Congrats to Justin and Meredith!

Last night my brother did what he had been planning on doing for a long time...he proposed!!! The poor guy has been holding onto the ring for a few months now, waiting for the right moment.

I don't know all the details or if it went as planned but I know they were going to take a horse drawn carriage ride and he wanted to do it under the St. Louis Arch. When I see pictures and actually talk to him for more than 3 seconds I guess I'll find out. :)

BIG CONGRATULATIONS!!!! And welcome to the family, Meredith!

The happy couple!

He's a Fish!!!!

Today was Brenden's first swimming lesson. Tim and I both thought that he would like it. I mean, he begs to go in the bathtub all day long and had a blast running in front of a fire hose. How could he not like it? Thankfully, we were right.

I showed up a little too early and Brenden had a minor meltdown because I didn't immediately let him run out into the water. Not going to make that mistake again! Tim decided to take a few hours off from work to come to the first lesson since he wouldn't be able to come to any of the other ones. Both Brenden and I are so glad that he could make it!

Tim grabbed Brenden's hand and walked him into the water down one of their the gently sloping ramps. (A genius way to get kids used to the water slowly....I so should have expected that. Duh!) Immediately Brenden wanted to walk on his own and actually made it halfway down before the water was a bit too deep. They were the first to meet up with the instructor, who's name I cannot remember, and she handed them a watering can to get wet with. Amazingly, Brenden was not having that. He screeched and wailed and did NOT want his dad pouring water on him. Um...weird! We do that every time he takes a bath!

Eventually the other 3 little kids made it out to the pool with their moms. Each Diaper Dolphin class only has 4 kids so it's not overwhelming at all. They blew bubbles in the water, which Brenden eventually did once, splashed around after floating toys, learned how to crawl out of the pool (Brenden was the first one out...shocking), and jumped off the side. They sang songs and floated around and all of the kids really seemed to enjoy it. By the end, every time Tim put Brenden on his belly he would flail his arms around or kick his feet. I have a feeling he'll be doggy paddling before we know it.

The entire time they were in there I watched from an observation room. I took a few blurry pictures with Tim's phone and waved every 2 seconds when Brenden would yell at me. Tim said he talked to me the entire time. I am still amazed that I FORGOT MY CAMERA! Maybe subconsciously I was worried about getting a camera too close to the water, because we all know, cameras do not like water! :) However, I have heard from a very reliable source (Mike!) that my camera has dried out and possibly even works! Hallelujah! I'm ready to check it out!

I thought for sure Brenden would be impossible to get out of the pool and even worse to get out of the building. He ended up doing just fine - maybe he was tired - and we headed to Jason's Deli. We don't eat out very often so Fridays are a big day for Tim. He even has his own little song, which I cannot get out of my head, that he sings on Thursday nights. :) Brenden ate more than I've seen him eat in months. He very happily chomped on grilled cheese, chunks of cantaloupe, pineapple, strawberries, tomatoes, crackers...you name it from the salad bar. I thought I was the only kid that ever loved cantaloupe. I guess I passed that on!

By the time we got back to the house Brenden seemed to be exhausted. He was sitting in his carseat, staring out the window, and singing "Mi mi mi mi, mo mo mo mo" over and over again very quietly. (I have a feeling it was about Mickey Mouse.) As soon as I pulled him out of the car he had his head on my shoulder and by the time I got to his bed I think he was half asleep. I took him roughly 5 seconds to close his eyes and by the time I got everything from the car into the house he was snoring. :)

Fridays are looking like awesome days!

Here are the pictures I took. I told you, they're blurry! (click to enlarge)

Trying to get him to let dad pour water on him. He was not impressed!

I think they were swinging them around in the water.

Splish, splash! "Swimming" towards the edge.

How To Put On Shorts, Step by Step

Step One - Have your mom put one foot in. That way you know which side is the front.

Step Two - Stick the other foot in. Don't worry if you lose sight of both of your feet for a little while. They are still there. Just keep kicking and eventually they will show back up.

Step Three - Grab the front of your shorts and yank...and keep yanking...and keep yanking. You may need to grunt, stick your tongue out, and possibily ask for help before getting back to yanking.

Step Four - Stand up and, much like step three, keep on yanking. Your diaper may get in the way but eventually it will relent and you'll make it up and over.

Step Five - Make sure to turn around and look extremely proud. You've worked hard! Now you deserve some ice cream!

Wordless Wednesday

I'm totally stealing this idea from Bear and Bug's Mommy. :) (Thanks, Heather!)

So...who does Brenden look more like? In the delivery room we all thought he was his daddy's twin.

Meeting Brenden...Sept. 16th, 2007.

Our Baby Pictures:

Tim - 2 days old

Brenden - 1 week old

Amanda - 2 days old

Now?

Tim and Brenden (17 months old)

Amanda and Brenden (18 months old)

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!