Cooper's 2nd Birthday

Today we all headed out to Funtastic Island in Owasso for Cooper's 2nd birthday party. Cooper is Meredith's nephew, and Meredith is my brother's girlfriend. So now that I've explained that I'll tell you about the party. :)

Funtastic Island isn't really an island and you'd think there would be water features, but you would be wrong. :) It's a bunch of super cool playground equipment, swings, and a big sandbox. We've taken Brenden there before and he loves it. He barely stopped to say hi to everyone before he ran off to play.

Round and round!

Eventually, he came back to hang out with us for a little while, stuffed some cake and ice cream in his mouth, and drank at least 2 bottles of water. For some reason he's obsessed with drinking out of the bottles and he's getting pretty good at it.

Glug, glug!

Our favorite part was when Isaac, Cooper's dad, who is a reserve fire fighter for Collinsville, turned on the water hose from the fire truck. Brenden was a little hesitant at first, but after a few minutes, and a few sprays right in his face, he decided that he loved it. I think most people had a great time watching him run screaming back and forth through the water. When they ran out and left to refill the truck he found a nice big mud puddle and stomped right in. Do you think any other kids joined him? Nope. Just our crazy kid!

It was a great day and we had a wonderful time! Happy Birthday, Cooper! Thanks for including us in your fun!

Brenden's Boat

First off, NO...no one has actually bought Brenden a boat. We're really not crazy, I promise. However, his grandparents did get a deck boat yesterday. They've been thinking of doing it for awhile since Brenden loves to be on the boat but doesn't do so well on grandpa's fishing boat. He could get caught in one of the lures and there aren't a whole lot of seats. Hence..."Brenden's boat."

The new boat!

Thanks grandma and grandpa!

(We were in the driveway, which is why he's allowed to sit there with no life jacket.)

Ready to go! He begged to put his life jacket on. He knows we won't go without it.

We knew it would be a bigger boat than the fishing boat but we had no idea how much bigger. That thing is HUGE! It can seat up to 10 people and rides really smoothly through most waves. (more on that in a sec.) Brenden absolutely LOVES it. He can sit in the front and be bounced around a little, sit with grandpa and "drive" the boat, or sit in the back where there is a lot less wind and he can wave at other boats.

"Driving" the boat!

So those waves...yeah. We were headed to the marina to eat at Cross Timbers. You can dock your boat and walk up to the restaurant, which is pretty nice and has a great view. We were maybe 100 yards from the dock when we saw a huge boat go by. It was a double decker thing and even Tim doesn't know what it's called. The one thing we know for sure is that it makes HUGE waves in the water, as in 5-6 foot waves. We didn't see them until we were right up on them. Mike slowed way down and we thought we'd be just fine. Yeah, we were wrong. As we hit the first wave a giant wall of water came over the front of the boat, right where Tim and I were sitting. Tim told me later that there was a 2nd wave but I didn't sit there long enough to watch that one. Luckily Brenden was sitting on his grandma's lap behind the glass partition. Unluckily I had just been taking pictures and my camera was sitting on my lap, taking the full force of at least one of the waves.

Only a few minutes before "THE WAVE".

My camera is not the most expensive. It doesn't do amazing things that other cameras can do. Yes, there have been times that I wished I had a camera like Karen's, which takes crazy good pictures. But still, I love my camera. And I know it's not just MY camera, but out of every 100 pictures Tim maybe takes one, so I claim it. So when I looked at my camera, after squeezing a bit of water out of my clothes and shaking my head to get water out of my ears (that hurt!), I was horrified to see the screen flickering. Yes, I cried. It's not like we have money falling out of our pockets. I can't replace my camera immediately.

The last picture I took with my camera. :(

Mike felt terrible. I don't know how many times we told him there was no way that he could have known that was going to happen. It could have been Tim driving the boat. I should have put my camera up when I was done. A million what ifs, it still doesn't fix my camera or make Mike feel better. (Although I hope he does by now...it's all good, Mike!) Mike and Connie let us borrow their camera for now so I'm not camera-less. There are much worse things that could have happened and looking back I'm so glad it was just my camera we lost.

Needless to say, the restaurant was out of the question until we were dry. By the time we got back to their house it was getting late and by the time our clothes would have dried we would have needed to head home. Instead, Mike and Tim went to get pizza, which I will never complain about.

It may not have been the first ride that we expected, but it was definitely one to remember!

"That's the next step towards...

...potty training." I have heard this sentence many times in the last few days. I'm horrified of potty training. Most of it will be work on my part and I'm nervous because I have NO idea how to do it. There are so many different ideas on how to potty train; when they are ready, what not to do, to reward or not reward...it's dizzying. So what has brought on this bought of anxiety?

NO MORE PACIFIERS.

I have no idea what came over me but on Thursday I decided we were done. Maybe I was tired of scrounging for one every night. Perhaps it was as we were rolling around Sam's, passing other babies with their pacifiers, and I realized that Brenden was almost twice their size. I know it was partly because when Brenden gets tired in the car he throws things out of frustration and a week or so ago he bonked me in the back of the head and then screamed when I didn't hand it back.

This has not been an easy transition. He's still getting used to his toddler bed and we're still trying to find out when is the perfect time to lay him down for his nap. (Yes, I just said NAP...as in singular. No, I'm not happy about it, but I should probably be grateful that he takes one.) The first day it took 1 1/2 hrs for him to fall asleep, but gosh darnit he did it. That night was interesting, too. Tim started to cave in about 10 minutes, but there was no way I was going to give it back. Truthfully, I don't think Tim would have either. He knows that when we change something, like having Brenden fall asleep in his crib by himself or where we let Brenden play, we don't go back. Giving in only makes it 10 times harder when we eventually get the nerve to do it again.

It's been 3 days and it's become slightly easier. He still cries and wants one of us to lay day with him but he didn't ask for his pacifier after the first night, which I'm going to take as a very good sign. Will this come back to bite me? Oh I'm sure it will. But for right now I'm happy to be done. Maybe by the time we get around to adding to our family he won't steal pacifiers. Yeah right. :)

Fast asleep...not a pacifier in sight!

Happy Birthday Karen!!! (Not at all Wordless Wednesday)

Happy Happy Birthday to the wonderful and fabulous Karen! We are all so lucky to have you in our lives. We love you!

Memorial Day 2009

Memorial Day marks the beginning of our summer. It's a day to remember those who protect our freedom. In the Kelly household it is also a weekend of lake fun mixed in with the annual Art of Motion show.

Friday night we dropped Brenden off with grandma Connie and Lu-Lu (aka: Grace, Connie's mom and Brenden's great grandma) and headed to Bartlesville for dress rehearsal. I guess I forgot to tell Tim that when we were married he signed an invisible, yet binding, document to help backstage with any dance studio function. He didn't complain, but I'm sure he would have rather been fishing. :) Rehearsal ran smoothly, only a few minor bumps, (Thank you Jamie for showing up and getting me off the hook for stage managing! WHEW!) and we headed back to the lake.

The next morning I slept in while Mike and Tim fished. Well, they attempted to fish. That round proved to be unsuccessful. Connie had taken Brenden and Grace back to the house (they are only about 10 minutes from the campsite) for the night and they showed back up on Saturday around 9 am. While Connie cooked breakfast Tim and I took Brenden out on the boat. Last year he wasn't mobile so he was very content to sit on our laps and watch the water. This year he wanted to steer, push buttons, and grab at the water. It was still fun, just a lot more challenging.


That afternoon Tim and Mike actually caught something (5 fish to be exact) while Connie, Grace and I lounged around near the camper and Brenden napped. The weather was extremely nice, not too hot and very sunny. I eventually realized we forgot Brenden's pool so I thought I'd be smart and improvise with a plastic bin. It worked out well, until Tim decided to dump most of the water on me. He ended up soaked as well, and Brenden squealed and laughed. He used the squishy baseballs and football that his grandma had bought to soak our audience as well. I never knew an evil look could be so darn cute!

Coming to get us!!!

Eventually we headed back to Bartlesville (after showers of course, can't smell like the lake!) to start the show. It was fabulous! The girls were all well behaved and did a wonderful job. Carrie and Jenna, the seniors, made me cry with their solos and I made it across the stage to hand Shelly her flowers without falling down. All in all, a complete success! We couldn't stick around for long, the gate to the campground closed at 10 pm. By 9:55 pm we were almost there when we hit a road block that didn't look much like a road block. We thought the police had pulled over a truck full of kids and almost got in trouble by driving past before they flagged us down. They checked our licenses, made sure we didn't have beer, checked our out of date insurance (Oops! They didn't notice! We had one in date, we just handed them the wrong one.) and told us to have a nice night. Luckily we made it with only a minute or two to spare. Whew!

Backstage with Andi! :)

The next day my parents, Justin, Dan and Ginny came down for a cookout. Brenden was entertaining everyone, kicking a beach ball, making everyone pull him in the wagon, and showing off his new sentences. Suddenly, Tim and I both gasped as he tried to climb on the bench next to the picnic table, which is made of concrete, and he slipped. At first I thought he had just scratched his lip, but when we finally got a closer look there were teeth marks and what looked like a flap of skin under his lip where he bit through it. As usual, it's not a Kelly holiday unless some one's at the ER or gets hurt. We headed into Bailey Medical Center (We looove them! They took great care of Tim, too!) In 15 minutes we were chatting with a doctor, who explained that Brenden did bite his lip, but his teeth glanced off the top and then bit under his lip, not through it. He reassured us, several times, that it would probably scar but that Brenden would grow out of it. Scars don't scare me. As a boy I know Brenden will have his fair share. I was more worried that he needed stitches. The doctor assured us that he was fine without them. It only took about 30 minutes in all, 5 of which was Brenden charming the nurses into giving him crackers and juice. :) We made it back in one piece and eventually had our cookout, which was interrupted by a quick storm that sent us running. Eleven people in one, medium sized camper? We were very chummy!

The rest of the weekend was uneventful. We went on a few more boat rides, I perfected my sunburn, and we had a great time with our family.

We hope everyone had a wonderful weekend, minus the ER visits of course!

Happy Memorial Day!!!

What a Difference A Year Makes

Memorial Day 2008

Memorial Day 2009

Oh how I love my boys! :)

Wordless Wednesday

He fought the stairs and the stairs won.

(He was up and running around in no time.)

Completely unfazed.

Tim's 10 Year High School Reunion (And Congrats to Meredith!)

Yes, that time has officially arrived. The 10 year reunions are upon us! This last weekend was the first, Tim's reunion for Glenpool High School. Not only am I happy that his is first so that I can officially call him "older," but it was good practice to see what worked and what didn't so that my 10 year reunion next month may go a little more smoothly.

Friday night we headed out to Clubhouse, a bar and grill, for a meet and greet. We had a great time chatting with everyone that showed up, which was about 20-25 people. Good for a first night! Right as we decided to leave the skies opened up and a million gallons of water fell from the sky. It was like buckets of cool water. Soaked doesn't even begin to cover what we looked like. Drowned rats sounds more appropriate. Somehow I didn't take even one picture of the entire night, but I'm hoping to steal some from Brandi very soon. :)

The next day was a picnic at Black and Gold park in Glenpool. It was a little windy and overcast, but it wasn't raining. Whoo hoo! Tim had rented a bouncer, which is the first thing Brenden sprinted for. From then on I have no idea what anyone else was doing. Brenden was either in the bouncer, sliding, or swinging. Once the other kids showed up I made him share and he didn't like that at all. We shoved a few hotdogs in our mouths and then Brenden and I headed home. He was long past nap time. I think Tim and the people that showed up had a great time even though it was a lot less people then they thought. They were lucky and took back everything they didn't use so they have a jump start on their next reunion funds.

Bouncers are FUN!

In between the picnic in the morning and the dinner that night I took Brenden to Meredith's (Justin's girlfriend) graduation party. We were unable to go to the actual graduation but I'm glad we got to see her that day. Congratulations, Meredith!!! Her nephew, Cooper, was there, who is almost 2, so Brenden was excited. They ran up to each other and hugged at least 15 times. They met once before at my brother's birthday in March but they really don't know each other. I'm glad they are both so friendly. So what should have been all about Meredith turned into a playdate for Brenden and Cooper. :) I think she had a great time, too.

Cooper and Brenden, instant friends.

I had to leave to head to downtown Tulsa and my navigation decided to lead me on a random trip though Tulsa side streets. I gave up and just headed in what I thought might be the right direction. Thankfully I made it to the right spot and headed upstairs with Tim to the 28th floor. After a quick stop to get a nametag and have our picture taken ("Just like prom! ") we headed in to enjoy super yummy Mexican food, drinks, and an iPod dj. (Hey, no tipping required.) :) Tim was a social butterfly so I made myself at home at the table and chatted with a few new people. Thanks for entertaining me Lora, David, Jeremy, and Katherine! We made it home around 11:30 pm, exhausted and totally happy.

The only picture we took Saturday night.
(View from the 28th floor of the sunset.)

It was a fabulous weekend and I had a great time meeting all of Tim's high school friends. I know he had a great time as well and he's looking forward to the next reunion, especially since next time he's letting someone else do most of the work. :)

Wordless Wednesday

Several of the blogs I follow post pictures on Wednesday with little or no writing, just a few pictures that are especially funny, or even completely random. I've wanted to join in for a long time, so here I go! I'll try to do my best to keep it up. :)

Our First Wordless Wednesday!

The Random Sleeping Habits of Our Crazy Toddler

Happy Mother's Day!!!

To all the wonderful mothers in our lives...know that you are special, appreciated, and absolutely amazing. We love you!


And a big THANK YOU to everyone for the flowers, cards and for just being there to make my Mother's Day special. :)

I could not resist...they were showing me their "cheese" faces. HEHE!