Let's Go Fly A Kite!

This afternoon was a little too windy to take the boys for a walk in the stroller, so instead we decided to break out one of Christopher's birthday presents that he hasn't used yet. He got a Mickey Mouse kite and it was the perfect day for kite flying! I got it started and then handed it off to Christopher to navigate on his own. He was so amazed and excited about the independence it gave him to hold it all my himself. After all, his favorite word right now is "self"...because he is an independent two year old who has to try everything first before I can help him.
He really got it up there! We did have a few mishaps...like when it got stuck in the neighbors tree! But nothing I couldn't fix :)

And then the wind started to die down...and distruction occured! The string came crashing to the ground all around Christopher. He tried to pick it up and run, thinking he could get the kite back up in the air. And this is what happened...

Serious entaglement folks! Of course, instead of running to his aide I stood there and laughed for a minute and then realized I was missing a great photo opportunity! I did finally help him free...then we called it a day and went inside to have dinner. What a fun time!

Rainy Saturday Morning

I just put the baby down for his morning nap and we are enjoying this lazy Saturday morning. Christopher woke us up early this morning, but Gabriel actually slept from 7:30 last night until about 6:30 this morning(thanks to big brother:). After we changed their diapers, Chris made me a cup of coffee and we all piled back in to bed and watched "Willy Wonka". We actually only watched about 15 minutes of the movie, but it was so nice to have the four of us in bed, relaxing, and enjoying each other's company. I love Saturday mornings! We were planning on going to Silver Dollar City this morning, but since it's raining I think we will just work on putting the huge pile of laundry away. Is is sad that putting laundry away sounds more enjoyable than wadding through a crowded amusement park with two cranky boys?

St. Patty's Day

For St. Patrick's Day we dressed the boys in their matching green outfits from cousin Kate. They looked so cute! We threw a blanket on the grass and played in the front yard all afternoon.

Take A Quiz!

See if you can tell who is who! :) There is one picture of Christopher & one of Gabriel both around 4 months old. It is so neat to see how they look alike!

G Man

This is the nickname that we have given to Gabriel. Actually it was Chris who started calling him this and it has stuck around. So now we have G man and Little man!

Just thought I would give you all an update on what Gabriel is doing lately. He will be 5 months old on Thursday! His weight is well over 13 pounds...probly pushing 14. He loves to drink milk and it shows! I think next month we will start with some solid foods. His doctor recommended waiting until he was closer to 6 months as long as he seems satisfied on milk.

He is rolling onto his back and almost rolled onto his belly. He loves to watch his big brother play...and he laughs when Christopher talks to him! He likes to chew on his blanket and he is saying more sounds now. Just the other day I think I heard him say either "gaga" or "dada"...not sure, but it was awesome! His eyes light up when his daddy is holding him...just like christopher-they LOVE daddy! He laughs when we eat his belly...so much fun:)

He is still sleeping in the bassinet in our bedroom, but he has now officially graduated from being swaddled! He loved to be swaddled and I loved it because all I had to do was lay him down and he would fall asleep. Now that he is used to the freedom he is back to falling asleep on his own most of the time.

In a nutshell...he is doing really good. We are blessed to have him and enjoy watching him grow every day!

King of the castle & soaking up the sun!

Let me just say that the desktop weather on my computer says it is 75 outside! We are so thankful to be able to get outside in the beautiful sunshine and play! I took some pictures yesterday after naptime when me & the boys were out playing in the backyard. Christopher had fun climbing to the top of his fort and throwing balls off. Gabriel chilled out in his bouncy chair and watched Bear most of the time. He is so relaxed outside...he just loves it! Christopher was the exact same way as a baby:)

Here he is peaking through the hole in his fort. He kept pushing the ball through it...then he would giggle like he did something really neat!

Mr. Potato Head

After lunch today, I was putting Gabriel down for his nap and I noticed that Christopher was being really quiet. I snuck down the hall to see what he was doing...camera in hand...and found him sitting on the floor in his play room with Mr. Potato head. He got this toy for his birthday and he loves it so much!
So, this is the masterpiece that was created! Pretty halarious!

And then he's off...

He ran off to show daddy what he had made, but Chris had just left to coach a basketball game at church. I felt so bad for him! We are saving it to show daddy after Christopher wakes up from his nap.

Well, the house is totally quiet right now, so I'm going to take advantage of my time. I hear some dove dark chocolate calling my name!

Christopher's first day of preschool

So, Tuesday was Christopher's first day of preschool. Our church has a preschool for 2 and up that meets on Tuesdays & Thursdays from 10:00-2:00. I wanted to keep him home with me, but he loves spending time with other kids, and since I'm not working anymore he doesn't do that on a regular basis. I knew that having a short amount of structured play time with other children would really do him good. So, we went and got him a little lunch box and packed his backpack with all the essentials. When we got there, he was walking down the hallway carrying his backpack and lunchbox and he made sure to say "hi" to each person he saw. When a mommy or daddy would ask him how he was doing he would say "good"...so sweet! When we got to his classroom he just walked right in and found a ball...that's my boy:) I stayed around for a while but he didn't pay any attention to me. He enjoyed being there and is learning the names of his new teachers and friends. I will keep you all updated on how this new venture goes for him. I expect that it will be a great experience for him and allow me to spend more time with Gabriel (and get some extra house work done:)

Fun times in Feb...

We have been enjoying the boys this week. Gabriel is getting so big and it's just awesome to watch him do new things. He has started talking a lot...he makes all kinds of goofy faces when he does it:) He still chews on his fingers all the time. Christopher loves to tell me everything he does. He tells me when the baby laughs, talks, chews, or poops. It's like my own personal alert system:) Tonight the boys watched a little bit of Shrek together...Gabriel was laying on Christopher's back...so sweet!

The boys took their first bath together on Sunday. It was really short because Gabriel got a little overstimulated and needed to relax. Afterward, they both got baby massages...what a life!

Today was Christopher's first day at preschool. Our church has a preschool program on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10:00-2:00. Since he is two years old now he can start going. He had a blast, but I had a hard time letting go:) I will post pictures of school later.

Happy Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day was lots of fun. We started the day by making heart shaped pancakes...yummy! The table was decorated all pretty and we broke out or wedding crystal stemwear just for fun. Then I headed off for the spa! Chris got me a facial, pedi, & mani...so fabulous! It was pretty much all I needed for a nice Valentine's Day, but that wasn't all!

So, after the spa, Chris had to coach a basketball game at church. We had lasagna for dinner with Mimi & the boys, then Mommy & Daddy went out for some fun. We got all dressed up and headed downtown to the new movie theater to watch "Taken". It was an awesom movie! It had my heart racing from the beginning...I would definately see it again.

After the movie, we had reservations at Fedora-a fondue restaurant downtown. I was super excited about this because I LOVE fondue. I don't know what else to say about the experience, except that it was completely disapointing! I'm so sad to say it, but it was just a bad experience. We got there at 8:30, ordered an appetizer of cheese fondue, a bowl of soup, and a dessert fondue. We got our soup at 9:30 and our appetizer at 9:55. We never got the dessert fondue. We were pretty disapointed, but what can you do! The waitress said they had never been so busy before, but hello...reservations! They new they were going to be busy. Oh well. We will probly just make fondue at home next time.

Even with the bad restaurant experience, we still had a great day.
Today I thought a lot about my mom...it's been 20 years since she passed away. I love her and miss her so much.

I hope everyone had a wonderful day...big or small! Happy Valentine's Day everyone...we love you!

Don't eat the yellow snow :)

Wow...it has been 3 weeks since I posted anything! Where has the time gone? We have been pretty busy around here and going through some change as well. Chris got a new job as an employee for the State of MO in the Children's Division. He had his first day on Tuesday and so far he is loving it. It's great for our family because he can come home sometimes on his lunch and he gets lots of paid vacations. I have been doing a lot of "mommy things", like scrapbooking and exercising with my new buddy Teresa. It feels good to make time just for me. I haven't taken very many pictures lately, but I forgot to post the pictures from our "snow ice cream" snack that we made during the big snow. It was fun and nastalgic, but Christopher didn't really like the taste, so I ended up giving him a scoop of vanilla...oh well.
Mimi is coming up on Saturday to watch the boys for us. Chris and I have some fun plans for Valentine's Day, so I will post picture and tell all about that in a few days. The boys go to the doctor tomorrow for their check-ups, so I will let you all know how that goes.

Scrappin' Away

Here are some pages that I have been doing recently. I don't usually use pre-made sketches on my pages, but lately I have been. I think it helps me get them done faster because I don't just sit and stare at a page for an hour and think of what I want to do. I think I am more proud of the pages that I sketch myself, but in the end they all look good. This is copied from a page that Scrapbook Generation had done as one of their montly kit pages. I just looked at theirs and tried to replicate the tree...I think it looks really neat.

I used a sketch out of a magazine for this one...but I turned it into a 2-page layout.

I actually didn't use a sketch for this one, and at first I didn't like it very much, but I'm pretty happy with how it turned out.

This is also a Scrapbook Generation stetch. I still need to add a picture to it. I actually copied this one exactly, which I rarely do on sketches.

This is an older page that I did. I was just looking through an album and remembered how much I love this page!


I just finished this one. I don't really like doing 1 page layouts, but I really like this. I used a sketch out of the October issue of Creating Keepsakes.

Snow Day and Hillbilly Sledding!

We spent most of they day cooped up in the house playing with dinosaurs, reading books, and playing with pretend food. This morning when Gabriel was playing on the floor, Christopher laid down next to him and asked me to "tuck them in tight" with the blanket. I went to grab the camera and when I came back Christopher was rubbing the baby's head...so precious! For some reason blogger uploaded the photo flipped like this and I can't figure out how to fix it...oh well:)

Then when Daddy got home from work, they got all bundled up to go out and play in the snow/ice. I looked out the window to see what they were doing and I see them in the neighbor's driveway, pushing Christopher down in a laundry basket. It was about the funniest thing I've ever seen. I had to go see for myself, so I threw on my coat and grabbed the camera. Christopher was having the best time! Brian, our neighbor, would push him down and Christopher was giggling the entire way down the driveway. Then me and Kendra had to try it! It was pretty halarious, but thankfully no one took pictures of that!

Scrapbooking madness!

Ever since I spent last Saturday at Scrap-a-palooza I have been in the mood to scrap! I've gotten quite a few pages done in the past week. I usually work on them after the boys go to bed...and I have been doing about one every other day or so. It feels good to get pages done. I actually need to buy more albums because I've run out of room!
I just did this page tonight. I have been using a lot of sketches from magazines lately, but this one was just done on a whim. I arranged the pictures and it all came together. I will try to take pictures of other pages I've done this week and post them on here.

Inauguration Day

I'm not exactly one of Barack's top supporters, but I am proud to be witnessing the history that was made today. Even though the boys are too little to remember, I look forward to telling them about what took place today. I hope that my doubts are wrong, and this day is the start of a positive change for our country. After all, we are leaving these problems to our children and grandchildren...I hope we can start to fix them before we pass them on.

Time for a wedding!

Chris' sister, Nicole, got engaged on Christmas Day. Kyle is her fiance and he's a great guy! When they came up to Springfield a few weeks ago, I shot some pictures for them to use as engagement photos. I'm no professional, but I think they turned out pretty nice. These are just a few of my favorites. The wedding will probly be a couple years from now, so they can save up money. But you know me...I've already started planning it for her! I love weddings :)

Happy Birthday Christopher!

Well...Christopher is officially two years old and we rang in the big day in a big way! We had a Mickey Mouse Clubhouse party with lots of friends and family! Everyone had a lot of fun...especially when Mickey Mouse himself arrived at the party to surprise Christopher.