Early birthday with Nana

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

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!

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

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!

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)!