March Madness!

We had a really busy March and have been out of town every single weekend (with the exception of the first weekend), which has why it has taken me so long to catch up on the blog! :) While we've been going non-stop, it was definitely a fun month!

Before writing about our adventures, I just have to post this picture. One morning I asked the boys to clean up the playroom (which is a request they hear quite often!) while I was doing the dishes. All of a sudden I realized it was quiet (which usually means they are getting into some sort of trouble), so I walked into the living room and found them here...

The funniest part is that when I walked into the room and asked them what they were doing (and why they weren't cleaning up) Landon said, "We're taking a break because we're tired." And yes, his hands were up behind his head just like that. (So, of course I grabbed my camera.)

The first weekend in March we took the boys to see The Lorax. Believe it or not, but this was the first movie Grady has ever seen in an actual movie theater. For a couple of years he was extremely sensitive to loud noises, so we never felt he would truly enjoy going to a movie; however, this year he seems to have gotten over that, and since The Lorax is one of their favorite books, it seemed the perfect time to go. Grady was in complete awe through the whole movie, and Landon made it through most of it, although Brandon spent the last bit walking with him in the lobby.  Here they are before the movie...

A few days later we left for Florida! This was another fairly spontaneous trip to Vero Beach, but we figure we won't have this luxury next year once Grady is in kindergarten. We made the 10+ hour car trip and stayed for five nights....the trip is surprisingly pretty easy, although this time we dealt with the non-stop "When are we going to be there?" from both of them. That's to be expected I guess though! While we were there we of course enjoyed some time at the beach...

Another highlight of the trip was bowling! And the cutest part was that Hannah and Landon even got little bowling shoes....

Grady absolutely loves to bowl and gets super excited even if he doesn't knock any pins down...it's pretty cute!

Landon loves the idea of new things, but often times is a little hesitant at first. About half way through the game, he finally tried it and really liked it! Here is Louis giving him some pointers...

Hannah loves to bowl and on several different occasions decided to pick up random (and very heavy!) bowling balls and move them from place to place. Luckily, she made it through with no broken toes! :)

We had a special trip planned to the zoo on our last day, but unfortunately it rained! We weren't sure if it was going to last all day, so we headed in the direction of the zoo only to realize it was definitely going to rain ALL day. Ugh. After making some calls from the car, we found a small reptile farm that was primarily indoors, so we decided to go there. I don't think any of us were all that thrilled about seeing reptiles (aka snakes), but we tried to be positive and make the best of it. As you can see in this picture below, Brandon loved looking at the snakes.... :) 

And here is our little nephew (due June 5th!) enjoying the snakes. Kelly is right at the 30-week mark and doing great. Can't wait to meet the little guy! :)

The highlight of the reptile farm was that a few times a day they had a "venom extracting show." This place actually sells the venom to pharmaceutical companies for anti-venom, so we got to see how it is extracted. It became instantly clear why the man doing this was missing a finger. :)Thankfully the demonstration was done behind glass, although the guy doing it informed us that there were lots of poisonous snakes on the farm just roaming around (because they just naturally exist in FL everywhere). Not exactly what I wanted to hear, but luckily we escaped with no sightings or bites. Before the show, they brought out a komodo dragon, and the boys surprisingly loved it!

Afterwards, we made a quick stop to Downtown Disney, which is really great because little kids actually think they are at Disney World (and it's free!). Ha! Grady was in heaven because we went to stores which featured Mr. Potato Head, legos and Toy Story! :) 

Snow, Snow and Love!

A few weeks ago we headed up to Boone to see Granny and Gramps. We were really excited because snow was in the forecast (the perfect kind....not too much, but enough to play in it!), and at that point we hadn't seen any snow all winter! Of course it was also the coldest weekend I can remember - at one point with the wind chill it was between -5 and -10. Brrrr!

The first day out in the snow was tolerable (in regard to the temperature), but the second day was brutal. We got about two feet out the door, and Landon's face literally looked like it was frozen. He decided right then and there that he wanted to go back inside. Brandon and I stayed out with Grady for about 10 more minutes, but that was about all we could take. It was SO cold!

Saying goodbye after a great weekend....

And just a week or so later, we finally got our own snow! It wasn't much, but it was still nice to see.  It literally melted within hours! (You can kind of see my daffodils in the background....that's because just a few days prior it was 70 degrees! Lucily, they survived the snow!)

And somewhere in between the two snows we celebrated Valentine's Day. At preschool they had "Pancakes and Pajamas Day," so all the kids got to wear their pajamas to school, have pancakes and pass out and collect their Valentine's cards. It was really adorable! Here is Grady after we got home....

Here were the little Valentine's treats we made for his classmates. I found this idea online and thought they were so cute. It reads, "You're a Super Friend!" This one shown below was made for Landon, so it says, "You're a Super Brother!" :)

In a couple of whiles....

Sometimes kids just say the cutest things, and if you don't write them down, I've found you easily forget them (even though you swear you won't!). Now that Landon can fully converse with Grady (this has been happening for quite a while now!), I love listening to their little conversations. During bath time tonight, this is the conversation they had:

- Grady: "Landon, can I have that blue cup you have?" (This is the cup we use to rinse their hair.)
- Landon: "Not right now. You can have it in a couple of whiles."
- Grady: "How long is a couple of whiles?"
- Landon: "3 minutes."

Landon always hears us say things like, "in a little while..." or "in a couple of minutes." So, I guess he decided to combine the two! Of course they then proceeded to get into an argument about how long "a couple of whiles" actually is. (And if you're wondering what the drawings are on the bathtub....Kelly and Louis got the boys bath crayons for Christmas, which the boys love!)

 We went to see the Gustafer Yellowgold show at The ArtsCenter this past weekend, and  after the show they were handing out little tattoos. The boys were so excited because they were going to put "stamps" on just like Daddy! (They call Brandon's tattoo his "stamp.")

Since I kind of began this post with cute stories, here's another one.... Tonight when Brandon was saying goodnight to Grady, this was the conversation they had:

Background: Grady and Landon always say that Brandon has a "crunchy beard," which basically means he has stubble.  So, when Brandon kissed him goodnight tonight, it sparked this conversation. :)

Grady:  "Daddy, did you have a beard when you were little?"
Brandon: "No, that's something that you get when you're bigger. Then you end up shaving it off!"
Grady: "When you shave it off, does it make you little again?"
Brandon: "No, but I wish it did."
Grady: "If you were 4, we could go to preschool together."

So sweet.

And totally switching gears here....Brandon and I were able to have a weekend to ourselves thanks to Mimi and Popeye! Kind of at the last minute, we asked them to watch the boys for a weekend in mid January so we could get some things done around the house (and get a couple of nights out!). The boys had a great time, and the best part is it kind of broke the horrible sleep pattern Landon was in. Yay! Here is a picture of them warming up by the fire after their baths. (According to my parents, bringing in firewood was one of their favorite activities while they were there!)

I know I'm kind of all over the place with this post, but I took this picture a couple of days ago. There is just something so sweet about boys playing with trucks. It's like they don't need any other toy in the world when they're in "truck mode." These trucks are extra special because they were Brandon's when he was little.

And of course playing doctor is fun too....Grady is wrapping Landon's ankle. Can you tell these two are best friends?! :)

Merry Christmas!

I'm finally posting Christmas pictures (only a month late)! We changed things up a bit this year, and Granny, Gramps and Scott actually came to our house for Christmas Eve/Christmas, which was a lot of fun! About two seconds after arriving, Grady had Gramps on the floor playing Candyland. Gramps was a very good sport!

We ate an early Christmas Eve dinner, and then got all dressed up for church. Unfortunately, I didn't really get a good picture of the boys in their sweater vests (yep, that's pretty much the staple dress up attire for little boys), but at least I got a couple decent ones. (One thing I love about having two kids the same gender is that I get to see all of the little outfits recycled....it didn't seem like that long ago that Grady was wearing this on Christmas!)

Fast forward to later that night..... After church the boys helped me make cookies for Santa, and we decided to make a blueberry pie as well! Landon's favorite part was eating the frozen blueberries. (I still had some left from when we picked blueberries last summer!)

Then Gramps read Twas the Night Before Christmas while we drank egg nog and sat by the fire. (I think this picture of Grady chugging his egg nog is hilarious!) Grady also spent a lot of time asking us lots of detailed questions about Santa....how does he get back up the chimney?, why doesn't he get his sleigh stuck in the trees when he's landing on houses?, are santa and jesus friends?,  etc. There is just such magic in Christmas, and I so want him to keep that innocence forever!

On Christmas morning, the boys were beyond excited! We made them wait and go down together, and Grady could hardly contain himself. And so began the present opening! Grady was so happy that he got a marble tower, which was on his Christmas list. "Santa" apparently forgot to read the box though because the tower has 80 pieces. Yikes!

Landon got a riding mouse! And I am happy to report that he rides on it every single day.

Grady and Landon got bathrobes from Granny and Gramps, and they look so cute in them!

There was of course a small debate about whether the boys should be in their pajamas opening gifts or dressed. I kind of tend towards having them dressed for purposes of pictures, but Brandon is really into the pajama thing, so that's what we went with. This is probably why you're not seeing more pictures of present opening! While a 2-year-old and 4-year-old look adorable in pajamas, not so much for a 33-year-old. It became clear that the "cute pajama look" was really the "I just got run over by a tractor trailor look" for me! Next year I'm getting dressed first!

And I'm not even sure when this picture was taken, but it is just so funny so I had to post it. They didn't think a thing of it.... I mean, who doesn't love naked coloring?!?!

Later on Christmas day we headed to Pinehurst to celebrate with my family....Mimi, Popeye, Ma, Kevin, Carleen (and their little one!), Louis, Kelly, and Hannah. One of the first gifts the boys opened was from Kelly, Louis and Hannah - tarantulas. Their favorite thing to do was run up to everyone and scare them!

Hannah got a game and crib for her dolls.... The boys clearly enjoyed all of her presents as well!

And Christmas would not be complete without chocolate ice cream for dessert!

In addition to Christmas, we also got to celebrate Popeye's 70th birthday with him! We went out to a nice dinner, and all the grandkids helped him blow out his candles. 

He got a new laptop from all of us!

Pre-Christmas Festivities!

Christmas is such an exciting time, especially with little ones! Grady was absolutely giddy through all of December (which meant Landon was too!), so we tried to do a lot of fun activities and really enjoy the season. After decorating the tree and putting all the Christmas decorations up, the next task was to write letters to Santa. Grady decided early on that he only wanted two things for Christmas: a marble tower and play-dough. Landon just said he wanted toys. :)

And the most exciting part...putting the letters in the mailbox!

Landon made some ornaments in our playgroup that we brought home and cooked, so Grady got to help decorate them. He was of course thrilled that we had made him a "G" ornament. :)

We also had our first professional family photo shoot! (I found a great deal on groupon, so decided to go for it.) We got some pretty cute pictures out of it. The funny part about this picture of Grady below is that Landon was lost somewhere in these bushes....he fell down in them, and we literally lost him for a few seconds!

Here's sweetie #1....

And sweetie #2....

Brandon took this picture later that day... I think he looks so much like me when I was little here! (And something about this picture really shows his sneaky side.) 

Grady had a special Christmas program at preschool, which basically entailed singing several Christmas carols and jingling some bells. It was of course super cute (as always)! It's so funny because we always see so much of ourselves in Grady. He's a bit shy in school (not at home!), so while every other child was frantically searching for their parents and waving, Grady was purposely looking the other way trying not to make eye contact with us. Brandon and I were both shy when we were little (me more so than him!), and that's exactly what we would have done in a situation like this. The good part is we totally "get" this little guy and were not one bit offended! You'll notice in all the pictures he's looking the other way....he he. We were proud of him though because he did sing (well, kind of) and shook his jingle bells.

Kelly and Hannah came up a few days early (before Christmas), so we got to spend some time with them as well! We had dinner one night at Carleen and Kevin's house and made a gingerbread house, which they all loved (especially Kevin!). :)

Hannah relaxing with Carleen.... decorating a gingerbread house is exhausting!

Stay tuned for Christmas pics! :)