A DAY HOME WITH BRADY

Well, I was supposed to have today off of school, however, because we had a snow day last Tuesday, we used today as a make-up day. BUT, I ended up getting the day off anyway! Brady got sick in the middle of the night last night and the whole situation couldn't have happened at a better time. Lee was actually home last night because he started his new job today, which is normal hours!!! :) (yes, we have a normal life again!) Brady woke up at 2 and had thrown-up and then again at 3. I gotta say that it was extremely nice to have Lee home for Brady's first experience with throwing up! It was nice that while he was putting new pj's on Brady and cleaning up his face, that I could be changing the bedding. If this had happened just a week or even a few days before, I would have been juggling it all by myself. It was also nice that since Lee was home, I left at 5:00 to go to school to get plans ready for a substitute. Brady and I dropped Tyler off at daycare and then Brady was in desperate need of a bath! He started out slow this morning, but came back to his normal self late morning. We had a nice, quiet day at home full of play and a long nap for both of us! He will be ready to get out of the house tomorrow to go play with his friends at daycare. It was such a nice day to have spent with my little Brady. I'm thankful that he was healthy throughout the day and we could enjoy our time together!

ANOTHER WINTER WEDDING

A family friend of ours got married over the weekend. He, like Lee's brother, is also a baseball player, so the months that they can get married are very limited. Kids were not invited to the wedding, so Lee stayed home with Tyler and Brady and I enjoyed 24 hours away from home. I really enjoyed the time that I got to spend with my mom, my mom's friends, and my cousins. It was a great night and we had a good time catching up. Thanks to you ladies for making it a great, fun night!
This is a picture of my cousins and I.

CONGRATULATIONS, LEE!

I feel like I should have written this post a couple weeks ago, but I just hadn't gotten around to it. Just thought you should know that Congratulations need to be given to Lee!

He has been offered a new management position at work! Yeah, for Lee! He will no longer be in charge of a group of guys out in the plant. He will be mostly in the office area and will be working only 1st shift!!! I am very proud of him, as him and I both know that being on 3rd shift every so often is a bit hard. I am also proud of him because his boss chose Lee for this position! Lee is an extremely hard worker and knows everything there is to know about Jeld-Wen Doors. He has been wanting something "new" for awhile and now he gets it!

Just one more week on the 'old' job, training the guy who's going to be taking over for him and then he will be starting his new position!

Congratulations, Lee! I'm proud of you!

SLEEP!

I feel like I still don't get great sleep.

Brady usually wakes up at some point in the night. During my X-mas Break he would wake up and be up for anywhere between 1-3 hours in the middle of the night. He always wanted me to rock him back to sleep. I have now, deleted the whole rocking in the middle of the night, due to me not getting ANY sleep! He is still being broke of the habit, but we are getting there, and it is much better than what it was!

Probably about 3 times a week, Tyler will wake up with a fake cry. I go in there to hear that he can't find one of his stuffed animals. It's always, right beside him, so I give it back, give him a kiss, and leave the room.

I'm not sure of the last time that I got a solid night's rest with no interruptions. But, as you can see from the pictures above, these boys are the reason I do what I do. I will get sleep sometime down the road. I know that the stage that Brady is in doesn't last forever. I went through it with Tyler as well. I am looking forward to Brady being in a big boy bed. I feel like Tyler really started sleeping better when we switched him. We'll see. It's still a ways down the road.

As for now, I will continue to go to bed early, get up in the middle of the night with one of the kids, and get up early, ready for the day! That's being a Mom, right!

BRADY

This is a picture of Brady's "Big Smile", with squints, of course. Brady just started this cute little look within the past week. When I looked back at pictures (and blog posts) Tyler was making that same squinted smile when he was this same age!

Brady is starting to say some small words. Before we know it he will be putting words together and then sentences!

He is getting a bit of an attitude and has mastered his very own pouty face. Every time that he shows the pouty face Lee and I have to hide our smiles and laughs. It's the strangest and cutest pouty face to see and usually lightens up the situation after we've just told him "no" or gotten upset with him.

Brady just recently went from going down the stairs on his belly to now going down the stairs on his bum. It's very cute to watch, as he's still trying to get the hang of it.

Brady loves to dance and could EAT all day long! He loves stuffed animals and loves to have them all in his bed. He does not like when his brother takes something away from him that he is playing with!!!

I keep thinking that Brady will be at such a great age this Spring/Summer/Fall!

We love our little Brady and the funniness and pleasure that he brings to our daily lives!

TYLER

A couple quick little things about our Tyler...

First of all, this picture was taken on New Years Day. Like I said in the post before, Tyler did not take off any of his party attire the entire night and it then stayed by his sound machine while he slept that night. Well, the next morning, New Years Day, it went straight back on. He wore it then, the whole day. The following day, he was told that I had to put it away in storage, that it really only needs to be worn and the "party horn" only needs to be blown on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. So, we told him that we would get it back out for the next New Year's party. He handled it great! What he doesn't know, is that it all went into the garbage and we will buy new for the next New Year's party! :)

While at our New Year's Party, Tyler had on a new shirt. One of the guys asked Tyler if he had a new shirt on.
Tyler's reply was, "Yeah, the mailman got it for me!" He was so excited!
It had been just the day before that we got a package in the mail of new shirts that I had ordered Tyler, on-line. After he made that comment, I reminded him that I was the one that bought him the shirts...NOT the mailman!

Tyler has been wanting to spend time up in his room lately because their is a music CD that he really likes to listen to on his CD player. The other day, he was up in his room listening to music and then came down to the bottom of the stairs and said, "There is a terrible problem up in my room!" While holding our laughter inside as hard as we could, because that was just too cute, we asked what the "terrible problem" was. He told us that the books dropped out of one of his totes and they made a big mess!!!

Gotta love 3 year olds!!! We sure do love ours!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

6 adults and 8 kids made for an extremely fun New Year's Eve party!

We went over to our friends house for a New Year's celebration. There were 3 families, with 8 kids total. The kids had a blast playing and us adults enjoyed some beverages, a great steak dinner, conversation, and games! The kids could have played all night, however, we decided it was best to go back home at about 10:30. Since they both still woke up pretty early this morning, they are both taking great naps as I am writing this.

Tyler asked this morning, "when are we going to another party?" Both kids were in heaven last night with the amount of "new" toys there were to play with!

Here's all 8 kids together on the couch. We actually got them to stop running for a few seconds to take their picture.
Again, all 8 kids after they received their noise makers and party hats. Brady's in the background. He thought it was pretty fun to play in a booster seat that was on the floor.

Happy New Year, from Brady!

Happy New Year, from Tyler!

Tyler and Kaden were getting worn out and sat down to watch Toy Story 3.

The 6 of us, +1 that arrived later on in the night.

Tyler still had to watch a show when he got home. He did not take his hat, necklace, or noise maker off the entire night. I think the rest of the kids only left theirs on for maybe 30 minutes. Tyler's went up to his bedroom with him and then were back on him this morning! He's a partier!