If I had . . .

a little girl, I would learn to knit just so I could make this hat. So adorable.

Celebration of Life

Happy Birthday Brady! And Happy Kansas Day!

Ed and I visited Brady's school this morning for his "Celebration of Life" ceremony. They make it very special and I think he loved every minute of it.

He helped the teacher organize the stuff needed for the ceremony.

And we brought a couple pictures of things he's done ever year he's been alive and told about them as he walked with the Earth in a circle around the months.

When asked about the 5 things he wants to do when he's 5, he said:

• Go to the dinosaur restaurant (tonight!)
• Play with his best friend Garrett (this weekend!)
• Learn how to zip up his coat by himself (working on it!)
• Learn how to tie his shoes (working on it!)
• And go to kindergarten (August!)

After the ceremony, he chose 3 friends who got to go sit with him and eat banana muffins - Carissa (they have a special bond because she's a wildcat fan and I think she's adorable because she has crazy curls!), Drew and Matthew.

This is going to be a BIG year!

Fire

I worked late last night to make up time I'll spend at Brady's school on Thursday for his bday and when I pulled down our street a little before 7 I saw a lot of smoke down the street. Ed ran up to the driveway and I could see the boys looking out the window - a neighbor's house was on fire and it didn't look good.

Ed went and checked on the status throughout the night - he has pics on his blog.

I understand 2 teenagers lived there and it's very hard to think the family has none of their belongings at this time. We will definitely be keeping this family in our prayers.

Dreaming of Spring

What do I look at almost every night before bed? My Burpee seeds catalog. I have big plans for my garden this year (every year :) and I'm going to find room to plant 4 different tomato plants and smoosh in lots of fun annuals that I can bring inside or dry. I'd also like to get a hydrangea, but have to think more about location for that one. Our Russian Sage bush and dead Azalea have been removed since last year so I feel like I have lots of new space.

It feels like nice weather is so far away . . . . . . .

Work In Progress

Story of my life. . . but I'm working on 3 projects right now that I really like.

One more coat of paint and the cabinets in our upstairs bathroom should be complete. I think we're going to really like it so it's probably the start of a lot of cabinet painting for me! (but I HATE to clean the brushes after the oil paint)

And I've started a Christmas quilt and really love the fabrics - it's pretty much a copy of this. I was excited to get stacks of "charm" squares so all I would have to do is sew the squares together - I love that I don't have to cut anything!

And I've had this project on my scrapbook "To do" list for awhile now and finally found some blank books that would hold a photo from each Halloween (until they're 18 :). I wanted to have a picture of the boys from every year all together (not spread throughout books) and thought about Christmas pictures, but think seeing them dressed up in all of their costumes through the years will be fun. Each page is very simple with a photo - just need to add a little text to the pages (and get some more Halloween ribbon for the page loops) and I'll be ready for next year!

Party, party!

Brady's 5th bday party was today and we celebrated with 15 of his friends and their parents at our community center. Ed's dad/Jacki and Aunt Debi & Uncle Tim came too and we were glad they did - we didn't intend for them to help so much with the kids and setting up/taking down, but they did and I don't think we would have survived without them. I think the kids had a good time and I'm glad to sit here and not think about preparation things and just relax :)

I had been working a little bit each night this week on making homemade playdough ("snow dough"), snowman treat sacks and last night I made two snowman cakes. And guess what?! I don't have a picture of any of them. Oh well!

I was just able to snap a few in-between holding Brett. . . . . .

Pizza!

Hot potato "snowball" style - the kids might have been a little young for this . . . .

The pinata was "a hit"

After the party, the kids laid down for naps and then Grandma & Grandpa Jones, Grammie & Papa Gilpin and Uncle Steve and his kids came over for dinner. Brady had requested another Baskin Robbins ice-cream cake (same one as last year) so that was really yummy.

I found these moustaches at the party store and thought they would be fun for pics - unfortunately Brady wasn't up for it.

Brady sang while Grandma provided backup music for end of night entertainment.

Brady is counting down the days until next Thursday - when he is officially 5 years old!!

Free Morning

Since Brady had a fever and had to go home from school yesterday, he had to stay home today (school's 24 hour rule). So this morning we dropped Brett of at Sandy's and headed to Wal-Mart to get stuff for his bday party this weekend. We were productive! There are still a few things we need to order from places, but I got everything I needed to make stuff - the food and goody bags.

On the way home, we stopped by the Goodwill store by our house. I've dropped a lot of clothes off at the one by my office, but had never gone inside. We found lots of treasures! I have big plans for the box ($1.98)- a little paint and some stencils, and the white platter is huge/heavy and just has a little mark on one side ($0.99) and we got some children's books (less than $0.50, don't remember exactly) that the boys will enjoy.

We even found a brand new Green Eggs and Ham book with tape ($5) that Brady can listen to and turn the pages himself - he's loving that.

And while I'm on the theme of good things cheap - as we were wandering around Wal-Mart we found these little ceramic creatures to paint for .44! Brady could hardly wait to get home and paint.

I felt good about our morning and thought we really found some bargains!

History made

picture from CNN.com

This morning the radio station combined Garth Brook's "We shall be free" song with Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech - it was great and I thoroughly enjoyed it on my way in to work. Like so many others I've heard, I really feel like I'm witnessing one of the biggest historical moments that has happened in my lifetime and most of all, I just love seeing so many people excited about our country and taking an interest.

The fact that Brady has been learning about the president's and MLK Jr. and we've been talking about it with him, has really made it special. He was trying to remember if a classmate had told him if they liked Obama or not on the way to school this morning and finally decided he'd just have to ask him again. Ha!

Unfortunately the teacher called from school today and said Brady has a fever so Ed had to pick him up. He better get to feeling better for his bday party Saturday!

Family Pictures

With the "boyz" turning 8 (last Saturday) and the fact that we haven't had family pictures taken since Brett was born, I thought we were due to have pictures taken. We (Becky and I) tried to organize something last summer with my entire family at my parents' house, but couldn't get ahold of the photographer so put it on hold. ANYWAY, since I was off today and thought I would be able to get the "boyz" spruced up I made an appt. at Picture People tonight. Yep, the dogs are headed to Oak Park :)

Should be interesting . . . I hope fun. . . at least I hope a good picture or two comes out of it. We'll see!

Oh, and another thing I'm excited about - the boys and I dropped Brady's quilt top off this morning at a local woman's house to be quilted. We won't get it back until mid-February, but still very exciting!

Update: The "boyz" got lots of attention tonight but after taking 20 some pictures we wondered if we had even taken one worth keeping. Brady didn't want to smile and when he did it was frightening. The boyz were TOO laid back and Tanner just wanted to lay down and sleep (they really are getting to be middle-aged men). But we were pleasantly surprised to see that the one we did want to keep was with the whole "fam" (we had the boys and dogs taken most without us).

Sorry about the terrible lighting (and the fact that yes, it's a picture of a picture), but I thought you might be interested to see what we ended up with. Other than Brady being stubborn, we're all looking at the camera so it was a success! I love that Tanner is showing his true colors and showing us his "diva/moody" look.

Pump It Up!

Brady and I went to Albert's (a classmate's) bday party yesterday morning at Pump It Up - a place that has huge inflatables for the kids to play on. The kids went crazy for 2 hours going down slides, running through obstacle courses and jumping around - a perfect thing for them to do in January!

Almost all of my pictures are blurry, but you get the idea.

It was a good chance for me to meet more of his classmates and talk to their mom's since a lot of them will be coming to Brady's party on Saturday! (Albert and Carissa's older siblings are in the front row of the pic, but other than that they are kids at Brady's school.)

Perspective

Things are super busy at work. Yesterday I was talking to my boss, who was in the airport traveling back to KC after being in one of our NJ offices all week, and she had to get off the phone because her flight was taking off. 15 minutes later Ed emailed me the CNN Headlines story about a plane going down in NYC. I was 90% sure that wasn't the airport she was leaving from, but sometimes it is cheaper to leave from LGA even though Newark is closer so wasn't 100% sure. And the timing would have been very close to when I thought she was leaving.

So even though something like that is never good and I feel for everyone involved, to imagine that my boss was one of the passengers really hit home. Suddenly my thoughts turned to things that really matter and a lot of my work stuff was put into perspective.

On my way home I was listening to the radio and heard how brave the pilot was and how he had gone back through the entire plane before he would get off. It's such a blessing to hear these stories and be so thankful for those that have people's lives in their hands on a daily basis and do such a great job.

It seems like I've had a lot of chances to experience these people in the last few months. I felt a similar way listening to the surgeon who took care of the boys' surgeries and felt so much appreciation that someone knew how to "fix" their problems. Each day truly is a blessing and I don't want to forget that.

.
picture from CNN.com

Freezing

It's a high of 11 degrees today. Too cold to do anything. Wish I was home on the couch with Tanner. . . .

So much hope

Even with the economy and uncertainties we are living with today, I have so much hope in our new President. And I wanted to make sure that everyone (who wanted to see it) read this letter he wrote to his children that will appear in Parade magazine (this weekend I believe).

Visiting the KC Symphony

Brady's school is visiting the Kansas City Symphony for a KinderKonzert this morning. He was disappointed that we couldn't go with him (on the bus), but I told him I'd try to make the next field trip. They really look forward to going on these trips!

Conversations this morning:

Brady: "The teacher said we could dress up nice. Like REALLY nice, bows or ties."
me: "Really? How about you just wear a nice shirt?"
Brady: "Yeah, that will be fine."

me: "Do you know what your field trip is today?"
Brady: "No"
me: "You're going to hear the Kansas City Symphony play classical music."
Brady: "Oh yeah, I know. We listen to classical music at school."
me: "But when you go on your trip, you'll get to see the orchestra and all of the big instruments."
Brady: "Mom, ALL of the instruments won't be big."

So there it is. I have a smarty pants.

And the angels sang . . .

My husband will probably say I'm being a little dramatic, but I've been set on getting rid of our vertical "slats" and after we looked at wood blinds and realized they would have to be mounted outside of our windows we gave up that idea. I figured curtains was then my best option.

So I was really excited when our curtains came in the mail today . . . . but they aren't long or wide enough so they will be going back as soon as the ones I ordered tonight come in. But that couldn't lessen the happiness I felt when Ed took the vertical blinds down. I didn't care, I was SO happy to see those windows!

Before -

Yeah!

Wrong size, but an idea - just plain brown, but I like the color with the brown in the fireplace brick. I got the same ones for the dining room and plan on pulling those back to the sides or having some kind of tie for them. We'll see!

No excuse

Guess what opened in our office building this week?!



It's a small fitness center (6-8 machines for a building of probably 300 people), but when there are 3 treadmills available 100 feet from my desk I should probably find a way to use them.

Fun shirts

I had wanted to make Brady a shirt with a big "5" on it that he could wear for his bday celebrations and was inspired by this post to make some heart shirts as well. Hopefully my nieces like them - I think they turned out pretty cute!

Seriously?

I thought I was doing good this morning. I took a shower and did my hair while Brady watched cartoons, got the boys waffles and juice when Brett woke up, got their clothes changed and brushed hair and teeth, fed the dogs, got coats/gloves/hats/backpacks for school and was out the door.

After dropping Brady off at school, and I was sitting at a stoplight I thought, "I don't remember putting mascara on this morning, I must look tired." so I looked in the mirror. Ugh! No mascara because I didn't put any makeup on period. Seriously - am I the only one who has TOTALLY forgotten an inch of makeup for work in the morning?! It just amazes me that I looked in the mirror and totally surprised myself. I'm losing my mind . . . . .

Highlights

I got my hair cut last week and I thought I was due for some highlights. I want to give a special shout out to my "highlighter" because I'm not sure very many husbands would be as patient about this as mine. Thanks babe!

The last time Ed gave me highlights we were on vacation in Sanibel, Florida and I thought it went pretty well. SO I hired him again :) After waiting an hour, this is what I had. I was pumped. I showed Ed this picture and then he reminded me that I was supposed to wash it out with the cap still on - oops!

Oh well, it didn't seem to make a huge difference and I am happy with the results.

I needed this

It's been a really good weekend. Last night after work we took the boys to the park so they could play while we got the dogs out for some exercise. Then Ed took Brady to the Sports Show downtown with one of his coworkers while Brett and I stayed home and got things done around the house and played on the computer. Brett is really getting the hang of the Jumpstart preschool games we have and rattles off the color of everything he sees (I can tell Sandy has been working with him!).

Ed started looking at the online weekend calendars Saturday morning and saw that Stinky Feet was performing at a theatre attached to Metcalf mall so we were excited to go see him. There was a really good clown that performed before him too. The boys really enjoy his music, but Brady was disappointed he wasn't chosen for Stinky Feet's "band" this time (he has in the past, but he didn't raise his hand right away this time. A good lesson for him to learn probably).

Saturday afternoon after the boys got down for naps, I picked up Sandy and we went to a make-n-take at a local scrapbook store. The page was really cute so I made one for both Brett and Brady. They are going to have a new page every month and since Ed got me a gift certificate for the store at Christmas, I signed up for the whole year and am SO excited to think that I will have at least one page done for each boy through 2009!

Getting back into scrapbooking has kind of been one of my New Year's Resolutions because other than "mini books" I pretty much didn't scrapbook in 2008 (if I had time, I sewed) and am trying to catch up and rethink my whole system because I really want to capture the boys' special memories. Anyhow, today I made 2 pages and was able to commit to getting 2 pages done every month - with Sandy, a very special person who has taken care of our boys from babies, and who I don't really get to catch up with often. Very excited!

Just two more weeks

and we'll be having Brady's 5th birthday party!

The 29th falls on a Thursday, so we're having his party the weekend before. He's settled on a "snow" party (after considering almost 10 other themes) and I think it's going to be lots of fun!
This year his "school friends" will be coming and he's very excited!



I'm having a hard time adjusting to the thought that he's going to be 5 - it just seems so much older than 4. (I hope I'm not a basketcase next fall. . . .)

Not like us

It's not like us to be watching so many movies, but our satellite was kicked out due to a wind storm and they couldn't come fix it until this Thursday. Yes, that means we didn't have TV the whole time we were home over the holidays. I know, I wouldn't normally think not having TV would be such a big deal, but the thought of getting up and watching the Today show every morning was really sounding good. Not to mention all of the "year end" shows for the New Year. Oh well, we survived.

Luckily everything we DVR'd was still viewable and Ed had taped a lot of movies! The boys were still able to watch a lot of their favorite cartoons/movies and we got to catch up on a couple movies that weren't cartoons! Nevermind, that they came out in 2002 and 2005 :)

Sweet Home Alabama - very cute (and I mean the movie and leading guy :)



Into the Blue - loved seeing all of the scenery in the Bahamas . . .sharks everywhere in the water not so much

My baby

and I have started a bad habit . . . that has to end tomorrow. He wakes up at 7 am straight up and calls for me. I go into his room and tell him to scoot over and we sleep for at least an hour longer. He sleeps so deeply (and adorably) when I'm beside him, it's been quite fun and I hate for it to end. And he does too. . . .tonight before he went to bed he asked if I could sleep with him . . . and he asked so sweetly, I ALMOST said yes :)

I started . . .

doing a little sanding while the boys took baths tonight. One of (many) things on my mental "to do" list is sand/prime/paint the cabinets and woodwork in our upstairs bathroom. Why the upstairs bathroom? It might be my favorite room in the whole house (big, easy and fun to decorate) and the woodwork is the worst in there.

If all goes well, I'll do the cabinets throughout the house. Not something I think I will really enjoy doing, but I hope it improves the looks of the house. We have a lot of wood in our house, so I can't even really imagine the "after" but am excited to see it. Our woodwork has seen better days . . . . it was bad when we bought it and we had some people come in and do some cleaning/staining to the kitchen and bathrooms cabinets a couple years ago but they eventually went back to what they looked like before.

Here's what I sanded while the boys took baths - I've since taken one of the doors and hardware off so I can really get it done.

Brett did a little underwater sight-seeing while I sanded :) He was so proud he put these on by himself - he is INDEPENDENT. He will try to zip his coat up for 15 minutes before he lets me help him!

Friday Night Lights

We headed to Crown Center tonight to watch some of the ice-skaters, eat at Panera and walk through the stores. After watching the ice-skaters and eating at Panera, the boys loved walking through the "tunnels" to the stores - this picture was taken from there. The ice-rink was packed since it was such a nice night out, but I hope we can take the boys skating next year. . . .



Brady was wanting to buy something from a store, so when we saw this chocolate store we thought it would be a treat. A treat it was! I picked out 5 SMALL truffles for the boys to share and it was more than $7 - Ed and I just looked at each other and thought "this better be the best damn chocolate they've ever tasted" :)

Happy New Year!

After running around a lot, it was nice to just hang out and spend New Year's Eve at home. Ed grilled hamburgers, the kids played Hullabaloo (a new game the Braxmeyers gave them)



we made Smores



and the boys slept on the air mattress by the Christmas tree (last year was the start of this tradition).


Happy New Year! 2009!!

Mall Rats

After taking naps Tuesday afternoon, we met my parents and B5 (my brother's family) at Oak Park to use the Build-a-Bear gift cards my parents had gotten all of the younger kids. Brady picked out a koala bear (and named him Joey) and Brett picked a puppy dog (and named him Harry).

As a sidebar - Ed got his nails done before we made the animals. . . . . (and no, he hasn't shaven since we started holiday break on Dec. 23rd!)

And after we made the animals, we saw my dad had found a seat in the middle of the mall (no surprise there!).

We celebrated Becky's bday at Margarita's and then called it a night!

The next morning the kids and I headed back to the mall to meet Dedra and Susan and their 5 kids. Susan and her family (who live in Oregon) were back in KC visiting her family for the holidays. The kids played and we had lunch in the food court, before Dedra and I tried to make our way through some shops before realizing all the boys wanted to do is look up skirts and laugh at the mannequins. I've never heard so much "potty" talk - 4/5-year-old-boys think "butts" and "poop" are VERY funny!