January Snow

The end of January we got a huge snowfall and, of course, it wouldn't be very fun unless we went out played in it as long as our toes, fingers, and noses could take it.  Braden desperately wanted to build a snowman but the snow wasn't very wet so it wouldn't stick together.  So we made a small one by just piling up the snow and packing it together.  He loved his little snowman and used a straw for the nose and rocks for the eyes.  The mouth is covered by the scarf, so he says.  I tried and tried to get him to put the face on so the snowman was facing the street, but he refused.  Why?  Because his little snowman needed to watch him play Star Wars on the Wii and watch Oscar's Oasis on netflix.  So he faced our window. I often caught Braden looking out the window and talking to his snowman.

Landon loves his trucks.  He has a lot of fun piling snow in the back of his dump truck and then dumping it in random places.

I love red noses and rosy cheeks.  They are so cute.

Posing with his new friend.  Snow can be a lot of fun.

They desperately want to ride their scooters that they got for Christmas, but it just doesn't work too well in the snow.  They still had fun riding around under the carport.

Landon's Bed

Landon moved to his new bed just after Thanksgiving.  I got tired of him crying every morning because he wanted out of his crib.  From the very beginning he took to his bed without a problem.  He goes right to sleep for naptime and bedtime.  BUT, he has to take all of his favorite toys to bed with him.  His favorite toys are not small either, some of them are huge.  He lines them up on either side of him until there's hardly any room for him.  He also has to take his favorite ball to bed.  Again, it's not small.  He also requires a drink of water by his bedside, so if he gets thirsty he's got it handy. He's very particular about all of this and if I put him to bed without his favorite items then he'll line them all up himself after I've left the room before he'll go to sleep.  At night I have to go in, after he's asleep, and remove all the toys from his bed so he has room to sleep.  This kid is so funny.

Landon also likes me to take his picture and then turn the camera around and show it to him.  When I showed him this picture he got very serious and said, "Landon, blue".  He looked at it for about 5 minutes before he would let me move on.  He just kept saying over and over, "blue".  I thought it was funny.  He has such a little personality.

The Piano Guys

Well, I sit at work for a graveyard shift and have nothing to do but stay awake.  My duties for the evening are sit in a box surrounded by windows, and keep myself and two other staff awake.  I do a lot of YouTubing, Pinteresting, Pandoraing, and internet stuff in general.  So lately I've been into The Piano Guys.  If you haven't heard of them look them up because they are amazing.  I absolutely LOVE their music.  They do everything from spiritual stuff, classical, and pretty much anything you like.  I've loved their version of A Thousand Years - Christina Perri.  They have also done OneRepublic, Coldplay, and songs from the new Les Miserables. 

A little tid bit about me, whenever I go to a movie I close my eyes and listen to the music.  If it's something I like I will run out and get the score for that movie. Scores are so much better than the soundtracks. These composers are like the Beethoven's of our time.  My favorites are Transformers, Gladiator, and Braveheart, but I have tons more that I like to listen to.  I love music with no words.  It can touch the heart better than anything else and you can feel your own words.  Anyway check out this video from the Piano Guys, this is one of my favorites from the Bourne Soundtrack.  Love it, the music and the movie. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgBbI-Pkwb8&NR=1


p.s. I realize this post is kind of cheezy, but music does that to me :)

Happy Birthday Braden!

Braden's birthday always catches me off guard.  It sneaks up on me and I don't feel like I've recovered from Christmas before it hits me that I've got to do some shopping for him.  I can't believe he's 5!  Where has the time gone?  Unfortunately, we were still recovering from a bout of sickness and he was a still a little under the weather on his birthday so we just stayed home and played games and watched some movies.  But we had a lot of fun.

What a sweet heart he is.  I love him to pieces.

Every year I make pancakes for them on their birthdays.  This year was no exception.  Braden loves to blow out candles so he loves it when I stick one in his pancake.  It always starts the birthday morning off right and gets them excited. 

I have also made cakes for my kids in the past and they remember.  This year Braden wanted a Darth Vader cake for a long time, then the day before his birthday he changed his mind to a Mario cake, which quickly turned into a Mario and Luigi cake.  No big deal mom, just whip something up.  I'm not the most creative person in the world, so I'm always impressed with the way the cakes turn out. At least for me it's good and my kids love it. Dalin helped me with Braden's name.

What could his present possibly be?  He has been begging for a new bike ever since last summer.  He has a bike that works perfectly fine, but since Dalin had outgrown his old bike Grandma Anne got him a much needed new one.  Braden then took the smaller one to learn to ride without training wheels.  He mastered that on his own.  He just willed himself to do it because he doesn't really understand that he's younger than Dalin and has to try to keep up.  So once he mastered the art of bike riding he wanted a new bike just like Dalin's.  I kept telling him his bike would work for at least another year but he insisted it wasn't big enough.  He is all about the bigger the better.  He would even jump on Dalin's bike while he was at school just to show me that he could ride it and to prove that he needed a bigger one.  So we broke down and got him one for his birthday.  Now, I guess we'll put the training wheels back on the little bike for Landon.

Happy birthday.

Opening some other gifts.  Thanks to all the grandparents who sent such great gifts (or money for such great gifts)! 

He was so happy about his bike, but unfortunately when your birthday's in January you don't get to ride it because there's two feet of snow on the ground.

When I asked him which part of the cake he wanted to eat he said Luigi, so I started cutting, thinking I would give him the head.  "No!  I need all of him."  So, I figured what the heck and gave him all of Luigi. 

This worked for Dalin, who then requested all of Mario.

Landon just wanted to eat cake.

Loves his new bike!  He said over and over, "mom I love you for getting my new bike"  I had to remind him it wasn't just from me :)

Here's my baby boy!  He's growing up so fast, but he'll always be my baby boy.

Some things about Braden:

1. He loves to bug people and to be bugged by people.  Namely, poking, tickling, getting in your face, sticking a finger in your ear, etc. I have to make sure and bug him at least twice a day.  He sometimes gets on Dalin's nerves with the amount of bugging.

2. He has the sweetest smile.

3. He loves to be Landon's little daddy, and makes sure he doesn't get into any mischief.

4.  His favorite food of all time is spaghetti.

5. He loves to give hugs.

6. He is very active and loves sports (especially basketball), riding bikes, riding scooters, and anything else active he can find.

7.  He's very good at basketball and can shoot a small ball and make it into a hoop at normal height.  He can also dribble the ball exceptionally well for a 5 year old. 

8.  He loves his grandmas and talks about them daily.

Back Home

Well, after we got home from our Christmas vacation on New Year's Day I decided to clean out all the Christmas stuff before I had to start work again.  I was anxious to get the house back in order since it was such a mess and we needed to set up our new 55 in. T.V. (thanks Stevo).  Landon jumped right in to help...literally.  He thought it was great fun to sit in that bin with his balloon and wouldn't let me put anything else in it.  So much for cleaning up.

Later on the kids got playing with the boxes from their new remote controlled cars.  I love the imagination and how kids always seem to get just as much fun out of the boxes as they do out of the toys themselves.  They were pretending to be astronauts.  How clever it that?  They did this for almost an hour. Mom's love it when their kids are entertained and T.V. free while they cook dinner.