an all inlusive resort. This was the first time Tim and I have been on a vacation by ourselves. It was absolutely wonderful and well earned after all Tim's hard work in his LPN program and all our hard work moving. Erin and Kain are two great people and had a pretty big group there for the wedding. About half the group were friends from college so it was really great to be able to catch up and hang out with old friends. It was a week full of re-living the good old days and trying to drink the resort dry!

Our beautiful hotel. The little hut on the left is the pool bar where we spent A LOT of time!

The Mann's and The Blunck's-a.k.a. The Quads and The Buchs (Old college nickname/maiden names.)

On the beach outside of our hotel on our last day. We were so sad to leave.

Tim and I sitting at breakfast enjoying the view.

The view.

More of our hotel and our stretch of beach. Another place we spent A LOT of time laying on the beach drinking lots of cervezas!

The beautiful bride.

The Ball State crew.

Me and the Bluncks all gussied up for the wedding on the beach.

The bride's beautiful bouquet.

Showing off her new jewels to her sister Lindsey.

Looking down the other direction of the beach in front of our hotel.

All purdy for the wedding.

The Blunck's

Purple speedo dude-This guy kept walking past during the entire ceremony! Lovely backdrop for any wedding ceremony! Haha!

The Bride and Groom.

Champagne after the ceremony. I thought this was a pretty picture.

The I Do's

Walking down the isle with mom and dad.

The ceremony set up

Just beyond the ceremony set up are the tables and chairs and dance floor for the reception.

Wedding week shinanigans.

Me and Erin

Inside the pool bar.

Quad and Bucher

Erin and Kain at one of the many happy hours.

The rooftop pool and swim up bar.

Pictures

2010-05-08T12:51:00.007-04:00

Ok, I finally have a moment to make a post. The boys and I have been sick with colds, coughs and fevers for the past week and a half and I think we are all finally on the mend. We just got home from Brady's t-ball game and he's resting with his new favorite movie, A hundred and one dalmations, or the puppies as he calls it, and the little one is napping, so my house is nice and quiet. I should be preparing meals for the upcoming week, but it has been a month now since my last post and gosh darn it, my peeps need to see some pictures from my last post! :)

Our graduate-Sgt. Mann, LPN

Top 3 students up on stage recieving thier certificates. Tim is on the end on the right. I know the picture isn't the greatest-it was quite the juggling act trying to take pictures while containing both boys by myself. I'm just happy I got any pictures of the ceremony!

Top 3 of his class.

Tim and his buddy Mike. Mike and his wife lived in our apartment complex and they drove to work together every morning.

We still had the TV unpacked, so Brady was sitting on this stool watching a movie trying to stay out of the way while we packed the truck.

Last night in the apartment. Cheers!

Loading up the truck. The 3 foot piles of snow on the ground provided quite the challenge!

All loaded and ready to go in the morning. Our neighbors weren't too happy about us taking up all these spots-but we said tuff! We were sooo happy to be leaving!

The boys hanging out with the pile of stuff that still had to be loaded somewhere. This was the morning of Tim's graduation and the day we left.

Our moving turck.

Tim and his co-pilot. Brady had a blast riding in the big moving truck!

Unloading all of our stuff into my parents garage for a few weeks until our house was finished.

Mimi is so happy to have her grand babies here!

Long time, no blog!

2010-04-08T23:31:00.003-04:00

Holy cow! It has been almost 2 months since I have blogged! You all have probably given up on me and figured I wouldn't be back. I don't blame you-I have snow flakes on my blog still for cryin out loud! Well, don't count me out yet. I'm still here and will get back to my bloggin. We have been sooo busy the past 2 months and now life is slowing down.....sorta.

I'll give you a little re-cap of what we've been up to, then hopefully I'll post some pictures to go along with all of our fun stuff. First and foremost, we bought a house! Yay! We are officially homeowners! But before that, we packed up our apartment and thanks to Tim and his creative packing (or stuffing rather), we fit all 28 feet of our stuff into a 26 foot penske truck. The way the military works is that they pay for your move. Your first option is to have the company chosen by the military come in and pack your house, load it on a truck and deliver it to your destination. This is what we had done with our previous 2 moves. Your other option is to do a DITY move which is a "Do it yourself" move. You can typically make a pretty good profit doing it this way. You know it's going to be ALOT of work, but hey, it's worth it to make a few extra bucks. The last 2 times we moved I have been pretty pregnant, so I said ok, lets do it since I was not prego this time. It's also been known to be one of those experiences that you'll come out of saying one of two things-this is the way to go, or I'll never do that again. And well, you guessed it, we came out saying the latter....we will never do that again! Plain and simple, we just have too much stuff! But after a lot of work, we got everything packed up and moved down to Texas just after Tim's graduation ceremony. It was really great to see Tim graduate! He finished 3rd in his class and made the commandant's list. At the graduation they had the top 5 students come up and receive their certificated first and did a little hoopla about it. I was one proud army wife! So after 3,000 miles and 3 days of driving, Tim and his co-pilot Brady drove the 26 foot penske truck pulling the saturn followed by me in the truck with Grayson and the dog and the cat, finally made it to Texas! Our house wasn't quite complete and weren't set to close for a few more weeks, so we unloaded the contents of the truck into my parents garage so we could return the truck. And 3 days later we left the boys with my parents and flew to Mexico for the wedding of a good friend of mine from college. We were there for 6 days and had a blast! The wedding was at an all inclusive resort in Playa del Carmen, just south of Cancun. It was a beautiful area, the bride was radiant and it was great to catch up with old friends from college. Tim and I had a great time on our first "real" vacation.
So, there ya go, that catches you up a little bit on the life of the Mann's. I'll post some pictures and some more of our shenanigans soon.

Property Virgins no more!

2010-02-15T09:26:00.003-05:00

Since we started talking about buying a house my new favorite shows have been Property Virgins and House Hunters on HGTV. I love it! Not to worry though, I still love A Baby Story. Heehee!! So anyway, we have un-officially (at this point) purchased our first home. Wahoo!! But we're still in MD you say? Yes, we worked with a realtor and he sent us a lot of homes to look at online, but since the prices on new construction are unbeatable for the amount of house you get we started looking at those too. And low and behold, we found the perfect one for us that we just couldn't pass up. We sent my mom over to take a look at the un-finished home and the models and put an offer on the house that morning. Huge leap of faith by property virgins I know! But, we know the area well after having lived there for about 5 years and my parents have lived there for about 11 years, so that made us feel ok about it. The house is just about finished, we are set to walk through on the 22nd and to close on the 8th of March. Yip yip yippeee!! Here are some pictures below. We are mid move-in fact I am sitting on the floor typing this with the keyboard on a box because the desk is already packed! I will post more about the move later.

Blizzard of 2010

2010-02-06T18:27:00.004-05:00

This weekend we have found ourselves smack dab in the middle of yet another blizzard! The weathermen started anticipating this storm early in the week and by Thursday night not a flake of snow had fallen to the ground, but schools were canceling classes for Friday, grocery stores were sold out of bread and milk which people waited in line for 45 minutes for and people were fighting over the last of the shovels. Low and behold, Friday afternoon it started snowing and when we got up this morning we had about 2 feet of snow. It's a winter wonderland out there! Here are some pics.

Friday morning

Friday night around 11:30 pm

Saturday morning

The Mann's are on the move!

2010-01-29T10:39:00.003-05:00

As most of you know by now as per the mass email I sent out, Tim has received his orders for our next duty station. We are headed down to sunny San Antonio. He is assigned to the Ft. Sam Houston hospital. We were hoping for Colorado, but are very excited about this assignment just the same. My parents, Mimi and Pa Pa, live in San Antonio, so we will get to see them very often again. And Tim and I are thrilled about all the bike rides we will get to get in all year round. We'll get to go back to getting our butts kicked by my dad the super human! Tim and I have been wanting to try our hands at triathlon-ing, so this might be the perfect place to do it. We shall see. We are also going to try our hand at home ownership. We have actually already put an offer on a house and are awaiting loan approval. We were pre-approved by our own bank, but in order to get some really good incentives we had to go with the builders mortgage company. So anyway, we are nervously waiting for the yay or nay. This whole home buying thing is stressful and nerve racking! But it's funny, I now feel like a grown up. Getting married and having 2 children didn't seem to make me feel grown up, but purchasing our first home, yup, that'll do the trick! So, keep your fingers crossed and say lots of prayers that everything pans out.

When we started talking about moving Brady would ask me every day if it was moving day. So in order to help him understand how long we had until moving day I got a wall calender and put stickers on it for all his activities that he is in now (pre-school and soccer) and one for moving day. I told him we would mark through the day on the calender at the end of each day and when all the boxes were marked through and we got to the moving truck sticker then that was moving day. He was really excited because I let him mark through the day all by himself which meant that he got to use the marker all by himself! Big stuff for a 3 year old! We are at 19 days and counting!

Grayson's latest tricks & other fun stuff

2010-01-25T21:33:00.007-05:00

You may have noticed a recent sudden decrease in the amount of blog postings from me. This my friends is all due to our newest mobile Mann-Mr. Grayson that is. I didn't realize how significantly harder life would be with two little ones running a muck! Grayson is now fully mobile. The kid doesn't sit still and I'm not sure he realizes that he is only 8 months! He now is pulling himself up on things to a stand, but hasn't really learned how to fall. So, when he looses his balance instead of bending at the hips and pushing his butt backwards, he stays completely straight and stiff and falls over like a tree! And when he is standing, the kid is fearless. He was standing at the coffee table this evening and had one toy in each hand and was using his elbows to balance. Then he noticed I was still behind him and he dropped the toys, let go of the table completely and turned around to say "Hey mom!". So finally after one goose-egg after another to his noggin, we decided to set up the pack and play out here in the family room so he would have a slighlty more cushioned fall. But I must say, as if this teeny apartment wasn't already cramped enough, add a play pen to the center of the room and it looks like we're all doing the cha cha to walk around the dang apartment! So anyway, here are some fun shots of our little dare devil.

Take a look at this picture and the one below. Can you tell the difference?Again, same age, same picture. Who's who?I took this picture because I knew I had a similar one of Brady at this same age. When they were babies I think they were carbon copies of each other and thought they still were. But after taking this picture and comparing them side by side, they definitely are thier own person. Our kitchen is, as Tim calls it, a "one butt" kitchen, and for some reason everyone is always in there when my big butt is trying to cook-even the dog is in there! So one evening after me continually kicking people out of the kitchen Tim put the gate up for me. Ah-ha!Bed time ritual-bedtime stories. I read Grayson his two then hand him off to daddy to rock him and I read Brady his two and sing him songs then they are off to sleep.

Growin' Grayson

2010-01-15T20:41:00.005-05:00

It seems like Grayson does something new every day. He is not only army low crawling everywhere, but he is now pulling himself up on things, kneeling and then taking it to a stand. He's not very stable on his feet yet, but he loves getting up on his knees and feet. When he does, he just squeels away! It won't be long now before this kid is walking! He is right in line with what Brady was doing at this age and Brady started walking at 10 months-that's 2 months from now! Eeeeekkkkkk!!!

Digging in his toy bin. This is a first from his knees.

I put his saucer in his way as a "barricade", but the little stinker did just what his brother did and crawled right through the bottom.

Christmas day pictures.....finally!

2010-01-11T08:58:00.015-05:00

Here are the rest of our Christmas day pictures. I know we are almost half way through January, but hey, better late than never!

Here is the tree after being visited by Santa on Christmas Eve.

This is how we found Brady on Christmas morning (notice it is still dark outside-about 6:30 am). Tim came out to the family room and Brady says, "Santa was here!"

Checking to see if Santa had eaten his cookies and the reindeer had eaten the carrots. Brady also left a book out for his daddy to read to the reindeer when they got here. Haha! Too cute!

Grayson discovering his gifts from Santa.

Opening stockings and presents.

Brady "helping" Grayson.

My new scarf--Thanks Mom!
This is so much fun!

Opening our cookie jar from Doug & Karen.

Playing with a new toy. He has only just started playing in the sitting position-I think he started doing this 2 days or so before Christmas. So this was really fun to see and really exciting for Grayson to see a toy from this angle.

Plum tuckered from all the excitement. Lets take a nap Nana!

All bundled up to take brother on his first bike ride.

Getting on.

And he's off!

Coming up the straight away ready for lap # 2!

I love my new Big Boy bike momma!

His first bike ride went great! Even though he fell off about 3 times (pretty hard too), he got right back on after a hug and a kiss from momma. What a champ!

The post office extended Christmas for us and delivered one of the boxes from Mimi and Papa a few days after Christmas. Here he is opening his story book reader. Yay!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-29T13:33:00.005-05:00

We had a lovely Christmas with Tim's mom here for a visit. She arrived just hours before the blizzard, so unfortunatley we spent most of her visit cooped up inside. Both boys loved having Nana here; Grayson got held as much as he wanted and rocked to sleep and Brady got lots of individual play time with Nana. We all love it when Nana comes to visit! We went to the early children's mass on Christmas Eve then came home and had our traditional Christmas Eve meal which is a blend of Quaderer tradition, Cooper (my moms family) traditions and the new Mann family traditions. For as long as I can remember we had salmon soup and finger sandwiches at Grandma & Grandpa Q's and oyster stew at Granny & Grandpa Coopers house. Then when I was in high school, my grandpa Cooper and I convinced my mom to add peel and eat shrimp cocktail to the menu-ymu! Now, since I've been making it on my own (we've spent the past 2 Christmas's away from my family-so sad!), I decided the traditional salmon soup and oyster stew recipes were boring, so I found new ones. Last year the soups didn't come out too well, but this year they were deeee-licious! (If I don't say so myself. Heehee!!) After supper we opened our usual Christmas Eve jammies and figts to the boys from Great Grandma and Grandpa Mann. We read The Night before Christmas and put out cookies and milk for Santa and some carrots for his reindeer. Christmas moorning then came very early. Brady woke up around 6:45 am and I put him back to bed and thought he was asleep, but about 20 minutes later I heard Tim get up and voiced in the family room. Tim had gone out to find Brady on his new bike saying, "Santa was here!" It was pretty funny. So, we got up and got the cinnamon buns cooking and coffee brewing, but I wouldn't let Brady open presents until he got Nana up-now that was a feat! Both boys then had a great time opening presents-even Grayson, which really surprised me. It was super cute! The boys made out like bandits and got lots of fun stuff. Brady was really into Christmas and Jesus' birthday this year and it was really fun to share in his excitment!

Our Christmas Eve spread. It doesn't look like much because the soup is on the stove and I was too lazy to get out my pretty china.

Christmas Eve photo shoot in our fancy Christmas duds.

Nana and her Christmas jammies.

Our little crawler

2009-12-21T11:16:00.002-05:00

Well, I think it's official; our baby Grayson is mobile. He doesn't do the traditional crawl yet, but he is following in his brothers foot steps and is practicing his army hump. This is the same way that Brady crawled. Fun stuff! Here is a little video.

The snow-Mann's

2009-12-19T18:39:00.009-05:00

The snow is here! It started snowing around 9 pm last night and hasn't stopped since. It is now 6:45 pm on Saturday evening and we have about 15 inches of snow on the ground and it is still snowing! I had planned to do my weekly grocery shopping today, but my mom called yesterday and asked if I was ready for the blizzard. Ehhh, I say? I watch the news every morning while nursing Grayson, but with Brady around I only get every fifth word. So I guess I heard snow, but not blizzard! Eeeeek! So I, along with the rest of Silver Spring made a mad dash to the grocery store. The place was a zoo! And at 5 pm they were completely out of milk and had like 1 dozen eggs and 1 loaf of bread left! It cracked me up! But of course I got my milk, bread, eggs, toilet paper and batteries just like everyone else. We're prepared! Today we decided to venture out and play in the snow and let Grayson have his first experience in the snow. The snow was nice and fluffy. Great for jumping in and playing in, not so good for snowman building though. We let Wilson off the leash and just let him frolic in the snow. He was so happy! Here's our pics of the Blizzard of 2009!

Our little snow"Mann"

I was trying to get Brady to do a snow angel, and get a really cute shot from above, but he just kept looking so pained and like he had no idea what I was talking about. Dang kid! Needless to say, this photo did not come out like I wanted.

Pathway of Peace

2009-12-13T16:15:00.011-05:00

This weekend we went downtown to take some Christmas pictures near the white house and the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse. Surrounding the big Christmas tree they have a smaller decorated tree for each state and a whole miniature train village set up. They also had Santa's workshop and a santa to take pictures with. The workshop was really neat; Brady loved it! He also loved the train and cried when we had to leave. Poor little bear! It was freezing so we didn't stay long.

When I was in first grade and we lived in the Northern VA/DC area, we went downtown to see this pathway of peace and I think i have a picture of me just like this in front of one of the state trees. I thought it would be fun to re-create it 20 years later.

If you look closely this is a picture of Santa's workshop with the Washington monument in the background.

The boys sitting on Santa's lap. Neither one was afraid and both hopped right up and started cheesin away. It could be because this was inside in a heated building, so they were nice and toasty after we had frozen them to death taking pictures outside!
Photo shoot at home while the boys were in their Christmas duds. Brady's face in this picture cracks me up!

First Snow

2009-12-08T21:13:00.002-05:00

Saturday we had our first snow of the season. We ended up getting about 4 inches total which was just enough to enjoy. It was nice that it came on a Saturday because we were able to just hunker down and hang out inside watching football. Tim and Brady did get out to make a snowman though. Brady had a blast and is still talking about his snowman. Weather across the nation is looking pretty snowy, so he just might have the opportunity to make another one here soon!

National Christmas Tree lighting

2009-12-06T11:33:00.005-05:00

This past Thursday we went to the National Christmas Tree lighting. There was an online lottery you could put your name into to get tickets, and our name was pulled. Unfortunately they were standing room only tickets, but it gave us a reason to go to it and to be a little closer. It was neat to be there, but I'm not sure it was completely worth it given that it was on a weekday at 5 pm. Tim had to meet us downtown after work, so I didn't want to take the metro because that would have meant that me and the boys would have had to ride the metro home at night and well, I'm just not that brave no matter how safe the metro is supposed to be. So anyhow, we had to deal with the traffic nightmare in DC at rush hour and both Tim and I just barely made it there by 5 and the event was only an hour long. We couldn't see all that well and the field was super muddy and it was cold. Then to top it off, traffic was atrocious on the way home as well. Ugh! But, it was just one of those crazy things I like to do in order to soak in and experience all that where ever we are currently stationed has to offer. As I was speed walking, pushing the double jogger with the boys all bundled up, it reminded me of when I was a kid and my parents took my brother and I to the inauguration of the first President Bush. I remember it was freezing and we were smooshed together with thousands of other people lining the streets trying to see something and still we really couldn't see anything! So I guess I'm just continuing tradition by dragging Tim and the boys to these silly things. I hope one day that Brady will be able to pull this out of his memory box and say, "I remember when my crazy mom used to make us......"

Turkey Day

2009-12-05T15:29:00.006-05:00

We had a lovely and quiet Thanksgiving. Tim's dad drove down from IN to visit for the week. He hadn't met Grayson yet, so it was great for him to get all caught up on his hugs and cuddles with him. I cooked the whole meal and the turkey again this year, but I changed all the recipes and everything came out great! These recipes are a keeper! We injected the turkey and put it in an ice brine bath for 30 hours then cooked it in my raster and it turned out scrumptious! Good day!

Grandpa Mann and the boys.

Roasted turkey.

Me in my "zone" (as Tim calls it) cooking our delicious meal.
Tim with the electric knife getting ready to carve the bird.
Our beautiful table. One of the two times a year I use my china. It's so pretty!
Our other turkey day guests-Mike (a classmate of Tim's) and his wife Amanda.

Visit with the Bluncks

2009-12-05T15:03:00.005-05:00

My good friend Sara, aka-Bucher, and her family were in town visiting a few weekends ago. Sara's husband, Matt and Tim had never met before and we hadn't seen Sara and her little guy, Mason since he was born and he is now 15 months or so. It was great to visit with her and get all of our boys together. Sara and I went to college together-good ol' BSU-and were roommates all 4 years. She and her family now live in Indianapolis. I really wish we lived closer so we could hang out more often, but fortunately I will get to see her again in February for our friend Erin's wedding. Can't wait!

Buch-ee and I all grows up! Doesn't she look good?! She just ran a marathon! You go girl!

Sara and Mason

Playing hide and go seek with his daddy. Too cute!

It was quite the feat to get 2 toddlers and a baby to sit still and smile for a picture!

New camera

2009-12-05T14:36:00.013-05:00

For our anniversary, Tim surprised me and bought us a fancy schmancy new camera. It's a bottom of the line sony but about 10 steps up from our current one. It has a ton of settings and 2 fun lenses. Here are some pictures from our many photo shoots.

It's our Anniversary!

2009-11-20T09:50:00.005-05:00

Today Tim and I celebrate our 5th and 6th year wedding anniversary. The first wedding didn't take, so we had to do it again. Haha!! 6 years ago, on November 1st, Tim asked my dad if he could marry me, and 20 days later we were at the JP getting hitched! You see, at that time, I was working for USAA in San Antonio and Tim was in his last year at Ball State and in the National Guard. He got orders to deploy to Bosnia in January, so he wanted us to be married before he left to make sure I was taken care of. Well, long story short, his orders were canceled and he wasn't deploying to Bosnia. He hadn't registered for classes and had given up his place to live. At that point we weren't too good at problem solving and were floundering and decided he should move down to San Antonio and join the National Guard unit down there. A few months later he received another set of orders to deploy to Iraq with the new unit and would be leaving shortly after our "real" wedding. So, needless to say we were married twice; once by the JP and once by my dad, Deacon Dan.
We have been through a lot in our marriage but have done it all hand in hand. We have weathered 2 deployments, 3 cross country moves, 2 child births without pain medications, the buying and selling of a business, some really great vacations and road trips, squeezing 2 adults, 2 rambunctious boys, a dog and a cat into a 2 bedroom apartment and now LPN school for Tim. It has been a wonderful journey thus far and I can honestly say that I fall in love with Tim a little more each day. He is an amazing man and I am so thankful that he picked me! Here are some pictures from our big church wedding, 5 years ago. I don't think I have any on the computer from the JP wedding.

Happy Venterans Day!

2009-11-11T11:12:00.006-05:00

Today is veterans day, on a side note it is also my brothers birthday-Happy Birthday Doug! The army has so kindly given Tim the day off, so he is home with us today. We had made plans to go downtown to visit some memorials and go to a museum, but the weather is cold and rainy and we decided to stay home instead. So, of course me being me, I decided it would be a great day for chores. I tasked Tim with occupying the kids while I clean and as I'm elbows deep scrubbing the bathtub I was thinking how great this was that I can get the bathrooms cleaned lickitey split with Tim home! Then I thought back to all the time that Tim has spent over in Iraq fighting this war and I couldn't help but think how thankful I am to have him home-not just today, but every day that he is here and not deployed. He has been deployed for 2 1/2 of the past 5 years leaving for his second deployment when Brady was 6 months old and coming home when he was almost 2--20 months old! It is really exciting for him to be home now to experience all of Graysons first year milestones and not to have to experience them through photos and movies. We have now been together in the same house for a year and a half which is the longest period of time of our 5 year marriage we have been in the same house together! I am now figuring out how handy he is! This guy can fix anything from a lamp, to a bathroom sink to a car! He's amazing! I am so thankful for him to be a veteran twice over but to have had him come home safely to me and our family. I still can't imagine how he could so selfishly put himself in harms way twice and think nothing of it except for that he was "just doing his job". But as I sit here and write this I cannot help thinking that another deployment is inevitable. And I just continue to live in the moment each day we have as a family and continue to be hopeful that we can always be so lucky. What a lucky Army we have to have him serving our country. Have you thanked a vet today?